PaulM - Mórr's Wild Hunt - Wrap-Up

The Heart Tree bleeds. 

The Heart Tree bleeds, red in the dappled sunlight of the forest. 

The Heart Tree bleeds because she is in pain. The forest is in pain. Athel Loren is in pain!

Invaders, intruders, interlopers! They come with axe and they come with fire; and so, the Heart Tree bleeds. 

They come with violence and fury, and animal lusts. Raging against all that is true and beautiful; and so, the Heart Tree bleeds.

But she is not defenceless. No, this forest has violence and fury of its own. And deep within its Glades it rises. The Kindreds have come! 

They anoint themselves in the blood of the Heart Tree so as they might share its pain as they redouble it upon its enemies. They move, swift and silent as thought, between towering trunks and across mighty boughs. They rise with the creaking of branches in a summer storm, and cracking of earth under the hottest sun.

Athel Loren goes to war!

So, I'm now a two time OWAC veteran eh? Peachy. 

It's a been a slog though if I'm honest. Despite only painting a slack handful of miniatures, I'm bloody sick of the sight of them. But still quite proud of the little force I've managed to muddle through regardless.

So what does that final force look like I hear nobody ask? Well, it comes out something like this:

Mórr 'The Slayer' - Wood Elf General                             166pts

Cruath 'The Truth Sayer' - Mage Champion                    121pts

No-Mórr 'The Demoted' - Archer Champion                   56pts

Scarloc - 'The Aged' - Scout Champion                           56pts

5 Scouts - 'The Pine Glades Kindred'                               80pts

15 Archers - 'The Pine Crags Kindred'                            187pts

5 Glade Riders - 'The Kindred of Equos'                        210pts

16 Dryads - 'The Wizened Ones'                                     560pts

Treeman - 'Groth The Gnarled'                                        280pts

TOTAL (sans magic items etc.)                                                      1,716pts

Points as per the 4th Edition army book, though these will mostly see service in 6th Edition and The Old World (where it comes out somewhere around 1,300pts under the same conditions). 

So, points wise, a little more than I thought I'd manage. And model wise a little less. I still have bits and pieces I would like to do, but they will have to wait a little while until I'm back in the mood for green...

Anyway - Army Shot and Ansell (RIP) pose. This was taken at this year's BOYL (an appropriate place for an Ansell pose if there ever was one!), thank you to the lady who took it for me, all credit goes to them...but I'm sorry I forgot to ask your name!

And a wee shot of the army as a whole:

Next year? Well, there's that Undead thing I wanted to do...oh and that 2nd ed Khorne Berzerker army...or maybe finish off my Chaos army from my first OWAC (I bought so many knights)...or maybe just chill a year. 

Seriously, I'm a glacially slow painter with limited time; this has meant I have painted nothing but these elves for the past seven months. And it is making me reconsider if I want to take part again. But never say never.

Congratulations to all my follow competitors. You've all produced some absolutely stunning forces of which you should be very proud. I hope to see some of them in the flesh some time and maybe we can throw some dice and push little toy soldiers around. 

Peace. 

PaulM - Mórr's Wild Hunt (545 pts) - R&F Month 4

 I didn't forget, honest...

OK, I forgot a little bit. All month to draft a post and I seem to do it just before the deadline every single month. C'est la vie. 

Quite a productive month for me if I'm honest, didn't get 100% of what I wanted done, eh, done but did achieve a smidge more than the bare minimum. 

First up this month was Groth the treeman. A lovely Trish Carden sculpt that's part of her Harrrowhyrst range, and sold by Footsore Miniatures. This was a gift from my gaming group for my birthday as part of a wee Birthday Club that we've been doing for the last four or five years. I'm slightly ashamed to say that this is the only one of the lovely gifts I've received that I've actually built and/or painted...

Anyway, pictures:

Groth the Gnarled - Treeman - 280pts

Sticking with TC; next up for the month was another six Dryads. I'm straying a bit from the list present in the 4th edition Army Book, which only contained five Dryads, as I'm now up to 16! Which, if I'm honest, is a combination of them being an easy win as far as painting goes (zenithal, drybrush, contrast paints, done) and also the fact that I'm a fan of 6th edition Warhams and the smallest legal unit is one of eight, and if I'm going to do one small unit I may as well do two 🤷‍♂️

The Wizened Ones 3: The Vine'l Countdown - six Dryads - 210pts

Last for the month was five more archers (though they'll actually replace the figures I previously painted up as scouts in the army proper). These are, I think, Aly Morrison sculpts. Not ones I've ever really seen before (likely because everyone just seemed to use the monopose plastics for cost) and I must admit that I struggled with them a little. They are 99% complete, but I did skip the gems in this instance. I'll touch them up (and likely add some warpaint to cover for the fact that I flooded the eye sockets with so much wash I can't pick out their eyes), probably, before the final wrap-up post. 

Pine Glades Kindred - five Archers - 55pts

Now, those of you with eyes, may well have twigged that none of these are yet based. I will say that I'd not intended to leave it quite this long to do it, but I'm now £70 out of pocket on basing materials specifically for this project. Hopefully it doesn't look crap... but I do at least have a plan. 

See you in the wrap-up. Peace. 

PaulM - Mórr's Wild Hunt (389 pts) - Leaders...accidentally

Never rains but it bloody pours doesn't it?

I had a smashing start to May, getting 5, out of a planned 11, Dryads and a Character complete within the first week...and then the wheels sort of fell off. Work, and the sunny weather meaning I was spending my weekends with my, urgh, children doing, double-urgh, activities, killed progress in the middle of the month. Not a problem thinks I, I've got the Bank Holiday weekend, weather's bound to be shit then it's tradition! Well, I got the weather forecasting correct but unfortunately failed to forsee the bloody flu that laid me low for nearly a week. To then top it all off I'm flying off on holiday on the 28th so losing a few days at the back end too. 

So, far from getting the Dryads and that damnable Mantree finished this month like I planned I've had to make a quick pivot to my Leaders month. 

With that I present:

No-Mórr (Mórr's half-brother) - Wood Elf General - 160pts

Scarloc - Scout Champion - 54pts

The Wizened Ones 2 - Arboreal Boogaloo - 175pts

I had also planned to add this chap in last minute; the newest model in the army by far, complete with awful greenstuff leaves added by 14 year old me in 2001 when he came out, but I only got an hour or so on him on Monday before SWIMBO reminded me I'd not packed my bags:

Peace.

PaulM - Mórr's Wild Hunt (231 pts) - R&F month 3

Short one this month.

Was just prepping to finish up for the month and my daughter proceded to break her arm (for the second time) and I'm not long back from the hospital as I write this and don't have it in me to do much more than the bare minimum in terms of post content or pictures. Mea culpa. 

Proof of the month's progress below:

The Kindred of Equos - 5 Glade Riders with Command - 231pts

I also managed to get a load prepped for the coming month, having managed to get hold of some 4th edition era Morley archers and some more Trish Carden Dryads from a friend who was massively downsizing his collection, as well as Groth the Treeman (sculpted by TC also) which was a birthday gift from my gaming group. Lastly I managed to track down a Scarloc mini. So that's an added bonus. 

Watch this space...

Anyway, normal service to resume in my next post. Peace. 

Tom's Chaos Renegades: Rank and File 3

Well, April  has been a definite challenge and I am bracing for May to be harder too.

I've finally moved into the New House. Everything is in boxes and in the bedlam of packing up the Old House, I've no idea where everything is now🤔

It's been quite a while since I have picked up a paintbrush for the OWAC. Fortunately I still have a few painted models in reserve, which were painted in previous months in a frenzy of motivation! However, it is very difficult to recreate the paint scheme on the newer additions. It is another reminder for me to try to paint everything in a unit in one concentrated block, or to keep a record of colours and processes.

I will probably ignore all this and just give way to the immediate paint inspiration...

Another thing to add to the Challenge of this year is an increasing lack of mojo. Having had my main focus elsewhere, I've found my hobby motivation to be in a serious slump. I'm imagining May to be a Wildcard/Mulligan month and for me to focus maybe on painting some terrain in order to get back into the swing of things. 

I hope that the addition of some terrain will enthuse me to paint more models to put in front of it. 

Here's a pic of some OWAC models on top of the terrain I have in mind (they're from Fogou Models - specifically their Adobe range: link). 

Initially I brought a couple for my ork army, and I asked all family members to buy one as Christmas presents, so now I am lucky enough to own a whole village! 👇

Anyway - onwards to pictures!

I have managed to paint three Pink Horrors, six Blue Horrors, a Tzeentch marine, and then a Nurgle Champion on Palanquin, and a Fiend of Slaanesh to round things out...

Firstly though, I painted this Tzeentchian Screamer 👇 which I painted very quickly/roughly to get used to weilding a brush. It's the first model completed in the New House. 

And now on to the Horrors👇

This Horror below👇is a recently painted one, and you can see the difference in paint, like the body is a lot more fluorescent pink and the hands are somewhat lighter. Having loved the Tzeentch models of last month, I found just painting the Pink Horror, well...pink, to be a little dull.

Truly Tzeentch works in mysterious ways!

I've also lent my blood paint to a friend, so the base lacks its blood, but that will be rectified next month.

The Blue Horrors 👇

What cheeky little scamps. I very much enjoyed painting these :)

This guy is a recent paint👇There's a lot more fluro paint used on him , and he's photographed quite a bit brighter than the others maybe because of this. 

One more Tzeentch based marine 👇 which was base coated, then re-stripped, then restarted in February and finally finished today on the 22nd April!

This Slaanesh Fiend 

Painted really very quickly. I should really go back and edge highlight the sections in the tail, but naaaaaah... Hopefully it can be a slight colour test for the Daemonettes that I have planned...

The Nurgle Champion 👇

I'm very pleased to have completed this one, although he is Very Delicate. The banners are very tenuously glued in to the base and a bit on the chair. I think everything else I managed to pin, but I was not brave enough to attempt the bannerpoles...

I was also bowled over by this miniature that I received in the post from the mighty Paul McFarlane (instagram) who is painting Wood Elves for this OWAC (link to his April post).

(It is usual for a painted model to be sent to Iannick Martin - the great Overlord and Founder of the OWAC. However, this years entry fee is to be sent to another participant, as Iannick has stepped away for this year and I am lucky enough to receive a model that Paul has specifically painted for my army. It's absolutley amazing - thank you Paul!)

It is a seamless match for my Khorne regiment, and I have based this ol' Space Crusade mini on a larger Champions base as befitting his status 👊

It also remains the only model I have that's painted by someone else, which makes it even more special.

Here he is leading a small gang...  👇 

I also did win a pound on the scratcher that was included, so the Gods were shining on me that day! I will follow sir from now and send a scratchcard with my Entry Free model in  future OWAC's 🙂

Anyhow, that's me done for this month. 

Probably not the best month when it comes to army list percentages/requirements, but....

On to the roundup!

................................................................

Intro - army list: link

January - rank and file 1 / Khorne: link

February - rank and file 2 / Tzeentch: link

March - Leaders: link

April - rank and file 3

105...   Pink Horrors x3

Free...  Blue Horrors x6

28...     Fiend of Slaanesh

78...     Mighty Champion on Palanquin (mark of Nurgle)

Free...  OWAC Khorne Champion 

Total: 211

Cheers for checking this month out! Hopefully I can muster up a few more Marines in May 👊

PaulM - Mórr's Wild Hunt - Mulligan

Well, this is all starting to become rather familiar isn't it? Another month whereby I moan about not having enough time and only managing to finish by the skin of my teeth...except this month my teeth are, eh, skinned...

March has been a bit of a drag; due to work, and a family holiday, the paintbrushes didn't get picked up until the 22nd, a full three-quarters of the way through the month! With me promptly getting sick 6 days later. So the fact that I finished my tribute and got 99% of the way there with 5 Glade Riders is still something I'm quite proud of if I'm honest (considering my pace is glacial on a good day). Regardless I'm in the position, last minute, of having to take my mulligan/wildcard month for Month 3. 

Now, cards on the table, I had actually planned April in for this as an opportunity to get the remainder of the force built, based and undercoated in preparation for the final two months (and maybe getting a bit of terrain done too whilst I was at it). Which, admittedly, is something I should have done last year. 

Anyway, I did at least achieve some things this month. I got my Glade Guard to the state below:

...and managed to get my tribute painted to my best approximation of the recipient's style:

And, as an added bonus, I received the following from the OTHER PaulM. Rather lovely he is too and will go on to join my scouts eventually. Paul also added some extra treats to the package which was a lovely surprise. Must by psychic as I love a Double Decker. Unfortunately I won nowt on the scratch card. Thanks Paul!

So what are plans for April then? Pretty much unchanged if I'm honest. I have a few days work on the Glade Guard and then will look to getting everything else prepped for the final push - that being basing and undercoating my Characters and Warhawk Riders. I would also like to get at least one Treeman done. Basically as much as I can fit in. Let's see how it goes eh? 

PaulM - Mórr's Wild Hunt (132 pts) - R&F month 2

Month two and it's by the skin of my teeth yet again. I did manage to 'finish' 10 archers for the Wild Hunt (including command) but there is still some tarting up required on the metallics and the bows as both have only a basecoat or basecoat and wash. Certainly the unit is good enough for the tabletop but it does need that extra little bit to call it fully complete. 

As before the bases are unfinished as I'm wanting to get all my core stuff together and get them varnished in one go, so it will be a while yet. I've also not decided precisely how I'm going to tackle the basing and so the varnish issue is allowing me to continue kicking that can down the road. 

Rank and File Month #2 is The Pine Crags Kindred

10 Archers, with standard and musician - 132pts

I've struggled with time this month as I wasn't able to pick up my paintbrushes until well after the mid-point of the month and as such overall progress has suffered. Particularly as not once was I able to get into my hobby grotto and do some airbrush work. This has meant that my tribute is, as yet, unpainted (though I have at least managed to strip most of the Gloss Humbrol enamel its previous owner had slathered it with). 

Oops

Next month's plans are as follows:

• Paint my tribute [PRIORITY 01]
• 5 Glade Riders with command
• Bonus Treeman (?)

PaulM - Mórr's Wild Hunt - R&F month 1

 Well, by the skin of my teeth, I've just about managed to push through with month one. 

I had real issues getting the momentum up on this project, likely impacted by the fact that I'd not followed my own advice from the last OWAC I took part in by completely failing to do any prep-work whatsoever. Leaving me with a pile of lead that all needed cleaning, basing and undercoating - operations that significantly bit into my very limited painting time. Silly boy Pike! 

Regardless, for Month One I'm proud to present:

The Wizened Ones - five Dryads at 175pts

The Pine Glades Kindred - five Wood Elf Scouts 80pts

I made pretty heavy use of Contrast Paints across all of the models this month, combined with an undercoat of Tamiya Hull Red with a white zenithal. This allowed me to only have to spend an hour or so on each figure (which is good, as it's rare I get even that much hobby time in a typical month).

You may notice I haven't finished the basing; mea culpa. I've both not decided exactly what approach I'm going to take, and also spent the last week re-doing my offshore survival course which has leas to me having to catch up on a lot of work in the evenings. I'd also like to make sure they're varnished first, and I'd rather not have to do that every month. I've already started to lose paint off of some of the sharper areas just from general handling.

We've also got our tribute to present this month and I have the below, in glorious gloss British Racing Green and cream, courtesy of its previous owner. He's soon to get a paint-stripper bath and will be presented in all his Chaotic glory next month. 

PaulM - Mórr's Wild Hunt - OWAC VII intro post

 Hello my OWAC people!

Back again for a second crack of the whip. I've had the idea of a Wood Elf army kicking around for a while and have been picking up bits here and there for several years.

In my 30-ish years of playing war dollies I have at one point owned a Wood Elf army, during 6th edition in fact, but it was half-inched by some unscupulous sort about a decade ago and I am now sans Woodies, so this year's event seemed the perfect opportunity to rectify that and get the savage tree-hippies back on the table.

The plan, originally, was to do, one for one, the Mórr's Wild Hunt sample list [above] as presented in the 4th edition Army Book; but, and those who followed my last OWAC attempt will know this, doing the complete list is probably a tad optimistic for the arch-procrastinator that I am. As such I've decided on a paired back list, that is likely more achievable.

That list consists of the following:

10 Archers 

5 Dryads

5 Scouts - with Standard and Musician

5 Glade Riders

5 Warhawk Riders

Treeman

General, Scout Hero & Mage on Great Eagle.

Wildcard - Elven Way Stones

The army is mostly made up of Mark Copplestone sculpted ex-Grenadier figs, with the odd 3rd and 4th/5th edition GW sculpt thrown in, and a Harlequin Treeman (that I'm likely to replace with one of the Harrrowhyrst/Trish Carden ones). I have some 3rd edition archers somewhere that need adding in too, to mix up the archers a little. 

The eagle-eyed amongst you may have spotted that there are 10 Wardancers present too, they will get dropped in dependant on progress, though even the least observant reader will notice that my pre-OWAC prep has resulted in precisely zero progress, so I've already set myself a mountain to climb!

All a bit if fun though innit? Onward for Athel Loren! 

Paul M's High Elf Host - "The Star and Garter" - Rank and File Month One

Yessss! There's nothing like the start of OWAC season to get the hobby juices flowing. I've absolutely loved seeing all the progress posts and camaraderie in the group this month and I'll start my post by saying thank you and congratulations to one and all, challengers and Mighty Overlords included, for getting OWAC VI off to such a good start.

I always like to start with a rank and file month as I like to get some bulk painting in the army colour scheme done before moving on to things like leaders and wildcards. 

This year I have started with a unit of Silver Helm cavalry, remembering that last year I didn't seem to hate painting all those horses as much as I heard people complain about... hmmm...

These are my second unit of Silver Helms for my High Elf host and in theory form the bulk of Ulthuan's cavalry forces. As such I don't treat them as a particularly high status unit like Dragon Princes, nor a specialist unit like Ellyrian Reavers, and their livery is a fairly basic white and blue combo over simple silver plate, with the thematic green 'dragon scale' on the mail in honour of this being a host of King Caledor.

The unit was assembled from what remained after a pre-OWAC version of myself took the easy option from a hoard of accumulated second hand mismatched and damaged HE cavalry and selected the most intact*/easiest to repair cavalry for my first unit. This meant lots of dodgy gaps around the necks (which to my shame I left unfilled as I had really begun to fall out of love with these sculpts... an early sign of the onset of cavalry fatigue?) and of course missing tails. More press moulding was the answer here of course, but after a number of experiments I found press moulds the plastic horse tails from the original model (with the wrapping at the base) are very tricky to attach reliably and prone to getting knocked off easily, so I have actually gone for tails from Goblin Wolf riders from the same era as the profile gives a better fit/stick, and so the scale is still suitably OTT.

* Intact didn't always mean correctly matched torsos to legs, so both units remain slightly mismatched even after some adjustments between units, but I have come to see that as a feature of how the army book describes Silver Helms as recruited from the young nobility of High Elf society. Yes, there is a broad uniform and standard of equipment within and across units, but Elves lives are long and military equipment is likely made bespoke and at different times so uniformity doesn't seem as important in this type of unit.

I also had a go at press moulding an arm to replace one that was completely missing, always with the idea of making this a standard bearer. I had real trouble getting a decent mould of the arm I wanted to use and this is the best of a very bad bunch. Slightly misaligned cocktail stick banner pole for 1990s authenticity.... also another sign I was losing the love for them. At least I remembered right at the last minute that I had some plastic HE emblems, including the long pointed star to match the shield design for the unit that I was going to stick on top to make it look less like a cocktail stick.... then I took it off again and stuck it on the right way round....

The banner is a simple pennant cut from the foil of a wine bottle top, with the runes Sethai, meaning: "flight, wind, cry in the far mountains" and Elthrai, meaning: "Doom, inexorable fate, hope" used in combination here to infer that a swift death awaits the enemies of the Silver Helms. 

This combination echoes the runes on the banner I added last year to the first unit, Sethai meaning 'Flight, wind, cry in the far mountains' and Harathoi meaning 'Youth, boundless energy, jealousy' used together to represent the speed and potency of the young elven nobles that make up the Silver Helm cavalry. This repeated use of the first rune is also deliberate to try and give a sense of shared military ethos and identity across the regiments of Silver Helms.

I also realised that the unit champions would be far better swapped around so that the one with the horse shaped crest on his helm leads the 'horse' unit and the bare headed Middlehammer era champion leads the 'star' unit. So.... this month I painted a champion, a horse, and a shield from scratch which you can see here over these two miniatures. I swapped the shields for obvious reason but I had to swap the mounts too so the basing would be consistent within the two units.

So there we have it. A unit of eight Silver Helms, and an example of a very successful officer exchange programme. I'm definitely done painting horses for a while though!

Total for the month:

8 Silver Helms inc. Champion, Standard bearer, and musician -  353 pts

Total: 353 pts /16* figures

* mounted troops count double according to OWAC rules, and rather than points value this year's SPECIAL EDITION is more focussed on the minimum 10 figures per month.
NB: for my own self imposed rule about needing to paint one extra figure per 5 pre-painted bases I use, it is important to note that all 8 bases were done from scratch this month. I might need that cushion later!

Now, that might sound like a negative, moaning post about how much I hate the models I've just painted.... Nope. It's an OWAC victory is what it is! There is NO WAY I would have bothered to go back and try and resurrect a second unit without the OWAC giving me the proper motivation. They are FAR from perfect but they are ready for the battlefield and now I have two units of far from perfect Silver Helms rather than just one, and a total of 42 painted High Elf cavalry across 3 divisions of light (15 Ellyrian Reavers), medium (18 Silver Helms), and heavy cavalry (9 Dragon Princes). Fourteen year old me is not going to believe this when I tell him :)

...

"Wot!? All that and still no blummin' archers?"

Alright, alright. Keep you shirt on (until the end of the challenge where you can bare your chest like a real man behind a fully painted army of toy soldiers!). Here...

I finally got round to finishing my first refurbished archer unit - 22 Archers of Caledor. These don't count towards the OWAC but it does feel good to have them done as this unit includes some of my very first high elf models from the original WFB4 boxed set I got for my birthday back in 1992... and it is at least their third coat of paint so don't look too closely for any detail because there isn't any!

Despite all the battles they have fought in they have never had proper leadership until now. I've tried to mix up my available command figures across the multiple units, so I've co-opted a spare Bolt Thrower crew member to act as unit champion (I quite like the idea and look of Archer/Bolt thrower officers having the same 'uniform' in the Caledor lines).

I was short one whole musician, and had a broken archer with no bow, so I tried my hand at some more ambitious press moulding with some of my least impressive results to date. After 5 failed attempts I took the least worst and made it work. Sort of.... There is also a single very old, and very bad (possibly one of my first EVER attempts at press moulding from many years ago), replacement bow top in amongst the crowd.

The standard bearer had a broken sword which kept him out of use, but I finally found the blade that was broken (not even sorry) and fixed it. The runes are Minaith meaning: "Skill in arms, spirituality, the Lost Way" and Senlui meaning: "Swiftness, accuracy" which seems like an apt combination for archers. In WFB5 both High Elf archers and spearmen have the "Citizen Levy" attribute which lets them shoot/fight with one extra rank. I have already used the Minaith rune on the banners of both my Spearmen units to signify this martial philosophy of High Elven citizenry, so I have deliberately used it again for the archers to show that connection in how the units are formed and then function as the back bone of any High Elf army.

Right. I'll shut up. Thanks for reading and I hope to see you again next month :)