Graeme's Wood Elves - OWAC 9, March Post (Rank and file #2 - 110points )

Graeme's Wood Elves - OWAC 9 March Post (Rank and file #2 - 110 points)

Where did the last eight weeks go to?

At the end of February I just didn't make the deadline to submit. I had seven Archers and three Wardancers that were close to being finished, but weren't quite there.

I got a new camera, and played around with that for a couple of days.

In the beginning of March, I went on holiday for a week, tagging along with my wife when she attended a conference in Bergen in Norway.

I decided that, since I had plenty of time to spare, I'd swap out the wardancers and do three more archers instead. I really want to focus on building up my core army of archers, after all...

The cat picked up an infection, or virus, or something, and needed to go to the vet a couple of times and get a course of antibiotics.

I tried out different hair colours on the archers, and didn't like them, so redid the hair on half of them.

I had a busy week at work and skipped some painting nights...

I looked out the leader figures I want to do next month and tried out a couple of colours on them, to find some inspiration.

You get the picture.

With a few days to go in March I was STILL not done with those ten figures.

I had a couple of late nights and slapped some more paint on them.

Are they done? No. Base colours and shading are done. Highlights and metals still need to be done.

Will they do? I guess they'll have to. At least there's no bare metal on display... They pass a basic inspection from the far side of a tabletop.

Another ten archers join the ranks.

Group 1:

Group 2:

For the bookkeeping:

10 Wood Elf archers - (110 points)
Equipped with longbows and hand weapons

For April, I have to be realistic:

I have to focus on a small group of leaders, and finish them off in the first two weeks of the month. Focussing on batches of two or three figures was working, and I need to get back into that rhythm.
I already have to make a start on the last rank-and-file batch in April, if I want any chance of hitting the deadline in May.

I'm teetering on the edge of the field of bones.

Well done to the challengers who are delivering such a lot of well-painted models! You're making it look so easy!

Hope to see you for another instalment next month!

Graeme's Wood Elves - OWAC 9, January Post (Rank and file #1 - 110points )

Graeme's Wood Elves - OWAC 9 January Post (Rank and file #1 - 110 points)

Well, I got off to a really good start in January, and made the most of my holidays - I had the base colours on all my January models within a few days. Plus, I managed to do at least a little painting every day of the month, so the progress was consistent.

I had a few wobbles in the middle of the month. This is a new colour scheme I'm trying, with a 'summer palette' based on a tetradic color combination, with green as the main colour. However, I realised some of the other colours I'd chosen (purples and oranges) weren't really working as well as I'd hoped, and I'd gone with too many complementary colours, so I had a bit of a re-think and re-painted a couple of tunics to make the group a little more coherent. In the end, I managed to scrape through and get the first 10 models finished. Nothing fancy, nothing spectacular, just 10 basic Elf archers.

I'm happy with how they turned out:

Group 1:

Group 2:

And the whole unit together:

Looking at the photos I see a few areas which need a little more work, but considering this is the most minis I've painted in four years, I'll take it. I'm planning on varnishing everything this year too, but I'll wait for a bit before doing a big batch, then flocking the bases.

I think the 'summer palette' worked fairly well. I used three different shades of green. Two worked really well, but I'm not so sure about the darkest green. I might try another shade in February.

The warm reds, browns and yellows worked out pretty well. My grand plan is to use an 'autumnal' palette with my High Elf army, and a 'winter' palette with my Sea Elves. I'm not sure what I'll do for my Dark Elves, but that's something I can worry about later.

I did want to give an impression of age, despite the bright palette, and was planning to do more ageing on the metals. I still might get round to this, as well as weathering the leathers more, but this would be a nice bonus. If I get round to some warriors in the later months of the challenge it should be easier, since there will be more metal and armour on display.

For the bows, I wanted to emphasise that these are the renowned Wood Elf bows, made from the Lornalim tree. I went for a lighter, natural (bone) colour, but I'm tempted to add more highlights, to make them stand out more.

For the bookkeeping:

10 Wood Elf archers - (110 points)
Equipped with longbows and hand weapons

Now, I'm a little worried about being able to keep up the pace I need to complete the OWAC. I didn't have many distractions, was painting a little every day, yet was still cutting it fine to reach the finish line this month. I suspect I'll need to take on some different models in February, either ones with less details, or at least something to break up the monotony of painting archers. I've got a few Wardancers and Bears in the wings. However, I've got to keep reminding myself that my personal goal for this OWAC is to have at least 30 archers done by the end of it...

I'll also try to focus on batches of three figures, aiming to finish them in a week. At least this breaks things up a bit, and might avoid that last-minute sprint for the finish line at the end of the month.

At least our cat is quite happy that I'm joining in the challenge - he's realised I now spend more time than usual sitting still at my painting desk, so has been making the most of it:

Graeme's Wood Elves - OWAC 9 Introduction Post

 

Graeme's Wood Elves - OWAC 9 Introduction Post

Back in the OWAC saddle again!

After the embarrassingly swift trips to the Field of Bones in my last few OWAC attempts, I'm back with my Wood Elf army.

If many of the figures look familiar, it's because many were in my line up for OWAC V, and the rest were in my original plan for OWAC VI, before I defected to #teamskaven! Yes, they've been languishing in a cupboard for almost four years. If you're interested, you can check out the posts here:

OWAC V: https://oldworldarmychallenge.blogspot.com/2021/12/graemes-owac-v-introduction-post-wood.html

OWAC VI: https://oldworldarmychallenge.blogspot.com/2022/12/graemes-owac-vi-introduction-post.html

Hopefully I've learned from some of my previous mistakes - this year I have enough figures fully prepped for the full OWAC, and then some:

My goal for this OWAC is to focus on completing the mandatory 30 archers for a 3rd edition Wood Elf army, and to build from there.

Since OWAC 9 is based on selecting a pice of old GW art and theming the project around it, I'm going for the box art for Skarloc's Wood Elf Archers Regiment of Renown:

In my 30+ years of collecting, I never actually owned a Skarloc RoR box! This year I managed to buy a lot of Wood Elf archers with the front and back covers of the box, which is where I got the photo from. I plan on getting it framed and hung up somewhere for inspiration for the challenge.

I'll not be following the colour scheme too closely, as I'm going for a combination of a summer palette with a weathered and ancient look for these Wood Elves, but it's definitely a good reference to work from.

Now for a closer look at the army.

The bulk of the army will be made up of archers, and archer elites.

Archer unit one:

Archer unit two:

Archer unit three:

Archer unit four, made up of the figures from Skarloc's archers Regiment of Renown, with a small conversion of Glam, to make him look a little more like the illustration on the box. I'll be treating them as regular archers for the challenge, rather than scouts. This means I should be able to hit the compulsory archer minimum number for the force.

Archer unit five:

You'd be forgiven if you're getting bored of seeing Elven archers by now, so there's a few units of non-archers too.

A fairly large unit armed with spears. At this point they only have spears, but I'm looking for suitable shields to add somewhere, to match the 3rd edition army list. If anyone has added shields to these figures, either slung on the back, or attached to the arm, I'd be really interested to see how you did it! My attempts so far haven't looked very convincing.

Beastmaster with bears:

A small unit of Wardancers, armed with two hand weapons. There are a couple of conversions in there, for the sharp-eyed:

Finally, some wizards to lead the army:

I've converted a few of these models, just for some variety, and am quite pleased with how they turned out.

There are a handful of heroes, more infantry troops, and some bonuses in the works, but we'll have to wait and see if I find the time to finish the prep and include them in this year's challenge.

Just for the book keeping, here's an estimate of points for a 3rd edition WFB army, based on what's prepped:

Characters

1 Wood Elf Sylphseer (Level 15 wizard) - (206 points)
Equipped with a horse, and hand weapon

2 Wood Elf Spellsingers (Level 10 wizards) - (236 points)
Equipped with a hand weapon

2 Wood Elf Woodfeys (Level 5 wizards) - (156 points)
Equipped with a hand weapon

1 Wood Elf Guardian Wardancer (Level 10 hero) - (103 points)
Equipped with light armour, and two hand weapons

Total: 691 points

Troops

10 Wood Elf archers - (110 points)
Equipped with longbows and hand weapons

10 Wood Elf archers - (110 points)
Equipped with longbows and hand weapons

10 Wood Elf Guards (+2 missile elite) - (150 points)
Equipped with longbows, light armour, and hand weapons

7 Wood Elf archers - (110 points)
Equipped with longbows, light armour, shields, and hand weapons

5 Wood Elf Glade Runners (scouts) - (80 points)
Equipped with longbows, and hand weapons

20 Wood Elf Warrior Kinband - (180 points)
Equipped (for now) with spears, and hand weapons

1 Wood Elf Beastmaster - (15 points)
Equipped with light armour, and a hand weapon

5 Bears - (100 points)

6 Wood Elf Wardancers - (138 points)
Equipped with light armour, and two hand weapons

Total: 993 points

So, currently not quite enough archers to hit the minimum compulsory number for 3rd edition, but I'm still planning to add some models to the archer units, either with troops, or musicians and standard bearers. If I don't manage that, the Guards will be demoted to regular archers, and I'll update the points values.

It's a bit daunting seeing all these Wood Elves together on my worktop. I'm going to be realistic, and state right from the start that there's no way I'll get all of these painted - I'm just too slow. I'm going to start off painting them in batches of three or four, and see how far I get.

Nice to see some great looking armies in the works for OWAC9. Fingers crossed we make it to the finish line!

Good luck to everyone!