Shadespyre's May Post - Leader Month - OWAC VIII - High Elves of Lothern (+1345 points)

OWAC VIII - Leader Month - High Elves of Lothern

May

Leader Month. I promised leaders, I promised banners, and I promised basing. Here we go, then.

Let's start off with the units we've seen before, just with their command groups added and their bases decorated.

Here we have the main infantry regiment, the Lothern City Guard, joined by their infamous Champion Lahaven Ramjewel (3rd from left) and notorious commnding officer D'roi Haisplinn (3rd from right), as well as their musician and standard bearer. For the standard, I've simply used a much bigger version of the dragon / sea serpent head on a nice blue background - I don't think it *needs* anything else, and I'm feeling too lazy to add anything, anyway. 

In my quest for the perfect way to make banners, this is made out of milliput, rolled out thin onto a plastic bag and the crinkled to get the hanging effect. It looks quite nice but it was very messy and tedious to make! Not sure I'd do it again. You'll recognise the decorative components from later plastic High Elf kits.

I think in future I might just trim the 3d printed bases down by a fraction of a milimetre; the perfect fit is nice but as soon as paint and glue and flock is involved the minis are hard to get in and out of the movement trays.

Next up is the main unit of Elwing's Guard Cavalry. Elwing of Lothern is the great-coated officer with the golden helmet crest, the unti champion Estrulan is the same sword waving officer I've used in all three units (there are only so many models to go around!) This standard is also made of milliput (I made a big sheet of it and cut out the sections which worked best). The spiral pole was made by twisting some square section styrene rod with two pairs of pliers. I didn't get quite the same shape as the metal spear shafts but I think it looks okay. 

Just a word on the basing - I tried to use exactly the same elements that I did on the summer variant of the Wood Elves. I may have missed or run out of a couple of things, I certainly have used less of the red and yellow flowers as I'd almost run out of those. Looking at some of these pics I might need to re-glue a couple of tufts to make sure they stay in place!

Above we have the two smaller cavalry squadrons, exactly as we've seen them before but with added basing. Just to show that I've done it! The next unit does have a new guy though...

I took out the least tidy / most lead-rotted archer and added an officer instead. The pointy pose and heavy armour made him a good choice to add to this unit, I felt. This is a terrible viewing angle for this mini, so here's a hastily-taken but better one.

Added to his colleagues, this C08 High Elf Cleric is just the second miniature from that range that I've included so far. Better include some more, then!

And so here is a second unit of archers. If the first lot are "heavy" Archers, then perhaps these are the "medium" equivalent. Again, these are labelled as "Fighter Thief", presumably because in 1st Ed AD&D single classed Thieves were not allowed to use longbows. The Wizard, meanwhile, is labelled Fighter Magic-user, because there is a breastplate barely visible under his coat and armour and wizards didn't mix.

I went with the white padded armour again, and enjoyed contrasting it with the dark blue. This unit has much less of the dark red on it (but from the rear you can see their quivers).

This unit takes us to 4 (out of 36!) C08 High Elf sculpts.

Finally for now, the presence of Heavy and Medium Archers demands Light Archers, or Scouts. So here they are! Rather than a character class, these are labelled "War Maid" as if to make sure we know they are female. These ladies take us to 5/36. Not 6? No, because their leader is a slotta-based miniature (gasps of horror!).

But I'm not going to apologise for including the famous High Elf Adventuress Riolta Snow (as seen in classic Warhammer scenarios The Magnificent Sven and Terror of the Lichemaster) in this unit, because she looks so good there. And Riolta Snow's Scouts is a good name for a bunch of white-clad Elves, in my book.

Maybe one day I'll get another copy of the mini and paint her in the fabulous bright colours from those scenarios, but that's another story.

Will that do for Leader month? I think it will. 

Scores for May:       1345 points   29 models

This month's additions are a bit complicated due to all the command models, but I think I added:

1 x Lahaven Ramjewel          (Level 5, Heavy Armour, Greatsword)                      54 points

1 x D'roi Haisplinn                (Level 15, Light Armour, Shield)                              131 points

1 x Guard Standard bearer    (Light Armour, Shield, Spear)                                     26 points

1 x Guard Musician              (Light Armour, Shield, Spear)                                     26 points

1 x Elwing                            (level 20, Heavy Armour, Warhorse, Lance)                180 points

1 x Estrulan                           (level 10, Heavy Armour, Warhorse, Lance)               100 points 

1 x Cavalry Standard Bearer (Heavy Armour)                                                          74 points 

1 x Cavalry Musician            (Heavy Armour)                                                          74 points

1 x Heavy Archer Officer    (level 5, Light Armour, Longbow)                                53 points

9 x Medium Archers                                                                                                   126 points

1 x Wizard                            (Level 15, Longbow)                                                     206 points

9 x Scouts                            (Light Armour)                                                              162 points

1 x Riolta Snow                    (Level 15, Light Armour, Longbow)                            133 points            

Running Total:        2684  points  80  models

NEXT TIME:

Wild Card month. So obviously I'll just take a mullig.... no? You want more? Okay, I got more. Tune in in June to see if we can get beyond 5/36 C08 sculpts in this OWAC...