Paul’s Dark(ish) Elves Intro post

The Cult of Khaine and the Court of the True King

Howdy folks! I'm Paul and this will be my sixth Old World Army Challenge and my fourth painting elves. Some would say this borders on mania, or at least worryingly masochistic tendencies… 

I would say to them No! It is testament to the driving force of the OWAC. There is no way I would have the volume of painted and playable armies if it weren’t for the hobby juggernaut that is the OWAC! I’m very proud to be back for OWAC VIII “THE OCHO!” 

The hobby ethos for this force is ‘No Elf left behind!’ By the end of my Wood Elf project for OWAC VII I was already well into planning for this final (...?) Elven army project, the seeds of which lie even further back in time with the broken bits, strays and left overs of my high elves. It was the broken and unwanted nature of these models that gave me the idea to blend them with my very basic plastic dark elves into a force with a bit more character to match their history.

When it comes to morality, philosophy, and ethics among Elven-kind not everything is black and white. I have always based the concept for my High Elf host of Caledor around the Sundering, the civil war and schism between followers of Caledor and followers of Malekith. The concept for this force of ‘Dark’ Elves explores some of those grey areas where the needs of war and survival bring the rational principles of the high and mighty into conflict with the bonds of kinship and the notion of loyalty.

As with my Wood Elves I have enough Dark Elves for two OWACs and a sensible person would plan accordingly. However I'm hoping for another OWAC inspired hobby blitz this year so we will see how far through my army of two halves I manage to get. 

White plastic Dark Elves from the Fantasy Warriors box set with some alternate/replacement weapons 

Another cavalry unit restoration project and a return to the press moulds. They don't look very 'dark', do they?

Condensed Darkness

Leaders:
Dark Elf General, Cold One, Heavy Armour, Shield - 174 pts
DE Hero, Dark Steed, Heavy Armour, Shield - 111 pts
DE Sorceress - 59 pts 
DE Assassins x 4 - 224 pts

Rank and File:
36 DE Crossbowmen - 478 pts
18 DE Warriors (inc full command) - 221 pts
24 DE City Guard (inc 12 Repeater Crossbows) - 288 pts
10 DE Spearmen (inc full command) - 160 pts
7 DE Scouts - 91 pts
5 Dark Riders w/ spears - 135 pts
5 Harpies - 75 pts

Wild Cards:
2 Repeater Bolt Throwers - 200 pts
Manticore - 200 pts
Giant Scorpion - 50 pts

Total: 2466 pts

This will also be my second OWAC with my son Tom who will be painting along with me. We have both been raring to go and are even considering going to bed at 18:00 on New Year's Eve so we can get up at midnight and start painting for the OWAC! :D

I'll hand over to him to say a few words about his plans for this year :) 

Tom's Bony Bit:

Hi guys, I'm excited to be for my second OWAC and looking forward to getting started this January 1st. I'm doing undead again with some cool units that make the most of my leftover bits and some new ghouls from Mantic Games. I've included some skeleton crossbow men to represent undead dark elves to troll my Dad as usual! 

I'd like to say thank you to Andrew Del from the Oldhammer group for sending me some spare skeleton beastmen to add to my forces in my wildcard month. 

As you can se I'm going for vampires for my leaders this year. If I finish everything in my list there might be time for another big unit and maybe a surprise.

Leaders:
Vampire Lord - 375 pts
Vampire Count, skeleton steed - 202 pts
Wight Lord, skeleton steed - 67 pts

Rank and File:
5 Skeleton Horsemen, Light armour, Lance or 2H weapon - 130 pts
10 Skeleton Archers (inc Standard and Musician) - 120 pts
10 Skeleton Crossbowmen (inc Standard and Musician) - 132 pts
20 Ghouls - 160 pts

Wild Cards:
Screaming Skull catapult - 74 pts
3 Skeleton Beastmen (to add to existing units) - 33 pts (approx)
2 Undead Hounds (unit filler?) - N/A

Total: 1293 pts

See you all there for the first month of the OCHO!!! :D

Tom



We've also been having fun selecting tribute minis for the admin team and it only feels right to end by saying a big thank you to everyone who has made the OWAC a reality again this year, and very best wishes to all our fellow challengers!

We can feel the excitement building.... BRING ON THE OCHO! :D

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And for those of you still scrolling here are some pictures of some of the only bits of mini painting I've managed to get done since the end of OWAC VII. 

First up a Nurgle baggage train for my OWAC II Chaos army. The OG GUO needs no introduction, other than to say I had fun building and painting his worm infested midden pile. I see him as a sort of Quartermaster. The Plague Cart is another old school classic and one that seemed to fit the vibe I was going for with the baggage train. The Undead Livestock are Phil Hynes sculpts, currently available from Bad Squiddo Games and round out the pack. Yes, I am slightly regretting the mixed base colours, but it obviously made sense in my head at one point (possibly to represent different areas of the Undead Farmyard?)

And finally here are a couple of beasties that have a bit more relevance to the Dark(ish) Elves project, a Basilisk from Otherworld Miniatures in experimental Dark Elf purple...

... and a Citadel DG5 Large Fire Dragon with a questionably Caledor alligned rider. I did a rush job on the pennants and I'm not happy with them, so they will hopefully get replaced and upgraded at some point in the future, but for now it is another Elf finished and another Dragon to add to the host of Caledor. The dragon and rider remain separate for versatility across army lists and games systems, and because I really don't want to have to sculpt him onto the dragon with green stuff :p 

And finally here is an example of the 'No Elf Left Behind' philosophy I was talking about. I had an excess metal High Elf archer which wasn't needed for any of my units but was too good a pose to waste, so I chopped off the bow hand and replaced it with a simple staff  from the Frostgrave Wizards kit (along with some other bits from the same kit) to turn him into a low level mage for Warhammer, or maybe a Cleric of Corellon Larethian for D&D (hence the very simple blue and silver colour scheme which fits a good portion of my HE army as well as being Larethians holy vestments) 

Right, that really is the lot for now - happy painting everyone! :)