Shadespyre's June Post - Wild Card Month - OWAC VIII - High Elves of Lothern

OWAC VIII - Wild Card Month - High Elves of Lothern

June

The last month of OWAC VIII and it's WILDCARD MONTH

Probably one of my least wild ones, if I'm honest. But this is what I've got for you:

More Heroes

Let's start off with slotta-based imposters - this is Brommedir from the Blood bath at Orks Rift scenario. Such a fancy fellow that I just had to include him here.

And this is the C33 Elf Hero, in his mounted and dismounted forms. So obviously a match to the C08 ranges and the Regiments of Renown that I'm using that I don't really understand how they ended up separate from them.

And then, I've also painted a few more of the C08 sculpts. I picked through my collection and used the *worst* examples of everything that I had doubles of - in other words, I still have a full set of

 36 in decent condition stashed away - to add to this project.

So here we have another four:

In this set, the two handed sword blade is a replacement, the second guy is pretty much solid, the third guy barely has a face, and the spear has been repaired at least three times!

And here are three more:

These are actually in okay condition. I don't like the first guy much, even in this range he is very busy with clashing details. And then the fighter-mage on the right has a rather deformed face.

And here is the last four:

These are among my favourites. I hope it's pretty obvious that the second guy was missing his hand, and this is how he ended up wielding the enormous Coffee of Doom. Hmm, that cup seems familar from somewhere?

This takes us to 16 out of 36 sculpts included in this project in some form or another. Some of these minis, like the Cleric with the mace, I really like and if I could have found enough to make a unit I'd have been very happy. Some would only work as characters or unit leaders. Maybe the opportunity will come to add more to the army, but I think I'm done with these colours for now.

None of these have a set roll in the army as such, so I'm not going to bother working out points for them.

However, here are some "proper" additions.

Dragons

Would you believe that I had no plans to include a dragon in this army? No Dragons? Me? 

But honestly I did not.

It was only when I paused the project briefly to paint a dragon as a gift / favour for a friend that I realised that I really wanted to paint more of them. So I had a dig around and came up with this:

So this is the Marauder Miniatures MBF17 High Elf Dragonlord *Dragon*, for which I don't have the proper rider, with a modified Elwing's rider on his back. I built the saddle to make the two meet up as best as I could.

The Dragon, Kargos, is traditionally a big red firebreathing type, but to fit better with this army I borrowed the colours from the later Prince Imrik box art. I think he looks quite smart.

I also wanted to include some sort of "sea dragon". I considered a number of serpentine types, but they tend to be sculpted as in the sea, and I wanted something that might have travelled inland with the army - far enough to have joined up with their Wood Elf cousins. And I eventually turned up this little guy from one of my boxes:

This is the Ral Partha Sea Dragon, code 01-151 (I think you can still get it from Ironwind Minis if you want one). I like his fishy look, but those wings suggest he's not restricted to the seaside. The paint scheme is inspired by the Blue Marlin and uses all of the blues which appear in the army, which is a nice way to tie things together, I thought.

So that is that. OWAC VIII done! Apart from a final July post where I might mull on what I've done and try to get a full army picture for you. Thanks for reading!

Scores for June:                620 points   16 models

1 x Elven Dragonkin            (Lance, Shield, Bow)                                                              320 points

1 x Dragon                           (Level 1, Wings)                                                                     300 points            

Running Total:                   3304 points  96  models

Paul's Dark(ish) Elves - Leader Month (288 pts)

Vor'Lach, Dark Elf General and Lord of Daggerpoint, cracked his neck and shifted in the saddle of his giant Cold One. The beast was a Lustrian breed, much larger and even more fearsome than the native stock, and gave off the stink of raw and rotting meat from it's last meal of a lizardman slave. 

He stared disdainfully at the approaching High Elf leader as he weaved his horse up the rocky slope to the parlay, his troops following behind, the ruined banner of the Phoenix King held half in pride, and half in shame. 

His shiny armour might be as tarnished as his reputation but the arrogance still dripped from him, calling himself the Blood Dragon but riding an elven steed when it was Vor'Lach who had the courage to have such a terrible lizard as his mount. 

"Hail, mighty Blood Dragon, your reputation for treachery precedes you..." sneered Vor'Lach. 

"Are we truly to believe you and your rag tag reavers, have come to pledge your allegiance to the Court of the True King, and the Cult of Khaine? I hope you have something more convincing than a burnt offering some petty murders behind you in Ulthuan?"

The leader of the High Elves cast his pale face and strange red eyes towards the Dark Elf general, his once noble features now sharp and full of hubris.

"Hail, mighty Vor'Lach, your reputation for ignorance is well deserved I see, for I am not the Blood Dragon. My brother and I are merely its heralds, though it is more than capable of announcing itself..."

He gestured through the mists to the looming cliffs and peaks of Daggerpoint, across the water. A great gout of flame bursts and brightens the gloom, then a second, and a third, accompanied by the sound of roars and screams.  

"I'm afraid you arrived a bit too late, Vor'Lach, and your position as 'lord' of Daggerpoint, and what will remain of it, depends very much on what you do next."

The unmistakable shape of a dragon launched itself from the town walls in a cloud of smoke and embers and soared across the bay to land right in the middle of the gathering. Elves on both sides fell back in awe and terror, but Vor'Lach swallowed his growing bile and kept his nerve.

A second pale skinned and red eyed elf sat atop the mighty dragon, bearing the banner of their house, but it was the Blood Dragon itself who next spoke to Vor'Lach.

"I BELIEVE YOU WERE IN SOME DOUBT ABOUT HOW SERIOUS WE ARE.... I TRUST THAT IS NO LONGER THE CASE, BUT DO LET ME KNOW IF YOU NEED FURTHER CONVINCING AND I WILL HAPPILY EXPLAIN IT TO YOUR REPLACEMENT."

Month five is leader month for my Dark(ish) Elves and it is finally time to meet our main protagonists in this tale of treachery and deceit!

Vor'Lach and the fearsome Herrersaurus battle lizard he rides are from Krakon Games. I've always thought this battle lizard sculpt is an excellent homage to or proxy for the dinosaur/cold one seen on the front of the Dark Elf Army book. However, I originally had something else in mind for it (long since forgotten) so didn't order the rider at the time.... and it turns out you can't order him separately from their website. Doh! Shout out to Ross Whitehorn from Krakon Games who was really helpful when I reached out and hooked me up with this guy in time for the challenge.

I've kept a simple green and purple colour scheme partly for nostalgic reasons... partly because it looks like a packet of Apple and Blackcurrant Frosties (best sweets ever!) which in turn reminds me of the kit Bristol City wore when they beat Liverpool at Anfield in the FA Cup 3rd round replay in 1994... but also because it ties in to the colour scheme for the Gorgon's Guard, his elite mercenary followers.

I had a rough crack at replicating the medusa skull emblem on the banner of the Gorgon's Guard on his rather small heater shield. It's not perfect but at that scale I can probably live with it as you get the general idea.

Given it's impressive size I have been considering playing the beast as a proxy Cockatrice (minus the ability to fly) if I ever need the extra punch. The petrifying gaze would be a good match with such a fearsome beast and would fit in with the emerging gorgon theme for this part of the army. Or it could just be a really big cold one if I don't want to spend the points.

The idea for my renegade High Elf leader was originally inspired by Elric (as I was re-reading his adventurers when I was planning this army) but the story has changed and grown in the telling and the idea for the treacherous High Elven brothers is now part Elric and part Cobra Crimson Twins from GI Joe/Action Force.

Hence they are known as Tomax and Xamot, which I think fits the idea of them being interchangeable stand-ins for the Blood Dragon and would explain how the famed and fearsome reaver could be rumoured to be in two places at once.

Tomax (or is it Xamot?) is a High Elf Hero made from various left over bits from my extensive High Elf cavalry. I'm not entirely sure the legs and torso go together but the lighter armoured lower half with helm and cuirass might work for a half naval half cavalry officer. His high crested helm looked a bit like fluted dragon scale, and that seemed to tie in with the random later edition Dragon Princes horse head I had somehow acquired which then got stuck on a left over silver helm steed.

I had to add some greenstuff to the saddle to make him fit without hovering, but all in all I think he makes for a fairly convincing fallen high elf noble. The slightly odd pose forced by the putty-saddle makes him look like he is leaning forward to bark commands while using his shield to shelter incoming missile fire.

I painted up the dragon and rider prior to the start of the challenge, as both test and inspiration for the idea for my Darkish Elves. Now that the ideas are more fully formed I've gone back to add the shield and the banner to show the same emblem of the Dragon emerging from a sea of blood. This serves as both house emblem and a not so subtle dig at the new Caledor regime in Ulthuan. 

I've also included a few basing elements to tie it in to the terrain of the Bleak Coast, and a discarded loyalist Caledor shield as a nod to their treacherous background on Ulthuan.

I'm not counting any OWAC points for the dragon and rider but they are included here for character and context for the army background for my Dark(ish) Elves.

Monthly Total:

Dark Elf General w/ heavy armour and shield, mounted on Cold One - 174 pts
Dark(ish) Elf Hero w/ light armour, shield mounted on Elven Steed w/ barding - 114 pts

Total points: 288pts

Congratulations as always to those of you still in the challenge!

With the leaders taken care of and all four of my rank and file months already in the bag, this is technically my 6th completed OWAC. I'm very proud of that achievement but I also want to keep my record of never having taken a mulligan, so I definitely still have plans for a Wild Card next month :) 

Tom's Bony Bit

This month I finished my last rank and file unit and I feel like its been very successful. I had made a good start last month so it didn't take me to long to finish this elite unit. The question is are they Skeleton Horsemen or mounted Wights? In a game I could us them as either, but I came up with the idea to make the riders look like the Nazgul otherwise knows as the Ringwraith's for the LOTR. In WFB4 you can't really have mounted Wraiths, so I guess counting them as Wights is the best option to show they are an elite unit. 

The zombie horses are Living Dead Cavalry from Fireforge Games in Italy. They are a good fit for modern GW skeletons.

I chose to do an old Citadel shield from my Dad's collection for this Standard Bearer. I went with another crusader design as the year before they are one of my favourite historic periods. In Old World terms they could be fallen knights of Araby.

I used VMC hull red and red to get a fade on this shield design and up to Mephiston red making it look like the paint has chipped of  after years in the grave. For the banner I went with a red on black design, mirroring a previous design.

To bring this unit together with the other units in my army, I used; MPs chestnut-brown and coffee, and Citadel Colours Skeleton Horde (Contrast), Basilicanum Grey (Contrast), Rakarth flesh, Dryad bark, Death-world Forest, Ogryn camo, Mephiston red, Screamer pink and Leadbelcher. I have used purple to show the dark magic that gives them power to crush their enemies. 

I'm very happy with my work for this month as I think they tie in with both the ghouls and the Skeleton units.

Monthly Total:

5 Wights on Skeletal Steeds inc. Standard Bearer - 234 pts

Total points: 234 pts

Thank you for reading, hope everybody's last month goes well. Just my leader to go before I finish my second OWAC!! :) 

Frank's Great Work Continued, A Daemonic Legion of Slaanesh - Rank & File - April

 

2025 continues to be a busy and dare I say chaotic time. Various malignent entities continued to conspire to embugger my time, but progress was made all the same. The field of bones, on its face is clearly a domain of Khorne, and I shant be going there. So, what did I accomplish in April, you may ask? Weirdness and oddity, is my answer. Last month's Rippity Rabbity was just the first of a growing menagerie of strange monsters, and chaos spawn.

The first new arrival is a grotesque chaos dragon. A daemonic legion can include up to three dragons, which can be small or large as desired. Wings are also an option if you want to spend for them. In this case I wanted to use a Reaper miniatures monster that had been hiding in my box of shame for quite some time. I would be including it as a dragon with a mid-sized profile at 600 points, When included as part of a daemonic legion, dragons may be given D6+1 chaos attributes (aka mutations). I took the liberty of assigning him at a minimum, hideous appearance, short legs, and a mace tail. The dragon profile itself has a random chance of magic ability, and is assigned a random breath weapon. The dragon's job in the legion is most likely to give some zappy support to the infantry, and be a somewhat resilient piece to slow down enemy lesser daemons.

This model was painted in drab bony colors to lean into it's hideous appearance attribute. The lack of color is a sharp departure from the rest of the Slaaneshi Legion, and in a strange way, makes this guy stand out. Everybody can't be a model after-all. Shown here with the Legion's Jabberwocks for scale.

Next comes a pack of spawn. Unlike the pack of elven slaaneshi spawn I did in my first OWAC, these spawn are not dedicated explicitly to the pleasure god but rather seem to have fallen in with the legion by chance. The models I assembled for these were from a number of sources, and I chose to paint them in wildly divergent color schemes. I shall begin by introducing the little guys.

These two are smaller than man-sized. The first is an odd little beast, the model for whom I found at Fenris Miniatures, and added quite a few bits like the wings, extra tails, and spikes. His comrade, is a classic Citadel chaos dwarf mutant, who I simply mutated further by taking away his normal hand holding a club, and giving him more tentacles. They serve no useful purpose in the legion and are merely cannon fodder.

Next we have the mid-sized spawn. These two are some fantastic Satyr Art Studios sculpts, which I was lucky enough to acquire second-hand, as they are no longer sold. I didn't convert them at all, because that was clearly unnecessary. I painted them to be as different from each other in pallet as they are in form. They will serve in the spawn pack as tougher cannon fodder, but fodder all the same. 

Lastly, and possibly least (who knows with a spawn pack?), we have a strange reptilian creature with a crested mutation and far too many legs. This model is a Reaper miniatures basilisk, and so I also have assigned him an 'Evil Eye' mutation. The color scheme was done in hopes of making him pop with his pack mates. 

All together, my pack of spawn only accounted for the minimum 'ten' rank and file models required this month. The tally being x2 man-sized models, and then x4 big guys who count double as eight total. Points wise, spawn cost 100 in a daemonic legion regardless of how big small or weird they turn out so the pack adds another 500, which alongside the dragon, totals another 1100 points for the Slaaneshi Legion. Next month is to be leaders, and will feature at least a couple champions of Slaanesh. Till then, here is a pic of the spawn pack all together with Rippity from last month...

Shadespyre's June Post - Wildcard Month - Guardians of the Moonglade - 3rd Edition Wood Elves (+955 points)

 OWAC VII - Wildcard Month - Guardians of the Moonglade

June

The final month. To be honest, having completed everything in the original plan and so much of the reserves it was a bit hard to get going again for a final effort. But once I did get back to it I enjoyed ticking the last few units off my list.

Let's start with some extra Elf heroes. I'm very aware that by concentrating on unit after unit of archers, I have missed out on painting some of the great Elf minis of the period, so here are four of them:

I would have loved to include a unit or two of these guys for some proper melee potential, but the sad truth is they are difficult and expensive to collect in numbers, possibly because they are so cool that no-one wants to part with them. The champion with the orc head, and the one with the sword above his head, are iconic members of this range, but the Elf with the two handed sword has always been my favourite, so I wanted to paint one.

These guys represent my Autumn, Spring, Summer and an experimental Winter colour scheme. I really like how the latter looks, but he doesn't feel very "Wood Elfy" to me, so maybe this is a starting point for a High Elf army...

And now for some completely unplanned, bonus miniatures.

 

Once I realised that the Owl theme was going to be a thing, I went fishing in my collection to find thisold favourite. This dapper chap is a Citadel C29 Giant Owl from back in 1985. The code makes him part of the "Monsters" range even though he is a total sweetheart. I elevated him on a grassy tump to make him a little more impressive next to the Elves. It might be possible to pop a rider on him but I'll be including him as part of a Monstrous Host.

Also unplanned, here is a Blunicorn of unknown origin, pinched off Ebay for a fiver. Is it even a Wood Elf army without a Blunicorn? I feel like everyone else in Team Wood Elves has one, now.

Sadly, without a suitable Elf maiden to ride her, Bluey will have to stay as a mascot rather than a points scoring unit.

Back to planned bonus miniatures, now.

Hidden Reserves

These vague blobs were numbers 6 and 7 on the list

And now I can reveal that the vague blobs are hiding lots and lots and lots of... Halflings!

Everyone loves halflings, right? There's an Ally list for them in Warhammer Armies, and Wood Elves (along with Empire, Brets and Dwarves) are allowed to make use of them. But I didn't want to use the chubby, chicken munching, cook pot wearing Citadel Halflings (even though I have collected one of each of all the 80s and 90s ranges) here, I wanted more rugged looking, serious minded Halflings who might live in the outer forest, farming and hunting and foraging and tussling with wolves and goblins and beastmen. And that meant Mark Copplestone's halflings, currently available via North Star Miniatures.

After rushing to convert a command group back in December, I revisited these poor efforts and am much happier with the newer version.

Now painted and complete with their 6th Edition Empire plastic hats. The oak leaf standard is again made from cheap jewellery, which is a gold mine of little metal bits and bobs, it turns out. The standard bearer has goofy buck teeth, so we haven't entirely left the comedy halfling trope behind. 

As well as some very cheap BS4 missile fire, this unit also contains three characters and the option to carry a magic standard and a magic weapon.

The rest of the halfling contingent is made up of skirmishers with slings. Skirmishing Elves always seem like a bit of a waste of points as they are decent close combat troops, whereas these little fellas have no business tangling with anything bigger than a Goblin.

And finally (?)

Hidden Reserve No 8

The funny shaped blob conceals the Forest Dragon, Quercus.

And here is my painted version.

Although this is a brand new resin model, and not produced by GW, there is a proper connection to Oldhammer because the sculptor is Trish Carden who sculpted about a zillion Citadel, GW and Forgeworld minis starting way back in 1984.

You can get your own Quercus from Footsore Miniatures, who are casting and distributing Trish's growing HarrowHyrst miniatures range. 

Army List Additions:

I'm not considering the heroes or the blunicorn to be part of the army list, but it's not like I'm short of points is it?

Adding Champions to the halfling slingers doubles the cost of each unit, but also gives them a surprising combat boost in the form of three WS4 attacks which might swing a fight with enemy skirmishers.

Scores for June:       955    points   71 models

1 x Autumn Hero                                                                                                                   

1 x Spring Hero

1 x Summer Hero

1 x Winter Hero    

                                           

1 x Blunicorn                                                                                                                        0 points 

Halfling Allies List:

1 x Halfling Contingent Commander                                                                             77 points

1 x Ally Standard Bearer                                                                                                   73 points         

22 x Halfling Militia     (Champion, Musician, Bow, Light Armour, Shield)         144 points

10 x Halfling Militia      (Champion, Shield, Sling)                                                     84 points         

10 x Halfling Militia      (Champion, Shield, Sling)                                                     84 points

10 x Halfling Militia     (Champion, Shield, Sling)                                                      84 points  

10 x Halfling Militia     (Champion, Shield, Sling)                                                      84 points 

Monstrous Host:

1 x Giant Owl (counted as Giant Eagle)                                                                      75 points

1 x  Dragon                                                                                                                       250 points 

                    

Running Total:          7902  points  228  models

STOP THE PRESS!

I just received this glorious Ral Partha Cloud Giant, an absolute classic old mini by the great Tom Meier, painted for me by our OWAC pal Chris Howell. Thanks Chris, he's fantastic, and such a generous gift! 

NEXT TIME:

Some army pictures and reflections on the project.