The Elucidian Starstriders

The "Elucidian Starstriders" - plastic figures from GW.

The Elucidian Starstriders were a "Kill Team" set released by GW several years ago (amid the previous edition of the "Kill Team" game). They represent a Rogue Trader, Captain Elucia Vhane, and her crew, from the ship New Dawn. And by "crew", we mean, of course, "survivors", since things appeared to have not worked out too well for the New Dawn. These are all plastic figures.

I admit to having no particular interest in the story of the New Dawn - but I recall seeing the figures when they were released years ago and being keen on acquiring them, as they would make for interesting character figures/objectives in skirmish-sized games of 30k and 40k. A purchase was duly made, but of course, by the time the figures arrived, my butterfly-type hobby attention had moved elsewhere, so the figures duly sat around...

Voidmaster Nitsch, Elucia Vhane - and loyal canine!

Anyway, I did finally paint them! The first figure to be painted was "Knosso Prond", an assassin-type figure, painted as a "Curtgeld" for Mike F back in early 2021, during one an Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. The Rogue Trader, Elucia Vhane herself, was painted earlier this year, once more as a submission for the most recent edition of Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. With two figures down, I figured it was time to get off my duff and finish the rest of them - and they have been finished off this spring (or, I should say, "spring"). 

Stanistasia Minst (left) and Larsen vsn der Grauss (right).

We have a couple of space weirdos to round out the complement - some of the most interesting figures in the assortment! There is Larsen van der Grauss, a "communications specialist" - with a get up like that, it looks to me like he gets solid five-bar wireless coverage wherever he goes in the universe!

We also have Sanistasia Minst, apparently a medical specialist of some kind. Like all health care providers in the 30k/40k setting, Stanistasia exudes the requisite air of of techno-dread, sporting instruments that seem more adept to harvesting organs than doing anything to help the patient who may have been housing said organs...

I love the baroque armour on these troopers.

Another view showing equipment/kit.

We also have Voidmaster Nitsch and his small squad of troopers. They feature ornate armour that brings to mind the "Solar Auxilia" of the 30k setting. These are, IMO, some of the coolest-looking figures in this set. Plus, rotor cannons are always fun to use, right?

Rotor cannons solve problems, right?

Also - they have a dog! So you know this squad is great, because dogs are great :)

Great figures in this set, but the dog is a favourite!

What purpose will these figures have? I have no specific idea...as noted above, they would make for great specialist/objective/character figures in games of Kill Team, 30k and 40k, so I hope to make use of them in some such way. But mostly they were fun to (finally) paint. 

That's all for now! Hope everyone is doing OK out there. Thanks for reading!