The Court of Shah K'han, High Elves of far Araby?

 

Back around the turn of the millennium I decided I was too grown up to play with toy soldiers and gave away (sigh) pretty much all of my Warhammer and related games. GW was switching to plastic kits and a chunkier aesthetic which didn't capture my interests, White Dwarf was becoming less 'creative' and there were other things in the outside world to distract my attention...

2010 rolled around and I realised I was wrong. I was sharing a house with a wargamer, studying theology with wargamers and generally decided life was too short not to play with soldiers. Fortunately this was before the price of 'vintage' (how dare you?) minis sky rocketed so I was able to build up a reasonable selection through eBay purchases whenever my part-time wage allowed. My first step back into the hobby, however, was splitting a copy of the freshly-release Isle of Blood set with a mate. He took the skaven, I got the pesky elvses. Initially I was sucked in by the big griffin model... more on that later. 

I hadn't picked up a brush to paint miniatures in over a decade, though I had been painting set models and full-size props so I wasn't totally out of practice. The local hobby shop sold Vallejo paints so that's what I started using, with an old Citadel Expert (inks) Paint Set I snagged off eBay. The two units above represent the first models my 'adult' self had attempted. As part of the Odds and Sods Challenge this month I finally finished off the army, including rebasing (they were previously on MDF squares) of which more later. Apart from a couple of highlights I touched in and some repairs to chipping these are exactly as the paint fell of my brush sometime 2010-11ish. You might notice the odd addition- a scarab here and there, an ankh or Horus head. These were some of my first sculpting attempts!

 

I didn't want to go class High Elf with these. it seemed to me that with the style of the wings of the griffin and their scale mail and tall helms they had something of an Egyptian look so I wanted to play on that. Plus I wasn't too fond of the plastic figures... more on that later! Searching for bargains on eBay I spotted these, Celtos Sidhe Elves sculpted by the excellent Kev White. They're back in production now through Brigade Models and (if you've seen my undead you'll know) are some of my favourite figures. Back then I had to keep an eye out for listings over a couple of years but managed to score quite a few at very low (even lower than Brigade!) prices. I thought they had a suitably Egyptian look and acquired enough to double the sizes of my Lothern Sea Guard and Swordmasters of Hoeth. Oh, and yes, I know that one above is Foundry. She just came in one of the lots and doesn't look out of place!

I had kept hold of my Lord of Rings miniatures, that game and the scenarios (and scenery mostly) had kept my interest even though I ended up hating the films when they came out. I thought this would be a good use of the plastic elves even though they were obviously a bit smaller, I don't think they look too out of place. To make sure they looked definitely diminutive I gave the units big Celtos champions!

The unit of archers I finished in 2011, but I didn't get around to the swordsmen until last weekend. Pretty quick, trying to keep to the level of my original paint jobs. The big challenge was trying to locate which paints and inks I had access to at the time since they're different from what I use now. I do still have all my Vallejo paints and Citadel inks but some of the Vallejo is a bit dry now. At the least it needed a good shake!

Another Ebay find to add in was the Wargods of Aegyptus range. Chris FitzPatrick sculpts so you know they're going to be good! Still available, but quite pricey. I was lucky to find these in bargain lots. The Basti are my favourite, I can't imagine why.

I quickly decided my general had to be a cat-person warrior. In game his unit is, of course, White Lions of Chrace... though I didn't want to go full white with them, sticking to sandy colours for the most part.

The mage I went white on to mark him out as special. His colouration is based on one of the cats I had growing up.

The leader of the archers is also based on a family cat. A particularly clumsy one I felt was appropriate for the champion of a missile unit! The only recent touch-ups I have given these are to repair paint chips (having moved house three times) and to add a bit of highlighting to the yellow which I felt didn't quite read enough.

I mentioned earlier I had rebased them. Originally I put them on simple squares of MDf with a very light dusting of sand on to look deserty. I do want to be able to use these alongside my other miniatures though so decided to rebase on plastic bases with a more pronounced sand and rock surface inspired by my experiments with Heroquest bases. They don't have the earth and foliage that most of my armies do (obviously!) but the black trim is enough to tie them in. Because I had already cut the tabs off to mount them on the MDF it was pretty simple to bash out enough bases and stick the miniatures on afterwards. Nice not to have to base around feet!

Six of these Basti warriors I got in a more recent lot and hadn't painted so they got done over the last week. Matching in the skin tones was particularly hard. I thought I could remember what colours I used but they didn't quite look right. A few tweaks with approximate colour Foundry paints and Army Painter washes and I don't think you can tell which are the original and which the more recent. I popped a bit of a brighter green on the eyes of all the cats as I felt they weren't obvious enough on my original paint jobs.

The it was the turn of the griffin... I had been saving it until I had done a bit more practice. Now I would attempt it! I hadn't done a large plastic model before... This was not a fun process. It very quickly became an absolute slog. All the things I hate about multipart plastic models- flat surfaces that don't take washes, obvious join lines, pieces that overlap so you can't get a brush in, overly stylised feathers and fur that look like little weird regular triangular spikes... Painting this put me off GW models and the army stalled at this point.

Fast forward to this month. The Odds and Sods theme for March is "Flying". Well I was NOT going back to touch that horrid griffin again! I don't have an awful lot left in my 'army stuff to paint' queue though, and none of it has wings. What I did have was a set of Ellyrian Reavers to finish off this force (and a few odds and ends to add to other units at the same time). Flying hooves, flying manes, flying pennants, flying high-high elves... that'll do.

My love of plastic kits was not rekindled by these guys. They're designed as press-together, easy assemble kits for beginners and that's all fine, but I pity any beginner whose first experience of painting a model is these guys! So hard to get a brush into places on them, so many weird flat areas where the detail fades out because of moulding restrictions. Yes the poses of the 4th/5th box set minis may have been more static but as models designed to ease people into painting and gaming they were definitely superior to these! The manes and tails certainly don't look like those of a horse... Anyhow. They weren't too bad to do and they are now done.

You may notice the champion has a different weapon. I wanted him to have an Egyptian-style sword so swapped his for that of one of the Basti warriors (go on, see if you can find it!). Unfortunately in one move or another it got detached and the closest thing I could find to give him was the sickle from the Fenris skeleton charioteer. Still I think it doesn't look out of place.

A few weeks ago I was given a Dragon Prince body by a mate in a bulk lot with instructions to 'melt it all down' (knowing I had the spin caster set up in the shed). Well most of it has been, but I decided to rescue this guy and use him as a banner bearer. I had run out of moulded banners (another thing I hate about plastic kits!) but since every other unit had one I wanted to be consistent. I managed to find a few bits I could chop in half and mount on the banner to give it a degree of relief.

Lastly, a pallet-cleanser. Some more Juan Diaz Wargods sculpts. Two Sobeki monsters this time, personal bodyguards of the general. These were a lot of fun to paint, mostly with washes and edge highlights. Few! Another army done. Not the most fun this one, but the Wargods and Celtos figures made it a tolerable process!