Paul's Wood Elves of Avelorn - Rank and File Month 4: There's Woodies in the trees! (696 pts)

 

My final rank and file month is dedicated to my very dear friend, Shaun (previously seen commanding Undead alongside Spawn #1). We've known each other for over 30 years and Warhammer and RPGs and all things nerdy have underpinned our friendship all that time. Indeed it was Shaun who pointed me towards the Oldhammer community when I picked up my brushes again back in 2013/14, which has proved to be a huge boost to my painting and hobbying in all sorts of ways!

Wood Elves always make me think of Shaun and these sculpts have particular resonance for various reasons, so this is by way of a thank you to him as well as a trip down memory lane.

First up are Skarloc's Archers, a "Regiment of Renown" in Warhammer lore going back to the 1980s. Every single one of them is a work of art. I love these sculpts, some of Jes Goodwin's best work of the period in my view. I love the storied history of the unit, the crazy mix of characters who nearly obscure the man himself, the detail on the 'basic' archers, and the rich possibilities and flexibility all of that brings to using the unit in games or RPGs.

People often talk about big miniatures like giants and dragons, or special characters being intimidating and needing a bit of a painting run up before they can do them justice. I think I felt a bit like that about these models. That real need to do them justice and to pay proper homage to the (imho) golden era of old school gaming from whence they hail.

The description on the box includes this line on colour scheme: "The scouts wear leather surcoats over their chain mail, in various shades of green and brown for camouflage"

I already had the idea that as experienced Scouts I wanted them to look like an elite military unit, so I turned to a range of military uniform colours like US Olive Drab, English Uniform, Steel Legion Drab etc. and kept everything fairly muted bringing in Dryad Bark for a more matte finish to the leather boots etc. I also brought in Vallejo Hull Red as a connection to the core units of the army, but also brought in more blues and yellows, which should allow them to fit in with other elements still to come.

I also opted for matte grey on the chain mail, with the idea that shiny metal should be kept to a minimum when hiding in forests. The only problem was that by the time I made that decision I had already used metallic paints on the exposed weapons for some of the heroes. One of the pit falls of batch painting across units when using up paint mixes during the OWAC, but in true OWAC style there is no time to look back, only to keep painting! 

Here we have the man himself, Skarloc 'The Hooded One' aka 'Captain' on the flyer. I can hear Clannad just by looking at him and I'm pretty sure the shade of Michael Praed lurks under that hood. I think he would also make a great (Dever/Chalk) Lone Wolf.  It's a brilliantly brooding sculpt, but the thing that always puzzled me is that he isn't featured that prominently in the box art, as a result a younger me thought that the archer with the patch over one eye was Skarloc. This idea has always sort of stuck with me, and as a result I have promoted the eye-patch archer to unit leader when hooded Skarloc is busy with his other 1980s side projects.

Next up is "Araflane Warskald" the unit musician. Another great sculpt and the use of animal skin makes him seem more celtic and savage than later WE sculpts, which is something I leant into with this unit alongside the military uniform colours.

In a previous post I hinted that another 80's influence might be creeping in to my WE colour schemes, but now wasn't the time for double denim. Rather the woodland fashion question for May was one of Plaid vs Tartan vs Not Getting Carried Away!! OK... maybe a just a little denim to bring that blue back in.

Two of my favourite characters/sculpts from this regiment got special treatment and I tried my hand at Plaid/tartan patterns for the first time. Not entirely successful, but I'm happy enough and I learnt it is best to keep things simple. Getting the flow of the lines seems more important than the complexity of the pattern.  

"Kaia Stormwitch" is described as both Standard Bearer and/or Mage in the unit description and I love this versatility in the sculpt. In a more direct nod to the core units of the army I've made the heart and vines on the staff/standard the same dark red and green combo.

Do ask her which army surplus stores she shops in. Don't ask her if it's real animal skin. 

"Glam, the Laughing Warrior" aka Wardancer/Champion, probably needs his skin tone lightening a touch, although I'm equally tempted to go back and give him some suitably Bowie-esque face paint. Tartan trousers were already a stretch on this model though, and I didn't want to ruin the Slaine type vibe of the sculpt which I think the darker tone helps with.

It doesn't help with photos though. Sorry about that.

Not officially a member of Scarlok's Archers, this is the falconer from the Wood Elf  War Wain, who I think makes a good mage (for when rules don't allow your standard bearer to also be a mage - lame!). The blue and slight touches of yellow are also a nod to another emerging faction within my Wood Elves, while hopefully not taking him too far away from the rest of Scarlok's Archers.

I like the fact he has a falcon on his arm, and wish there were more Beastmaster options in WFB 4/5. I think Wood Elves lost something in not being able to have more animals in their forces, but the presence of the falcon marks him out from the standard Wood Elf and brings us on to the subject of "Multi-purposing and Special Characters by Proxy" as in a pinch he could double as Skaw the Falconer.

As could the next guy, a Chaz Elliot sculpt from RPE who I thought also fit with the Scouts, but because of the basing stands a little taller so has ended up as a slightly separate character model. He is painted in a mix of the Chrace/Winter colour scheme, and the newer Blue-Yellow scheme, while keeping in the broad range of the Scarlok's Archers scheme and wears the three armed branch emblem on his broach as Kaia Stormwitch does - all in the name of flexibility. He could also do double (triple?) duty as Sceolan from the WFB4/5 WE Army Book if needed.

A final note on the birds, I have decided to use colour schemes inspired by birds of prey native to the British Isles, so not-Skaw is accompanied by a not-quite-Goshawk, and not-Sceolan is accompanied by the slightly smaller, not-quite-Sparrowhawk. 

If Scarlok's Archers are an iconic Oldhammer unit then for me the iconic Middlehammer era  Wood Elf unit are the Waywatchers (aka Tree Ninjas as I have started affectionately calling them while painting). 

I can remember Shaun and I being very taken with both the concept and the sculpts (especially the one with the balaclava style mask who looks like a Wood Elf Beach Head from Gi Joe/Action Force!) and almost immediately incorporating them as an influence into our D&D games and characters.

Those of us who have been painting Elves in and around the OWAC for the past few years have been noted to remark on more than one occasion that we are DEFINITELY NOT competing with Mariano! ;)

This year was even worse for me as I would be painting Wood Elves alongside the master himself, so more so than ever I. Am. Not. Competing. With. Mariano.... (say it to yourself quietly ten times before you snap your brushes and cry) ... but.... (joking aside) I have been taking inspiration from him! :D

So these are my most Mariano-esque Wood Elves to date, working more with light and dark, I've kept to a brutally simple green-brown colour palette to pick out the detail, letting the sculpts and poses do the heavy lifting themselves. No glorious rainbow NMM however! I know I could have taken these further, and been braver with the brightness levels on the green highlights, but the slightly understated colour scheme keeps them looking like an elite military unit in my mind.

Finally we come to a mini I'm not even sure how I acquired (possibly as part of a trade with a friendly UK hobbyist?) but ended up fitting my army, and the theme of this post, absolutely perfectly. If anyone can identify him then shout in the comments, I'm not sure I've ever really tried tbh.

In a post on another blog about another project entirely, I mentioned that there is a long honoured and respectful tradition in my D&D games for Elven Rangers (and by extension in that RT project, Eldar Scouts) to be named after Nigerian footballers... which was definitely also Shaun's fault.

Yet there was always one who stood apart from this tradition...

Shaun's  character Garion "Red Fox" Kevanarial was directly inspired by the Wood Elf Waywatchers from Warhammer and we found fruitful parallels in the TSR AD&D 2nd edition era material and this sculpt could be the very image of how he started out (or indeed how his brother Allain looks in the Dragon Magazine we borrowed from), before his truly epic descent into Chaotic Neutral naughtiness and on to allegedly double agent evil-doing and Demi-god impersonation... You know, PROPER D&D, with Thac0 and variable XP tables and hard maths.... 

Anyway... the point is, it reminds me of Shaun so this one is called Garion :)

F*ckin' Tree Ninjas! Yeah!! :D

Monthly Total:

10 Scouts (inc. Musician and Standard Bearer) - 192 pts
Champion/Skarloc*- 51 pts
Mage - 59 pts
Wood Elf Hero w/ Longbow (I) - 107 pts
10 Way Watchers - 180 pts
Wood Elf Hero w/ Longbow (II) - 107 pts

Total: 696 pts

* I will look at Special Character/proxy point values in the final wrap up post

Tom's Bony Bit:

I am so fed up of painting these stupid skeletons! They have taken me some time to come back to but I am glad they are finished and I can move on to my wild cards! 

I have kept with the colour scheme and recipe, although I had to go back over some of the red to get the right fade. I like the rusty metal finish and how they tie to the rest of my army.

Monthly Total:

10 Skeletons w/ light armour, shields, spears (inc. Musician and Standard bearer) - 144 pts

Total: 144 pts

You can see below I have added some models I have already painted to boost the unit and I will add some more for the future. 

Shadespyre asked about DnD models so I included this necromancer as another example. She has been undercover as an agent of the Red Wizards Of Thay, so her colour scheme is reversed with red magic and purple and pink robes. Both DnD Necromancer models were very difficult because of being one piece sculpts and having very difficult areas to reach.

Good luck to everyone for the last month, the end is just around the corner!