Paul's Dwarf Army Month 3 Rank and file Spearmen.

 Three months in and things have been a bit hectic with family stuff including the arrival of a new granddaughter which was pretty amazing. Despite this I have managed to crack on with putting brush to metal and have finished a unit of 10 spearmen. The intention was to complete another unit of 15 models but time constraints have taken their toll and I won't be able to do any hobbying for the last week of March. So I've had to bite the bullet and give in for the time being. I have partially finished the command group but I can submit them next month so that cuts future me a bit of slack. 

These guys were an absolute delight to paint as each is characterful but they don't have the frustratingly high degree of detail that many new minis exhibit. The faces on these are amazing as well with some absolutely astounding expessions. At present they cost 121 points but with 3 ranks and a full command that will increase to 178 points. Once complete the spearmen, thunderers and miners will give me a total of 515 points for the army so far. Below are some close ups of the individual ranks.

As a preview for the next post I will be completing another 5 minis for this unit which will include the command group. I have made a start on these and below is a WIP shot of where I've got to with them. 

I want to do a flag for the standard bearer so I will be trawling through old copies of White Dwarf and Army books for some inspiration. As well as these guys next month I will be looking at the command models for my army. The original list had a General and a Hero but I found an old metal Runesmith which I thought would be a nice addition. There may also be some Orange haired axe wielding psychopaths on the horizon. That concludes this months post. Looking forward to the next instalment. 

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?

Jaeckel's Castle Wittgenstein - The villagers (R&F month)

 

March is done, give me a drink! Well... maybe not, after all. The Rotgut booze prepared by the good doctor Jean Rousseaux - and sold only for 6 pennies the bottle! - is not exactly the kind of medicine you would expect from a physician: a mixture of alcohol and juniper berries... flavoured with the powdered warpstone, gently provided by Lady Margritte von Wittgenstein. 

Needless to say that the peasants and farm-workers of Wittgendorf that are addicted to the Rotgut booze are both mentally and physically damaged.

Still, the 10 models painted this month are in a rather good shape (if one excepts the bandages hiding minor mutations). The miniatures come mainly from two Citadel ranges: the C46 Militia & Villagers, and the F4 Mercenaries. Only two models have been converted to receive a spear. In terms of painting, I have used purple and light blue in the skintones to suggest that there could be something wrong with some Wittgendorfers.

 

The villagers are led by Kurt Kutzmann, doctor Rousseaux's loyal assistant. Intoxicated by the booze he's selling to the peasants, he's totally idiotic, and giggles all the time. In terms of miniature, I have painted a citizen from the Marauder Miniatures MM62 range.

The Wittgendorfers:

See you next month!

Death from Above! Paul's High Elves - Leader month (1023 pts)

It's leader month for my 90's High Maintenance Elves and if you set out to create a grand host of Caledor there really is only one thing that you can have leading your army. That's right. A big bastard dragon! Oh, and a flying sky pony :D

OK, we all know it's Prince Imrik, but I've painted him as a general of an army of Caledor and the rules of the OWAC (quite rightly imho) don't allow points costs for Special Characters in any case.

This sucker was in a very sorry state when I dug it out of the lead pile. It was a rescue lot of ebay some years back and the state it arrived in prompted me to put it in a box where it couldn't scare anyone. It was covered in putty which had to peeled and gouged away, and was stuck together with epoxy glue so strong that even after multiple dips in paint stripper some parts were still stuck together solidly enough to use in the final rebuild. 

As I cleaned it up more horrors were revealed. There seemed to have been some poor moulding and some very soft metal in some of the detail around the saddle back, and possibly some kind of soft metal coloured filler used to cover over it. Good job this thing was a bargain some years back and not a special purchase at current prices otherwise I would have been a bit peeved!

Anyway, suffice to say the blighter took a lot of cleaning up and the drilling and pinning really tested my modelling skills. I hate it only slightly less than the modern GW plastic Zombie Dragon that my son and I put together a few months back, and I really bloody hate that thing... 

Once the metal and putty work was done I was actually really keen to get stuck in and paint it, and for once I enjoyed it as much as I thought I would. I had already painted up the rider when doing my second batch of dragon princes, so I could just focus on the dragon and I'm really happy with how the colour scheme worked out, although I know I could have taken the highlights further, and done more work on the dragon's face. 

The basing elements keep the strict colour scheme and echo the Undead/Greenskin hordes which my High Elves regularly face, as well as a broken HE spear tip to give the sense of the lord and his beast being in the thick of the battle. I added a Eldar ruin element from a war walker sprue to a few scattered rocks as the campaign we play is set in the blasted ruins of the coast of Caledor.

Next up was a High Elf Hero on Pegasus. I've always loved this mini from GW publications and WD battle reports. It's a big chunky Marauder sculpt and I was looking forward to finally getting to paint it after treating myself to an early birthday present mid-challenge. I'm not sure I showed this prior to this month, so here are some WIP shots. It came to me pre-drilled and pinned, so all I had to do was replace some old putty.

In reality the mini gave me some problems and I'm not sure I'm totally happy with it, particularly the shield which I think is a touch too dark, although I did want to keep things darker to fit with the overall slightly darker feel to the army. As usual, lots of detail is covered by the shield so I took a few shots before attaching it.

Traditionally the high, sculpted saddle back is white, with blue details, but I have deliberately gone away from that look and gone for carved wood, adding some darker tones to what is a very light/white mini overall. However, that dark, chestnut brown is the same colour as the leathers on my Silver Helms, and I really wanted to tie this Hero in to that block of my army by using the same general colour scheme.

I think on this occasion it is more important to give the mini definition, and I have also decided that it won't be a terrible thing if the leathers match the Reavers more than the Silver Helms as it (and his blue fade pony mohican) will tie him in to more than one cavalry unit.

Also on the table this month is another refurbished unit of Spearmen. Some of these are among the sorriest, most thickly under/base coated minis in my collection (inherited from my now Brother-in-law and undercoated with his Dad's car primer I think) and I had to keep reminding myself that it was a refurb and not all the unit were going to be up to OWAC standards. 

I'm not counting those towards the points total however, just the 18 models that were brand new for this month; 12 for the new unit, with full command including a converted musician, and another 6 to add an extra rank to my existing unit of spearmen and bring both units up to 30 strong.

As if painting more than 30 of the same shield design wasn't annoying enough, I then stuck them over the nice dark green gems I'd just painted on the chests of this second 'red' regiment of spearmen. Not only did I feel this justified my decision with the first 'green' regiment of spearmen to paint the massive 'gem' in the chest as a metal boss, but it reminded me of a suspicion I've had for a while now...

Now far be it from me to cast aspersions on the elder race, but the sheer number and size of some of these 'gems' makes me suspicious, and if a High Elf offers to pay you in 'gems' I think you might want to take them to see Don the Jeweller. My theory is they use a flux-melt method (like Gilson synthetic gems) to take poor material and press it into big shiny 'gems' and flood the market for gullible humans, and undercutting the Dwarves. There's no way they are outfitting flippin' speardudes with legit giant emeralds. Not even High Maintenance Elves are that rich.

The standard bearer was another mini that had lost his sword, so to hide that and add some variation between the two units of spearmen I simply added a shield. The banner is a deliberate copy of the one from the first unit, but with the colour scheme reversed. With both units being core to the host of Caledor I envisage them sharing a regimental ethos, hence the runes again read Minaith meaning "Skill in arms, spirituality, the Lost Way" and Senthoy meaning "Unity, Loyalty, broken promise" used together here to mean something like "Skill in arms through unity."

Total for the month:

High Elf General (Heavy Armour, Lance) - 165 pts
Dragon - 450 pts
High Elf Hero (Heavy Armour, Lance, Shield) - 110 pts
Pegasus - 50 pts
18 Spearmen inc. Standard Bearer, Musician and Champion - 280 pts

Correction from March - minus 32 pts*

Total - 1023 pts

* I made a mistake. On closer inspection of the High Elf Army list, White Lions of Chrace get a standard bearer and musician at no extra cost, which means I need to deduct 32 points from my March total.

Technically that completes my third Old World Army Challenge with a month to spare, so I can finish on a wild card. The only thing left from my original list are the Lothern Sea Guard and a couple of minor characters, and while I'm still tempted to keep on blitzing my High Elves this year, the reality is that I still have enough for another entire OWAC and it would be a shame to try and rush too much. I'll have to see what inspires me the most in the next week or so and you'll just have to wait and see :p

Thanks for reading. Congratulations as ever to my fellow challengers for making it this far. The finishing post is just ahead!

Paul's High Elf Heavy Infantry - Rank and File Month Three (437 pts)

March is over and we are half way to the end of the challenge already! Congratulations if you made it this far!

March has got to be heavy infantry month!

The White Lions trace their history back to the time of Caledor the First. Caledor was hunting in Chrace when he received the news he was to be the next Phoenix King. He immediately took the road to the Shrine of Asuryan. On route he was intercepted by Dark Elf assassins who had doubtlessly learned of the new Phoenix King's identity from their spies at court. Caledor would surely have died were it not for the intervention of a party of Chracian hunters who swept out of the forest, throwing the Dark Elves into disarray with the suddenness of the attack, before chopping the assassins into pieces with their great axes. The Chracians proceeded to escort the Phoenix King to the Shrine, easily avoiding further Dark Elves by means of their skilled woodcraft. Caledor adopted the Chracians as his bodyguard, and formed them into a proper regiment based in Lothern.
Warhammer Armies: High Elves 

My plan for March was always to add some more elite foot troops and I had a small unit of 10 4th/5th edition Lion Warriors, making sure to include all the extra beefy Marauder sculpts I had along with the slightly newer command figures, but once I took the plunge and started aiming to paint/re-paint my whole HE army this year (though not necessarily by the end of the OWAC, I hastily add!) it made more sense to throw the rest of the more modern sculpts in to the mix and make a much bigger unit of 23. Once I add in a general (or a mage) and the planned BSB it will be a big 5x5 block. 

Work in progress

I've put them on 25mm square bases which is obviously heresy. I know these should be on 20mm square bases, but the big Marauder sculpts just don't fit and they certainly don't rank up well that way, plus they feel more imposing as elites that way, and it's easy enough to remember how many models should be in combat when it becomes a question.

I can't remember if the banner top for the lion warriors was missing when I bought them, or if I've lost it since, but two thorough searches didn't turn it up, and to be honest I don't really like the original in any case, so I was happy enough to cobble a crosspiece together from a couple of tooth picks. As we all know, in the land of OWAC 2022 is the Year of the Banner, and using a crosspiece rather than the topper allowed me a slightly bigger vertical banner rather than a thinner horizontal one. 

I've kept the colour scheme austere but autumnal, wanting to emphasise the more sober, yet also more wild and ferocious character that I get from the White Lions of Chrace. The basing of orange flowery tufts and fallen leaves also reflects the woodland, autumnal aspect I was going for, and was another reason I opted for the bigger bases.

The rune on the Lion Warriors banner is named Charoi meaning "Strength, ferocity, mane of hair" which seems spot on for the Warriors of Chrace. Very high elven to associate a fine mane of hair with strength and ferocity ;p I added a few little diamond shapes just to expand the design slightly, but it still looked too empty so I added a freehand border on a whim and it doesn't look terrible so I kept it. 

Total for the month:

23 Lion Warriors (inc standard bearer, musician, and champion) - 437 pts

This month also saw a long awaited revamp of my original unit of High Elf Spearmen, first painted in 1994, and boy howdy were they a fright! Especially once I ripped the shields off.

High Elf Spearman Clarence

Fourteen year old me had never even heard of painting non-metallic metals and nearly 30 years later I'm still not going down that road, so I stuck with my original choice of Citadel Metallic Glistening Green, although this time I added some much needed shading with a modern Dark Angels Green 'layer' paint which I normally find annoyingly translucent but in this case was just the job.    

A WIP Christmas tree elf - annoyingly still without shading in this photo

The green and red colour scheme is that of Caledor, the home region for my Elven Host, and the metallic green chain mail seen across the army is intended to both echo dragon scales, and as an homage to the Pheonix King being from Caledor. The theme is continued with the dragon emblem on the shields, which I have been slowly but surely press moulding for a few years now, one or two at a time, every time I use some putty I make a bit extra and cast a couple of shields, in anticipation of this project. Trouble is now I have to paint the buggers! 

The production line... :(

As well as shading, the other thing this lot had been missing all these years was a banner! The runes  are named Minaith meaning "Skill in arms, spirituality, the Lost Way" and Senthoy meaning "Unity, Loyalty, broken promise" used together here to mean something like "Skill in arms through unity" which seems very apt for a unit of Spearmen. 

I added some red swirls spreading down from the top but left the bottom third clear as I didn't want the red to swamp the green. Fourteen year old me is very happy with the unit finally being complete... except now I want to add another rank of six to make it a unit of 30.

And finally, here's a shot of everything painted for the challenge so far, with the revamped units at the back.

I've got a few irons in the fire for April, so I'm going to keep my options open, but it feels good to be over the half way point in the challenge even if there is still loads to do! :)