Paul's Wood Elves of Averlorn: Rank and File #3 - The dance of war! (365 pts)

Having blitzed my big archer units in the first two months I felt like moving on to the more dynamic Wardancers would be a bit of a reward, but for whatever reason I floundered a bit and needed two cracks at this month.

I'll start with one I enjoyed painting, the champion or leader sculpt (I'm counting them as standard Wardancers for points count though), which I ended up painting in a colour scheme which is a deliberate nod to the Howling Griffons Space Marine Chapter. Absolutely no Elvish reasons for this, but purely I've seen some nice examples on hobby pages in recent months and just fancied replicating that here and taking the chance to paint (slightly) less green and brown this month, something which I hoped to fully embrace with my other Wardancers, although it didn't quite turn out that way!

The rainbow colour scheme is easy to identify but I have to be honest I think the idea was better than the execution here I've been trying to get more proficient at showing depth, and picking out detail while only using tones and shades of one colour, or very closely matched set of colours. That could have worked better here (I would have liked more noticeable difference between the Indigo and Violet Wardancers), but the lack of variation in tone actually started to make me want to rush to finish and move on to something else, and by the end of the first batch of eight I had grown pretty fed up of painting these sculpts. 

The inclusion of the sky blue cloth allowed some contrast in places, and seemed to both work in terms of a complimentary colour for the rainbow scheme, and ties them in to one of the spot colours being used elsewhere in the army.

That same sky blue carries over into the second set of War Dancers. I painted these after taking a short break after finishing the first set and enjoyed them slightly more working to the winter colour scheme, which felt appropriate after we had a very cold snap and even some surprise snow here in very early March. This again ties in with the Chrace High Elf/Wood Elf sub-army that is taking shape and I decided to play up to that while also having some variation across the unit which still felt essential for the individual fighting style of the War Dancers. 

Here are a few shots of my Chrace themed High Elves from previous OWACs alongside their new wintery Wood Elf kin:

And finally for this month, the Wardancer Champion is actually a Warhammer Quest sculpt and I wanted to paint him in a way that might suggest he's spent some time adventuring, and maybe even in human cities. For a while I thought about painting him like an Elven version of Rufio from Hook, but while I think that could look good for the sculpt it really wouldn't fit my army scheme. 

While references, both visually wonderful and humorous, to David Bowie Elves abound in the more Oldhammer Wood Elf ranges/armies, I've never felt these Middlehammer era sculpts have quite the same Bowie-esque vibe, so in this case I've gone with an emerging Dexy's Midnight Runners colour scheme (albeit with denim and leather reversed from the picture below) but also tying back to the Winter/Chrace Wood Elves theme. 

I'm glad to say by this point my enjoyment of painting had returned but I was definitely looking forward to something other than Wardancers next month, although possibly continuing with the "Dexy's" colour scheme.

Total for the Month:

15 Wardancers (20 pts each) - 300 pts
1 Wardancer Champion - 65 pts

Total: 365 pts

Total for the half way point:

32 Wood Elf Archers (Hand weapons, Longbows) 11 pts each - 352 pts
Wood Elf Archer Standard Bearer and Musician 22 pts each - 44 pts
Wood Elf Archer Champion (Hand weapon, Longbow) - 51 pts
Wood Elf Mage (Hand weapon) - 59 pts

21 Wood Elf Archers (Longbow, Hand weapon) -  231 pts
Wood Elf Archer Musician and Standard Bearer - 44 pts
Wood Elf Champion (Longbow, Hand weapon) - 51 pts

15 Wardancers (20 pts each) - 300 pts
1 Wardancer Champion - 65 pts

Total: 1197 pts (74 models)

Tom's Bony Bit:

I am really proud with my my work this month. Although  it was a big challenge I have learnt a lot since the start of the OWAC and my painting technique has improved. I used techniques from the skeletons and the wraiths on the cavalry, and tried free hand for the first time with one of the shields!

The colour scheme is really taking shape across my army and I have decided to make them an army of The Red Wizards of Thay from Dungeons and Dragons when they are not on Warhammer duty.

I used purple on the leaders sword to show it is a magic weapon and to tie in to the magic spot colour of my army.

Total for the Month:

5 x skeleton horsemen (w/ light armour, shield, lance) - 140 pts

Total: 140 pts

Total for the half way point:

16 Skeleton  Spearmen inc. musician and standard bearer (w/ spears and shields) - 180 pts
14 Skeleton Warriors inc. musician and standard bearer (w/ hand weapon and shields) -  144 pts

5 Specters 175 pts
5 Wraiths 325 pts
2 Skeleton Spearmen 16 pts

5 x skeleton horsemen (w/ light armour, shield, lance) - 140 pts

Total: 980 pts (47 models*)
*52 by OWAC rules

Here are some pictures of everything i have painted so far in the OWAC, plus a few things I painted last year.  

Good luck all, Tom :)