Show Us Your Harpies [Picture Heavy]

Discover the age-old techniques of painting...

Moderators: Layne, xFallenx, cultofkhaine

Forum rules
Remember that picture file size should be no larger than 256KB.
For the full Painting and Modelling rules, visit [url]http://www.druchii.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=27440[/url]
Post Reply
User avatar
Saintofm
Malekith's Best Friend
Posts: 1755
Joined: Sat Mar 19, 2011 2:28 am
Location: California

Show Us Your Harpies [Picture Heavy]

Post by Saintofm »

What it says on the tin. Show us your strategies and pics of harpies.

Harpies: A mainstay of our army for the longest time.

Typical Size: 5-10, 10 being a max unit size until the last couple years.

Lore it came from: Greek Monster sisters that had bird wings. Some legends had them lively, other hidious, but their Depictions have been usualy very perty. They have some relation with the North winds, and the name means snatchers, which makes sense. Their man job was to take the evil people to the Furies, other winged maidens who were forces of anger and vengeance, upon death, and literally dragon them to Ancient Greek Hell. They were also used as attack dogs by Zeus as he used them to torment King Phineus of Thrace by befouling a feast set out for him, and steeling anything still good. They did something similar to a Trojans.

Hesiod's two Harpies are named Aello ("storm swift") and Ocypete ("the swift wing"),and Virgil added Celaeno ("the dark") as a third. Homer knew of a Harpy named Podarge ("fleet-foot").

Since then they have been used in the Inferno;mknights had them on their coat of arms as the "Virgin Eagle," and they in so many fantasy games these days its probably easier to name fantasy games without one harpy in it.

Historyish of the Unit I am aware of in the game (open to correction here): One of the earlier units to the dark elves, they were originally very ugly in appearance, nothing vaugly female at all. As I was not aware of the game in its hero hammer days and got into it for the last 5 or 6 years of 7th ed, I was used to the metal minies used in that group which were more feminine at the time. Unlike the Greek myth, they have more bat like wings. They were interesting minies, but they had some things left to be desired. For starters they were naked and endowed with standard fantasy cup size. So if you didn't want minis that looked like they would die of exposure, or in my case and Mormon teen that didn't want his nieces and nephews asking too many odd questions that aspect my toy army men, so I needed to get some green stuff on them. For a first attempt at making clothing with greenstuff...Clearly I could only go up and beyond the stars from there. They also had faces that were appropriately beastly but hideous to look at. I guess that is keeping with some of the legends around them, but other players wanted something that didn't look that bad. And they came in 2 packs.

A common practice at the time was to take witch Elves and put wings on them, particularly harpy or furry (because at the time GW cared about the art and craft of making random stuff, so you could order all kinds of bits and peices of stuff for kit bashing!!!) It was pewter so expensive, but in the long run fun.

The rules and minies stayed the same, but as of 8th Edd and the advent of the plastic Daemonetts, another popular trend was to kit bash Daemonett with Tyranid Gargoyle wings to wondrous effect.

Right now we are all waiting for what is coming next for them.

Lore (more or less since about 6th ed): No one knows for sure where these beastly beauties came from. Dark Elves say they are Witch Elves reborn in a form to match their furosity. All that is certain is they are cruel and cunning, both traits Beastmen and Dark Elves find alluring. For as long as these two armies have gone to battle, you could often find them seeking out the weak and the vulnerable. They never would have the courage to take on stronger foes, but the flying luck charms of the druchii always brighten the day of the the tormented screams of prey. It is said if they ever were to abandon the the slaving port of Karond Kar, the great the Druchii city would be destroyed by her enemies in 90 days.

Role: Harpies have typical elvin hit rates but also elvin strength and resiliance for the most part, and lacked armor in any way. This said, while they lacked the hitting power of the Executioners or Black Guard, they were not meant for that.

1. As flyers, they could cover alot of ground quickly, allowing them to get to the flank or the rear of enemy range units and rip them appart as even now, most range troops don't do so well in close quarters combat and harpies can hold their own in this regard with their 2 attacks each.

2. As flyers they were also skirmishers (prior to Age of Sigmar, most troops were in tight formations save for the loosely formations of the Skirmishers who stck togeather like everybody does currently or in AoS or in 40K), so were harder to hit with range attacks. This made them a perfect cover for troops you didn't want shot down. The enemy missile troops would have to aim for them to get to the more important troops behind them, and if you feilded them in small numbers those troops would by and large ignore them as they were torn apart by musket shot. Today they can still be used as such from what I have heard on the forum here and there.

So basically 1. Kill the guy shooting at you with cannons, crossbows, guns, and attapults or 2. Meat sheilds.

Picture Time

Group Photo: About 20 minies give or take
ImageImage


This group is mostly a punch of early kit bashes to make an even 10 harpies. At first it was greenstuff, glew, witch Elves, and furry wings, but as the fell off I just drilled in and pinned them. As they fell off I kept the wings off for travel purposes. All the minies here are pewter.
ImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImage

Here are some of the 6th edd one's I was talking about. My skill and comfort with green stuff has grown so I might try chipping some of it off and starting over with the clothing, keeping something practicle but still sexy at the same time. One has kinda got lost in the shuffle so I may just use her as a decoration on something.

Image
Image


Some of the Daemonett kitbashes. For the most part I went with the bat winds instead of arms for the most part, but a couple had human arms and gargoyal wings sticking out the back. ANd some minor greenstuff for gaps or for butt flaps on their outfits. Any other green stuff was added to add a matching breast as the motife for Daemonetts was half the body was masculin and half was feminin (I don't think they did that well, but no judgments). I did have one extra bloody in that spot for a war wound. And since I was working with creatures of chaos, I thought I go wild and have anime hair because Chaos Happens. This also gave me the most freedom with the base collors and the clothing. I also had a spare DE Warrior head and a Corsair head in the mix for the fun of it.

ImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImage

Metal Shade for size comparison
Image
Image


This one is actualy a reaper werebat. I thought he would look cool so added him as a lone male harpy of the group.
ImageImage



No clue where this one came from. It was at my hobby store and was labled "Bird Woman". For here I green stuffed some more clothing around the breasts and loin cloth area for some modesty, gave her a spare spear head from an OG warrior kit as one of the swords she came with was funky, and thought: Chaos; make her skin the bronze paint I wanted to use up.
ImageImageImageImage

My Demona. This is Troll Slayer Sophie from Reaper Minies; A Texas based company that does really good minies, mostly for fantasy but have done it for modern, historical, and sci fi. Sophi the succubus is the company mascot so there are about a dozzen variations of her, mostly Christmas and Halloween themes respectfully.

I did the color scheme to be more in keeping with one of the better female villenses to grace Televition: Demona of the cartoon Gargoyals, though I ended up using a darker blue.

ImageImageImageImageImageImage
Who needs sanity? I have a Hydra
User avatar
Errdrigar
Highborn
Posts: 731
Joined: Sat Jul 12, 2003 12:25 pm
Location: Poland

Re: Show Us Your Harpies [Picture Heavy]

Post by Errdrigar »

I just wanted to say that I love watching all the galleries you post here on d.net and what you are doing with those models...
User avatar
Saintofm
Malekith's Best Friend
Posts: 1755
Joined: Sat Mar 19, 2011 2:28 am
Location: California

Re: Show Us Your Harpies [Picture Heavy]

Post by Saintofm »

Errdrigar wrote:I just wanted to say that I love watching all the galleries you post here on d.net and what you are doing with those models...


Thank you. :D
Who needs sanity? I have a Hydra
User avatar
cultofkhaine
Chief Cultist
Chief Cultist
Posts: 1993
Joined: Sat Sep 27, 2008 6:45 am
Location: Being tempted by the Cult of Pleasure!
Contact:

Re: Show Us Your Harpies [Picture Heavy]

Post by cultofkhaine »

Great idea Saintofm - I love your collection of Harpies, quite a group you have there and good to see the range.

I have not had much experience playing mine (not much of a gamer) but they are an addition to my Karond Kar army I'm currently working on.

Here is a couple of pics for your page.

Image

Image
User avatar
Saintofm
Malekith's Best Friend
Posts: 1755
Joined: Sat Mar 19, 2011 2:28 am
Location: California

Re: Show Us Your Harpies [Picture Heavy]

Post by Saintofm »

Love the brown. Combined with the look of the daemonetts it klgives then the right amount of beastial furry. The shading and oliring of it makes it almost like fine fur
Who needs sanity? I have a Hydra
User avatar
Lord Drakon
Malekith's Best Friend
Posts: 1028
Joined: Tue Jun 04, 2013 4:25 pm
Location: Delft

Re: Show Us Your Harpies [Picture Heavy]

Post by Lord Drakon »

Great looking harpies all, it inspired me to try painting my first!
I wanted to keep the 'beastly / harpy' feeling but also make them unique. Using different head options came to the always epic hooded glade guard head I also use for my shades and dark riders and suddenly I saw the potential for the 'Angel of Death' conversion

Image

Close up first painted model
Image
User avatar
cultofkhaine
Chief Cultist
Chief Cultist
Posts: 1993
Joined: Sat Sep 27, 2008 6:45 am
Location: Being tempted by the Cult of Pleasure!
Contact:

Re: Show Us Your Harpies [Picture Heavy]

Post by cultofkhaine »

A unique take - nice conversion idea LD.
User avatar
Darkprincess
Chosen Babe of Slaanesh
Posts: 2625
Joined: Fri Dec 19, 2003 10:20 pm
Location: Wales

Re: Show Us Your Harpies [Picture Heavy]

Post by Darkprincess »

My Harpies (Well, sort of...)

Actually, I don't use Harpies (They're a Khainist thing, after all, and I'm all about Slaanesh and always will be, regardless of what kind of retcon heresy GW come up with), but I do have some DE Harpy models which I use as Fell Bats in my Lahmian-themed Vampire Counts army, and here they are (old pic, with some still unfinished at the time I took the photo). I made these long, long ago, at around the time that the Van Helsing movie came out, and these were basically inspired by the Harpy-like vampire girls in the movie. So much of that movie spoke to me in terms of Warhammer - the harpies, the black coach, the repeating crossbow that Van Helsing couldn't hit jack shiz with. I still love that movie over ten years on. The bases were cheap resin casts that I bought on ebay, and frankly I probably could have made better ones myself (Well you live and learn...). Anyway I do like these models as they really look the part and despite the crappy casting on the bases, they still have plenty of great detail.

Image

As far as the Druchii army is concerned, for a Cult of Slaanesh player like myself, the closest thing to Harpies are of course, Furies. I hate the old GW Furies as they are butt-ugly (as are the official GW Fell Bats, hence the above conversion), so I made my own by adding the outer sections of DE Harpy wings to some of the old 6th edition metal daemonettes, and I think these look really great;

Image
The Dark Princess
High Priestess of the Cult Of Pleasure


Give yourself over to absolute pleasure
Swim the warm waters of sins of the flesh
Erotic nighmares beyond any measure
And sensual daydreams to treasure forever
User avatar
Lord Drakon
Malekith's Best Friend
Posts: 1028
Joined: Tue Jun 04, 2013 4:25 pm
Location: Delft

Re: Show Us Your Harpies [Picture Heavy]

Post by Lord Drakon »

Normally the newer version looks better, but your old deamonettes + old harpy wings are amazing :D
Do you have a close up of the harpy killing that follower of Khaine (I expect? ;) )

I really like your devotion to the other side, the side of Pleasure.
I am looking forward what the 9th age have done with the Pleasure (Slaanesh) and Blood (Khaine) religion!

@ Cult, great work as always! Especially with the bases, I can't rank up mine due to wings but not sure how to fix it.
@ Saint, I love that last version Harpy of yours, very cool
User avatar
Saintofm
Malekith's Best Friend
Posts: 1755
Joined: Sat Mar 19, 2011 2:28 am
Location: California

Re: Show Us Your Harpies [Picture Heavy]

Post by Saintofm »

Lord Drakon wrote:Normally the newer version looks better, but your old deamonettes + old harpy wings are amazing :D
Do you have a close up of the harpy killing that follower of Khaine (I expect? ;) )

I really like your devotion to the other side, the side of Pleasure.
I am looking forward what the 9th age have done with the Pleasure (Slaanesh) and Blood (Khaine) religion!

@ Cult, great work as always! Especially with the bases, I can't rank up mine due to wings but not sure how to fix it.
@ Saint, I love that last version Harpy of yours, very cool



I don't know; as is I'm half tempted to show GW your posts and go: Our new flying unit; make official NOW!
Who needs sanity? I have a Hydra
User avatar
direweasel
Malekith's Personal Guard
Posts: 920
Joined: Mon Oct 07, 2013 9:58 pm
Location: Terre Haute, IN, USA

Re: Show Us Your Harpies [Picture Heavy]

Post by direweasel »

Here are mine, they were the current edition when I bought them. They're probably 25-ish years old now.

Image

To be honest, I hardly ever use them. When they were St4, several editions ago, I would occasionally use them to attack enemy war machines, but later I found that they couldn't even reliably beat them. I know some people use them to great effect as redirectors and battlefield control units and all that, but it's just not something I do. I'd rather use Dark Riders for that because they're more flexible, and more likely to actually rally from an intentional flee.
Chinese Relativity Axiom: No matter how glorious your triumphs, nor how miserable your failures, there will always be at least one billion people in China who don't give a damn.

Apocalypse Drow! Plog: http://druchii.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=75360
Jolemai
Executioner
Posts: 193
Joined: Tue Jul 30, 2013 4:12 pm

Re: Show Us Your Harpies [Picture Heavy]

Post by Jolemai »

My Harpies are those ones, although I've only got five in my fledgling collection.
User avatar
direweasel
Malekith's Personal Guard
Posts: 920
Joined: Mon Oct 07, 2013 9:58 pm
Location: Terre Haute, IN, USA

Re: Show Us Your Harpies [Picture Heavy]

Post by direweasel »

Back when I used them, it was good to have a big bunch of them. They were only LD6, (still are), and were almost always outside the generals LD bubble (which they can't even use anymore). They were vulnerable to shooting, with no armor save, and if you lost 25% of the unit they had to test.

Also, they used to still get rank bonuses. So you could land in front of a war machine crew with your 15 harpies, and start off the combat up 2 points because of the 2 ranks, or at least 1 if you had taken some losses. So even if you got no hits, you were winning the combat most likely, and almost definitely tying up the war machine for multiple turns, which is usually the same as beating it anyway, because it's not raining death on your important units.

Good times. Now they're more or less useless except as cheap, low LD redirectors.
Chinese Relativity Axiom: No matter how glorious your triumphs, nor how miserable your failures, there will always be at least one billion people in China who don't give a damn.

Apocalypse Drow! Plog: http://druchii.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=75360
User avatar
Darkprincess
Chosen Babe of Slaanesh
Posts: 2625
Joined: Fri Dec 19, 2003 10:20 pm
Location: Wales

Re: Show Us Your Harpies [Picture Heavy]

Post by Darkprincess »

Lord Drakon wrote:Do you have a close up of the harpy killing that follower of Khaine (I expect? ;) )


Here you go;

Image
The Dark Princess
High Priestess of the Cult Of Pleasure


Give yourself over to absolute pleasure
Swim the warm waters of sins of the flesh
Erotic nighmares beyond any measure
And sensual daydreams to treasure forever
User avatar
Heartsbane
Executioner
Posts: 188
Joined: Sun Jul 29, 2012 6:58 pm
Location: Cambridge, UK

Re: Show Us Your Harpies [Picture Heavy]

Post by Heartsbane »

My harpies conversion, based on ghouls for a more bestial look. I'm happy with how they turned out, but never did get around to finishing the second flock...

Image
Image
User avatar
cultofkhaine
Chief Cultist
Chief Cultist
Posts: 1993
Joined: Sat Sep 27, 2008 6:45 am
Location: Being tempted by the Cult of Pleasure!
Contact:

Re: Show Us Your Harpies [Picture Heavy]

Post by cultofkhaine »

@Heartsbane they look great. Very dynamic posses and they fit together nicely. I wish I had converted my units up like those rather than using the daemonttes they look much better
.
User avatar
Calisson
Corsair
Corsair
Posts: 8820
Joined: Fri Mar 14, 2008 10:00 pm
Location: Hag Graef

Re: Show Us Your Harpies [Picture Heavy]

Post by Calisson »

Superb! Impressive conversions :P
Winds never stop blowing, Oceans are borderless. Get a ship and a crew, so the World will be ours! Today the World, tomorrow Nagg! {--|oBrotherhood of the Coast!o|--}
User avatar
Lord Drakon
Malekith's Best Friend
Posts: 1028
Joined: Tue Jun 04, 2013 4:25 pm
Location: Delft

Re: Show Us Your Harpies [Picture Heavy]

Post by Lord Drakon »

Superb harpies! I love what you have done with them, as a unit they provide a fantastic diorama, while also fantastic individually. Amazing paintjob as well
User avatar
Darkprincess
Chosen Babe of Slaanesh
Posts: 2625
Joined: Fri Dec 19, 2003 10:20 pm
Location: Wales

Re: Show Us Your Harpies [Picture Heavy]

Post by Darkprincess »

I'm really liking those ghoul conversions - they would work perfectly as Fell Bats for VC players - awesome stuff
The Dark Princess
High Priestess of the Cult Of Pleasure


Give yourself over to absolute pleasure
Swim the warm waters of sins of the flesh
Erotic nighmares beyond any measure
And sensual daydreams to treasure forever
Post Reply