From: Aaron Teske <ateske@H...>
Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 22:34:50 -0400
Subject: [BFG] Eldar Shadow-class cruiser
Hey there. Yesterday I had the fortune of visiting my local (well, quasi-local) hobby shop and being asked by the owner to assemble the Eldar Shadow-class cruiser he'd just received from GW. Needless to say, I accepted, and this write-up is one result of that. What You Get: one center section, an upper hull pod, a lower hull pod, two wings, and a sprue with several barrels on it. Referring to the diagram in the rulebook, the center section contains the upper part of the sail, the main body (including the... bridge-like object projecting upward) and cutouts where you attach everything but the guns. The upper hull section is the gundeck; my only disappointment here is that you can't rotate the turret on the top, but I guess that would nullify the forward-90 only aspect of the Eldar's armament. The lower hull is mostly for detail, IMO; there's a rectangular recess with a diagonal slash that could be considered the torpedo bay, but I'm not totally convinced. The wings are identical. Whether there are little details that vary from ship to ship (a la the escorts) is up for debate. Whether or not GW will ship the full sprue of barrels with the ship when you only need one is also up for debate, but we can hope. (Well, kinda, they're not *that* useful.) My first thought on assembly: you're not going to get away with just using superglue. Either use something stronger, or (my favorite) pin like crazy. Expecially the wings, and even more especially if you don't permanently affix the ship to it's flying stand, as I do not. Speaking of which, the hole for the tip of the flying stand is grossly inadequate, but that's fairly easy to fix. And that's about it in the complaints department; assembly will be a pain, but the detail is wonderful and the ship, when assembled, looks really nice. Rather different from the old Space Fleet Eldar, but this isn't all bad. I've even got what will hopefully turn out to be a great paint scheme in mind for one of these, but you'll have to wait for me to get one before I'll tell. ^_^ Stats (from memory, and I didn't bring a ruler along): the ship is about 3" long, a little shorter than a plastic cruiser (this comparison was made). Being metal, of course, it's a lot heavier, and it has a much greater wingspan. Angled slightly down (there is some play here -- be sure to get the wings at the same angle!) the wings are... oh, I'd say a bit more than 2" across, maybe approaching 2 1/2". The main body is narrow, but the width provided by the wings and hull sections offset this nicely. The hull sections also provide a nice section for insignia or designs, where the older Space Fleet models were less allowing in this respect. (Though there is less room on the wings/sails, natch.) There is a good bit of "rough" detail on the flanks of the ships, but these aren't the drybrusher's dream the Impy and Chaos ships are. The hole for the flying stand, while not deep enough, is balanced pretty well IIRC; it was just uneven, so the ship wasn't sitting square. (While we're at it, another minor nit -- the ship came with a large circular base, not the small one that Imperial and Chaos cruisers use, which can have a seriously detrimental effect on the ship's health.) All in all, this is a *very* nice ship, though experiences playing the Eldar in the game indicate (to me) that their strengths lie more in their escorts. However, integration with a Space Fleet Eldar force will be, IMO, tough, which is why I'm planning to keep the two seperate.... (This is up on my web page at