Half-things and beasty elves

 

Here are the last of my palate-cleanser between-project paint jobs. A little unit of halfling militia archers to go with my Stanclud contingent and some elf beastmasters. The halflings are from Macrocosm, but again I can't find them on the website so not sure if they're still available. They scale well with the Wargames Atlantic plastic halflings and are just a bit taller and skinnier than Old Shcool Miniatures. They're a bit larger but spot-on aesthetically with the former-Westfalia armoured halflings,

The beastmasters I was very happy GW had rereleased for Old World... until I saw the price tag! I was kindly given a voucher for GW for my birthday last year and ACTUALLY HAD SOMETHING I WANTED TO SPEND IT ON! so picked them up at a much more reasonable price with that discount. :D I wanted to go fairly colourful and patterned with the animals whilst staying in the 'natural' realm so went for Eurasian lynxes (the metal feeds on the ends of the ears stayed on to make them look tufted), Irish wolfhounds (not so very colourful), patterned wild boar and a spectacled bear.

Either these have been very popular or GW are using old moulds for them as there was quite a lot of flashing and some detail missing due to mould tears. I don't mind too much, but if I'd paid the full whack I'd have been put out by the quality. Whilst on elves I also painted up a wardancer to take my unit up to a nice round 20.

Half-things and beasty elves

Pax Elfhammer

 

Another month of the Odds and Sods Challenge passes, another army complete! You'll have seen Happhyia Siddance previously, here's the rest of his woody kin. They're the happy little treefolk who suffer no high speed rail or crap estate developers to ruin their haven.

Most of the army is a blend of Jes Goodwin elves that somehow survived my "I'm an adult now" toy cull, ex-Grenadier elves from Forlorn Hope and Battlezone and plastic Fantasy Regiments elves. The Jes elves I repainted a couple of years ago. I had been using them as human tribes for my fimir but I thought they deserved a better paint job so I broke my rule on not repainting for them.

There are also some of my own sculpts in here, Oakbound Faw Walkers- an attempt to complement the Jes and Copplestone elves. Not all that successful but they make up the numbers.

I see the wood elves as a very bow-heavy army. If you can even see them (never mind reach them in close combat) that doesn't feel very elfish to me. With the exception of the wardancers of course, who should appear from nowhere, cause havoc and vanish again into the trees.

The regiments elves I picked up cheaply in a few lots. I love them for doing exactly what they were intended for- filling out the units with loads of low-cost troops that have enough variation not too look too monopose.

I was given enough silvan elves to break up the plastic ranks. They'll likely be mixed together when fielded but here they are in a separate unit.

And some of my own archers too.

Here's this month's actual challenge minis, the glade riders. The Copplestone cavalry are great but the actual mounted models are limited on the bow front and I want to preserve the heavy-archery theme. I really don't see wood elves driving headlong in ranks of lancer cavalry intending to run their foe into the ground... not unless they're clearing up the fleeing remnants of a routed foe.

To give myself more mounted archers I have cut the tabs off ex-Grenadier foot archers and bent their legs to fit on the horses. I don't think they look too bad for such little effort. The horses I wanted to give a kind of native American painted look to introduce a bit more colour to an otherwise pretty drab green force. That's entirely appropriate of course, but doesn't pop on the table as much as I would like.  

The command are also adjusted from foot troops. Rather irritatingly I put the champion and standard on the same horse (a Citadel one I think? I actually don't like it as much as the Grenadier ones) and the musician and general on the same horse so the front rank of the unit is two horse sculpts instead of four. Ah well.

No wood elf army is complete without wardancers! A blend of Jes Goodwin and my own sculpts with some 4th edition ones at the back (with substitute heads as I sculpted Anubis heads onto the originals to use with my Egyptian high elves, then switched their allegiance again) and lead by the WHQ wardancer which is one of my favourite models of all time. I don't think I have done him justice, might need to get another one and try again. 

Of course nature is on the side of the elves against stupid humanity. The Mark Copplestone eagles are amazing. I put the riders into other units (find them somewhere above!) as I just didn't think they could actually ride the eagles in the way they are posed. Anyway, eagles by themselves are cool and more multi-purpose.

The flora of the woods is the hidden might of the wood elves. Taking cover behind a tree from the hail of arrows? Sorry, wrong tree! This big fellow is a 6-soul sluagh from oakbound, formerly Bear's Head Miniatures Oggalump.

I seem to have amassed quite s election of treefolk... here's another Oakbound (only a 4-soul sluagh this one, there's a 2-soul one as well, but not in this selection), a RAFM and a Hinchliffe now Broadsword Miniatures (based on an Alan Lee drawing from Faeries... or is it a Brian Froud illustration? I forget).

And, of course, a mighty Trish Morrison treeman. Definitely a birch this one.

Lastly, these two are Alternative Armies. I think I ordered one and then they were giving them away free so I ended up with two. The metal arms (resin bodies) are nicely posable to make them look sufficiently different.

Pax Elfhammer

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!

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

Happhyia Siddence, lord of wyrms

 

Here's my November submission for the odds and sods painting challenge, a high elf now wood elf lord on a forest wyrm.

The rider is probably the most-painted model in my collection since to my reckoning he has been stripped twice and now painted three times. He's one of the few figures I kept in my collection from when I bought him new from Games Workshop in probably the late 90s. I have fond memories of going with my grandmother to buy him from the Basingstoke store having seen him in White Dwarf. On the way back I got to watch my grandad pilot his beloved RC boat around the duck pond, a rare outing indeed- as an engineer he spent much more time working on it than actually driving it. In his time this model has been a high elf general and a vampire count (painted in gold armour with fangs) and has now found middle ground as the army standard for my wood elf force. I still have his horse although it was chopped about a bit for use with my undead, it's getting a rebuild for a future odds and sods month. 

The mighty dragon will be instantly recognisable I'm sure as Kargos the Despoiler. I picked him up cheap as his wings and a back leg were missing whilst the right front leg was broken. No great problem as I don't necessarily rate wings for a forest-dwelling dragon. The rear leg was replaced by one of the dragon ogre alternative limbs I sculpted a few years back, this just took a bit of chopping and the addition of some scales. I raised the right limb to make it look like he's about to cuff some enemy and bent the left to bear his weight. I puttied scales over where the wings would have been and moved the rider to sit on his back rather than his neck, a much more suitable place to ride a beast that walks on all fours.

There's a significance to the dragon choice as well here. I remember seeing a photo of a 'firedrake' with an elf rider in a friend's 'old' (in the nineties) copy of White Dwarf. This image was imprinted on my mind, but looking through my own collection now I can't find it and have come to the conclusion from pose and subject matter that it must have been this dragon and his rider. The official paint job doesn't match the image from my mind, in my head what I saw was an earthy, brown-scaled dragon and I don't remember it having wings. A dragon without wings was somewhat novel in my young mind and lodged there because of it, in fact my love of wyrms may well stem from that image. I'm not a fan of the Marauder elf lord, really sorry, it looks lumpy and chunky. That could just be the obscenely bright colour scheme the original is painted in. Once again the picture in my mind was of a refined, slender elf perched atop his steed. Ah well, there you go, memories play you false. If anyone does know of the picture I am trying to describe let me know, it would be great to know I didn't make it up! Perhaps it was a Golden Demon entry using Kargos? I have tried to strike a balance with my painting and make him definitely a red dragon (to complement the green of the army) but mute the colours to make him look a bit more natural than the 'official' scheme.

Originally the model was going to be my wood elf general, however the theme of the odds and sods challenge this month is 'Grandeur' and so I decided it would be even more grand to make him the army banner. I didn't realise just how massive his sword was until I cut it off and slung it by his waist! Good job he isn't lugging it around on foot. I mapped out an intricate celtic knot design on photoshop but when I printed it out realised there was no way it was going to be possible for me to paint it at scale. Instead I had another brainwave. You'll probably know I am a bit of a massive Bob Ross fan. There's one episode ( a 1-hour special no less, on YouTube so check it out) called 'The Grandeur of Summer' so I thought that it would be entertaining to try that in miniature. A bit of extra Grandeur! That's the mountain side by the way, I tried a different, foresty image on the reverse. Pretty happy with how it turned out, especially against the Ted Nasmith mountain backdrop (see above).

The view of the dragon you'd want to see, versus the view you definitely wouldn't! The banner pole has proved to be a complete pain in the backside. It's a cast lead banner pole and is really bend. Although I drilled the hand out to receive it and added the leafy hand guard (some little jewellery pieces I had kicking around) it still isn't sitting straight. I have also just noticed in the photographs that the bottom part of the pole seems to be missing, not sure when that fell out! It should be below where the sword pommel would be to avoid the banner looking overbalanced at the top. I will have to hunt around on the floor to find where it has fallen...

Happhyia Siddence, lord of wyrms