goblinpaladin's Wood Elves II - a February Rank & File update (237 points)

The chill winds of winter are past, and the season of war is here.
   - Orion, King in the Woods, Warhammer Total War

gleaming swords and verdant tunics

February is past us - well, in a manner of speaking. I pushed hard and managed to finish the month slightly early! Unbelievable, considering how I fell into darkness last year. Doubly so, when you consider that I basically had to come up with a colour scheme for each of these quite varied sculpts.

RANK ⁊ FILE
17-strong Warrior Kinband with shields, light armour, standard, musician (209 points)
1 Shapechanger (28 points)

 

barbarians

Again, we have sculpts here from three different ranges - classic Goodwin elves from Citadel's heydey, Grenadier/Mirliton wood elves, Chris Fitzpatrick sculpts (these days sold at Ral Partha), and some of that same '90s range that North Star was selling until recently.

rear rank

The rear rank has a North Star spear-and-knife elf and a couple Fitzpatrick elves. Only the chap on the far right has his actual shield - I wanted the regiment to feel like the elves were bringing their own gear, so I used a range of shields. They also come with metal bases which I at first thought was weird but it actually makes the miniatures balance better.

third rank

More Fitzpatrick elves, this time with some Grenadier sculpts. You can see that the Grenadiers are bulkier, with the chunkier heads and hands of the early '90s. Or it could be that Fitzpatrick just sculpts smaller; you also see this in his dark elf range for Citadel in the late '90s.

second rank

A proper mix here! I'm pleased with the lilac shield on the middle fellow. The chap at the end has a grey shield, but you can't see it well on this angle.

front rank

The command models are Grenadier, but the shapechanger on the left is one of my favourite Citadel Goodwin sculpts. He has a brother in my wardancers from OWAC II.

Here are some (marginally) better photos of the shapechanger and the unit leader; fitting everyone in those ranks made for some slightly awkward angles.

shapechanger

I was initially a bit disappointed at his brown wolf cloak, but I think it looks more grounded than the usual generic grey, especially with Jos'Mel leading the unit in greys and whites.

i still don't do eyes

The unit leader got a slightly fancier shield pattern than 'single colour and a bronze boss' like his men. He also has a cool cloak of leaves. Really fun to paint and I recommend the sculpt! Just cover his annoying integral base in mud and grass.

former wardancer and Jos'Mel

You may have noticed some gaps in the regiment. These are for a wardancer (from OWAC II) which I demoted to fill in the regiment, and a hero to lead them (also painted in OWAC II). I've added shields to them both, so they get included! Jos'Mel's comes from a supposedly historical Viking set from Warlord Games, but I seriously doubt the historicity of that design. The runic pattern works in this context great though!

eagle-side view

Here's everyone all together.

okay the angle is wonky but it's still cool right

This regiment was a blast to put together and to paint. I wasn't planning on doing a regiment of swords elves, but a friend picked up the Fitzpatrick sculpts at a CanCon a few years back and, well, we can't have things go to waste, can we? Glad I finally fleshed it out and got to paint it for OWAC!

Interior illustration for "Battleplan!", White Dwarf 41, p11.
Artist Gary Chalk. © Games Workshop, 1989

Coming up next: the hounds (⁊ bears ⁊ cats) of war!