Shadespyre's June Post - Wildcard Month - Guardians of the Moonglade - 3rd Edition Wood Elves (+955 points)

 OWAC VII - Wildcard Month - Guardians of the Moonglade

June

The final month. To be honest, having completed everything in the original plan and so much of the reserves it was a bit hard to get going again for a final effort. But once I did get back to it I enjoyed ticking the last few units off my list.

Let's start with some extra Elf heroes. I'm very aware that by concentrating on unit after unit of archers, I have missed out on painting some of the great Elf minis of the period, so here are four of them:

I would have loved to include a unit or two of these guys for some proper melee potential, but the sad truth is they are difficult and expensive to collect in numbers, possibly because they are so cool that no-one wants to part with them. The champion with the orc head, and the one with the sword above his head, are iconic members of this range, but the Elf with the two handed sword has always been my favourite, so I wanted to paint one.

These guys represent my Autumn, Spring, Summer and an experimental Winter colour scheme. I really like how the latter looks, but he doesn't feel very "Wood Elfy" to me, so maybe this is a starting point for a High Elf army...

And now for some completely unplanned, bonus miniatures.

 

Once I realised that the Owl theme was going to be a thing, I went fishing in my collection to find thisold favourite. This dapper chap is a Citadel C29 Giant Owl from back in 1985. The code makes him part of the "Monsters" range even though he is a total sweetheart. I elevated him on a grassy tump to make him a little more impressive next to the Elves. It might be possible to pop a rider on him but I'll be including him as part of a Monstrous Host.

Also unplanned, here is a Blunicorn of unknown origin, pinched off Ebay for a fiver. Is it even a Wood Elf army without a Blunicorn? I feel like everyone else in Team Wood Elves has one, now.

Sadly, without a suitable Elf maiden to ride her, Bluey will have to stay as a mascot rather than a points scoring unit.

Back to planned bonus miniatures, now.

Hidden Reserves

These vague blobs were numbers 6 and 7 on the list

And now I can reveal that the vague blobs are hiding lots and lots and lots of... Halflings!

Everyone loves halflings, right? There's an Ally list for them in Warhammer Armies, and Wood Elves (along with Empire, Brets and Dwarves) are allowed to make use of them. But I didn't want to use the chubby, chicken munching, cook pot wearing Citadel Halflings (even though I have collected one of each of all the 80s and 90s ranges) here, I wanted more rugged looking, serious minded Halflings who might live in the outer forest, farming and hunting and foraging and tussling with wolves and goblins and beastmen. And that meant Mark Copplestone's halflings, currently available via North Star Miniatures.

After rushing to convert a command group back in December, I revisited these poor efforts and am much happier with the newer version.

Now painted and complete with their 6th Edition Empire plastic hats. The oak leaf standard is again made from cheap jewellery, which is a gold mine of little metal bits and bobs, it turns out. The standard bearer has goofy buck teeth, so we haven't entirely left the comedy halfling trope behind. 

As well as some very cheap BS4 missile fire, this unit also contains three characters and the option to carry a magic standard and a magic weapon.

The rest of the halfling contingent is made up of skirmishers with slings. Skirmishing Elves always seem like a bit of a waste of points as they are decent close combat troops, whereas these little fellas have no business tangling with anything bigger than a Goblin.

And finally (?)

Hidden Reserve No 8

The funny shaped blob conceals the Forest Dragon, Quercus.

And here is my painted version.

Although this is a brand new resin model, and not produced by GW, there is a proper connection to Oldhammer because the sculptor is Trish Carden who sculpted about a zillion Citadel, GW and Forgeworld minis starting way back in 1984.

You can get your own Quercus from Footsore Miniatures, who are casting and distributing Trish's growing HarrowHyrst miniatures range. 

Army List Additions:

I'm not considering the heroes or the blunicorn to be part of the army list, but it's not like I'm short of points is it?

Adding Champions to the halfling slingers doubles the cost of each unit, but also gives them a surprising combat boost in the form of three WS4 attacks which might swing a fight with enemy skirmishers.

Scores for June:       955    points   71 models

1 x Autumn Hero                                                                                                                   

1 x Spring Hero

1 x Summer Hero

1 x Winter Hero    

                                           

1 x Blunicorn                                                                                                                        0 points 

Halfling Allies List:

1 x Halfling Contingent Commander                                                                             77 points

1 x Ally Standard Bearer                                                                                                   73 points         

22 x Halfling Militia     (Champion, Musician, Bow, Light Armour, Shield)         144 points

10 x Halfling Militia      (Champion, Shield, Sling)                                                     84 points         

10 x Halfling Militia      (Champion, Shield, Sling)                                                     84 points

10 x Halfling Militia     (Champion, Shield, Sling)                                                      84 points  

10 x Halfling Militia     (Champion, Shield, Sling)                                                      84 points 

Monstrous Host:

1 x Giant Owl (counted as Giant Eagle)                                                                      75 points

1 x  Dragon                                                                                                                       250 points 

                    

Running Total:          7902  points  228  models

STOP THE PRESS!

I just received this glorious Ral Partha Cloud Giant, an absolute classic old mini by the great Tom Meier, painted for me by our OWAC pal Chris Howell. Thanks Chris, he's fantastic, and such a generous gift! 

NEXT TIME:

Some army pictures and reflections on the project.

Shadespyre's May Post - Leaders - Guardians of the Moonglade - 3rd Edition Wood Elves (+2604 points)

 OWAC VII - Leader Month - Guardians of the Moonglade

May

Month Five. Traditionally, for me, this is Leader month. Also the month where things finally all seem to hang together, maybe? Let's find out together!

Let's kick off with a tiny bit of lore. I say a tiny bit implying that there might be more later, but my track record suggests there will be just one tantalising morsel that I never come back to expanding.

In the depths of the great forest, far beyond the wanderings of woodcutters and rangers, where the trees are incredibly ancient and unbelievably huge, there is a vast green glade, in the shape of a crescent moon. In the centre of the glade is a large, still lake; it is also the shape of a crescent moon. And overlooking the lake is a long, green (you guessed it) crescent shaped mound.

At the highest point of this hill stands the largest of the trees, its canopy so wide that it shelters most of the Moonglade. Its huge branches are full of life - squirrels and owls and sprites and so on - but most importantly it is the home of an ancient and potent nature spirit. The spirit of the great forest, its Dryad Queen.

And her King? The Moonglade is home to a large community of Wood Elves, and the mightiest Prince amongst them is her consort. And so when anything threatens her forest, a force of Wood Elves will set forth, led by the mightiest Guardians of the Moonglade.

Or something like that. 

Moons, you see? Like the crescent shaped shields? It's a bit like I planned it...

Some Leader minis then? Here we go:

From left to right:

Autumn hero, Summer Prince, Dryad Queen, Spring Spellsinger, Summer hero

The Autumn hero will probably slot into the Autumn Guard unit (you may recall that I forgot to include a specific leader miniature in that unit). The Summer hero, by contrast, was ejected from one of my Oreon units after I picked up the official champion mini. But I like him so he got painted. The guy with the harp is obviously meant to be a musician but I like the idea of a bardic wizard for Wood Elves.

Here are bigger pictures of the main two - the Dryad Queen is obviously the C34 Life Elemental, not an elf but how could you not use this model? Unless you hate finding and painting all the tiny flowers, of course.

Her consort is the classic moon-helmed Elf captain with a falcon, except that I carefully removed most of the falcon and replaced it with a fancy owl. Because moons and owls, you see. This is the third owl so far, I think.

Oh, his name is Amarion the Evergreen, Prince of Eternal  Summer, Guardian of the Moonglade, and of course he is named to honour the true King of the Wood Elves, our very own Mariano. Thanks for the inspiration, sir! No fancy Forest NMM from me, just coloured washes over Chainmail, but still.

Here's another guy, not technically a Leader but if I don't post him this month I'll forget he exists. He's just an Elf in a wolfskin, but I'm going to call him a Shapechanger, just to include one in the army. That makes him my last (?) rank and file contribution.

Before we move on, I should probably mention basing! Yes, I did some! Yes, it's ridiculously elaborate and is taking ages! Yes, for some reason I have used between 15 and 20 different products to achieve this. So I hope you like it.

You'll note I've put the characters on a movement tray, just for display purposes. I will try to fill the back rank at some point. But this is an opportunity to explain my new basing technique, which is to apply all the basing materials with the minis in place on the movement tray - magnets are obviously key to that. This method is saving me on materials because each individual base doesn't recieve as much attention - the guys in the middle of middle ranks are almost untouched, because you don't see their bases much. 

To aid this approach, I've been applying PVA glue with more precision using a small disposable syringe. I'll leave you to imagine the mess I made perfecting that idea! But it means I can reach into a unit and leave a little blob of glue to stick grass to, or whatever.

So, that was all the Leaders. Or was it?

No, gentle reader, it was not...

Hidden Reserves

Who puts leader models in their optional extras? This guy does! To be honest it wasn't optional, I just wanted to keep it under wraps until it was done. Time to reveal Hidden Reserve No 2...

It's a chariot! A heavily customised chariot, in fact.

I've got one of those lovely MD4 Elven Attack Chariots stashed in a cupboard, but it's soooo fancy I thought it looked better as a High Elf option. I wanted something a bit more rustic, like the picture from the Warhammer Armies book:

And so I built this. The basis is still the chariot floor, pole and yoke from a second metal chariot kit (I found it on its own on eBay). Wheels are from my bits box, the horses are Elf cavalry horses. The large Celtic-styled shield at the front is a button! The body of the chariot is a home made concontion of 3d printed shapes and Milliput - it was a bit of a devil to do, and it's actually rather assymetrical, but I'm quite pleased with the finished model. 

Of the crew, the Archer is the only one who isn't converted. The driver is extensively reposed from an ordinary Elf warrior, his legs were cut off and cut apart and reassembled to get this uncomfortable looking pose.

The Wizard Battle Standard Bearer (yes, this is allowed!) started life as a simple standard bearer who for some reason has a scroll? Go figure. The tree motif (representing the Tree at the centre of the Moonglade) is a piece of cheap jewellery, and is the perch for a fourth owl.

Finally, the Prince of Golden Autumn is pretty vanilla except that I sculpted a moon onto his helmet to match the other Prince. I would have like a more exciting pose for him but I had to pick from what I had *and* make room for him in that tight squeeze.

And *that* concludes our Leaders.

Unless I paint a few more in June, no promises though.

Wow this Month's post is dragging on a bit? But to avoid Wild Card month being even worse, let's add even more stuff! More Hidden Reserves, this time No 4 and No5.

It's ZOAT ALLIES! I genuinely thought you might guess this, just based on the association with Wood Elves and the profile of the model on the end of the row. And then I remembered that I converted that model so there's no reason for it to be a familiar silhouette...!

Second unit first, because it's more photogenic. Notice the same Celtic knotwork as on the Chariot, and the (very basic, I know) heraldry featuring a moon on a green background. It's simple and it gets the job done and that is the point where we have got to. I'll be going back and adding it to other standards in the army.

Not a hugely original colour scheme. I took an olive green not used on the Elves and then graded it darker to brown-green on the backs and lighter with Zandri Dust on the fronts. Am I the only one who thinks the faces are a bit "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles"?

The magic spheres held by the leader of each unit (not technically wizards) are purple because of complementary colours - I'm trying to take this stuff on board a bit. 

A picture just to show how Zoats do not rank up! I used a staggered line, a slight rise in height, and also the rearing pose to make this happen. Sort of. You can probably guess that the minis and trays are labelled underneath because they only fit together in one combination.

The other unit. The standard completely messes up the look of it, but a second rearing standard bearer would have been boring, so I stand by it.

Zoats have to be led by a wizard, so here he is - a big purple extra-magical Zoat. He needs to lay off the purple orbs for a bit, maybe.

I should probably mention the conversions here. The rearing Zoats are made using the bottom halves of the "Zoat the Bibbisaur" star player model from Impact Miniatures. I bought a bunch of these and intended to use the top halves with metal bottom halves, too... but then I got bored of Zoats and passed them on.

Most of the Zoats are as-cast, just with the poses tweaked a little to allow even this level of ranking up. The wizard's club got reused to make a weapon for one of the standard bearers, in turn their weapon was used to top the wizard's staff (a previous owner had already removed the axe blades.) Finally, the standards are made from old plastic ones cut into new shapes to conceal their (evil?) origins.

Oh, if you ever fancy a laugh have a look at eBay and see how much people think Zoats are worth...

Okay, THAT IS IT for May. Back to painting.

Army List Additions:

Scores for May:       2604    points   22 models

1 x Autumn Hero - already accounted for                                                                          0 points

1 x Summer Hero (Level 15)      (Light Armour, Great Weapon, Longbow)             135 points        1 x Dryad Queen (Level 25 Wizard)                                                                                   418 points 

1 x Amarion (Level 25)                 (Heavy Armour, Great Weapon, Falconer)            215 points

1 x Spell Singer (Level 10 Wizard)                                                                                     118 points   

1 x Shapechanger (Giant Wolf)                                                                                           28 points

1 x Wain Lord Chariot                 (Shield, Longbow, Javelin)                                        144 points

1 x Autumn Prince (Level 20)                    (Heavy Armour, Shield, Longbow)           175 points 

1 x Battle Standard (Level 15 Wizard)     (Army Standard, Falconer)                         256 points                                             

Zoat Allies List:

1 x Zoat Leader (Level 15 Wizard)                                                                                       275 points

6 x Zoats                               (Standard, Great Weapon)                                                    420 points

6 x Zoats                               (Standard, Great Weapon)                                                    420 points         

               

Running Total:          6947  points  157  models

Note to self - with all these character additions, need to check the legality of the final army list!

Next Time:

The Wild Card. I'm sure I can still find something to post...