Shadespyre's April Post - Rank and File Month IV - OWAC VIII - High Elves of Lothern (+411 points)

OWAC VIII - Rank and File Month IV - High Elves of Lothern

April

Probably my busiest month of the whole OWAC, lots and lots of progress but only a little bit of it is ready to show to you.

Let's start with the next / last unit of cavalry. The second unit of six, this time with the grey-white horse variant, and with the shields completed. 

Yes, I would love to have had these based by now but I've been prioritising painting. Basing soon, I promise!

That's the last of the 24 copies of the same horse, I think. Phew. Also the last of the Regiments of Renown troopers... but there are some command models to come in "Leaders" month.

So that means no more painting multiple copies of identical figures, right? Oh, no, it does NOT! Because with my initial "promise" pretty much completed, I've started on some more troops...

These ten (nominally identical) archers are from the C08 High Elves range. I think this guy is a "Fighter-Thief" in good old AD&D parlance. It's not easy to collect unit sized numbers of these models, but I've got a bit lucky here. On close inspection, three of these had varying amounts of lead rot and needed some greenstuff - there's one at the back where all of his robes are visibly cracked, and that all had to be filled. I'll probably jettison him in favour of a unit leader at some point.

I find it takes a couple of attempts to reach a good colour balance with these very busy sculpts. These started in blue robes but came out very dark overall, and are a completely different prospect with white cloth instead. 

I think the fancy costumes do a good job of conveying "+1 Missile Elite" vibes, don't you?

Finally for now, here's one of the inspirations behind this project's colour scheme:

This is a hand made coffee cup that I got from a clever friend of mine, it sits on my desk all day (usually with a handful of sweets or snacks in it because I don't want to risk ruining it with coffee!). I don't remember actually deciding to use exactly that shade of blue because of the cup, but it can't be a coincidence, can it?

That's it for April! 

Scores for April:       411    points   16 models

1 x Champion          (Level 5, heavy Armour, Shield, Lance, Warhorse)        61 points

5 x Silver Helms     (Light Armour, Shield, Lance, Warhorse, Standard)    210 points

10 x Archers            (Light armour, Longbow)                                                    140 points

Running Total:        1339  points  51  models

NEXT TIME:

Leader month! Heroes! Banners!! Basing??? (yes, I promise)

Shadespyre's March Post - Rank and File Month III - OWAC VIII - High Elves of Lothern (+397 points)

OWAC VIII - Rank and File Month (III) - High Elves of Lothern

March

Things continue to move along nicely. There's still lots morework going on in the background, which means I'm confident of ending up with a larger army than I originally envisaged, while still smaller and more focussed than my last few projects. And I've found a few hours to work on non-OWAC miniatures, which was almost unheard of for the last few years.

Here's my presentation for the third Rank and File month, the second (and largest) of three units of Elwing's Elf Cavalry:

Once again, there is a gap left here for the command group. I think I'm going to hand make the banners (as in, the physical structure of them) as none of the plastic ones in my collection quite work. Will it be paper or greenstuff or plasticard or...? At this point I just don't know! 

These horses are the two colour schemes that I introduced last month. I'm still undecided as to whether to mix the horse colours between units, or not. None of the riders are glued in place yet, so I still have total freedom until I do that. Or until I do the basing. And to be honest, the more minis I paint without doing the basing, the more sensible it seems to leave it right to the end. It's just such a messy process!

Oh yes! We have heraldry now!

I'm not going to willingly show such close ups of my tabletop quality minis very often, but I wanted to focus in on the shields. Yes, these are decals, there is no way in hell I was going to try and do this in freehand over more than a few miniatures, let alone a whole army. 

I'm pretty pleased with how these came out, I seem to have got a nice, even finish. Having had mixed results with other armies, this time I put no less than THREE coats of brush on gloss varnish over the decals before applying my usual matt spray coat, and it's definitely the best integration of water-slide transfer and paint that I've acheived to date. A long process, but worth it - I might even go back to previous armies and repeat the multiple glossings!

Scores for March:       397    points   9 models

1 x Champion          (Level 5, heavy Armour, Shield, Lance, Warhorse)        61 points

8 x Silver Helms     (Light Armour, Shield, Lance, Warhorse, Standard)    336 points

Running Total:            928  points  35  models

NEXT TIME:

More Elves, obviously - probably the third and final unit of cavalry, maybe something extra if you've all been good?

Shadespyre's Introduction Post - OWAC VIII - 3rd Edition High Elves of Lothern

Shadespyre Intro Post - OWAC VIII - 3rd Edition High Elves

Introduction Post

It was always likely to be Elves again. For OWAC VI, I painted a rather idiosyncratic Dark Elf army, loosely themed around AD&D Drow and made up almost entirely of ancient pre-slotta miniatures. For OWAC VII, I painted a much more traditional 3rd edition Wood Elf army, consisting mostly of mid to late 80s minis much like those pictured in the Warhammer Armies book. And I added allied contingents from the Zoats and Halfling lists in the same source.

And then once the OWAC had ended, I pushed on and added three more Wood Elf units to the army.

I still have a lot of Elf options open to me, though.

For the second time, I started prepping a force of Rogue Trader Space Elf Raiders for an OWAC. And for the second time, I've let the lack of a clear concept for a colour scheme and the fact that several fellow OWACers have similar plans put me off committing to it. That and the fact that I've had a Big Idea for it which I haven't yet worked out how to implement. So maybe next time?

I considered swapping to Craftworld Eldar (requires too much shopping) or Harlequins (not a force I want to paint to a time limit) or to one of my non-Elvish options. But then I realised that the answer was obviously High Elves. 

Why? Firstly, they are the next entry in the Warhammer Armies book! Secondly, they are also available as an Allies list for Wood Elves, so I can justify using the same basing style and save my creative energy for thinking about other things. And thirdly, I have a collection of mid 80s High Elves which is big enough to make a small army. And fourthly, Aly Morrison sculpted some of the most distinctive Elves that Citadel ever produced, and I love them in all their bonkers glory.

C08 High Elves

Here's one of my many old Citadel Miniatures mini cases, this layer has at least one of each of all the releases in this range. I completed this collection some years ago, and never really considered it to be a potential army until very recently.

It's a lousy picture, so here are some of the catalog entries for them, borrowed as ever from Stuff of Legends. A bit annoying that Citadel repeatedly advertised the same minis even though there are more than 30 in the range, but they give an idea of the furry-hatted, curly-shoed, overly-feathered silliness of them, as well as the intruging selection of maces, axes and fancy polearms alongside the traditional bows and swords. I'd love to know what brought Aly to use this style, which I think draws on Persian and Indian influences, although some of the minis remain very much in the familar pseudo-European look.

This range came out late in 1984. It's a fully pre-slotta range, part of a brief Golden Era of Citadel minis which has words embossed onto the top of the bases (I'm sure I've talked about this before, I'm obsessed with this phase in miniature history.) In common with the C10 Half-Orcs which were released a little earlier, these guys are each assigned AD&D character classes - Fighter, Cleric, Thief, Magic-user and even multiclass combinations - because the D&D player was still the core of their market at this time. Within a year of release, these were replaced by a new slotta-tabbed C08 range, still sculpted by Morrison but back to a more conventional Elven aesthetic.

I know what you're thinking - some of those silly Elves are quite cute, but an army? It's mostly character models, there's no musicians or cavalry or... anything. And you're right. Which is why, as much as I love them, most of these will be staying in their box for this project.

BUT Citadel Miniatures (and Aly) have us covered - either side of Christmas 1984 they released two Elvish Regiments of Renown.

Regiments of Renown

RR13 Lothern City Guard

RR10 Elwing's Elven Guard Cavalry

As you can see from the art, these are very much in tune with the other High Elves, if a little less gaudy for the rank and file models. These are the minis that I'm mostly going to be using for this army. Worth noting that while the cavalry models are still on solid bases, the infantry are among the first releases with slotta tabs.

So, here's a snapshot of the core of my army, all based up ready for undercoating. This consists of a large unit of Lothern City Guard and a full two dozen Elven Guard Cavalry, which I shall split into 3 squadrons. There's also a couple of other minis in there which I will discuss when I come to paint them.

Yes, this is a much smaller project than I've undertaken recently. This is partly because I felt quite burned out after painting 250 Warhammer minis in the last year, and also because I've started playing in a second fortnightly RPG group, which means less time to paint minis each weekend - and of course I will inevitably be painting minis for that game, too. And let's not forget that painting 25 cavalry will feel like painting at least 50 Infantry.

I do have some extra units that I hope to paint alongside these, and don't forget that big box of characters to dip into. Maybe this will even become the push I need to paint the full set of those?

Bases

A quick bit about basing. For my pre-slotta Dark Elf army I switched to using MDF bases which I drilled holes for magnets into. I liked how they came out, but there was a surprising amount of prep involved - drilling and sanding every base.

So this time round I ventured into CAD and designed and printed my own bases:

These have a 5mm magnet hole and a 2mm high lip around them, the hope being to conceal the solid bases within them and backfill with basing material. I was able to print these out on my very basic PLA filament printer fairly easily with very few mis-prints. I should probably have put two magnet holes in the cavalry bases, but I think one will be enough to protect against jostling even if I wouldn't dare turn the unit upside down like I can with the infantry.

Army List

I haven't written a full army list yet, but looking at the 3rd ed Warhammer Armies book:

20 Silver Helms @35 points each = 700 points

20 Guard @ 13 points each = 260 points

So I'm going to sail past 1000 points just by adding command options, let alone characters.

I'll be compiling a proper 3rd edition list unit by unit, as I go...