Paul's Dark(ish) Elves - Leader Month (288 pts)

Vor'Lach, Dark Elf General and Lord of Daggerpoint, cracked his neck and shifted in the saddle of his giant Cold One. The beast was a Lustrian breed, much larger and even more fearsome than the native stock, and gave off the stink of raw and rotting meat from it's last meal of a lizardman slave. 

He stared disdainfully at the approaching High Elf leader as he weaved his horse up the rocky slope to the parlay, his troops following behind, the ruined banner of the Phoenix King held half in pride, and half in shame. 

His shiny armour might be as tarnished as his reputation but the arrogance still dripped from him, calling himself the Blood Dragon but riding an elven steed when it was Vor'Lach who had the courage to have such a terrible lizard as his mount. 

"Hail, mighty Blood Dragon, your reputation for treachery precedes you..." sneered Vor'Lach. 

"Are we truly to believe you and your rag tag reavers, have come to pledge your allegiance to the Court of the True King, and the Cult of Khaine? I hope you have something more convincing than a burnt offering some petty murders behind you in Ulthuan?"

The leader of the High Elves cast his pale face and strange red eyes towards the Dark Elf general, his once noble features now sharp and full of hubris.

"Hail, mighty Vor'Lach, your reputation for ignorance is well deserved I see, for I am not the Blood Dragon. My brother and I are merely its heralds, though it is more than capable of announcing itself..."

He gestured through the mists to the looming cliffs and peaks of Daggerpoint, across the water. A great gout of flame bursts and brightens the gloom, then a second, and a third, accompanied by the sound of roars and screams.  

"I'm afraid you arrived a bit too late, Vor'Lach, and your position as 'lord' of Daggerpoint, and what will remain of it, depends very much on what you do next."

The unmistakable shape of a dragon launched itself from the town walls in a cloud of smoke and embers and soared across the bay to land right in the middle of the gathering. Elves on both sides fell back in awe and terror, but Vor'Lach swallowed his growing bile and kept his nerve.

A second pale skinned and red eyed elf sat atop the mighty dragon, bearing the banner of their house, but it was the Blood Dragon itself who next spoke to Vor'Lach.

"I BELIEVE YOU WERE IN SOME DOUBT ABOUT HOW SERIOUS WE ARE.... I TRUST THAT IS NO LONGER THE CASE, BUT DO LET ME KNOW IF YOU NEED FURTHER CONVINCING AND I WILL HAPPILY EXPLAIN IT TO YOUR REPLACEMENT."

Month five is leader month for my Dark(ish) Elves and it is finally time to meet our main protagonists in this tale of treachery and deceit!

Vor'Lach and the fearsome Herrersaurus battle lizard he rides are from Krakon Games. I've always thought this battle lizard sculpt is an excellent homage to or proxy for the dinosaur/cold one seen on the front of the Dark Elf Army book. However, I originally had something else in mind for it (long since forgotten) so didn't order the rider at the time.... and it turns out you can't order him separately from their website. Doh! Shout out to Ross Whitehorn from Krakon Games who was really helpful when I reached out and hooked me up with this guy in time for the challenge.

I've kept a simple green and purple colour scheme partly for nostalgic reasons... partly because it looks like a packet of Apple and Blackcurrant Frosties (best sweets ever!) which in turn reminds me of the kit Bristol City wore when they beat Liverpool at Anfield in the FA Cup 3rd round replay in 1994... but also because it ties in to the colour scheme for the Gorgon's Guard, his elite mercenary followers.

I had a rough crack at replicating the medusa skull emblem on the banner of the Gorgon's Guard on his rather small heater shield. It's not perfect but at that scale I can probably live with it as you get the general idea.

Given it's impressive size I have been considering playing the beast as a proxy Cockatrice (minus the ability to fly) if I ever need the extra punch. The petrifying gaze would be a good match with such a fearsome beast and would fit in with the emerging gorgon theme for this part of the army. Or it could just be a really big cold one if I don't want to spend the points.

The idea for my renegade High Elf leader was originally inspired by Elric (as I was re-reading his adventurers when I was planning this army) but the story has changed and grown in the telling and the idea for the treacherous High Elven brothers is now part Elric and part Cobra Crimson Twins from GI Joe/Action Force.

Hence they are known as Tomax and Xamot, which I think fits the idea of them being interchangeable stand-ins for the Blood Dragon and would explain how the famed and fearsome reaver could be rumoured to be in two places at once.

Tomax (or is it Xamot?) is a High Elf Hero made from various left over bits from my extensive High Elf cavalry. I'm not entirely sure the legs and torso go together but the lighter armoured lower half with helm and cuirass might work for a half naval half cavalry officer. His high crested helm looked a bit like fluted dragon scale, and that seemed to tie in with the random later edition Dragon Princes horse head I had somehow acquired which then got stuck on a left over silver helm steed.

I had to add some greenstuff to the saddle to make him fit without hovering, but all in all I think he makes for a fairly convincing fallen high elf noble. The slightly odd pose forced by the putty-saddle makes him look like he is leaning forward to bark commands while using his shield to shelter incoming missile fire.

I painted up the dragon and rider prior to the start of the challenge, as both test and inspiration for the idea for my Darkish Elves. Now that the ideas are more fully formed I've gone back to add the shield and the banner to show the same emblem of the Dragon emerging from a sea of blood. This serves as both house emblem and a not so subtle dig at the new Caledor regime in Ulthuan. 

I've also included a few basing elements to tie it in to the terrain of the Bleak Coast, and a discarded loyalist Caledor shield as a nod to their treacherous background on Ulthuan.

I'm not counting any OWAC points for the dragon and rider but they are included here for character and context for the army background for my Dark(ish) Elves.

Monthly Total:

Dark Elf General w/ heavy armour and shield, mounted on Cold One - 174 pts
Dark(ish) Elf Hero w/ light armour, shield mounted on Elven Steed w/ barding - 114 pts

Total points: 288pts

Congratulations as always to those of you still in the challenge!

With the leaders taken care of and all four of my rank and file months already in the bag, this is technically my 6th completed OWAC. I'm very proud of that achievement but I also want to keep my record of never having taken a mulligan, so I definitely still have plans for a Wild Card next month :) 

Tom's Bony Bit

This month I finished my last rank and file unit and I feel like its been very successful. I had made a good start last month so it didn't take me to long to finish this elite unit. The question is are they Skeleton Horsemen or mounted Wights? In a game I could us them as either, but I came up with the idea to make the riders look like the Nazgul otherwise knows as the Ringwraith's for the LOTR. In WFB4 you can't really have mounted Wraiths, so I guess counting them as Wights is the best option to show they are an elite unit. 

The zombie horses are Living Dead Cavalry from Fireforge Games in Italy. They are a good fit for modern GW skeletons.

I chose to do an old Citadel shield from my Dad's collection for this Standard Bearer. I went with another crusader design as the year before they are one of my favourite historic periods. In Old World terms they could be fallen knights of Araby.

I used VMC hull red and red to get a fade on this shield design and up to Mephiston red making it look like the paint has chipped of  after years in the grave. For the banner I went with a red on black design, mirroring a previous design.

To bring this unit together with the other units in my army, I used; MPs chestnut-brown and coffee, and Citadel Colours Skeleton Horde (Contrast), Basilicanum Grey (Contrast), Rakarth flesh, Dryad bark, Death-world Forest, Ogryn camo, Mephiston red, Screamer pink and Leadbelcher. I have used purple to show the dark magic that gives them power to crush their enemies. 

I'm very happy with my work for this month as I think they tie in with both the ghouls and the Skeleton units.

Monthly Total:

5 Wights on Skeletal Steeds inc. Standard Bearer - 234 pts

Total points: 234 pts

Thank you for reading, hope everybody's last month goes well. Just my leader to go before I finish my second OWAC!! :) 

Paul's Dark(ish) Elves - Rank and File Month 3 - Patriots and Traitors -337 pts

Morganspyr spat on the ground as his mount's hoof touched the shore of the bleak coast of Naggarythe for the first time. Was this really the price of their devotion to the cause? Disparaged honour forcing them to act in retaliation and then slink away to this miserable rain swept outpost of their mad kinfolk? 

He waved the rest of his men, cavalry and spear, onward to take up position on a rocky hill top above the shoreline. If their noble and enthusiastic bloodletting for Caledor had been valued in the war, afterwards it was seen as an inconvenient stain on it's reputation. Something not to be celebrated but hushed up. Erased. Deliberately forgotten... 

No wonder Blood Dragon, as leader of their house, had been compelled to take action in leading his men against a delegation from the newly proclaimed 'Phoenix King', bearing his very banner indeed. The slaughter had been bright and bloody, the prideful fools having no idea enemies were among them. Their banner fallen. Burning in mage fire. Taken by Blood Dragon as a totem of his devotion and their new loyalties... 

Morganspyr's expression soured as his memory of that last fight on Ulthuan faded and he looked around at the grey rocks and cracked bones that scattered the coastline and let his melancholy take him once more. What was the point of being worshippers of Khaine if everyone around here had already been killed?

I'm calling this unit The Tarnished Helms to signify the beginning of their transition from Silver Helms (albeit murder hobo-ing Khaine worshipping Silver Helms) to Dark Riders. I enjoyed using a vey restricted colour palette for the unit, although I accept that with such a dark feel overall I'm maybe not making the best of the details on the sculpts.... but that is in some ways deliberate to hide the fact they are a bit of a rough and ready repair job with replacement press-moulded tails, mismatched heads, uniforms, weapons... even one of the horses heads is different. I decided to embrace this mixed bag by making them a down on their luck unit of refugee war criminals who have been accused of crimes they definitely DID commit.

Dark Riders come with sword and light armour and can be equipped with spears, so if we downgrade the lances that fits pretty well with the models. They can also have repeating crossbows, but that doesn't fit with the models or the unit background, so I didn't add them despite still having plenty of milliput X-bows available. They don't have the option of shields in the army book but I really felt like the models needed them (especially as one of the most serious rescue jobs has a badly mangled hand, now hidden by his shield) and I really wanted to use the classic HE emblem shields on my two traitor units to show their heritage, and the sword through the heart symbol seemed to fit these Khaine worshipping cut throats. 

Dark Riders do get the Skirmish ability though, so I will happily forgo actually using the shields (and the point cost) to keep them in line with the DE army book, and also as a way to show how they have changed battle tactics as renegades, and how they will integrate into the wider Dark Elf forces. 

I added a reference to the grey rocks and bone strewn ground in the intro to link in to the basing elements I'm starting to introduce - lots of skulls and broken bones. The swamp grass is partly inspired by an earlier reference to how dank the high walled port town of Daggerpoint is, covered in moss. Also partly inspired by my Gardenhammer backdrop.

I named the champion Morganspyr because it sounds suitably pretentious for someone who wears a feathered helm so offensive it is basically his whole personality. I could never quite bring myself to use the figure in my High Elves (that high helm is too high maintenance even for the High Maintenance Elves themselves - try saying that three times fast) but it turned out that's because he was waiting for his starring role as a complete douche bag sidekick for the main BBE.

 

The Keepers of the Burnt Banner are a solid unit of not-so-High Elf spearmen, pledged to the Blood Dragon and the cult of Khaine, they have their own bloody reputation as the unit who turned on the royal emissaries when the Blood Dragon refused the summons and captured the phoenix king's banner amid the slaughter. 

I've given them Caledor themed shields to emphasise their heritage, but made them all dark and edgy with a grey to red fade. On reflection I regret making the gems on the helms green and not red, but I like the overall look of both units as being a dark inflection of the red and green colour scheme of my Caledor themed High Elves from the previous two OWACs.

I've used two (Marauder? I should check...) sculpts for the Champion and Musician that had a slightly more rugged look than some of the other high elf command, and certainly the later versions. Both have animal skins, the champion is definitely a spearman, but his pose, fancy armour and cloak remind me a little of the Phoenix Guard (or in my Host of Caledor the Dragon Guard - maybe he was part of the unit they deposed?), while the musician bears a bow and quiver on his side which I also thought spoke to the fact that these fallen-from-on-High Elves might not all have started in the same unit or region but have come together as renegades. 

The banner is my freehand take on the Banner of  the Phoenix King from the High Elf Army book. I use the foil from tomato paste tubes for big banners that I want to shape or distress, and it worked well in this instance. I wanted to give a sense of the banner having been badly burned before being captured as a trophy (emphasising it's phoenix like credentials) so after finishing what might be my best ever banner.... I slapped a load of congealed AP Soft Tone and (not congealed) Vallejo Smoke effect all over it.... I think it worked quite well, even if a little part of me died.

The banner top has a story to tell. It belongs to the White Lions of Chrace from my High Elf host, but was lost in the congealed murk at the bottom of the paint stripper jar. At the time the needs of the OWAC spurred me to craft an alternative banner for that unit which I was quite happy with. When it reappeared from the gloop at the end of last year along with a big load of Dark Elves it inspired the idea behind this unit's backstory and the banner they carry. 

Monthly Total:

The Tarnished Helms - 5 Dark Riders (w/ light armour, swords, spears) inc Champion - 157 pts

The Keepers of the Burnt Banner - 10 Spearmen (w/ spear, light armour and shield) inc full command -180 pts 

Total pts - 337 pts

Tom's Bony Bit

Month three was another skeleton unit, this time archers. It felt good to finish multiple coats of browns and reds, metals, and the banner of this fiddly unit. I started off with the usual chestnut brown into a dry brush of coffee. Then I worked with a red triad to get a fade effect before applying skeleton horde and red tone to bring this unit together.

I included a Beastman skull to infer the different types of armies I have defeated. I loved using the new Retributor Gold we bought at our new FLGS during half term last month. I like the beautiful effect it had on the helmets and banner top.    

Finally, I used light grey to pick out details on the banner and the High Elf bows and quivers carried by the unit command, to keep to my overall army colour palette.

Monthly Total:

10 Skeleton Archers inc. Standard and Musician - 120 pts

Total points: 120 pts

To sign off here are four different banners from my different skeleton units, to show how they all tie into the overall army scheme. Next month is my last rank and file then I'm onto some fun things! Good luck for next month, many thanks for reading, Tombo!

Paul's Dark Elves - Daggerpoint Cityguard - Rank & File month 2 (288pts)

The tolling of the muster bell echoed along the high walled, moss-clung, alleyways of the port town clinging to the rocks below Daggerpoint. The citizens of the town begrudgingly answer the call for it would imperil their lives not too, either in the short term from potential raiders from the sea, or in the longer term when their lord and his household guard return from their sojourn to the south and punish them for not heeding the call to defend the town.

The sneers of distaste from the Dark Elf merchants and artisans would be obvious as they don the oily grey leather armour provided for the militia of the City Guard, foul to the touch and foul to the senses from the waterproofing of sea mammal by-products. Only the unit leader gets the questionable benefit of a helm, though bereft of the high quill of the military units. His fellow City Guard are glad enough to go without and not suffer the stink of a helm. 

The hard bitten and professional Crossbow armed soldiery look on as the pampered civilians pick up their spears and crossbows, arranging themselves into alternate ranks. All of the whining and posturing will stop pretty quickly if the Blood Dragon did manage to attack the port with his Ulthuan highborns. If that happened then there was one thing the soldiers knew, and that was the 'City Guard' were going to die before they did.

One of my favourite High Elf units are the Lothern Seaguard. I like the idea of a tactically versatile militia unit built on natural or cultural martial traditions and armed with a combination of melee and missile weapons, and one that embodies the character of their city or region. Having enjoyed making a makeshift unit of my own Seaguard in OWAC VI I felt like this unit of Dark Elf City Guard made perfect sense and the Daggerpoint militia would be my own Dark(ish) and miserly mirror of the Seaguard. Providing a window on how dark elf society works on the borders of their territory, with all citizens needing to be able to contribute and survive in harsh conditions, or die...

As you can see the metal spears I had allocated for the unit turned out to be a bit too short...

... and then I ran out of that type of spear with one mini left, so I used a larger option that I only had a few of, chopped a bit off and stuck it on the other end. I much prefer this look and it was only after I finished the unit that I thought I really should have gone back and added some bits of chopped up paperclip to the rest of them to give the same effect to the short spears. I still might...

The luxury of having amassed so much white plastic crack is that I could distinguish my more military Crossbow units with the classic pointed Dark Elf helmets, leaving the excess generic elven heads from last years Wood Elf archers to be used for the civilian militia of the City Guard, where the only helmet belongs to the unit leader. This allowed me to bring a bit more colour with some different Dark Elf hair colours, as did the coloured silken civvies underneath the grey-blue leather oil skin of their uniforms... but only a little bit more as I still want the overall look of these to be quite subdued.

I see these drab and generic militia uniforms as deliberately blending in to the grey and desolate coast line of the rocky islands. Where does this military/naval issue grey leather/oil skin material come from? It implies a local source of suitable hides. Something to return to in future posts perhaps...

A final point is that the mossy rock of my Gardenhammer-esque backdrop inspired the description of the damp alleyways the port town, and I think I'm going to pick up on that for some future basing elements.... 

mmmMMMmmm..... Moist.

Monthly Total

24 DE City Guard (inc 12 Repeater Crossbows) - 288 pts

Total - 288 pts

Tom's Bony Bit

What's up folks!? Tombo's back for another OWAC rank and file month!

I'm happy to be back for this month and I have painted some Skeleton crossbow men! Or maybe they're skeleton Dark Elves? 

I "acquired" ten press moulded crossbows from my Dads dark elf arsenal and stuck them on the back of a unit of Wargames Atlantic skeleton swordsmen. I added a games workshop banner to match my other skeleton units. 

I started with Miniature Paints (MP) Chestnut brown on every part of the skeleton, I then used some MP Coffee as the second dry brush layer on the skeletons. I used Citadel Leadbelcher on the swords and shield rims and other metal work. The crossbows are done in a red triad of VMC hull red as a base coat, then mixing in VMC flat red and moving towards Citadel Blood Red or Mephiston Red for the highlights.

Monthly Total: 

10 skeleton warriors with shields and crossbows (including musician and standard bearer) 12 pts each = 144 pts 

Total 144 pts

I'm looking forward to playing with them in a game of WFB 4 soon :)