Shadespyre's April Post - Rank & File IV - 3rd Edition Wood Elves (+1353 points)

OWAC VII - Rank and File Month (IV) - Pets

April

Month Four, so why not a fourth month of Rank and File fun? A bit boring? Well, okay, I'll throw in another Hidden Reserve for you, if you sit quietly and read the first bit. Deal? Good.

Errrm, let's start here. Continuing the three seasons theme of the Wardancers (from March, pay attention at the back, please!) here are three seasons of pets:

Wild Cat Beastmaster in Spring colours, because cats spring, I guess?

Warhound Beastmaster in Summer colours, because...

...Boar Beastmaster seemed like the obvious Autumn choice. 

No, I still haven't got around to the basing. I do hate the large expanses of empty ground here, so I promise to try and get it done in May. 

I'm not sure how effective these small Beast packs would actually be, but I feel like it's important to include some to capture a proper 3rd edition feel.

Let's also have a proper unit, something with actual ranks and files, maybe?

This is my unit of Guards, mostly using the Middle Earth sylvan elves - a couple have replacement swords, and the standard bearer is obviously converted. I put the unit of 18 together and forgot to consider adding a champion or other character, so maybe a bigger movement tray is a consideration for later.

Meanwhile, here they are in the almost not-green Autumn colours. I also added an owl here - and there will be more - because moon-shaped shields and owls work together, and because owls are cool.

And that concludes the Rank and File units for this army, for this year at least.

Hidden Reserves

I did promise, so here we go. Not in the order that I expected to be presenting these units, but this one proved to be very quick to paint once I had the concept in my head. Hidden Reserve Number 3...

...is my Wood Elf themed Ethereal host, in the form of a Wild Hunt, with Ghost Hounds, Wraith huntsmen and a Spectral Centaur:

The idea is based on the text from Warhammer Armies - "shades of faded Wood Elves" - but I struggled with finding a mounted mini I liked as the leader. Eventually I stumbled upon this Centaur (origin unknown) on eBay and decided he would do for now. I've reposed him several times and he still has weird square shoulders but I got bored of trying to fix him.

I wanted to give an impression of fading, with the strongest part of the spirit being the head and arms of each model fading away to almost nothing. So I painted a greyscale fade across each one and then hit them with a couple of layers of green wash, before a final tidy up with a very pale green-white. By the way, I picked up the hounds cheap off eBay suspecting that they were re-casts and, yes, they are a little tatty, but very suitable for this purpose.

What a stupid looking centaur! But I quite like the way the paint came out. 

Army List Additions:

Scores for April:       1353    points   38 models

3 x Animal Handlers    (Light Armour)                                                                    45 points

3 x Wild Cats                                                                                                                  63 points  

3 x Warhounds                                                                                                               12 points 

3 x Boars                                                                                                                          18 points 

17 x Guards                (Shields, Standard bearer, Musician)                                  304 points

1 x Hero (Level 15)    (Longbow, Light Armour, Shield)                                        136 points 

Ethereal Host:

1 x Spectre with Spectral Mount                                                                                225 points

2 x Wraiths                                                                                                                     300 points

5 x Ghosts                                                                                                                       250 points           

               

Running Total:          4343  points  135  models

Undead are reassuringly expensive, aren't they?

Next Time

Leaders, and proper basing, I hope. And I'll try to include another Hidden Reserves choice, too.