The tolling of the muster bell echoed along the high walled, moss-clung, alleyways of the port town clinging to the rocks below Daggerpoint. The citizens of the town begrudgingly answer the call for it would imperil their lives not too, either in the short term from potential raiders from the sea, or in the longer term when their lord and his household guard return from their sojourn to the south and punish them for not heeding the call to defend the town.
The sneers of distaste from the Dark Elf merchants and artisans would be obvious as they don the oily grey leather armour provided for the militia of the City Guard, foul to the touch and foul to the senses from the waterproofing of sea mammal by-products. Only the unit leader gets the questionable benefit of a helm, though bereft of the high quill of the military units. His fellow City Guard are glad enough to go without and not suffer the stink of a helm.
The hard bitten and professional Crossbow armed soldiery look on as the pampered civilians pick up their spears and crossbows, arranging themselves into alternate ranks. All of the whining and posturing will stop pretty quickly if the Blood Dragon did manage to attack the port with his Ulthuan highborns. If that happened then there was one thing the soldiers knew, and that was the 'City Guard' were going to die before they did.
One of my favourite High Elf units are the Lothern Seaguard. I like the idea of a tactically versatile militia unit built on natural or cultural martial traditions and armed with a combination of melee and missile weapons, and one that embodies the character of their city or region. Having enjoyed making a makeshift unit of my own Seaguard in OWAC VI I felt like this unit of Dark Elf City Guard made perfect sense and the Daggerpoint militia would be my own Dark(ish) and miserly mirror of the Seaguard. Providing a window on how dark elf society works on the borders of their territory, with all citizens needing to be able to contribute and survive in harsh conditions, or die...
As you can see the metal spears I had allocated for the unit turned out to be a bit too short...
... and then I ran out of that type of spear with one mini left, so I used a larger option that I only had a few of, chopped a bit off and stuck it on the other end. I much prefer this look and it was only after I finished the unit that I thought I really should have gone back and added some bits of chopped up paperclip to the rest of them to give the same effect to the short spears. I still might...
The luxury of having amassed so much white plastic crack is that I could distinguish my more military Crossbow units with the classic pointed Dark Elf helmets, leaving the excess generic elven heads from last years Wood Elf archers to be used for the civilian militia of the City Guard, where the only helmet belongs to the unit leader. This allowed me to bring a bit more colour with some different Dark Elf hair colours, as did the coloured silken civvies underneath the grey-blue leather oil skin of their uniforms... but only a little bit more as I still want the overall look of these to be quite subdued.
I see these drab and generic militia uniforms as deliberately blending in to the grey and desolate coast line of the rocky islands. Where does this military/naval issue grey leather/oil skin material come from? It implies a local source of suitable hides. Something to return to in future posts perhaps...
A final point is that the mossy rock of my Gardenhammer-esque backdrop inspired the description of the damp alleyways the port town, and I think I'm going to pick up on that for some future basing elements....
mmmMMMmmm..... Moist.
Monthly Total
24 DE City Guard (inc 12 Repeater Crossbows) - 288 pts
Total - 288 pts
Tom's Bony Bit
What's up folks!? Tombo's back for another OWAC rank and file month!
I'm happy to be back for this month and I have painted some Skeleton crossbow men! Or maybe they're skeleton Dark Elves?
I "acquired" ten press moulded crossbows from my Dads dark elf arsenal and stuck them on the back of a unit of Wargames Atlantic skeleton swordsmen. I added a games workshop banner to match my other skeleton units.
I started with Miniature Paints (MP) Chestnut brown on every part of the skeleton, I then used some MP Coffee as the second dry brush layer on the skeletons. I used Citadel Leadbelcher on the swords and shield rims and other metal work. The crossbows are done in a red triad of VMC hull red as a base coat, then mixing in VMC flat red and moving towards Citadel Blood Red or Mephiston Red for the highlights.
Monthly Total:
10 skeleton warriors with shields and crossbows (including musician and standard bearer) 12 pts each = 144 pts
Total 144 pts
I'm looking forward to playing with them in a game of WFB 4 soon :)
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