Grant's Wood Elf Host - Month 1 *Rank and File* (418 pts)

Welcome to my first blog post proper on the Old World Army Challenge! I don’t really count last month’s, because it was all unpainted lead, and as we all know, they don’t count until they’ve got paint on them! That said, I really enjoyed writing the post – as I’m sure many of us can attest to, it’s very rare for me to write things that aren’t either informal text conversations with my pals, or massively formal work documents, so it was really nice to do something in the middle.

I’ve had a very productive January on the Wood Elf front. So productive in fact that I’ve doubled my scheduled output! Will I be able to maintain this pace? Absolutely not, but it’s put me in a position now where I can actually have a proper wild-card month, and I’ll be able to do some stretch goals. What those will be, I can’t really say. I’ve a few ideas, but it’s lovely to be able to think about them.

As I’d mentioned in my previous post, my plan was to pick a hair colour each month, and use that to add variety to the project, having abandoned my initial plan of mixing everyone up, so they weren’t in any uniform per se, just similar colours, ala Mariano’s gorgeous army from last year’s challenge (and this year’s too, but on horses).

I played about with a couple of colour schemes, and considered theming the army to a season, before settling on the scheme you see arrayed before you. I drew inspiration for the army from Kari Hernesniemi’s gorgeous Elves that I saw in the Oldhammer Community Facebook group, in particular the stripy trousers that he’d added to his Elves. While I’m a fraction of the painter that he is, I’m hopeful I’ve done the idea justice.

Without further ado, let’s move into this month’s output. My initial plan was to paint the gingers this month. I have a recipe for a nice, rich, red hair that works for me, and orange and green work very well together. Thought it’d make a nice start to the host.     

Thanks to my very generous, European holiday allowance, I started 2022 off with a week’s annual leave. I used this to get all the gingers painted by the time I went back to work on the 10^th. It would have been easy to rest there, and paint something else as a palate (and palette) cleanser, but I decided to push on and do the raven haired contingent as well.

So, from the top, this month, we have painted.

1 Spellsinger (level 10 wizard) 118pts

            

8 Archers – 88pts (Ginger)

                                    

            



8 Archers – 88pts (Raven)

                                    

            

6 Warrior Kinband, Spears – 60pts

                                    

                                    

                                    



2 Boars – 12pts

2 Wood Riders, Longbows – 52pts

For a month 1 running total of 418pts!

As you'll see from the photos below, it's even starting to look like a proper army! 

One area that I'm particularly proud of is the bases. I tried a bunch of new products to create what (I think) looks like a reasonable forest floor. In considering the scheme for the army, I'd toyed with the idea of doing something slightly different, and theming them from a swamp or a bayou or hailing from another, slightly different eco-system. One of the best Wood Elf armies I've ever seen was based around Elves in a swamp. I decided in the end to keep it traditional, and base them as if they were in Athel Loren itself, and I think this basing style has accomplished that quite well. As much as I love the Oldhammer aesthetic, square bases are outside my comfort zone. I certainly wasn't going to paint the rims Goblin Green.

My plan for next month is to try and replicate this if possible, but to be content if I only manage my initial planned output. Rank and File again, and save the more unusual, fantastical stuff for later in the project, as a treat. It's definitely not that I've no idea how to paint the Treeman to make him look like part of the force yet at all...

One thing that really struck me is how great these Silvan Elf spears from the classic Lord of the Rings range are. Really struggled to find high quality reference pictures of painted versions to work with, but the minis looked so lovely I was sure they'd be great. They surpassed my high expectations. They fit in really well with the Skarloc's archers, and the paint flew on them. I wish their feet were slightly better placed - they hang over the edge of the 20mm square base just enough for me to catch them almost every time I turned the model around. Small grumble though - they're great!

Still delighted to be taking part. Really jealous looking at some of the lead piles shown last month. Looking forward to seeing them all getting paint added to them, and watching a bunch of armies muster from nothing.