40k New Archon, Lady Malys & Codex: Drukhari

[DarkMark]

46 minutes ago, DemonGSides said:

 

Not sure what the first sentence is supposed to mean, but all battle force characters have come out within a month or two. 

 

Only pay walled if you're lacking patience.

Although her skin tone is lighter the face appears very similar to the jade warriors in the Grand Cathay army. Quite digital looking. 

 

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Fantastic pair of new minis, have multiples of everything else though so will wait for the Archon's solo release. Not seeing a blast pistol on the new Archon

[Evil Eye]

Malys looks amazing. The nose looks a touch odd but I'm willing to chalk that up to the paintjob. The Archon looks nice too but I hope he's compatible with the Kabalite/Wych sprues like this one (AKA the best one)

[Marshal Reinhard]

The lady xenos looks a bit too nice? These are the most degenerate sub-breed of the aeldari xenos filth, after all.

 

Stunning models though.

[Alby the Slayer]

Lady Malys is amazing, I do like her pose and armour, the hairdo is awesome.

 

The Archon for me has the same problem the aeldari autarch has, mostly the female one. Is too damn bulky!

 

I don't want some oversexualized mini, even if Drukhari, but the idea of using the same body in male/female minus the torso has some aestethic problems. 

 

Look at older autarch (male ) and the female new one and their silhoutte:

 

   

 

 

It's the same here. Of course I will have to see the model in hand to make a proper evaluation but for now the female Archon is not great.

[TheMawr]

Had to make her a tiny bit more Malysious

 

But its a lovely miniature nonetheless.

I think the veil might be the more interesting option... making you wonder if indeed its a kitana under the veil.. or rather mileena ( I think mileena was the one with the killer smile ? )

 

The Archon is nice as well. 

 

Its actually a bit odd they didnt put her in the battleforce, that would have guaranteed more sales of the box than the new Archon wich is a much easier wait for most established drukhari players. Maybe she will be part of a character-led combat patrol yet to be announced first ( happened with AoS, and, the whitescars character also is to be released like that first). However, they already basically added everything they could add in the other 2 boxsets, so probably not.

 

With Drukhari apparently not taking the last part of the edition capacity spot Im getting really curious wether to speculate a new army, a very very full end of edition campaign or an extremely unlikely (but not impossible) "putting 40k on the backburner"

 

There is a lot of open slots now with all codexes done. 

[Magos Takatus]

I think Lady Malys is great but I'm happiest about the Archon update, because I am really not keen on the current one. I thought he looked more smug than threatening. Even though one of the three options in this new kit has an arrogant smirk, the pose makes it more like she's a threat than just striking a dramatic pose. Also happy to see the return of the Tetley Pyramid Bag of Doom (tm).

Edited September 8 by Magos Takatus

[Halandaar]

Malys is fantastic, and the Archon is a solid update. Honestly though my main takeaway is that having been made to wait so long for such a light touch update, they've *got* to be one of the factions slated for a BIG update in the next edition. 

[Xirix]

Is it just me, or did the old Archon, and this new Archon, both look like an evil Peter Serafinowicz?

[Evil Eye]

56 minutes ago, Alby the Slayer said:

but the idea of using the same body in male/female minus the torso has some aestethic problems

You're absolutely right. The older plastic Dark Eldar from the inital 5E refresh got away with it a bit better due to the more gender-neutral body shapes and slightly more stylized/heroic proportions, and also the more modular nature of those kits. When you have a much more clearly defined silhouette with (somewhat) more realistic proportions, the chestplate swap on a model with an obviously male shoulder/waist/hip ratio really does read as Archon Az'Tolpho stuffing some flayed skin towels down his breastplate as a joke. Which, to be fair, is not entirely off-brand for the Dark Eldar, but doesn't look very good. Myself, if I were designing the kit to be useable as male or female, I'd probably alter the shape to be more feminine/androgynous, such that the female option looks female and the male option looks like a classically Eldar slender/lithe male. Or use some kind of clothing accoutrements to emphasise different proportions without actually changing core parts of the underlying model. You get the drift. Personally I'm of the opinion that this is a perfect example of what resin (or metal) is best for over plastic- somewhat monopose character models where you want lots of different sculpts with a lower investment for moulds and lower partscounts whilst still allowing for some degree of modularity with arms and heads. In an ideal world where metal models were still being made for things other than TOW (or GW hadn't completely screwed the pooch with their attempts at resin) I'd have made several sculpts of bodies with different interchangeable head options, each one coming with a few metal weapon arms and also a plastic weapon sprue which was shared between all of the sculpts.

 

This is a longwinded way of saying "Yes, the female build is obviously just a chestplate and head on the male build" and "full-plastic ain't great for doing character ranges".

[Alby the Slayer]

The Codex cover is pretty rad.

 

[CL_Mission]

44 minutes ago, TheMawr said:

With Drukhari apparently not taking the last part of the edition capacity spot Im getting really curious wether to speculate a new army, a very very full end of edition campaign or an extremely unlikely (but not impossible) "putting 40k on the backburner"

Nice photoshop work.

What rumours do we have about what could be coming up, some space marine things (though surely they'd come with the new edition) and Eldar Corsairs is all that comes to mind for me, anything else? There's also a couple of kill teams to come out before the Nightbringer/Sisters/Raptots lot.

[HeadlessCross]

2 minutes ago, Alby the Slayer said:

The Codex cover is pretty rad.

 

Now THAT is a codex cover. 

 

Honestly I'm underwhelmed by Malys. The Archon looks good but I hope there's more to the kit than what they're showing. 

[Zoatibix]

@Alby the Slayer I, too, would much prefer Aeldari of all shades to have dedicated male and female sculpts. 

That sort of styling seems to be AoS only, sadly.
 

Malys is a great model. Really stands out from the Kabalites she’ll be leading.

 

The new Archon…has a better pose than the old one…but that’s about it.

 

I do hope this is just an appetiser for a full release of plastic Grotesques, Beast packs and Court of the Archon. But I won’t hold my breath.

[Alby the Slayer]

13 minutes ago, Evil Eye said:

You're absolutely right. The older plastic Dark Eldar from the inital 5E refresh got away with it a bit better due to the more gender-neutral body shapes and slightly more stylized/heroic proportions, and also the more modular nature of those kits. When you have a much more clearly defined silhouette with (somewhat) more realistic proportions, the chestplate swap on a model with an obviously male shoulder/waist/hip ratio really does read as Archon Az'Tolpho stuffing some flayed skin towels down his breastplate as a joke. Which, to be fair, is not entirely off-brand for the Dark Eldar, but doesn't look very good. Myself, if I were designing the kit to be useable as male or female, I'd probably alter the shape to be more feminine/androgynous, such that the female option looks female and the male option looks like a classically Eldar slender/lithe male. Or use some kind of clothing accoutrements to emphasise different proportions without actually changing core parts of the underlying model. You get the drift. Personally I'm of the opinion that this is a perfect example of what resin (or metal) is best for over plastic- somewhat monopose character models where you want lots of different sculpts with a lower investment for moulds and lower partscounts whilst still allowing for some degree of modularity with arms and heads. In an ideal world where metal models were still being made for things other than TOW (or GW hadn't completely screwed the pooch with their attempts at resin) I'd have made several sculpts of bodies with different interchangeable head options, each one coming with a few metal weapon arms and also a plastic weapon sprue which was shared between all of the sculpts.

 

This is a longwinded way of saying "Yes, the female build is obviously just a chestplate and head on the male build" and "full-plastic ain't great for doing character ranges".

 

Yes thank you!

 

In any case just like you said, aeldari are not human, they tend to be so slim and "angular" that is indeed upsetting for human to see. But that's what we got so...

 

Fortunately Lady Malys is more on the right side and I can kitbash that eventually.

[ZeroWolf]

16 minutes ago, CL_Mission said:

Nice photoshop work.

What rumours do we have about what could be coming up, some space marine things (though surely they'd come with the new edition) and Eldar Corsairs is all that comes to mind for me, anything else? There's also a couple of kill teams to come out before the Nightbringer/Sisters/Raptots lot.

We got stand alone Marine releases back in 9th (Strike Force Augustus) so it is possible it could happen again.

[phandaal]

5 hours ago, StrangerOrders said:

This will sound weird but my only complaint is that the way they painted Malys seems... idk, like she is too healthy looking...

 

Agree. If she was the same color as the Archon, it would look much better.

 

Edit: also, the dude looks like Doctor Evil. That is not a bad thing at all, but it cannot be unseen.

Edited September 8 by phandaal

[Commissar Greif]

I knew those big shoulderpads on the mockup from a few months ago were supposed to be tassets!

 

Anyways, solid looking models. Not a huge Dark Eldar guy but these look super clean. Excited to see the rest of the rumored range next edition.

[Tastyfish]

That's an exceptional photoshop of Malys, shows how the right paint job can totally save the model, didn't think I could by the Eavy Metal one to be the one time paramour and rival to Vect.

 

Guess we now have to hope that the updated version of Bheta Decima is a Dhrukari slaving pen/touring gladiatorial arena - as things like the beastmasters are just crying out for Kill team rules, whilst things like Wyches with all their fancy weapons and the latest batch of Grotesques would also make for fine NPOs.

[Evil Eye]

1 hour ago, phandaal said:

 

Agree. If she was the same color as the Archon, it would look much better.

 

Edit: also, the dude looks like Doctor Evil. That is not a bad thing at all, but it cannot be unseen.

"Introducing my spy in the mon-keigh Inquisition's Ordo Xenos...Fat Bastard."

[Dr. Clock]

5 hours ago, ThePenitentOne said:

And when I hear that power from pain abilities are going to be on datacards, I just know those abilities will replace normal abilities everyone gets for free. 

 

I share your anxiety, but I'm hoping this will be more on the level of 're-rolls 1s to hit, re-roll all hits if spending 1 pain point'... There are abundant examples of this, like Deathwatch Veterans or Legionaries, so this could make some of that hoop jumping less situational army-wide without basically equating to 'this army doesn't really have army rules or datasheet rules'. There are also some really good datasheet rules where the units themselves get no benefit, but rather following units gain a substantial benefit (e.g. Thunderstrike, Shroudrunner) for the rest of the phase. 

 

If done correctly, I imagine this style of datsheet/army rule will make the units feel more distinctive in their roles, and also more competitive with one another for your attention as the Pain Dispenser. In principle I'm looking forward to this change, although it sounds pretty micro-intensive. 

 

Gotta figure the Detachments will be something like: Cult, Coven, Kabalites (Realspace Raid), Transports (Skysplinter) and *crosses fingers* Mercenaries? I've been a Kabs+Mercs guy from the go, but my Idoneth-adjacent Coven are also gibbering in anticipation.

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor

[Agramar_The_Luna_Wolf]

Malys remind me a lot Shadowheart from BG3. Too "elvish", or better said, not as dark Eldar as the Archon. But still, in my personal opinion,a really good miniature and veeeeryyy tempting.

[chapter master 454]

something in me thinks she'd be a great calidus assassin stand-in...

[brother_b]

I think they all look amazing. Dang I’m not a fan of 10th really but this is calling to me pretty directly. I wish a 1000 point force would be cheaper than I foresee it being. 
 

Also, I love the crazy court of the Archon or whatever, with all those different beasts. I sure hope they keep those.

Edited September 9 by brother_b

[01RTB01]

The face on lady malys is something else. I've zero interest in dark eldar but that's a phenomenal sculpt. The Archon is a cracking update to a classic too. Much better than the last plastic incarnation.