Battle for the Craftworld - Alaitoc Eldar - The command structure!

Well folks, things are starting to heat up for the 2015 Charity Army Raffles. With just over three weeks until we draw the winners' names, ticket sales continue to tick over quite well, particularly for this excellent Eldar army.

As everyone knows, no Eldar army is worth its salt without a Farseer at its helm. Often supported by a Seer Council of Warlocks, the Farseer guides his people through the various futures available to them, navigating the millions of possibilities ahead.

These beautiful models were painted by Jeff Jenkins, who did a fantastic job working the saturated yellow and blue of the Alaitoc Craftworld scheme with a desaturated bone. Very cool indeed.

Jeff also painted up this Spiritseer for the army, adding an extra psychic element to the army.

And the Eldar HQ pantheon wouldn't be complete without including an Autarch. Will Thornton, in addition to painting up this excellent Sons Of Orar Tactical Squad, painted up this Autarch for us. Equipped with a fusion gun, chain blade, warp jump generator, and thousands of years of martial experience, this guy promises to be a pain in the butt for any opponent!

Thanks to Jeff and Will for their continued support of this wonderful project!

And our thanks to our sponsors who contributed to this project. 
Please support them, so that they can continue to support us!

• Atlantis Games & Comics • Element Games • Secret Weapon Miniatures • KR Multicase

Cheers

Dave Taylor

NOCF VP

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4:00 AM

2015 Charity Raffles, Alaitoc, Eldar

Battle for the Craftworld - Alaitoc Eldar - Wave Serpents!

It can be pretty tough to deal with an Eldar army that runs straight at you, but that difficulty is increased exponentially when you can pile the "slower" infantry units into the tough-to-crack Wave Serpents. This Alaitoc Eldar army features not one, but THREE of this awesome xenos transport!

These three tanks, with the ability to really put a crimp in your opponent's plans for domination, were painted by Brian Ballard - the same Brian who lead the creative team responsible for the Alaitoc Eldar army. Brian also painted the Eldar Guardians HERE, and the Falcon Grav Tank HERE.

Here are 3/4 and overhead views of all three of this Wave Serpents that are part of the Eldar army YOU could win if you purchase some raffle tickets from the NOCF website. Follow the LINK here to do so, and also check out the recently added Flames Of War Polish army (painted by Steve McCuen), and the excellent Malifaux crews (painted by Wes Cogdal of Stiff Neck Studios). [UPDATE: links to the Malifaux crews coming very soon!]

Thanks to Brian for his continued support of this wonderful project!

And our thanks to our sponsors who contributed to this project. 
Please support them, so that they can continue to support us!

• Atlantis Games & Comics • Element Games • Secret Weapon Miniatures • KR Multicase

Cheers

Dave Taylor

NOCF VP

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2:01 PM

2015 Charity Raffles, Alaitoc, Eldar

Battle for the Craftworld - Alaitoc Eldar - Fast Attack

Moving swiftly along (see what I did there?) we come to the incredibly speedy component of our Alaitoc Eldar.

Ken Webb was tasked with painting up Baharroth, the Swooping Hawk Phoenix Lord, and the squad of Swooping Hawks. Ken has chosen a very unique color scheme for these Eldar, who bring swift death from above. At the start of the project there was a bit of grumbling from Ken about the Finecast Baharroth he was sent, so he did a little digging around and found a metal model and decided to lighten it a touch by switching out the metal wings for these plastic, feathered wings from a Dark Eldar Scourge. Pinning him to a 32mm base (instead of his supplied 25mm base) meant that despite his heft, he'd want to remain upright on the battlefield.

As mentioned above, Ken Webb also painted the Swooping Hawks and Exarch. He flipped the purple and orange scheme found on Baharroth, and presented another beautifully painted and thoroughly unique unit!

And rounding out this post of swift things are these Eldar Jetbikes, painted by Max Dubois. In the early stages of this project, GW released the latest Codex: Eldar, and with it a new sculpt for the jetbikes. Brian Ballard (Eldar team lead) and Max decided to set aside the older bikes and upgrade Max's contribution to the latest models. We think it was a pretty good call : )

The two squads of three bikes have canopy stripes to mark them out on the battlefield. Of course, nothing is stopping the winner from fielding them together as a larger unit too.

So, if you like these, please head to the NOVA Open Charitable Foundation website and purchase your tickets for the Alaitoc Eldar army!

Thanks to Ken and Max for their support of this wonderful project!

And our thanks to our sponsors who contributed to this project. 
Please support them, so that they can continue to support us!

• Atlantis Games & Comics • Element Games • Secret Weapon Miniatures • KR Multicase

Cheers

Dave Taylor

NOCF VP

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1:07 PM

2015 Charity Raffles, Alaitoc, Eldar

Battle for the Craftworld - Alaitoc Eldar - Aspect Warriors One

Sales are humming along nicely for the Battle for the Craftworld armies, although I think the Sons Of Orar are just marginally ahead. So, if you've been sitting on the fence, hopefully this post will give you a nudge towards the Alaitoc Eldar ; )

Included in the massive army are these excellent Striking Scorpion Aspect Warriors. The Scorpions have always been my favorites, ever since I saw the Jes Goodwin design sketches in a White Dwarf back in 1991 (may have been even earlier). This squad of elite Eldar were painted up for the NOCF by Neil Szabo.

Neil (also known in some circles as Magneto) has provided both options for the Exarch: either the claw and sword, or the massive, two-handed chainsword. Impressive, most impressive.

And our other squad for today's post comes from self-confessed Blood Angel addict Chris "Jawaballs" Dubuque. These Fire Dragons are, I believe, the first Eldar that Chris has painted, and he has certainly done a spectacular job. This squad pops on the tabletop, and will certainly "pop" a few tanks if they can get into the enemy backfield!

Thanks to Neil and Chris for their continued support of this wonderful project!

And our thanks to our sponsors who contributed to this project. 
Please support them, so that they can continue to support us!

• Atlantis Games & Comics • Element Games • Secret Weapon Miniatures • KR Multicase

Cheers

Dave Taylor

NOCF VP

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1:55 PM

2015 Charity Raffles, Alaitoc, Eldar

Battle for the Craftworld - Spotlight on our Sponsors

We are lucky to have some fantastic sponsors here at the NOVA Open Charitable Foundation. Each year they provide things like the models that make up the armies, the bases these models stand on, and even the cases the models are shipped to the winners in!

This year, our miniatures for the Battle for the Craftworld were provided two generous donors. First up where the team from Atlantis Games & Comics. Atlanitis have two great store locations in south eastern Virginia (USA) - one in Norfolk, and the other in Portsmouth - serving the fine folk of the area, many of whom serve in or provide services for the US Navy (Go Navy!).

This year the Atlantis crew provided ALL the miniatures for our Sons Of Orar Space Marines, and some of the harder to track down miniatures for our Alaitoc Eldar army.

A new sponsor who joins us this year is the team from Element Games in Stockport, UK. It is great to see a business from (not quite) the other side of the world acknowledge the good work our Artist Consortium are doing and put their own support behind us. The Element Games team provided us with the bulk of the Alaitoc Eldar army miniatures.

Element Games have a fantastic store in the North West Gaming Center, and also distribute many different ranges of miniatures (including Warmachine and Hordes, X-Wing and Relic Knights, Malifaux and Infinity. Element Games are also closely associated with the Steamforged Games crew, who make the very cool Guild Ball!

If you are in the UK, we highly recommend you check out their facility in Stockport (near Manchester), and also check out their excellent online offering.

Don't forget to buy your tickets HERE today and share this information about our excellent sponsors with your friends.

Cheers
Dave Taylor
NOCF VP

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9:03 AM

2015 Charity Raffles, Alaitoc, Eldar, Sons Of Orar, Space Marines, Sponsors

Battle for the Craftworld - Alaitoc Eldar - Troops

At the heart of every Craftworld there are the Eldar militia, the Guardians who, in times of war, don their armor and take up their shrunken catapults to defend their homes and the future of their race.

At the core of our Alaitoc Eldar army is this Guardian squad, painted for us by the man who lead the Eldar team - Brian Ballard. Intrigued for the Alaitoc blue and camo patterns, Brian dived in and created this excellent example of the Eldar defenders.

The heavy weapons platform actually has all the gun options painted, and these will ship to the winner (but they just weren't photographed).

In addition to the Guardians, the Alaitoc Eldar army has two squads of Dire Avengers. The first was painted by Kelvin Goh, a first-year volunteer all the way from Australia. Kelvin was initially slated to do both Dire Avenger squads, but halfway through was afflicted by sight issues and he had to take a few months off from painting. He sent both squads back to us...

...and I picked up the second squad. My painting style is a little different to Kelvin's, but I think the two squads fit nicely alongside each other.

And there you have the Troops choices for the Alaitoc army. They stand proud and tall, ready to defend Alaitoc in the "Battle for the Craftworld"!

Thanks to Kelvin and Brian for their continued support of this wonderful project!

And our thanks to our sponsors who contributed to this project. 
Please support them, so that they can continue to support us!

• Atlantis Games & Comics • Element Games • Secret Weapon Miniatures • KR Multicase

Cheers

Dave Taylor

NOCF VP

Read More →

8:27 AM

2015 Charity Raffles, Alaitoc, Eldar

Battle for the Craftworld - Alaitoc Eldar - Heavy Support One

The centerpiece model of the Alaitoc Eldar army is arguably the Wraith Knight. Not only has artist Marc Raley done a spectacular job of painting this model, but it also towers over everything else on the list. The base you see him standing on is the 120 x 95 mm oval (aka the Flying Base), so you should get a reasonable idea of its size. BIG!

You can see more of Marc's work at his blog, HERE.

Even though our team leads prescribe color recipes and schemes and so on, we like to give our artists the opportunity to express themselves in some of the smaller details. There was an interesting discussion early in the piece about the "camouflage" that the Alaitoc Eldar would use. In the end, Marc opted for the great mottling you can see on the legs below.

The man who lead the Alaitoc Eldar team, Brian Ballard, also painted up the skimmers for the army. Here we have his Eldar Falcon Grav Tank. Brian did some spectacular work on his tonal modulation on his flat panels, and a fun look on the gold canopies!

As you can see, Brian's Falcon features a camouflage scheme reminiscent of and urban camo, which is very eye-catching and matches the three Wave Serpents Brian also painted for the army!

Thanks to Marc and Brian for their continued support of this wonderful project!

And our thanks to our sponsors who contributed to this project. 
Please support them, so that they can continue to support us!

• Atlantis Games & Comics • Element Games • Secret Weapon Miniatures • KR Multicase

Cheers

Dave Taylor

NOCF VP

Read More →

5:00 AM

2015 Charity Raffles, Alaitoc, Eldar