Lelith Hesperax, v2, debased.

It occurs to me that 'debased' might attract the wrong sort of attention. On the other hand, it's true in almost every sense of the word.

This is the new version of Lelith Hesperax, the Dark Eldar Wych special character. If you've seen the model before, you'll notice straightaway that she's not balancing on the Eldar banner pole that she usually comes with.

I despise pet rocks. Nothing annoys me more than a table full of beautifully painted miniatures who for some reason appear to be carrying lumps of masonry around to stand on. That Khornate champion who seems to have found thirty gore-slicked skulls to stand on before the first shot has been fired on turn 1. The broken stone Aquila upon which a Harlequin is artfully posing despite the fact that the game is between Eldar and Orks and all the other scenery is made of scrap metal.

By the way, I've got no problem with it on display miniatures, but I'm a gamer. To me a display miniature is like a mint-condition toy in a box- part of my brain is screaming 'but you're meant to PLAY with it!'

Anyway.

A bit of careful work with snips, a razorsaw and some files detached Lelith from the banner pole, and with a little careful bending of her left leg (from her point of view) I slightly re-posed her as you see. Her right foot was carefully pinned to the base, and once she was superglued on, a little Araldite was worked into the joins for strength. It's nerve-wracking working with so little metal.

The resulting pose, to me, looks very dynamic- I imagine a Tau Battlesuit or a Terminator just behind her frozen for a second before crashing to the ground in a bloody heap.

Ironically, Lelith to me feels more like a 'typical' Wych than the other new Wych models do. Her outfit (or lack of same) is much closer to what I'd expect a gladiatorial fighter to wear based on those cultures who have had them. Even in the modern day, boxers or MMA fighters don't tend to wear lycra jumpsuits.

On the other hand, maybe I just like painting underdressed female space-elves. Everyone needs a hobby, eh?

Of course, that outfit also means that she can use my standard Wych colour scheme with no modifications. I'm not entirely happy with the hair, I may well go back and tidy up the highlights.

Photography by me, all original models (c) Games Workshop.