Twelfth Day of Beardmas

 My original intention in this little series was a finale of a newly painted mini, a type I don’t usually paint. However, it is not yet finished and I don’t want to rush it just for the sake of a blog article, so here’s plan B instead. A little compilation of other beards I painted throughout the year. 

 

It’s not a particularly large selection of beards, because I didn’t actually spend that much time hobby painting this year. The first photo of vikings, about half were completed in 2020, but I like the photo of all the berserkers together so why not show them all off. The trio of adventurers, one is obviously smooth chined, but again I liked the photo of them all together.

Not the finale I had planned, which seems quite fitting for 2020. 

Elf

 

The full title of this post is Zorn Silverhair, an elf from the Golden Realms. Maybe that works for an old school RPG character, but there is a slightly more esoteric reason for such a mouthful. Let me break it down for you.

The elf part is simple enough, this is an elf figure! It’s by the company known as Statuesque Miniatures and now available through Crooked Dice. It was originally sold in a set of four adventurers though they are now available as individuals. You can see the elf’s painted companions below, a dwarf and a wizard, with just one more to paint to complete the band - free cookie if you can guess the unpainted figure. 

On the palette choice, I was originally thinking of classic green wood elf, inspired much by the old Talisman artwork. But recently I have been replaying God of War and was really struck by the beauty of the light elves, which I have tried to replicate here. White robes, pale skin and even white hair, punctuated by grey and brown leathers.

The name Zorn is not particularly elvish and was chosen for his palette rather than his race. The Zorn palette is named  after Swedish painter Anders Zorn and comprises four colours - black, white, red and yellow. From this apparently limited set it is possible to mix up many colours, not surprising if you know colour theory. Add in a blue and you have all three primaries and an almost infinite palette available to you. The figure was painted using just these four colours, though I did also also use a little silver and a brown ink.

And that brings us to an explanation of the Golden Realms. I have been painting acrylic on canvas recently and have come to appreciate the much higher quality and pigmentation of artist paints. I spotted this set on sale and so have bought a set of acrylic artists paints manufactured by Golden. These are a high fluid set rather than the thicker stuff usually used painting on canvas. I thought they would be suitable for painting minis and from my limited test to date (one elf) they are showing great promise. The four colours I used were black and white, yellow ochre and burnt sienna in place of red. I will blog more about them in the future when I have experimented more.

The abandoned realm of Yvresse

Some time ago, I came back from a holiday on the coast, full of ideas about a High Elf army. It was originally to be themed around the realm of Yvresse, but then I expanded my thinking and decided on a coastal army in general. I got as far as painting one unit and assembling another, then put it to one side for a couple of months while I worked on another project. Six years later......

It's time to resurrect the project. Instead of Yvresse I have moved my thinking northward a little, to Cothique, to really hammer home the nautical theme. What to do with the remnants of the original project? One unit of metal archers, on square bases, which I have photographed again for posterity before I transport them to their new homeland. Ranked up they are a bit cramped, and the metal figures seem to clank together a little, never a good thing. In keeping with my current ethos, I will rebase them on to two pence coins, perfect for storing and playing the skirmish games I like. If they are ever needed for mass battles, it's a simple task to put them on a magnetic sheet to group them together, for relaxed gamers like myself.

When I examined them close up, I discovered I had not painted a few details. Eyes, jewels and various other bits that are not really seen on the battlefield, only in photos that magnify the figure to screen size. I will definitely add some colour to the clothing and maybe dot in these details too.  It should be a quick job to get this first unit ready for battle.

Cothique

Cothique. Pour femme. Pour homme. Pour elfe.

It does sound like a perfume brand. But it's actually a province in the old Elf realm of Ulthuan, from the Warhammer Fantasy Battle world before it was destroyed. It's a coastal region on the north east of the continent, and it's probably one of the least known areas of the Elf kingdoms. Caledor has Dragon Princes, Tiranoc has chariots, Nagarythe has shadow warriors, while Cothique has, er, fish. It's probably most known for being next door to Chrace, home of the famed White Lions.

It is described as an unlovely place, with bleak windswept coastal landscapes. The inhabitants are more likely to travel the world than any other elf, sailing the oceans in their sleek white craft. They are famed mariners, as the seas around their homeland are filled with dangerous reefs and giant sea monsters. Elves from Cothique often wear dragon sea cloaks and their shields and heraldry bear aquatic symbols. They are the nearest the old world ever came to fish elves. Adventurers, corsairs, pirates, they have an unusual background that I want to use in my new elf force.

I bashed together this unit from two sets of elves. The legs and back/cloaks are dark elf corsairs, the front torso, arms and heads are mostly from the high elf shadow warrior box. This gives them a nice Cothique feel, if you ask me. Armed with sword and bow they could be used as shadow warriors in old games of WHFB, or rangers in newer games like Erehwon. I have enough bits for two units, though I might just forge on and paint these first.

Easter Elf

No Easter bunny or xmas elves here, it's an Easter Elf. I used my very limited watercolour skills on the recent sketch. I did manage to mess up the skin colour, but the pale gold leg and arm guards and the slightly more glittery hauberk with the dark red trim works well. It was useful to test out a potential colour scheme, I think this would suit a Chracian elf force, which I might get round to one day in the far distant future.

Meanwhile, in the present day, elves are taking over. I am working on my own elves and some on commission too, and playing the elf factions in Total War: Warhammer. I'm not sure what has happened to my inner dwarf, it's gone underground for the time being. It must be all this greenery and spring foliage sprouting. 

Elf project airborne once more

I have been thinking about elves recently, for a number of reasons. I have worked on a few items on a commission project. I got some good responses when I posted a few elf pictures from my archive on instagram. And I even sketched an elf I came across while flicking through a White Dwarf. I tried to push them out of my mind, because they are not one of my "current" projects - for the record I think of myself as currently working on dwarfs, goblins, undead and vikings. Adding elves to this list would be completely absurd. So obviously that's what I am doing.

High elves were one of the first armies I ever collected (I posted about this quite recently). Down the years they have remained a favourite of mine, and I did actually make a false start on a new elf army, incredibly that's almost six years ago. They are challenging to paint, I would probably rank them as the most difficult of all armies to paint well, but also immensely rewarding when they are ranked up on the tabletop.

I usually start a project by working on some basic troops, to get a feel for the colours and any techniques. But in this case, I have been working on commission elves for a couple of years, so don't really feel the need to do that. I already have one regiment complete as a reference point. So I am going to just jump straight in with a model I have wanted to paint for such a long time. This beauty, probably one of my all time top favourites. It's the elf prince on griffon model from the now out of print Island of Blood boxset - for me this was the pinnacle of plastic sets produced for Warhammer Fantasy Battle, maybe for any game. So the elf project is airborne once more. Or should that be seaborne? . . . more on that next time.

White Lion of Chrace

There's a pile of old White Dwarf magazines sitting in my house. I am supposed to be downsizing. They have been earmarked for recycling for months. I cannot quite let go.

Last night I grabbed one at random. It was the artwork on the front cover, a Mark Gibbons classic, that caught my attention, just as it did all those years ago. And it was a long time ago - July 1997!

Flicking through I came across a section on High Elves. It was round about the time of Warhammer Fantasy fifth edition and I guess the elves had just been updated with a new book, or were just about to be. Lots of rules and background on the White Lions of Chrace. I can just about remember these special rules.

Again, it was the artwork that leapt out. And again it was a Mark Gibbons piece, this time a mono pencil sketch, but no less arresting for that. I had not practised my sketching for a while so I set to with pencil and eraser.

And finally I had my finished piece. I am trying to simplify my drawings, getting the main lines and shapes rather than lots of shading. There's a couple of things that are not quite right, but I am calling this a good effort. Now, should I ink it and add some shading, or should I watercolour it? Or both?

Middlehammer Elf Army

January is a good time to make plans, start new projects and revisit those that have stalled. Before all that, I thought it would be a nice idea to look back, way back in this case, with some pictures of my first elf army. Based on the contents of the boxset fourth edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battle that I bought in 1992, it was a few years before I had the courage to attempt to paint it. It would have been the mid 90's when I finally completed it. I took it to many a tournament on the circuit, including Sheffield, Preston, Manchester as well as Warhammer World in Nottingham. I came second place in painting at a tournament there and had the army photographed by the studio, but alas it was never printed in White Dwarf. I did finally grab a best painted army trophy in 1999, at a tournament in Sheffield. Twenty years ago!

These would have been the first figures I painted. I always started an army with a unit or two of infantry, a habit I have kept to this day. The spearmen and archers are the original monopose plastics from the boxset. The spear command group are metals, they were sold three figures in a blister for three or four pounds at the time. Note they are ranked up four figures wide, this was legal in the earlier edition of the game. The mage and bolt thrower were both metals, the colour scheme almost certainly copied from the pages of White Dwarf.

More infantry in a large block of swordmasters. These were metal figures, I think they were originally sold at three to a blister for five pounds. As with the spearmen, the banner is paper, hand painted and then fixed to the pole. I designed this banner myself rather than copy from the army book, a bold move at that time. 

The mounted mage is an oddity. I think the rider was originally part of a wood elf sorceress on unicorn model. I think I replaced her hat with sculpted hair and modified the staff, though my memory on this is a bit hazy. I was obviously gaining confidence, metal conversions!

I was always hesitant to add cavalry to my armies, I had a slight phobia about painting horses. I did actually buy a box of the caparisoned Silver Helms, but never plucked up courage to paint them. These are Ellyrion Reavers bought later with the newer style horses. The riders are painted nicely enough, the shields are transfers. A unit of fast cavalry like this were essential, to gallop round to the enemy's rear and knock out the inevitable battery of artillery pieces. 

This chariot is a little bit odd, for some reason I have mounted it on a huge base. I don't think this caused any problems at the time, probably doing myself a dis-service by allowing so many strikes back. In that version of the game, the horses, crew and chariot all had their own profile. 

Finally the commanders of the army. Eltharion the Grim on his griffon Stormclaw - how I loved the fluff for this mighty hero back then. In tournaments I tended to use the more points efficient hero on pegasus, tooled up with a no doubt nasty combination of magic items. I remember being particularly pleased with the griffon base as I had built it from milliput. The fact that these pieces were taken to many a tournament without damage to the wings is probably a bigger achievement - metal wings feel so heavy in the hand now.

As I said in the intro, the first parts of this army were bought in 1992, so that's nearly 27 years ago. It was all painted within five years and then played with repeatedly, before I retired from the tournament scene. It's my oldest surviving army, the rest have been sold down the years, but this is my first love, my firstborn in a sense. It seems completely bizarre that it's a quarter century old. Right, that's my nostalgia trip complete, it was nice reminiscing, though I do feel quite ancient now!

X.VII - Men, Elves, Dwarfs and so much more

It's time for another look back on the ten years I have been blogging. 2014 was an excellent year to be sure and I had lots of painted items to choose from. At the start of the year I painted up a block of 36 skeletons for my Vampire Counts army, quickly followed by a couple of characters. A few weeks later I painted up a dwarf character, one of my finest ever beards I think. My chaos army got some love too, with marauders, marauder horsemen and a chariot added. I even managed a unit of finely painted high elf archers. All this in the first half of the year - if only every year could be this productive!

Historic gaming was becoming more of a staple for me and I finally found a range I was very happy with - Drabant Miniatures Vikings. I also added a few more plastic dark age warriors and some metal archers to my growing collection.

But it was a further expansion of my Lord of the Rings collection that really pleased me in this year. Having collected a decent size Orc force, I made a start on a small Rohan warband. And then later in the year I painted up these dwarf rangers - and having visited Scotland that summer decided that they would look really good in kilts!

I cannot imagine any year being surpassed by this one, in terms of the quantity and quality I achieved. It was peak hobby performance in 2014, a fine vintage.

X.III - Daemons

In this, the third of my celebratory posts, I am looking back at the year 2010. I painted lots of fantasy in that time, and played it almost exclusively, so there's a good selection of potential candidates. I added a few units to my orcs and goblins army - black orcs and green squigs stand out - and made more progress on the wood elf army. I also built but two pretty big conversions - a treeman and a shaggoth, which get honourable mentions. I reckon that already qualifies as a good vintage, but my biggest achievement for the year was putting together a small contingent of daemons.

I started by building and painting a unit of daemonettes. My aim at the time was to try something a little different, and a pink/purple palette was definitely that. These days I tend to paint in small batches of eight or twelve, but I obviously had more stamina in my youth - eighteen daemonettes.

After that I rewarded myself with a character model, a herald built from an old Warzone figure, with a whole host of (cute?) little attendants.

Then I finished off the project with a unit of pink horrors, the classic metal figures from that time and still my favourite renditions of the model.

Though the daemons started as an add-on for my chaos warriors, I did have grand plans to develop them into a full army. I have metal plaguebearers painted up and bloodletters half-painted, plus more daemonettes, screamers and various other figures. However, as with so many grand plans, nothing came of it.

One figure I did add a few years later was a Daemon Prince, converted from an old Azazel model. I left off the wings and replaced the head with that of an old school metal Fiend of Slaanesh, the tail I forget the source. I had this model half-painted for a good few years, but thought it would be nice to finally complete it as part of my celebrations.

Metal High Elves

It's twenty-five years since I bought my first copy of Warhammer Fantasy Battle! It was the fourth edition of the game rules, but the first time that a boxed set containing two starter armies had been released. I can remember playing my first game with my two brothers on my mum's sewing table using the plastic figures and cardboard heroes. Those two armies were High Elves and Night Goblins - possibly to attract latent Tolkien fans, who knows? It certainly worked on me, I bought into the High Elves in a very big way. I drooled over the figures and the articles in White Dwarf and bought the army book as soon as I could. Even though the starter figures were all single pose, it really captured my imagination. But it was a very daunting task to paint up all that grey plastic to the standard in the books and magazines, so I started with something easier (Undead), hoping to come back to the elves when I had more skill.

It was a few years (he said vaguely, obviously unable to remember the exact timeline) before I attempted to paint those plastic elves, but eventually I worked my way through them and even added a few metal figures as I went along. It was a slow process because I was a working man with a young family, hobby time was scarce. I plodded on, grabbing an hour or two here or there every few weekends. After a couple of years (I think), I had painted up the army. It was a huge achievement for me at the time. That army still sits in my glass cabinet, a real milestone in my hobby life. I must get some pictures of it for the blog some time.

Fast forward to the summer of 2015 and the sad news that the Old World had been destroyed. The internet erupted with a storm of rage and indigation, with players abandoning the game, selling off their old armies - there was even one infamous youtube episode of an army being burned. I had gradually drifted away from playing the game by then, but still collected and painted. Luckily not all the rage-quitters were quite so incensed and many expressed their anguish through ebay and forum sales. For a few months, it was a good time to be a buyer. I picked up a sizeable collection of metal elves over that summer and put it to one side. I think it was part nostalgia, part my love of a bargain. 

Most of the figures below are from that era. The archers and spearmen are the metal equivalents of that first starter set, while the white lions I think came a little later. The final picture of shadow warriors and character packs are from much later still, probably sixth edition or so. This represents a decent sized army from fourth edition, units were commonly only twelve or sixteen strong (multiples of four were common as ranks back then were just four wide). I have a large amount of mounted figures too, some of them bought back in the early 1990's, some picked up in the rage storm of 2015. 

It would be nice to do something with these figures, to mark my silver anniversary in the game. Laid out like this, they do have a vaguely jewelled look to them. With all my other ongoing projects it would be complete madness to start another one, but it does seem a tempting proposition. I would base and organise them with Saga in mind, but with fond memories of all those past games of Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Let's wait and see what the summer brings.

A game of Warhammer

The armies square up

I miss Warhammer - the last time I played was almost three years ago. I have enjoyed playing many a skirmish game over the past couple of years, but missed the spectacle of the massed ranks clashing in mighty battles. So I was more than happy to introduce gaming buddy Steve to the venerable old system. The game we played was eighth edition, but using the older softback army books. I dug out my old high elf army (nearly twenty years old!) and totted up a list at just over 1000 points. Facing them would be my newest army, the forces of Chaos, using many models from the Age of Sigmar boxset. The game took place on my dining room table, at 5x3 probably a bit too small even for starter armies.

Chaos forces repulsed by shocking green movement trays

The elves stood back to make the most of their superior archery, and with some extraordinarily good dice rolling they managed to destroy a unit of marauders and a chaos spawn. The left flank was well defended by a unit of Ellyrian Reavers, who managed to fend off ravening chaos hounds. As the hordes of chaos moved closer, Swordmasters marched forward to intercept. I fully expected the elves to have the upper hand in the early part of the game, but to struggle a little when combat was joined.

Swordmasters ponder their fate

The Swordmasters charged into the flank of the advancing chaos warriors, risking subsequent flank charges from a chaos spawn and ogres. But the spawn was removed by missile fire and the combat was so decisive that the warriors fled, the Swordmasters pursuing them and out of harm's way. A late charge by marauder horsemen resulted in the slaughter of a bolt thrower crew, with panic spreading to two elf units, but in effect the game was over when the chaos warriors fled.

In missiles we trust!

It was nice to play with my old elf army and the new chaos force. I really wanted the game to be much closer for the sake of my learner opponent, but it was one of those rare occasions when my dice just seemed to do all the right things (the last two panic tests being a late surge to the more usual results). Still, he seemed reasonably happy and maybe will start a fantasy army of his own. A nice little refresher for me, before I plunge myself into the world of Total War Warhammer.

A second game of Age of Sigmar

Turn 1

Not one to give in at the first setback (game report here), I invited a gaming buddy round for another try at Age of Sigmar. I stuck with the elves and chaos armies, though this time Chaos Warriors as opposed to Beastmen. They were costed according to a simple scheme which I had found on BOLS (link here). Using this Saga like system I came up with two hopefully roughly balanced forces from my own collection.

The chaos force gained the initiative and rushed on from the left, the newly painted ogres charging into elf spearmen on turn 1. Four wounds on both sides and no battleshock suffered, a nice steady start. Note that the elves are fairly tightly grouped while the chaos forces are a little bit dispersed. This allowed the elves in their first turn to charge the engaged ogres with both the Elven Prince and the Swordmasters, which are absolutely lethal in combat. Suffice to say that troops with 2 attacks each, that hit on 3's, rerolling 1's and then wound on 3's with a -1 rend are potent stuff! Turn 1 death to the newly-painted overweight brutes.

Turn 2

In the chaos turn 2 the marauders surged forward, the horsemen charged the out of position Prince, and managed to wound him, the horses comically far better than the riders. In the centre the large block of marauders moved into contact with the Maiden Guard (which were playing using Seaguard stats). This brought them into range of the Swordmasters who piled in with predictable results - see the half empty movement tray! The marauders at the bottom of the picture made short work of an eagle. Neither side suffered much from battleshock or magic.

In the elf turn, the central unit of marauders were wiped out by the Swordmasters as their reign of death continued. The bolt thrower inflicted casualties on the nearer unit of marauders while on the far side, the Prince retreated to be replaced by the spearmen, who easily defeated the marauder horsemen (I noticed today that the horsemen have two wounds each - we had played just one each - with their two attack steeds this makes them quite overpowered in my mind). The chaos force was looking under pressure, their best unit still to get into combat.

Turn 3

The initiative swung to the elves. They poured fire into the chaos warriors and stripped away a handful with bolt and arrow, then charged in with Maiden Guard and Prince, removing another couple of warriors. In return the chaos forces inflicted just three casualties on the elven fighting ladies. The Swordmasters slaughtered the lone chaos sorceror, though in a flurry of poor dice it took them two combats. By now it was clear that the battle was effectively over. The elves gallantly offered surrender terms to the remaining six chaos troops, then proceeded to mock them as they trudged off the battlefield. Capricious behaviour befitting the haughty ones!

It was probably a better game than the first effort, though the Chaos general was new to the game and made some beginner errors, leaving his units isolated to be systematically outnumbered and slaughtered. It still seems strange that there is no psychology, no real manouevre. I am not sure it's suited to a classic mass battle but is obviously more intended for skirmish gaming, playing like 40k a lot of the time. Maybe we should try it with minimum sized units of 10 or 5, see if it gives better results. A couple more games I think before I throw in the towel, but it's failing to convince me at the moment. Shame really, I quite like the flavour added by the warscrolls, it's the basic mechanics that are the problem.

A game of Age of Sigmar

The battle begins

I was sad to see the old Warhammer world destroyed. There's been a lot of commentary made around the web, on both sides of the argument. I think the comment that summed up my feelings best - it felt like an act of vandalism. Having said that, we still have over 30 years of creative output to play with, which is far more than most other games can claim. It's a rich world that we can continue to enjoy, through previous versions of Warhammer Fantasy, or using other rulesets. And of course we have free warscrolls for our existing armies to use in the new game, Age of Sigmar. With this in mind, I got my high elves out of the glass cabinet and arranged a game with a long standing Beastlord gaming buddy. I told him upfront what I would be using and asked him to come up with something roughly equivalent. It wasn't a case of winning or losing, it was more an investigation of how the game played. It certainly was good to get the old elves on the table, some of these figures I painted about twenty years ago!

Straight away, we hit what is surely a common problem around the world. The two armies lined up, and it seemed that the elves had come expecting a nice little tea party and a chat about the good old days, while the beasts were intent on cramming in as many participants as possible and causing serious carnage. No points values means some kind of contract between players, but even between us old time friends I think somebody got a little carried away. I cannot imagine how this would work in a shop, I bet the poor guys behind the tills have had a few stressful days of late.

The thin white line

Having read the rules a couple of times I was fairly confident that the game would swing along at a good pace. There's a few grey areas that can be easily overcome with a common sense approach, but I failed to appreciate how much all the special rules would have an impact. While the basic game rules are easy, we spent a lot of time rifling through our printouts to check what special rules each unit had, three or four each on average. To be fair, a lot of these were similar, and after a few games we would probably have these mostly memorised. Like many a simple ruleset, these special rules are where the flavour of the army shines through.

At first, the game settled into a fairly familiar pattern. The elves held back and shot as much as they could. The archers took advantage of their special rule and loosed a storm of arrows (double attacks for one turn only), and combined with shots from the bolt thrower and reavers they brought down most of the advancing minotaurs. The reavers had a nice rule that allowed them to shoot, then move away, in classic fast cavalry fashion. They also had a basic two shots each, which increases to three per model if they stay more than three inches from the enemy. So they turned out to be a very potent force and kept the right flank under control for the whole game. 

The thicker, beefier brown line

The beasts ran across the board as fast as they could, then attempted multiple charges, most of which fell short, allowing the elves to strike with their bows once more. At this point I should really have withdrawn and then shot, there is no penalty for moving then shooting and there's no risk in hanging right back at the edge of the board, as nothing ever flees. But inevitably these things are forgotten in the thick of battle and the forces came to blows. Centigors butchered archers and were in turn wiped out by swordmasters. Both chariots found it impossible to resist infantry blocks. Magic was practically non-existant, a mage bolt dealt the killing blow to a doombull, but in return the beast shaman conjured a monster from thin air.  

Combat tended to be extremely brutal. Casualties mount up very quickly, then the crap shoot that is the batteshock test invariably adds a few more. My units of 15 spears melted away in one single combat, the beastly blocks had far greater staying power. There was no need to outflank or manoeuvre for position as there is no real advantage to orchestrating combined charges. Units fight in alternating player turn, so it can be easy for a unit that has been charged to strike first and remove the charging bonus of the enemy. 

A fine spectacle, but how does the game play?

After three or four turns we wrapped up. As expected, the armies had met in the middle and destroyed each other. It felt a little predictable, a little flat. I had come to dislike WHFB 8 because everything died, in Age of Sigmar this is turned up to 11 (though magic is strangely less important). The outcome may well have been different if the sides had been more equal, I reckon my army was around 1500 points whereas the beasts were packing 2000+ points. With a little more planning we could probably have a better experience, just using the points values from the old books would be a starting point, though clearly units have changed in their effectiveness. There's no psychology whatsoever, no real need to move carefully, very little in the way of tactical planning. All in all, I was a little disappointed that a once fine game had been reduced to a not very subtle dice rolling exercise. I really did no want to write this, there is far too much moaning on the web about the game, but the experience was a let down. Maybe there will be future expansions to refine the rules, but at the moment I would rate it as the poorest version of the game I have played.

To end on a positive note, it was good to see the elves on the tabletop after all these years - I will certainly not be burning them! We will be returning to these two foes in future games, the first of which we will fight using an even simpler set of rules - Lion Rampant. Our initial task is to thrash out army lists for the elves and beasts. We will probably also try out some of the other rulesets on offer, perhaps Saga, Hail Caesar or Kings of War. The struggles of the Elves of Ulthuan will continue.....

High Elf Archers

The first unit for my new High Elf army! I am really pleased with the way it worked out. High Elves are probably the most finely detailed of figures to paint, all those intricacies can mean you never seem to get them finished. So I was pretty happy to get them to this stage in a reasonable time. They are the most time consuming of my armies to paint, offset to a degree by their smaller numbers.

There are parts on these models that I could do more with. The gems are not painted, I am treating them as ornate metal work - I will probably add gems just to the characters. The robes are pure white, no decorations, again something that may change on heroes and mages. There are plenty of other areas that could get more attention, but I am happy with this standard and want to press on. Next on my list of things to paint is Lothern Sea Guard, but these present a fresh (and scary) challenge of freehand shields and banner, so I might take a safer route and switch to glade riders. I have a few weeks to decide as I will be alternating between this and my chaos army, continually sweating over all these tiny details would drive me over the edge. Big, simple chaos for a while, then back to the delicate ones, that's my short term plan.

Wood Elf Army for sale

I have decided to concentrate on just one variety of elves, so the Wood Elves are looking for a new home.

Click here to go straight to ebay.

It's a decent sized starter army, fully painted and with converted figures and classic metals throughout. A great way to get gaming with the new book, before adding any of the new toys. Tell all your friends!

The complete army contains a spellweaver, a branchwraith, 20 glade guard, 18 dryads, 12 wardancers, 5 waywatchers/scout, 6 treekin and a mighty treeman.