Death from Above! Paul's High Elves - Leader month (1023 pts)

It's leader month for my 90's High Maintenance Elves and if you set out to create a grand host of Caledor there really is only one thing that you can have leading your army. That's right. A big bastard dragon! Oh, and a flying sky pony :D

OK, we all know it's Prince Imrik, but I've painted him as a general of an army of Caledor and the rules of the OWAC (quite rightly imho) don't allow points costs for Special Characters in any case.

This sucker was in a very sorry state when I dug it out of the lead pile. It was a rescue lot of ebay some years back and the state it arrived in prompted me to put it in a box where it couldn't scare anyone. It was covered in putty which had to peeled and gouged away, and was stuck together with epoxy glue so strong that even after multiple dips in paint stripper some parts were still stuck together solidly enough to use in the final rebuild. 

As I cleaned it up more horrors were revealed. There seemed to have been some poor moulding and some very soft metal in some of the detail around the saddle back, and possibly some kind of soft metal coloured filler used to cover over it. Good job this thing was a bargain some years back and not a special purchase at current prices otherwise I would have been a bit peeved!

Anyway, suffice to say the blighter took a lot of cleaning up and the drilling and pinning really tested my modelling skills. I hate it only slightly less than the modern GW plastic Zombie Dragon that my son and I put together a few months back, and I really bloody hate that thing... 

Once the metal and putty work was done I was actually really keen to get stuck in and paint it, and for once I enjoyed it as much as I thought I would. I had already painted up the rider when doing my second batch of dragon princes, so I could just focus on the dragon and I'm really happy with how the colour scheme worked out, although I know I could have taken the highlights further, and done more work on the dragon's face. 

The basing elements keep the strict colour scheme and echo the Undead/Greenskin hordes which my High Elves regularly face, as well as a broken HE spear tip to give the sense of the lord and his beast being in the thick of the battle. I added a Eldar ruin element from a war walker sprue to a few scattered rocks as the campaign we play is set in the blasted ruins of the coast of Caledor.

Next up was a High Elf Hero on Pegasus. I've always loved this mini from GW publications and WD battle reports. It's a big chunky Marauder sculpt and I was looking forward to finally getting to paint it after treating myself to an early birthday present mid-challenge. I'm not sure I showed this prior to this month, so here are some WIP shots. It came to me pre-drilled and pinned, so all I had to do was replace some old putty.

In reality the mini gave me some problems and I'm not sure I'm totally happy with it, particularly the shield which I think is a touch too dark, although I did want to keep things darker to fit with the overall slightly darker feel to the army. As usual, lots of detail is covered by the shield so I took a few shots before attaching it.

Traditionally the high, sculpted saddle back is white, with blue details, but I have deliberately gone away from that look and gone for carved wood, adding some darker tones to what is a very light/white mini overall. However, that dark, chestnut brown is the same colour as the leathers on my Silver Helms, and I really wanted to tie this Hero in to that block of my army by using the same general colour scheme.

I think on this occasion it is more important to give the mini definition, and I have also decided that it won't be a terrible thing if the leathers match the Reavers more than the Silver Helms as it (and his blue fade pony mohican) will tie him in to more than one cavalry unit.

Also on the table this month is another refurbished unit of Spearmen. Some of these are among the sorriest, most thickly under/base coated minis in my collection (inherited from my now Brother-in-law and undercoated with his Dad's car primer I think) and I had to keep reminding myself that it was a refurb and not all the unit were going to be up to OWAC standards. 

I'm not counting those towards the points total however, just the 18 models that were brand new for this month; 12 for the new unit, with full command including a converted musician, and another 6 to add an extra rank to my existing unit of spearmen and bring both units up to 30 strong.

As if painting more than 30 of the same shield design wasn't annoying enough, I then stuck them over the nice dark green gems I'd just painted on the chests of this second 'red' regiment of spearmen. Not only did I feel this justified my decision with the first 'green' regiment of spearmen to paint the massive 'gem' in the chest as a metal boss, but it reminded me of a suspicion I've had for a while now...

Now far be it from me to cast aspersions on the elder race, but the sheer number and size of some of these 'gems' makes me suspicious, and if a High Elf offers to pay you in 'gems' I think you might want to take them to see Don the Jeweller. My theory is they use a flux-melt method (like Gilson synthetic gems) to take poor material and press it into big shiny 'gems' and flood the market for gullible humans, and undercutting the Dwarves. There's no way they are outfitting flippin' speardudes with legit giant emeralds. Not even High Maintenance Elves are that rich.

The standard bearer was another mini that had lost his sword, so to hide that and add some variation between the two units of spearmen I simply added a shield. The banner is a deliberate copy of the one from the first unit, but with the colour scheme reversed. With both units being core to the host of Caledor I envisage them sharing a regimental ethos, hence the runes again read 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."

Total for the month:

High Elf General (Heavy Armour, Lance) - 165 pts
Dragon - 450 pts
High Elf Hero (Heavy Armour, Lance, Shield) - 110 pts
Pegasus - 50 pts
18 Spearmen inc. Standard Bearer, Musician and Champion - 280 pts

Correction from March - minus 32 pts*

Total - 1023 pts

* I made a mistake. On closer inspection of the High Elf Army list, White Lions of Chrace get a standard bearer and musician at no extra cost, which means I need to deduct 32 points from my March total.

Technically that completes my third Old World Army Challenge with a month to spare, so I can finish on a wild card. The only thing left from my original list are the Lothern Sea Guard and a couple of minor characters, and while I'm still tempted to keep on blitzing my High Elves this year, the reality is that I still have enough for another entire OWAC and it would be a shame to try and rush too much. I'll have to see what inspires me the most in the next week or so and you'll just have to wait and see :p

Thanks for reading. Congratulations as ever to my fellow challengers for making it this far. The finishing post is just ahead!