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 January Post - OWAC VIII - High Elves of Lothern (271 points)

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

January

Finally under way!

As is traditional, I started with a pile of undercoated miniatures and a vague idea of a colour scheme. Actually, a little less vague because there is a description provided for the Regiments of Renown... for Elwing's Elf Cavalry: "The Elves are dressed in blue uniforms, whilst most of the leatherwork is black or red: Helmets and other metal fittings are silver or silver plated. Spear-shafts are painted blue, with white, blue or red pennants indicating different Companies."

Here's how I've interpreted that:

Because you can never have too many paints, I treated myself to some new ones. I've added Templar Blue, Ashen Blue and Glacial Blue, all from the Reaper Masters Series, to my collection for this project.

Just one unit of six for now, but that meets the monthly requirements so I don't mind. Obviously, they will get some sort of heraldry added to the shields at some point - probabaly a white symbol of some sort. I've got a few ideas but I want to stew on them for a while.

Likewise, I'll do a big basing session when I've got more minis painted. If you've seen my Wood Elves from OWAC VII you'll know what to expect.

One aspect of this project which could get tiresome is the repeated painting of the same miniatures. For example, every cavalryman across three units is riding the same horse! While I want to have a degree of uniformity, I've decided to do different variants of white horse. Here's a comparison of the first two, I may try for four varieties in all.

Alert viewers will notice that the unit above are all riding the "blond" variant, so yes, I have started on a second unit already.

Scores for January:       271    points   6 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

Running Total:              271  points  6  models

ENTRY FEE MINIS

With a choice of THREE worthy recipients this time around, I was at a loss what to paint for who! With so many projects on my to do list, my supply of "spare" miniatures is quite depleted. Fortunately, as I trawled the depths of my collection, I found a selection of beasts of burden! Highly fitting for the "baggage train" them of OWAC VIII, so I plucked three of them out to paint up:

I'll be posting one of these to each of our committee members as a Thank You for their organisational efforts. I hope they will suit.

NEXT TIME:

More Elves, obviously. Here's a sneak preview of some WIP infantry