Paul's High Elf Heavy Infantry - Rank and File Month Three (437 pts)

March is over and we are half way to the end of the challenge already! Congratulations if you made it this far!

March has got to be heavy infantry month!

The White Lions trace their history back to the time of Caledor the First. Caledor was hunting in Chrace when he received the news he was to be the next Phoenix King. He immediately took the road to the Shrine of Asuryan. On route he was intercepted by Dark Elf assassins who had doubtlessly learned of the new Phoenix King's identity from their spies at court. Caledor would surely have died were it not for the intervention of a party of Chracian hunters who swept out of the forest, throwing the Dark Elves into disarray with the suddenness of the attack, before chopping the assassins into pieces with their great axes. The Chracians proceeded to escort the Phoenix King to the Shrine, easily avoiding further Dark Elves by means of their skilled woodcraft. Caledor adopted the Chracians as his bodyguard, and formed them into a proper regiment based in Lothern.
Warhammer Armies: High Elves 

My plan for March was always to add some more elite foot troops and I had a small unit of 10 4th/5th edition Lion Warriors, making sure to include all the extra beefy Marauder sculpts I had along with the slightly newer command figures, but once I took the plunge and started aiming to paint/re-paint my whole HE army this year (though not necessarily by the end of the OWAC, I hastily add!) it made more sense to throw the rest of the more modern sculpts in to the mix and make a much bigger unit of 23. Once I add in a general (or a mage) and the planned BSB it will be a big 5x5 block. 

Work in progress

I've put them on 25mm square bases which is obviously heresy. I know these should be on 20mm square bases, but the big Marauder sculpts just don't fit and they certainly don't rank up well that way, plus they feel more imposing as elites that way, and it's easy enough to remember how many models should be in combat when it becomes a question.

I can't remember if the banner top for the lion warriors was missing when I bought them, or if I've lost it since, but two thorough searches didn't turn it up, and to be honest I don't really like the original in any case, so I was happy enough to cobble a crosspiece together from a couple of tooth picks. As we all know, in the land of OWAC 2022 is the Year of the Banner, and using a crosspiece rather than the topper allowed me a slightly bigger vertical banner rather than a thinner horizontal one. 

I've kept the colour scheme austere but autumnal, wanting to emphasise the more sober, yet also more wild and ferocious character that I get from the White Lions of Chrace. The basing of orange flowery tufts and fallen leaves also reflects the woodland, autumnal aspect I was going for, and was another reason I opted for the bigger bases.

The rune on the Lion Warriors banner is named Charoi meaning "Strength, ferocity, mane of hair" which seems spot on for the Warriors of Chrace. Very high elven to associate a fine mane of hair with strength and ferocity ;p I added a few little diamond shapes just to expand the design slightly, but it still looked too empty so I added a freehand border on a whim and it doesn't look terrible so I kept it. 

Total for the month:

23 Lion Warriors (inc standard bearer, musician, and champion) - 437 pts

This month also saw a long awaited revamp of my original unit of High Elf Spearmen, first painted in 1994, and boy howdy were they a fright! Especially once I ripped the shields off.

High Elf Spearman Clarence

Fourteen year old me had never even heard of painting non-metallic metals and nearly 30 years later I'm still not going down that road, so I stuck with my original choice of Citadel Metallic Glistening Green, although this time I added some much needed shading with a modern Dark Angels Green 'layer' paint which I normally find annoyingly translucent but in this case was just the job.    

A WIP Christmas tree elf - annoyingly still without shading in this photo

The green and red colour scheme is that of Caledor, the home region for my Elven Host, and the metallic green chain mail seen across the army is intended to both echo dragon scales, and as an homage to the Pheonix King being from Caledor. The theme is continued with the dragon emblem on the shields, which I have been slowly but surely press moulding for a few years now, one or two at a time, every time I use some putty I make a bit extra and cast a couple of shields, in anticipation of this project. Trouble is now I have to paint the buggers! 

The production line... :(

As well as shading, the other thing this lot had been missing all these years was a banner! The runes  are named Minaith meaning "Skill in arms, spirituality, the Lost Way" and Senthoy meaning "Unity, Loyalty, broken promise" used together here to mean something like "Skill in arms through unity" which seems very apt for a unit of Spearmen. 

I added some red swirls spreading down from the top but left the bottom third clear as I didn't want the red to swamp the green. Fourteen year old me is very happy with the unit finally being complete... except now I want to add another rank of six to make it a unit of 30.

And finally, here's a shot of everything painted for the challenge so far, with the revamped units at the back.

I've got a few irons in the fire for April, so I'm going to keep my options open, but it feels good to be over the half way point in the challenge even if there is still loads to do! :)