Life is a funny thing. You can be an Exarch at the top of your game on Craftworld Biel-Tan one day, then lose your home, get dragged into a petty Autarch’s squabbles with Craftworld Ulthwe, and end up on a far-flung maiden world coming to the rescue of an Aeldari Genestealer Cult. The longtime character Matthias from my campaign with BrittneyStucklessArt, on and off the tabletop, is all that but also a good friend, a devoted partner, and a parent. Over the course of the last six or so years, he is a character that has experienced growth, falls, ups, downs, and his latest manifestation continues to teach me a very important lesson: You can do everything right and still lose. That’s not weakness, sometimes that’s just life – and there’s still good things, great things even, to be found in the midst of that.

Waxing poetic aside, I had an Autarch sculpt left and decided that I wanted to mess around a little since my recent army was leaning into the theme of an Aeldari Genestealer Cult. I wanted to have at least a trio of models that properly showed the overarching Aeldari paths, those of the Warrior, the Seer, and the Outcast, and it gave me an excuse to brush off this model. Also, there was a local painting contest being carried out in conjunction with a local casual league for 1,500 point armies, and while I tend to play casually in a bubble with friends I ventured outside of that a little to try my hand at the local scene. The result could have gone better – I ended the series 0-4, losing a couple of the games pretty catastrophically, and despite my efforts on Matthias I didn’t place on the painting contest either.

That being said, I’m very happy with how the model turned out. I like the combination of contrasting colors, especially the way that the yellow pops from the rest of the color palette, and the same can be said for the pinks and purples to an extent. I’m also happy with something I’ve started to work into my character models recently, namely that the head is magnetized and can be easily swapped out depending on whether I want Matthias to be sporting a helmet or not. It also let me pose the head a little to taste, which I can only see being a plus for battle reports and things like outdoor shoots with my miniatures.

In the end, I might not have won the tournament or the painting contest but I got a great experience out of it and met a lot of awesome new people. I also had a great experience with 10th edition in its twilight, and learned a lot that I think will serve me well going into 11th edition. The most important lesson that I learned in terms of what my army is lacking, though, is that I need to have a better answer to vehicles, walkers, and things with a generally high toughness – and, thanks to a box of Fire Dragons somebody (BrittneyStucklessArt) got me at Christmas, I just might have the medicine for that.