Shadespyre Intro Post - OWAC VI - (Currently Untitled) Dark Elf Army

 OWAC VI - Intoduction

This year's army is going to be Dark Elves. 

I had a bit of a hunt through my miniatures collection and my options were pretty much all Elves - one of TWO High Elves projects, one of TWO Wood Elves projects (both of which require much more shopping, I think) and one of (you guessed it) TWO Space Elves projects... and these guys. Other than the Eldar army I had back around 1990, I've never painted an Elf army. And I love Elves! Wood Elves were going to be my next 8th Ed WHFB project... and then they killed the Old World and my enthusiasm with it. (Actually that means that one of the Wood Elves projects is too new for Oldhammer, doesn't it? Anyway, the point stands.)

Of the bunch, the Dark Elves felt less intimidating, somehow. Also I realised that I'd never painted an army in purple, and that just screams Dark Elves to me. As a bonus, as old minis go they are not too hard to collect, in fact I think I ended up with more than even I will ever use.

Obviously, I am limiting myself to proper, old miniatures. These are actually newer than the majority of the Gnolls which came before, but this time I'm being even harder on myself - every miniature will be a pre-slotta era Citadel miniature, with repairs and minimal conversions. There will be a few models (monsters, mainly) which aren't from the Dark Elf range, should we get that far. No sneaky inclusion of Grenadier or Ral Partha minis, no Reaper Dwarves with make-overs, this time!

The Dark Elf ranges themselves are quite compact, not too many choices to make. The "Fantasy Tribes" approach of creating many variations of each miniature was dropped with the new "C" ranges, sadly (though, probably, expediently.)

That timeless classic Regiment of Renown is our only source of standard bearers or musicians at this time, so I shall be leaning heavily on these and a handful of standard bearer conversions - you just can't ignore a broken spear, after all. Mengil will be providing the main melee infantry contingent of my army, too.

Here, then, is the core of my army:

The picture above shows most of the miniatures I'll be definitely painting - actually there's a second unit each of warriors and crossbowmen which are required to make the army "legal", but they are identical miniatures so you're not missing anything much. I'll save a long discussion about the MDF bases for one of the later blog entries, I think.

Are there more miniatures? Haha, OF COURSE there are! But in my accustomed style you will only be seeing those in later months, so we don't all get bored... those of you who are familiar with the range are free to speculate in the meantime. As usual, many of the old miniatures don't really fit the 3rd Edition army lists (being of 1st/2nd ed vintage) so let's see what happens with that, eh?

(Very) Provisional (Core) Army List

This is very much a stop-gap to assure myself that I can easily fulfil the points requirements:

10 x Helldrakes             (Lances, Standard, Musician)                                     516 points

10 x Doomdrakes         (Repeating Crossbows)                                                 430 points

20 x Warriors                (Standard, Musician)                                                    242 points

20 x Warriors                (Standard, Musician)                                                    242 points *     

20 x Witch Elves           (Add Hand Weapons, Poison)                                   280 points

10 x Crossbowmen       (Shield)                                                                            140 points

10 x Crossbowmen       (Shield)                                                                            140 points *

 * not pictured                                                                                   Total            1990 points

Plenty of points even without adding any of the characters. Those are undecided so far, but will include the 5 wizards pictured (including the mounted one) and a Hero in the Helldrakes, at the minimum. 

Errrm, I don't really have a theme for the army, yet. Perhaps something will develop as I go along? Similarly I await inspiration for heraldy and shield designs, perhaps the two will come together? Or perhaps Jaeckal will inspire me again... ;) 

I'm probably going to do wintery bases, I think it'll contrast nicely with the colour scheme, but I'm waiting for some materials to arrive so I can try it out.

Overlord Gift

For this year's Overlord Offering, I have gone back to the "paint it blue and pink" theme and painted up Gnorman The Gnoll (aka Gilbert The Goblin) in an alternative scheme. Have to say, every time I do this the day when I paint a whole unit or even army in these colours comes closer. They do just WORK, don't they?