Shadespyre's July Post - OWAC VIII Wrap Up Post - High Elves of Lothern - 3304 points, 96 models

OWAC VIII - Wrap up - High Elves of Lothern

July

No new miniatures to show you, I haven't added anything new since last month. Instead, I can share some (blurry) pictures of the whole force together.

The block of infantry at the rear right of the photos is not a whole new unit, I just made and decorated a skirmish style movement tray to stand all those individual miniatures on.

What I've ended up with is a small force dominated by cavalry and archers, which I suppose is to be expected for High Elves. With just one solid infantry block it's an army that would rely on aggressive tactics, your best chance of victory would be to smash the enemy in one decisive cavalry charge.

The intention of sharing a basing style with the Wood Elf army (from OWAC VII) is that the Lothern troops could be deployed as an allied force (though it would require a huge game to field all of both!), which would bring a heavy cavalry element which is missing from that army.

It would be fun, but far too much work, to get all of my Wood and High Elves set up on the same table for a photo call. Maybe one day, but not any time soon I'm afraid.

It's a much smaller army (half the size or less) of my last three OWAC projects, which made it a bit more manageable, even though I actually ended up painting more miniatures than I expected. Will I add to it? Possibly. I'd need to find substantial numbers of the miniatures from the range that suit being units - it seems unlikely I'll get that lucky again, but you never know!

I like how the simple heraldry works this time around. The "decal on a plain background" has been a choice born of desperation and laziness before now, but I think it looks much better here than on the Dark Elves, for example.

Thnaks to everyone who left comments, critique and encouragement this year, being part of this group is inspiring and (most importantly) great fun.

OWAC IX

I really don't know right now. Those with long memories will remember that right back when I joined the OWAC group I worried that my participation was threatened by my back problems? Well, after much frustration I am finally on a waiting list for surgery to hopefully fix me, and so until I have a date confrmed for that I can't be sure what months of 2026 I will be fit to paint in... hopefully all will be clear before December!

Shadespyre's February Post- Rank & File II - OWAC VIII - High Elves of Lothern (+260 points)

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

February

As promised last month, I've shifted to taking on some infantry this time around, making a start on the almost infinite* pile of identical spearmen that I have inflicted on myself. Once again, painting a Regiment of Renown gives me an "official" description to interpret:

"The uniform comprises a close fitting helmet, which is gilded. The tunic is padded and white, the belts and other decorative items are red. Spear shafts are blue, whilst most metal is either steel or silver." 

It took me a while to get the colours mentioned in places that I liked them, which I finally acheived having waved three different versions at some of my painting pals until they gave opinions! In the end, I think it was the red tassles on the spears which made it work.

Obviously, there is a gap left here for the command group. Though I've made a start, I'll be leaving those for later, partly because I need to build a standard pole, and partly because I need to decide on the theme and heraldy before I do that. Plus "Leader Month" is compulsory and so I need to save something to put in it!

*it turns out there were only twenty of them, but it felt like more.

This isn't everything I've been working on. Progress continues on the cavalry because I want to make sure I can present at least one more unit of those in March. This means I have tried out two more colour schemes for white horses:

I'm not sure that brown tails and manes on white horses is very realistic, but it looks quite pretty. And at the end of the day everyone is looking at the riders, really.

I'm also feeling confident enough with my progress that I've started prepping some extra units for this army. These are taken from the non-Regiment of Renown C09 range, so it would be really nice to be able to get them painted up this year. As previously highlighted, some of them are quite elaborate, so might take a lot of painting!

Scores for February:       260    points   20 models

20 x Guards    (Light Armour, Shield, Spear)                                                    260 points

Running Total:              531  points  26  models

NEXT TIME:

More Elves, obviously - probably a second unit of cavalry. Maybe some idea of what I'm going to put on all those blue shields?

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...