Grant's Wood Elf Host - Wrap Up (4279 pts)

So marks the end of my first Old World Army Challenge!

This project was one that I really got a lot out of. I really enjoyed growing the army, and found the scheme enjoyable to paint. I think my method of mixing up hair colours through each month of the project meant that I wasn’t ever getting massively burned out on any one particular troop type. Definitely appreciated when past me had painted all the troops needed when we hit those rougher months in April and May, and I had time to do different things.

I’d rather not do posts of the individual units – they’ve already all been photographed. If you’d like to see them, you can do so in the archive. This is July, and July is about the army as a whole. Without further ado, my best Bryan Ansell pose (and my army).

I learned a lot throughout this project. Mainly to do with working in volume. My output towards the end was a lot faster than at the start. Largely because all the paints had already been pulled out of the rack, and were sitting to hand!

I massively underprepared. I expected to get about half of this done. This was good, as it meant I had a lot more time left at the end of the month to start the following month’s efforts. It was bad, because it meant I had to buy more Wood Elves and spend time preparing them to paint. Overall, it’s a good thing though, because now I’ve got a much bigger army.

So what have I ended the challenge with? Here’s the list.

Characters:

1 Sylvan Chieftain (Level 20 Hero) 168pts – Baneblade +5pts, Hail of Doom +25pts – 198pts

1 Greenfey (level 20 Wizard) – Riding Unicorn (80pts) – 383pts

1 Sylphseer ( Level 15 Wizard) – 203pts

1 Spellsinger (level 10 wizard) 118pts

1 Wood Lord (Level 15 Hero) 128pts – Additional Hand Weapon +1pts, Longbow +3pts, Eagle +75pts, Hail of Doom +25pts – 232pts

1 Wood Lord – Hail of Doom Arrow + Great Weapon – 155pts

1 Guardian – Hail of Doom Arrow + Great Weapon – 115pts

1 Guardian – Hail of Doom Arrow + Great Weapon – 115pts

1 Guardian (Level 10 Hero) – Great Weapon (2pts), Javelin (1pt (to represent his Eagle)) – 91pts

Troops:

10 Archers – 110pts

10 Archers – 110pts

10 Archers – 110pts

10 Archers – 110pts

10 Wardancers – 200pts

10 Wardancers – 200pts

19 Warrior Kinband - Spears 1pt Musician and Standard Bearer 18pts - 208pts

19 Warrior Kinband – Light Armour, Standard & Musician – 231pts

5 Wood Riders – Longbows 6pts – 130pts

5 Elven Lords – Barding (40pts) – 195pts

1 Beastmaster – 13 pts – leading 4 Boars 6pts – 37pts

1 Wain Lord – Scythed Wheels (20pts), Falconer (6pts), Shield (8pts), Long Bow (6pts) – 168pts

Monsters:

1 Treeman – 280pts

1 Treeman – 280pts

1 Wight – 100pts

1 Forest Giant – 200pts

Total 4279pts!

If we ran only a single Treeman, we’d be looking at putting everything in the army on the table for a whopping 4000 point game. Think that’s my most immediate goal with the army – actually get it on the battlefield for a game. Unfortunately, getting Covid kind of knocked that on the head this time around, but it’s definitely on the cards.

What next for the army? Well, more Archers would be the most likely place for it. 40 isn’t really that much, and it’d be nice to have some variants for the more exciting types of Archery available to Wood Elves. As nice as Skarloc’s Archers are, there’s only so many of them you can paint! Other than that, another Eagle Rider would be great, though I’d like to do one of my own design rather than just ‘borrowing’ Mike McVey’s classic. It was deliberate to paint as many ‘out of the box’ minis in this challenge. Aside from the Eagle Rider, everything is exactly as you could buy out of a blister pack. I must confess to watching Mariano’s gorgeous army full of conversions with a twinge of jealousy!

I also need to finally get the movement trays sorted – they need based. Other than that though, I can’t see much else. It’s a well rounded army, with a little bit of everything available. I just need to find a way to get them onto a table soon!

I've loved taking part in the challenge. It's been great having something motivating me to get painting in the evenings, and the lovely comments from other participants have really been hugely encouraging to read. I hope to be back next year, though doing what, I cannot say. I have the start of several potential projects, but I'd need to flesh out everything. Hopefully I can work something out, and see you again in a few months.