Grant's Wood Elf Host - Month 3 *Leader Month* (993 pts)

 This month was an unexpected triumph on the painting front. My partner contracted Covid early in the month, and despite our best efforts, I managed to get it too. In suitably annoying fashion, first testing positive on the first day she returned a negative lateral flow. I was dangerously close to thinking that I was immune. I would not survive a zombie movie.

I didn’t have a particularly nice time of it, and ended up taking a week off work as a result. Basically all I could manage to do, other than laying in bed watching prestige dramas, was a bit of painting. I’d paint a couple of colours, go lie down for an hour, paint a couple of colours, go lie down for an hour, and repeat that throughout the day. Definitely not recommended, but I did manage to get a lot done on the painting front.

I’d mentioned in previous blog entries that I was planning on adding some stretch goals to my project, and I’d initially planned on making a start on them in this month. Covid meant that I didn’t feel up to doing any modelling prep, bases etc, so I’ve moved up my Leader month, since I already had them good to go. Totally champagne problems.

I’ve managed to do a lot this month, completing my 40 archers, finishing the unit of Spear wielding kinband, the cavalry, and the Beastmaster and his Boar buddies. From the initial 2000pt list that I submitted at the end of 2021, I only have the Treeman left to paint. We’re nearly twice as far through the project as was expected, which is a lovely place to be!

Let’s take a look at this month’s offerings-

8 Archers (Brown Hair mk2) – 88pts

5 Warrior Kinband, Spears - 50pts - 3 in the month's brown, and 2 additions, to round out the regiment of 20 to have 4 of each of the 5 hair colours in the army.



1 Boar – 6pts

1 Wood Rider, Longbow – 26pts (will probably upgrade this chap to be a Hero)



1 Glade Watcher (Level 5 Hero) – Great Weapon 50pts

1 Standard Bearer and Musician, Spears – 40pts - 1 of each of the hair colours I hadn't added to the Spears above.



1 Wood Lord (Level 15 Hero) 128pts – Additional Hand Weapon +1pts, Longbow +3pts, Eagle +75pts, Hail of Doom +25pts – 232pts - Obviously inspired/plagiarised from the definitive Eagle rider conversion from Mike McVey.

                                                                               

1 Sylvan Chieftain (Level 20 Hero) 168pts – Baneblade +5pts, Hail of Doom +25pts – 198pts - Using Elric, the White Wolf from the Eternal Champion range here. Think it fits in quite well with the Wood Elf aesthetic.

                                                        

1 Sylphseer ( Level 15 Wizard) – 203pts - I used Kaia Stormwitch for this. 'Officially', she was the standard bearer from Skarloc's Archers, and I'd planned to use her in the Spears unit in a similar role. I hated the newer Wizard mini, so she's been upgraded. I'm happy with this, even if her staff is maybe a *little* too big for a wizard rather than a banner pole.

                                                        

1 Wight – 100 pts - I used the Vidyagg, Life Elemental model for this. It's a beautiful old Nick Bibby miniature, and I'd definitely recommend it.

                     

For a monthly total of 993pts for the month! Adding to the previous month’s totals, the project now stands at a total of 1724pts!

I’ve made a start on the expansion to the Army. My plan for the next couple of months is to do more infantry – Another 20 strong kinband with basic handweapons, and to add some Wardancers as well. Wardancers are the definitive non-Archer Wood Elf troop to me. When I think Wood Elves, I think about Archers and Wardancers. It’d be remiss to not include these, so we’ll do them over the next few months. I’m then planning on closing out with my Wild card month, where I’ll paint the Treeman from the original project plan, and add an Elven Attack Chariot and another Eagle rider. If I can find enough, I’d like to track down some Marauder Archers to add some more of the Elite Archer types. This should be more than enough to get us up to 3000pts.

In the meantime, this is what we're looking at for the units of the project.

See you all next month for some more rank and file.

Spears - Lots and lots of spears

Beastmaster and pals

Wood Riders

Archers