Paul's Wood Elves of Avelorn - Leader Month: Lords and Ladies (315 pts)

Painting delayed - insert holiday here...

We had to alter plans this month as despite having our fourth and final rank and file months scheduled and underway, a very busy but enjoyable month away from the painting table got in the way so we have swapped over to Leader month

However, we did have great fun visiting cathedrals to look at tombs of kings and crusaders, and a spot of light weapons drill with reproduction medieval weaponry, and we managed to squeeze a game of WFB5 in with some mates using the minis we have painted so far this OWAC, so it wasn't all bad :p

Phwoar! Look at the patina on that!

As is often the case at this stage in the OWAC I found myself making some compromises on quality but finding previously unapproachable models half painted themselves because by now I knew the colour scheme and recipes I wanted to use to represent different parts of the army.

Firstly my general, the Lord of Late Summer, using the same deep reds and greens, and golden browns as my core archer unit(s).

I kept to a very restricted colour scheme, even with the mount, although I enjoyed varying the colours so that the mount has a slightly more fey appearance with its green mane and red hooves. It's not my best work but I think it's punchy enough to get away with it.

Next up is the Elven Sorceress on (Bl)Unicorn, which ties in with some rider/mount swap possibilities with my High Elves, and gives me a possible mated pair for D&D and narrative games etc. (I think the Blu-nicorn is the stallion).

In fact, although I've shown the Blu-nicorn and Wood Elf sorceress together as that is what I have painted this month for the OWAC, I think they are unlikely to team up together in games as the Chrace themed revamped Unicorn from a previous OWAC now fits much better with the Chrace/Winter themed side of my Wood Elf army, as shown below. The Blu-nicorn will better suit the Ellyria/Tiranoc elements of my High Elves (also shown below with the High Elf Sorceress from a previous OWAC).

Total for the month:

Wood Elf General (steed, lance, light armour) - 166 pts
Wood Elf Sorceress - 59 pts
Unicorn - 90 pts

Total: 315 pts

No extra points for these but I have been meaning to finish the banners for the archer units and in an effort to get things done and the spirit of compromise (for me the OWAC is about getting stuff finished, not necessarily perfect), I've added these pennants in the unit colours as my planned designs would work much better on standards with cross poles rather than the Wood Elf icons which I find tend to dominate. They could definitely be better, and I may revisit the banners with more iconography in the future, but they will do for now and certainly make the units look more complete.

Tom's Bony Bit

Having changed plans to paint my leader this month, I had the chance to use contrast paints as he is a D&D mini with a pre-painted white undercoat. The sculpt was hard to paint because it is all in one piece with lots of hard to reach places, and the white undercoat shows through. I liked using contrast paints because I could cover more area quickly, but the sculpt still made this tricky.  

I have tried to use the same colours as the rest of the army, although matching contrast paints to Vallejo and Citadel acrylics is not always easy, I think I did OK. I used purple again for his magic, this is a mix of purple tone and Vallejo acrylic, and the black body suit is Abaddon black citadel acrylic. My dad thinks he looks like a Marvel Supervillain, and I'm happy with that description.

Here he is raising a refurbished skeleton warrior to add to next month's unit

Total for the month:

Necromancer Lord - 410 pts

Total: 410 pts

Now for the good stuff - we finally get to play a game with our painted minis!

Battle Report - Undead vs Wood Elves 1500 pts (WFB 5)

In which mistakes were made, hopes crushed, and Elven reputations restored!

As the two sides lined up against each other the generals surveyed their troops. Much smack was talked about the terrifying wraiths and the potency of Elven archery, but it remained to be seen if the Elves would be able to prevent the evil forces of the Undead from encroaching on their sacred forests.

Elven archery did indeed prove potent, as did Elven magic, and the Undead Cavalry saw their numbers reduced in the first turn, and then were stopped in their tracks by pesky Elven magic. Heads up on our two big mistakes, we gave Wood Elves too much High Magic and we didn't make enough use of the Necromantic magic ability to cast spells multiple times until too late in the battle, tbf I think this did have an effect on the result, but it didn't stop us having fun!

The Undead marshalled their own pesky magicks unleashing the banner of wrath against the Elven archers and starting to whittle them down. The Wood Elf mage champion took aim with their Wand of Lightning and blasted the unit of Spectres that had been floating menacingly towards the Elven left flank. With lightning flashing back and forth between the forces it seemed like magic would be a deciding factor in the battle.

The manoeuvrability of the Undead army also became a factor as the fast moving Cavalry became isolated and were picked off by Elven magic and the special attacks and defences of the equally fast moving War Dancers, the main blocks of both armies moved only a short distance from their back lines. It was cunning Necromantic magic that summoned skeletons and then reinforced units to keep the right flank of the Elves engaged in dogged hand to hand combat for a number of turns before they were finally defeated by a flank charge from the Wardancers late in the game.

Meanwhile the advancing Wraiths had been causing much more terror in their real life commanders than in the Wood Elf units, with the high LD value of the General meaning that they withstood the effects of both Terror and Fear and stood their ground.

The magic weapons wielded by the General, and the Wardancer Champion combined with the special attacks and defences of the Wardancers proved enough to defeat the Wraiths, who had already been weakened by magical lightning. Phew! 

This was a turning point in the game as if any of those psychology tests had gone the way of the Undead then I don't think victory would have been quite so secure for the Elves, but at the end of the game the forces of the Undead melted back into the mists as their Necromancer turned tail and fled back to her master!

As you can see the Wood Elf general was magnanimous in his victory :p