Painting Eldar Allies. Do you paint them in the same scheme?

Hi all, I'll be painting my Eldar Allies soon and I was wondering whether people paint these in a similar/complimentary scheme to the rest of their Dark Eldar. Or do you just do them in their own craftworld regardless of how it sits with your other models? I'd love to hear people's thoughts on this.

Personally I would be painting the Allies wither as corsairs or CWE.
Are you just after the mini's, telling a story (e.g. Path of the Renegade / Path of the Incubus, Dark Eldar helping CWE Iyanden) or a plan to start a CWE Army?

Personally I have some mini's I collected, painted as CW Altansar for some fun.

Best of luck with the choice.

Me I would take one color, (the accent color) from my D.E. and use it as an accent for my Eldar. The rest of the colors I would do paler/lighter colors. (I like my D.E. to be base line dark) Unless for fluff reasons they were working for my D.E. then same colors. Fluff examples for working for: 1) Large group of renegades that have renounced the Eldar Path system. 2) They are slaves to my D.E. or finally 3) They are D.E. that have dabbled in psyker abilities and are "counts as". So it all depends one what you are doing what most of us would recommend.

My Kabal is black and purple and my Eldar allies are from Craftworld Ulthwe, which is black and white. So there is a similarity but they are also distinct from each other.

Kabal colours:



Ulthwe colours:

Hmmm okay. I only have a Jetbike Farseer (not built yet) and 3 Eldar Jetbikes for the moment as a detachment. I can see myself starting a full blown CWE army when the new codex comes out though so I don't want to limit myself there.

My current DE scheme is dark blue and gold so I'm not really sure if any of the other craftworld colour schemes would fit them. Maybe Alaitoc? But I've never been that fond of their colours. I prefer Uthwe and I love Bieltan but that might took strange lined up next to my DE.

Nice painting by the way Adhemar. Lovely line highlights.

I have painted the first of my eldar units (rangers all with no helmets) in my kabalite colours... Like kabalite snipers essentially... The fact they have poison weapons means they fit right in!

mug7703 wrote:

Nice painting by the way Adhemar. Lovely line highlights.

Thank you. I'm nowhere near the standard of some of the awesome painters that frequent these forums but I like to think my work looks okay.

ravengoescaw wrote:

Me I would take one color, (the accent color) from my D.E. and use it as an accent for my Eldar. The rest of the colors I would do paler/lighter colors. (I like my D.E. to be base line dark) Unless for fluff reasons they were working for my D.E. then same colors. Fluff examples for working for: 1) Large group of renegades that have renounced the Eldar Path system. 2) They are slaves to my D.E. or finally 3) They are D.E. that have dabbled in psyker abilities and are "counts as". So it all depends one what you are doing what most of us would recommend.

This is really good advice! I think I have it! If my DE force is Dark Blue (Necron Abyss) and Gold. Then keeping with this theme, I'll just paint all my Eldar like they were High Elves. So lots of white and touches of gold and light blue. I think this'll look really cool and will be in keeping with the Eldar theme and also compliment my darker DE army.

It'll only be these 4 jetbikes at first but if I like the scheme and buy more models at the end of the year, I'd happily apply it to the rest of the craftworld.

While my painting usually only serves to make others feel better about their own work, I am relating the paint schemes I am using for my DE and their more conventional allies. My DE are getting a black with red trim scheme, while the Eldar are being painted in a Void Dragon style of black armor and red helmets. The colors will mesh, but it should be easy to tell who is who.

Thie'ne'Var (My Craft World) Has very different colors of my Kabal. Orange armor with scorpion green helemts and light blue gem stones vs my Kabal is dark Green with Ice-bluish Cyan (P3 Arcanum Blue) edges. Surprisingly, even I am rather poor painter, they look good on table, alone and together. Since my Eldar are mainly warmer and softer color and Dark Eldar are cold harder color, it creates... A Balance.

But I use common colors: Yellow on Kabal tubes, runes and eyes. While yellow is high light of my orange craftworld armor. Craftworld gemstones are same shade than my Kabal edges. And I use alot coppery-Brass on metals for both.

My "Eldar allies" are painted up as specialized and unique units within my Dark Eldar army. Dark Eldar Snipers (Pathfinders) and an unnamed unit that is high ranking Wych Cultists who have grown tired of gladiator combat and have unique gear (Banshees) Have a few "Dark Eldar Warlocks" made up and use Ciirian as a Farseer and then he can have psy powers represented in the game. Also would like to make some weird constructs count as Wraithguards/Wraithlord and play off on the 'necomancy' aspect as talked about in the Dark Eldar codex.

I paint them in the Same colours of my army. I also converted them to represent harlequines.

Here a few examples of my army:





And this are my Eldar allies (harlies, farseer and Dire Avengers.

VanSan: Awesome looking models. I wish I could paint even 20% of quality you paint. I am suck at apainting atm. LOL.

They look incredible man! Absolutely brilliant!

@VanSan, absolutely fantastic models. I absolutely love the vibrant style, and the bases just make them look even better!


On topic, my Eldar allies of craftworld Nemirath are white with bluish grey and light blue for highlights. They starkly contrast with my Dark Eldar main force, where black is the main colour, with various highlights brightening it up. That said, my entire army is also split in many different colour schemes, to represent many different corsair fleets working together, all with their specific background and style of combat. The core combatant warband, The Sentinel's Blade, sport black suits with blue armor highlights and red loincloths. The heavy support warband, the Ashborn all sport a somewhat charred look - charcoal black armour, red loincloths and bone accents on hands and helmets. The Wych Cult, the Bloody Handed sport black bodysuits and red cloth sashes, their left arms being blood red as well. These are just a few of the groups I have, and each of the colour schemes represents who they are both gameplay wise and fluff wise as well.