Vel'Rake cursed his master for a fool. These slaves should already be on their way to the sisters as offerings, not being force marched to exhaustion to prove some petty point to a jumped up traitor from Ulthuan. As if the Blood Dragon would be impressed by a handful of reptilian slaves from the stinking jungle marshes. Vel'Rake suspected that wasn't the point anyway. With the raiders already ashore between them and the island fortress of Daggerpoint, he suspected that the lizardmen were here more as a meat shield than to impress anybody.
His vexillary took the rise ahead of them and dipped the standard twice. The carnax blew two mournful notes of muster, and the warriors of the Gorgons Guard assembled on top of the hill with their cold blooded charges arranged in front of them like so much meat at the slave markets.
The sorceress cult priestess Zintalja caught his eye, clearly signalling her annoynace with the situation. They should have kept to their plan and delivered the slaves to the sisters, thus ensuring the ongoing blessing of the Cult of the Gorgon. They should have made the Blood Dragon wait, and if that meant leaving the forces of Daggerpoint to wait out a siege for a while, well, so be it.
If these slaves didn't arrive soon then the blessing of the Cult would soon become a curse. Their master was treading a fine line indeed.
This unit are intended to represent the Lord of Daggerpoint's personal retinue. Professional soldiers, much like the Crossbow armed units of the guard, and distinct from the militia of the city guard. Their allegiance is far more to their master, rather than to Daggerpoint as a place although I still wanted them to have a clear link to the region and add some character to the army overall. Working with an evolving theme this I've therefore named this unit The Gorgon's Guard.
Deciding to strip another 10 or so swordsmen rather than try to match the pre-existing pink-purple paint job and snake cult heraldry (even though it had inspired the idea of the Lustrian expedition), added significantly to the unit making them a much more serious prospect on the battlefield rather than having two smaller units as I had considered. This makes them feel more like a mercenary company in their own right, which better fits the background.
Not too clear from some of these photos but if you look closely you can see that I've added some skulls and dark mossy elements to the bases.
The banner was done extremely quickly, freehand but inspired by one of the black and white line art patterns in the back of the DE Army book. The stone grey field made sense at the time (I had a lot of grey on my palette to use up, and the links between Gorgons and turning things to stone etc.) and as I was still treating it as a sketch or practice piece at that stage I didn't worry too much. In the end I decided I liked it enough to use it as it had brought some new inspiration into the background for my Dark Elves, but I acknowledge that it would probably have been better to go for something other than grey.
The pose of the musician sculpt is a little goofy (though not as goofy as the face on the standard bearer, thankfully now hidden behind his banner) and somehow fails to look as convincing as some of his high elf counterparts, but I was glad to have a genuine DE musician sculpt to complete the command unit.
I trialled a couple of press moulded shield designs, agreeing with the majority on the facebook group that round shields worked better for swordsmen for practical/historical reasons, and that both designs could be seen as suitable for Dark Elves. Once I had the gorgon connection I started to see that in the design of the round shields too, and decided to bring try and emphasise that with some snake like green tones.
The rough edges of the milliput press moulds (I mass produced them and wasn't always too precious about it) combined with the larger scale of the unit, plus what we already know about Daggerpoint's slightly second-hand feeling military gear, all suggested they wouldn't be highly decorated so I opted for darkly oiled but battered metal underneath the green painted design. These thoughts all make sense in my head, but as with the banner I feel the final execution on the shields is a little too grim and muted and I think I could have been a bit braver and brighter with them.
The figure for Zintalja the sorceress was a kind gift from Geoff SS from Oakbound, as part of a painting challenge I ran a few years back. The tab was blank, so no clues there, as is the back of the staff which feels odd for a GW sculpt of the period, and I've never been quite sure if it came from a line of DE minis I'm not familiar with (which is most of them) or if this is a fan sculpt or similar.
In any case she fits in with the unit nicely, providing both in game utility and some added character. I imagine her as being a priestess of the Cult of the Gorgon and sometime lover of the Lord of Daggerpoint, but also potentially a dangerous and spiteful paramour of his lieutenant and unit champion of the Gorgons Guard.
I''ve always loved this classic champion sculpt and it is one of the minis that always made me want a small Dark Elf force in my collection, even if just a small warband or mercenary unit.
The character of Vel'Rake is very much born of the sculpt and the pose. He seems to conjure just the right mix of cruelty and opulence of the Dark Elf upper classes, with his imperious stare and commanding pointing gesture and his heavy robe and massive sword. I felt he deserved some background and pathos despite his relatively junior ranks in the army (for now at least, I can definitely see him doing duty as a DE General on foot if the need arises).
Monthly Total:
28 Dark Elf Swordsmen, inc. Musician and standard bearer (Light Armour, Swords, Shields) - 330 pts
Dark Elf Champion (Light Armour, Sword, Shield) - 51pts
Dark Elf Sorceress - 59pts
Total for the month: 440 pts
Definitely not counted for the OWAC but just to add some character:
Although I didn't end up going for the snake themed unit heraldry for the Swordsmen I have kept the idea that the Dark Elves of Daggerpoint are themselves raiders and slavers into the southern lands of Lustria. While this flavour of Lizardmen date from WFB5 and are therefore out of OWAC bounds, in my head cannon for the army this small contingent of Lizardmen already in my collection could definitely represent the enslaved spoils of the Dark Elves' latest raid south.
If I need some extra infantry fodder in WFB4 games I can always use them with stats for Orcs and Goblins while keeping some of the geographic character for the army.
Tom's Bony Bit
For this month I have decided to do my wild card instead of my last rank and file. I'm working on a second unit of cavalry and want to take my time on them.
This Screaming Skull catapult is a slightly "soft" casting from Black Tree. it was very difficult as it was metal but some of the fixtures were misaligned we had to break and bend pieces to make them fit. In the end it has made it look like a ramshackle catapult, so I guess it fits the army.
Next up are two Skeleton Beastmen from Andrew Del in the Oldhammer community, and one from Reaper miniatures that I got for completing last year (Thanks Andrew!), to add to two units of skeleton warriors from the last OWAC.
One is actually a skeleton Lizardman so it is good to know my Dad's dark elves didn't get all of them on there trip to Lustria :pThis one needed a replacement arm after the arm holding the original cleaver broke off. I chose the spear and shield because they fit in with the spearman unit from last OWAC, who don't already have a Beastman and I wanted to spread them out through my army. I like the design on the shield because it kind of looks like a vampire face!Monthly Total:
Screaming skull catapult and crew - 74 pts
3 Skeleton warriors with shields, one with a spear - 28 pts
Total for the month: 102 pts
Thanks for reading my monthly post, good luck for the next month of the OWAC ;)
