I can admit when I have a problem. And lately that problem is that I have way too many Howling Banshees in my backlog. I gave one of my extra kits away, but I still had a 5-Banshee squad in the box that I’d been avoiding tackling for ages. While working on the metal batch, I decided I wanted to have the option to run them with an Executioner along with the wargear options I’d already put on the Exarch. So, what to do? Well, break open the new box and put together the Exarch from that – and damn, was I ever impressed with the wealth of extra bits, pieces, and weapons in this box. I took a few of them and slapped them together into a small objective marker for my Eldar-themed games, but there’s still tons of bits and extras where that came from, for the Exarch. Credit where credit is due, GW – I would love to see more Aspect Warriors like this, and would (begrudgingly) throw wads of money at you for them.
There are, however, some things I still think I like better about the older kits. The new kit feels a little flimsy or fragile at times, and I found that the sheer number of pieces involved in putting one Banshee together to the previous metal kits was…a little boggling, to be totally honest. I feel like the moulding and model could have been simplified and rendered more stable, but…I’m not an expert, and I suppose that’s largely just speculation or suggestion on my part. The build was still fun overall, though, and I decided I was going to build the helmetless version for flavor and finally immortalize Mura, an Exarch character from the Crusade campaign I’ve been running with XenonMage. Mura’s squad of Banshees get stomped by Xenon’s Tyranids as hard as anything else, but they’re one of my strongest units in terms of their experience points and special abilities right now, so I felt like it was called for.
I’m very happy in the end with how Mura (and the shrine as well, of course) turned out, and this makes me feel a little more confident into (eventually) tackling those last four plastic Banshees, if and when I bump Mura’s squad up from 5 to 10. I’m also kind of thrilled that Mura doesn’t suffer from any real size-creep – this Exarch, one of the new plastic Banshees, still scales almost perfectly with the old metal ones. I hadn’t expected that at first, but it’s extremely welcome. I also found that adding a small rock from the driveway into her basing fixed what were otherwise small balance or stability issues, so if you’re building your sword girls and having a hard time, nature is your friend.
Next week, going to post the last gallery lot from this batch, and update my bingo card. I have a bad feeling about the number of “10+ squad” squares I still have left, and that “Lord of War” square, too. But after that, in addition to the tiny Banshee shrine, I’m hoping to add something pretty fun to my Eldar scenery, and hopefully finally make some progress on that Deathworld table I’ve talked about for ages. More on that to come.
Twitchy Bristles Painting 