Paul's Dark(ish) Elves - Rank and File Month 3 - Patriots and Traitors -337 pts

Morganspyr spat on the ground as his mount's hoof touched the shore of the bleak coast of Naggarythe for the first time. Was this really the price of their devotion to the cause? Disparaged honour forcing them to act in retaliation and then slink away to this miserable rain swept outpost of their mad kinfolk? 

He waved the rest of his men, cavalry and spear, onward to take up position on a rocky hill top above the shoreline. If their noble and enthusiastic bloodletting for Caledor had been valued in the war, afterwards it was seen as an inconvenient stain on it's reputation. Something not to be celebrated but hushed up. Erased. Deliberately forgotten... 

No wonder Blood Dragon, as leader of their house, had been compelled to take action in leading his men against a delegation from the newly proclaimed 'Phoenix King', bearing his very banner indeed. The slaughter had been bright and bloody, the prideful fools having no idea enemies were among them. Their banner fallen. Burning in mage fire. Taken by Blood Dragon as a totem of his devotion and their new loyalties... 

Morganspyr's expression soured as his memory of that last fight on Ulthuan faded and he looked around at the grey rocks and cracked bones that scattered the coastline and let his melancholy take him once more. What was the point of being worshippers of Khaine if everyone around here had already been killed?

I'm calling this unit The Tarnished Helms to signify the beginning of their transition from Silver Helms (albeit murder hobo-ing Khaine worshipping Silver Helms) to Dark Riders. I enjoyed using a vey restricted colour palette for the unit, although I accept that with such a dark feel overall I'm maybe not making the best of the details on the sculpts.... but that is in some ways deliberate to hide the fact they are a bit of a rough and ready repair job with replacement press-moulded tails, mismatched heads, uniforms, weapons... even one of the horses heads is different. I decided to embrace this mixed bag by making them a down on their luck unit of refugee war criminals who have been accused of crimes they definitely DID commit.

Dark Riders come with sword and light armour and can be equipped with spears, so if we downgrade the lances that fits pretty well with the models. They can also have repeating crossbows, but that doesn't fit with the models or the unit background, so I didn't add them despite still having plenty of milliput X-bows available. They don't have the option of shields in the army book but I really felt like the models needed them (especially as one of the most serious rescue jobs has a badly mangled hand, now hidden by his shield) and I really wanted to use the classic HE emblem shields on my two traitor units to show their heritage, and the sword through the heart symbol seemed to fit these Khaine worshipping cut throats. 

Dark Riders do get the Skirmish ability though, so I will happily forgo actually using the shields (and the point cost) to keep them in line with the DE army book, and also as a way to show how they have changed battle tactics as renegades, and how they will integrate into the wider Dark Elf forces. 

I added a reference to the grey rocks and bone strewn ground in the intro to link in to the basing elements I'm starting to introduce - lots of skulls and broken bones. The swamp grass is partly inspired by an earlier reference to how dank the high walled port town of Daggerpoint is, covered in moss. Also partly inspired by my Gardenhammer backdrop.

I named the champion Morganspyr because it sounds suitably pretentious for someone who wears a feathered helm so offensive it is basically his whole personality. I could never quite bring myself to use the figure in my High Elves (that high helm is too high maintenance even for the High Maintenance Elves themselves - try saying that three times fast) but it turned out that's because he was waiting for his starring role as a complete douche bag sidekick for the main BBE.

 

The Keepers of the Burnt Banner are a solid unit of not-so-High Elf spearmen, pledged to the Blood Dragon and the cult of Khaine, they have their own bloody reputation as the unit who turned on the royal emissaries when the Blood Dragon refused the summons and captured the phoenix king's banner amid the slaughter. 

I've given them Caledor themed shields to emphasise their heritage, but made them all dark and edgy with a grey to red fade. On reflection I regret making the gems on the helms green and not red, but I like the overall look of both units as being a dark inflection of the red and green colour scheme of my Caledor themed High Elves from the previous two OWACs.

I've used two (Marauder? I should check...) sculpts for the Champion and Musician that had a slightly more rugged look than some of the other high elf command, and certainly the later versions. Both have animal skins, the champion is definitely a spearman, but his pose, fancy armour and cloak remind me a little of the Phoenix Guard (or in my Host of Caledor the Dragon Guard - maybe he was part of the unit they deposed?), while the musician bears a bow and quiver on his side which I also thought spoke to the fact that these fallen-from-on-High Elves might not all have started in the same unit or region but have come together as renegades. 

The banner is my freehand take on the Banner of  the Phoenix King from the High Elf Army book. I use the foil from tomato paste tubes for big banners that I want to shape or distress, and it worked well in this instance. I wanted to give a sense of the banner having been badly burned before being captured as a trophy (emphasising it's phoenix like credentials) so after finishing what might be my best ever banner.... I slapped a load of congealed AP Soft Tone and (not congealed) Vallejo Smoke effect all over it.... I think it worked quite well, even if a little part of me died.

The banner top has a story to tell. It belongs to the White Lions of Chrace from my High Elf host, but was lost in the congealed murk at the bottom of the paint stripper jar. At the time the needs of the OWAC spurred me to craft an alternative banner for that unit which I was quite happy with. When it reappeared from the gloop at the end of last year along with a big load of Dark Elves it inspired the idea behind this unit's backstory and the banner they carry. 

Monthly Total:

The Tarnished Helms - 5 Dark Riders (w/ light armour, swords, spears) inc Champion - 157 pts

The Keepers of the Burnt Banner - 10 Spearmen (w/ spear, light armour and shield) inc full command -180 pts 

Total pts - 337 pts

Tom's Bony Bit

Month three was another skeleton unit, this time archers. It felt good to finish multiple coats of browns and reds, metals, and the banner of this fiddly unit. I started off with the usual chestnut brown into a dry brush of coffee. Then I worked with a red triad to get a fade effect before applying skeleton horde and red tone to bring this unit together.

I included a Beastman skull to infer the different types of armies I have defeated. I loved using the new Retributor Gold we bought at our new FLGS during half term last month. I like the beautiful effect it had on the helmets and banner top.    

Finally, I used light grey to pick out details on the banner and the High Elf bows and quivers carried by the unit command, to keep to my overall army colour palette.

Monthly Total:

10 Skeleton Archers inc. Standard and Musician - 120 pts

Total points: 120 pts

To sign off here are four different banners from my different skeleton units, to show how they all tie into the overall army scheme. Next month is my last rank and file then I'm onto some fun things! Good luck for next month, many thanks for reading, Tombo!

Paul M's High Elf Host - "The Star and Garter" - Rank and File Month One

Yessss! There's nothing like the start of OWAC season to get the hobby juices flowing. I've absolutely loved seeing all the progress posts and camaraderie in the group this month and I'll start my post by saying thank you and congratulations to one and all, challengers and Mighty Overlords included, for getting OWAC VI off to such a good start.

I always like to start with a rank and file month as I like to get some bulk painting in the army colour scheme done before moving on to things like leaders and wildcards. 

This year I have started with a unit of Silver Helm cavalry, remembering that last year I didn't seem to hate painting all those horses as much as I heard people complain about... hmmm...

These are my second unit of Silver Helms for my High Elf host and in theory form the bulk of Ulthuan's cavalry forces. As such I don't treat them as a particularly high status unit like Dragon Princes, nor a specialist unit like Ellyrian Reavers, and their livery is a fairly basic white and blue combo over simple silver plate, with the thematic green 'dragon scale' on the mail in honour of this being a host of King Caledor.

The unit was assembled from what remained after a pre-OWAC version of myself took the easy option from a hoard of accumulated second hand mismatched and damaged HE cavalry and selected the most intact*/easiest to repair cavalry for my first unit. This meant lots of dodgy gaps around the necks (which to my shame I left unfilled as I had really begun to fall out of love with these sculpts... an early sign of the onset of cavalry fatigue?) and of course missing tails. More press moulding was the answer here of course, but after a number of experiments I found press moulds the plastic horse tails from the original model (with the wrapping at the base) are very tricky to attach reliably and prone to getting knocked off easily, so I have actually gone for tails from Goblin Wolf riders from the same era as the profile gives a better fit/stick, and so the scale is still suitably OTT.

* Intact didn't always mean correctly matched torsos to legs, so both units remain slightly mismatched even after some adjustments between units, but I have come to see that as a feature of how the army book describes Silver Helms as recruited from the young nobility of High Elf society. Yes, there is a broad uniform and standard of equipment within and across units, but Elves lives are long and military equipment is likely made bespoke and at different times so uniformity doesn't seem as important in this type of unit.

I also had a go at press moulding an arm to replace one that was completely missing, always with the idea of making this a standard bearer. I had real trouble getting a decent mould of the arm I wanted to use and this is the best of a very bad bunch. Slightly misaligned cocktail stick banner pole for 1990s authenticity.... also another sign I was losing the love for them. At least I remembered right at the last minute that I had some plastic HE emblems, including the long pointed star to match the shield design for the unit that I was going to stick on top to make it look less like a cocktail stick.... then I took it off again and stuck it on the right way round....

The banner is a simple pennant cut from the foil of a wine bottle top, with the runes Sethai, meaning: "flight, wind, cry in the far mountains" and Elthrai, meaning: "Doom, inexorable fate, hope" used in combination here to infer that a swift death awaits the enemies of the Silver Helms. 

This combination echoes the runes on the banner I added last year to the first unit, Sethai meaning 'Flight, wind, cry in the far mountains' and Harathoi meaning 'Youth, boundless energy, jealousy' used together to represent the speed and potency of the young elven nobles that make up the Silver Helm cavalry. This repeated use of the first rune is also deliberate to try and give a sense of shared military ethos and identity across the regiments of Silver Helms.

I also realised that the unit champions would be far better swapped around so that the one with the horse shaped crest on his helm leads the 'horse' unit and the bare headed Middlehammer era champion leads the 'star' unit. So.... this month I painted a champion, a horse, and a shield from scratch which you can see here over these two miniatures. I swapped the shields for obvious reason but I had to swap the mounts too so the basing would be consistent within the two units.

So there we have it. A unit of eight Silver Helms, and an example of a very successful officer exchange programme. I'm definitely done painting horses for a while though!

Total for the month:

8 Silver Helms inc. Champion, Standard bearer, and musician -  353 pts

Total: 353 pts /16* figures

* mounted troops count double according to OWAC rules, and rather than points value this year's SPECIAL EDITION is more focussed on the minimum 10 figures per month.
NB: for my own self imposed rule about needing to paint one extra figure per 5 pre-painted bases I use, it is important to note that all 8 bases were done from scratch this month. I might need that cushion later!

Now, that might sound like a negative, moaning post about how much I hate the models I've just painted.... Nope. It's an OWAC victory is what it is! There is NO WAY I would have bothered to go back and try and resurrect a second unit without the OWAC giving me the proper motivation. They are FAR from perfect but they are ready for the battlefield and now I have two units of far from perfect Silver Helms rather than just one, and a total of 42 painted High Elf cavalry across 3 divisions of light (15 Ellyrian Reavers), medium (18 Silver Helms), and heavy cavalry (9 Dragon Princes). Fourteen year old me is not going to believe this when I tell him :)

...

"Wot!? All that and still no blummin' archers?"

Alright, alright. Keep you shirt on (until the end of the challenge where you can bare your chest like a real man behind a fully painted army of toy soldiers!). Here...

I finally got round to finishing my first refurbished archer unit - 22 Archers of Caledor. These don't count towards the OWAC but it does feel good to have them done as this unit includes some of my very first high elf models from the original WFB4 boxed set I got for my birthday back in 1992... and it is at least their third coat of paint so don't look too closely for any detail because there isn't any!

Despite all the battles they have fought in they have never had proper leadership until now. I've tried to mix up my available command figures across the multiple units, so I've co-opted a spare Bolt Thrower crew member to act as unit champion (I quite like the idea and look of Archer/Bolt thrower officers having the same 'uniform' in the Caledor lines).

I was short one whole musician, and had a broken archer with no bow, so I tried my hand at some more ambitious press moulding with some of my least impressive results to date. After 5 failed attempts I took the least worst and made it work. Sort of.... There is also a single very old, and very bad (possibly one of my first EVER attempts at press moulding from many years ago), replacement bow top in amongst the crowd.

The standard bearer had a broken sword which kept him out of use, but I finally found the blade that was broken (not even sorry) and fixed it. The runes are Minaith meaning: "Skill in arms, spirituality, the Lost Way" and Senlui meaning: "Swiftness, accuracy" which seems like an apt combination for archers. In WFB5 both High Elf archers and spearmen have the "Citizen Levy" attribute which lets them shoot/fight with one extra rank. I have already used the Minaith rune on the banners of both my Spearmen units to signify this martial philosophy of High Elven citizenry, so I have deliberately used it again for the archers to show that connection in how the units are formed and then function as the back bone of any High Elf army.

Right. I'll shut up. Thanks for reading and I hope to see you again next month :)

Paul's High Elves - Reinforcements have arrived! Rank & File Month 4 (510 pts)

Reinforcements have arrived!

April has been a very busy, but very productive month for me both in terms of the OWAC and Real Life - Boo! On the plus side it is also my birthday month and this gave me full license to indulge in the fine OWAC traditions of 'changing plans mid challenge' and 'buying lots more minis' :p

I'm pleased to say I was able to more than meet my needs from the trading groups rather than resorting to the dreaded evil-bay. My thanks to Lee G, Marc P, Carl H, Ben P, and Gavin M all of whom were a pleasure to deal with and helped me fill in the gaps in my changed OWAC plans at short notice, as well as picking up some Goblin wolf riders for my eldest, and a near mint copy of the 5th Edition Magic supplement - so we even got to play an actual game with my OWAC minis this month! :D

A solid Elven back line is supported by two wings designed to press forward and fall back

The plans was working perfectly, the Lion Warriors moving in for the kill, until...

A bloody great Zombie Dragon and Vampire Lord turned up to ruin everyone's day!

Sadly, shortly after this picture was taken the High Elf Mage had his head ripped off by the Vampire Lord and the game ended in victory for the Forces of Evil.

Right, enough of that embarrassing loss! Let's get to this month's painting.  First up were a handful of reinforcements for my Shadow Warriors, with four more to bring me up to a unit of 12 overall, and another four Swordmasters for a unit of 20 in total.

Apologies, I've just noticed the one at the front is out of focus, but it's too late now!

As a prestige unit my Dragon Princes clearly needed a full command group, not least because it is another chance to do a banner, but also because the DP special rules in WFB 4th /5th Edition mean that they get their standard bearer for free (rather than having to pay double, as you would normally). 

My green stuff skills are a bit lacking, but I was fairly happy with this in the end.

The same rule does not apply to the musician however, and at 86 points I'm not sure many HE players actually bother(ed) to take one for their Dragon Princes in 4/5 edition. That may be why they didn't get a musician model until the much later release of newer Dragon Prince sculpts. I managed to get my hands on one of the horn arms from the newer DP sculpts and do some very ropey metal and putty work to convert an older DP trooper into a musician.

R to L Standard Bearer, Champion, Musician, Trooper

My family are by now well trained in spotting useful bits of junk on the ground to bring home to see if they can be used in junk builds and scenery projects. This time my wife played a blinder by bringing home a scrap of old rubber from a netball, as she thought the dimples made it feel like lizard skin. She was not wrong and it makes an excellent dragon hide banner!

The elven rune is named Caladai 'the symbol of the line of kings, the dragons of flame', which seemed perfect for the haughty Dragon Princes of Caledor. I'm afraid the weather was turning so I didn't get a chance to take a picture with the rest of the unit, but there are 9 of them in total now and I've just managed to acquire the bits to make another horse, so a 10th might be on the cards in the future.

I also added another five Reaver Knights in the same blue and golden yellow colour scheme as those I painted in February. Back then the blue and yellow colour scheme just happened to match the flag of Ukraine. This time it's deliberate and I hope the emblem of the phoenix on their shields is prophetic. It's always an important and sobering moment for a fan of 'war games' of any description to be reminded of the realities of war. My experience however is that most wargamers are actually keen students of history and well aware of the evil and misery of war, and it has been heartening to see the response from the community as we come together to hope for peace. 

I had started to hate painting these, but love how they look as a big group. I've got another 5 waiting, inc. command, but I'm in no rush to paint them quite yet!

Total for the month:

4 Shadow Warriors (12 pts each) - 48pts
4 Sword Masters (16 pts each) - 64pts
5 Reaver Knights (w/ spears, bows, and shields - 33 pts each) - 165pts
4 Dragon Princes (43 pts each) (inc. Champion*, Standard**, and Musician**) - 233 pts

* DP Champion = 61 pts
** DPs have a special rule that means the unit gets the standard bearer for the same price as a standard trooper, however the musician costs double as per normal.

Total: 510 pts

I also managed to rebase an existing unit of Silver Helms, and replace their mostly blank shields with a matching set with horse head design from the WFB4 box set, although looking at them in the photos I think they could 'pop' a bit more so I might look at those again at some point.

They had also been badly missing a banner, so I've added a simple pennant with the elven runes Sethai meaning 'Flight, wind, cry in the far mountains' and Harathoi meaning 'Youth, boundless energy, jealousy' used together here to represent the speed and potency of the young elven nobles that make up the Silver Helm cavalry.

May will hopefully be leader month, although I might yet swap things around and play a wild card before finishing with my leader. We shall have to see how the dreaded 'Real Life' behaves ;)

Thanks for reading and bon courage to all my fellow challengers. The end is in sight! :D