The Cabal of the Crimson Woe, Part 5 - The Court of the Crimson King Primed

When it comes to painting the Dark Eldar, I decided that I'd start from the top - the Court of the Crimson King and the King himself. Of course, there aren't any official models for any of the Court of the Archon options so I ended up converting up some of my own!

The Court as it will take to the tabletop consists of 5 Ur-Ghuls (made from fantasy Ghouls and a little greenstuff), two Medusae and a pair of Sslyth Bodyguards for a total of nine models. This allows them to join the Crimson King aboard his personal Raider. The unit is rather frightening, capable of handing out 30+ S5 attacks on the charge!

The Sslyth are made from the bodies and arms from the Warmaster Greater Daemon of Slaanesh, some Kabalite Warrior arms and weapons and a fair bit of trimming and filing. Unfortunately the lower torso comes molded to a large rectangular metal base which needed to be clipped off and several Chaos/Slaanesh icons filed off before I could mount them to the 40mm bases. I plan on painting them a sort of blue-green color so they don't look quite so Slaaneshi as well.

The Medusae are described as floating brains which attach themselves to unwary travelers of the Webway, so I used a couple Tyranid upgrade bits and some guitar wire to fashion them. I tried to give their victims a zombie-like pose, and used the mirrored helmet heads from the Wych set to represent the masks that cover their faces prior to using their Eyeburst attacks.

There is a final option included in the retinue list, the Lhaeamean courtesan/poisoner. Her special ability increases the toxicity of any poisoned weapons the Archon bears, but as his Agonizer isn't a poisoned weapon she's somewhat redundant and will rarely be fielded, I expect. I've actually started painting the unit since the time I took these pictures, so expect to see the finished unit soon!