In the last installment of this series, I mentioned the next part was going to be about playtest games and organizing the Dark Elves. Well, that didn't happen. I've been busy the last week or so with other stuff so no games besides Fall Brawl, and I just haven't had much time to seriously think about what I want in the Dark Elves yet. So instead of publishing nothing, I've decided to do some work on the high elves as far as modelling and painting goes.
Now that the High Elves have exited the list design stage, I need to start picking out models, doing conversions, and painting figures. Before I start doing anything else, I decided to raid my basement of shame and collect all the high elves that I could get my hands on from there. Checking out my various boxes of stuff, I came up with the following:
* 40 Phoenix Guard including 2 command sets
* 20 White Lions including command
* 2 Repeater Bolt Throwers from 5th Ed with crew.
* 40 old 3rd and 4th ed elves of various armament, including lots of spears
* Lots of old characters, including Teclis and several other special characters
* Current Plastic Spear Box (16 elves)
This gives me a good start on the army. Going unit by unit:
Phoenix Guard - Just using some of the guard that I already have.
Hector - I'm taking one of the heroes that I have sitting around, adding one of the separate halberds and a hoplite shield (I have a pile of them available from some old Crusader hoplite figures) I may also use the Avatars of War High Elf Hero to fill the role if I want someone more flashy here.
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| From I Heart Ninjas |
Archers - Don't have these yet, but I plan on using the old monopose archers from the 4th edition box set, so as to match the RBT crew.
Bolt Thrower - Using one of the ones I had sitting around.
Cassandra - This is going to require a new figure. I'm thinking about using the Avatars of War Light Elf Mage for her.
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| From I Heart Ninjas |
White Lions - Using some of the figures I have here. Their champion needs something special, so I'm thinking of building a custom one from spear elf parts mixed with the white lion components from the chariot boxed set. Command may be completed using the remaining elf components from a chariot crew mixed with spearmen parts.
Vaul Swordmasters - Here requires a bit of work. Since the actual swordmasters are very hard to convert to give hammers. Instead, I'm going to work them up out of parts from elf spearmen and white wolf cavalry hammers. The "leader" for them will have no hammer, but will have a blindfold to show that he's been ritually blinded as befits a follower of Vaul.
Shadow Warriors - Here I am again going to use the stock figures for the rank & file, but will give them a converted Everqueen model with a bow, or else work with a female archer from the wood elf line.
Loec Spearmen & Chariot - To show the Loec look for the unit, I plan on using a number of the old elf warriors with the conical Loec-style joker helmets. To give the unit more of a Greek look, I'll give the unit some hoplite shields as I am with Hector. I also plan on giving the Loec faction one of the chariots by using more of the Loec warriors on its back.
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| From I Heart Ninjas |
Paris - Here I plan on either using a Harlequin mostly stock. I will obviously have to remove the gun the figure has in favor of a bttle standard or another hand weapon.
Isha Spearmen & Chariot - While I was initially going to use Maiden Guard models, it has been next to impossible to find these figures anywhere. So It looks like I need to do a conversion for these figures. Luckily, Micro Arts studio does some Amazon torsos and heads which look like they will fit with the high elf spearmen figures. Add hoplite shields as with the other spearmen, and I should have a unique looking unit. The Isha chariot will have similarly convereted crew.
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| From I Heart Ninjas |
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| From I Heart Ninjas |
With all these things seen, it looks like I will need the following boxes and figures from various places (probably the warstore and local sellers)
* One extra Spearmen box
* 2 Chariot boxes
* One Shadow Warriors box
* Avatars of War Elf Hero
* Avatars of War Elf Mage
* 5 Amazon Head Kits
* 5 Amazon Torso Kits
* 1 Harlequin w/ power sword
* 1 Everqueen
* 10 4th Edition archers
As far as the painting goes, my plan is do my standard dip + highlighting to make for a very quickly but well painted army. In this case, I really feel that going with metallic paints is a bad choice for most surfaces. Lacquered armour of various colors will both look much nicer on the units, but also will show a different look than most high elf armies. Many parts of the painting choices are going to be taken from what I consider the best looking 40K army, Craftworld Eldar. I plan to use white on the linens and plumes to unify the army's color scheme, as this color looks rather good with dipping and also can be highlighted practically to white to get a much lighter effect if need be.
Sitting down for an evening with a White Lion, I was able to produce a test model fairly quickly. Here's the model at various stages of completion:
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| From I Heart Ninjas |
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| From I Heart Ninjas |
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| From I Heart Ninjas |
Note that the dip process does not always produce the shoddy models that it is famous for. By using brush control of the minwax instead of the traditional dipping method, polling is eliminated and drying time is decreased to under two hours. Highlighting can bring the colors of the model closer to the original colors before the dip process started, and can add to the illusion of 'depth' that is the final goal of painting. All of this is accomplished in much less time than standard techniques, and additionally protects the paintjob from the chipping that is common with metal models. This is also my first attempt with brush on dullcote-- it looks to be a bit cheaper and I've been worried about the whole toluene issue. I am very impressed with the stuff. It has coverage at least as good as the spray version, and much less is used in general. My only suggestion is to use a trash bursh-- one of the 10 cent ones that you can get at Michael's-- because the Dullcote will dry on the brush and start to ruin it. Not something you want to have done to your nice $20 Series 7 certainly.
I chose to use browns as the primary colors on the model to match with the rustic look I'd think followers of Kurnous would try for. Green gems were chosen to stand out from the rest of the model. With this successful test model, I now am working on completing more white lions, maybe enough to field the whole unit painted in a week or so.
Next: More completed High Elf models, and perhaps a playtest game or two.
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