Pokrzyw's High Elves - Dragon Cavalry without Dragon - Rank & File #4 (374pts)

 Advancing forces of High Elves is always preceded by mysterious Shadow Warriors. The main forces was reinforced by perfectly armored knights - noble Dragon Princes of Caledor. Enemies has no chance competing with that deadly combination..

Last month of challenge. Really hard due to other activities. I prepared two special units of high elves - Shadow Warriors and Dragon Princes of Caledor.

Shadow warriors are iconic unit of scouts, remnatants of Nagarythe, trying to get revenge on dark cousins. Old miniatures from Marauder range are not very pretty, but it is true classic shape of 4th edition high elf.

Another unit are mighty Dragon Princes of Caledor. The heaviest cavalry unit of high elves. I tried to paint them using classical red-green-white-gold scheme.It was really tiring.. But finally I was able to finish this unit.

Roster:

CHARACTERS

Dragon Prince of Caledor Champion 61 pts

REGIMENTS

4 Dragon Princes of Caledor [banner] 215pts

7 Shadow Warriors [shields,longbows] 98pts

TOTAL: 374pts

Paul's High Elves - Reinforcements have arrived! Rank & File Month 4 (510 pts)

Reinforcements have arrived!

April has been a very busy, but very productive month for me both in terms of the OWAC and Real Life - Boo! On the plus side it is also my birthday month and this gave me full license to indulge in the fine OWAC traditions of 'changing plans mid challenge' and 'buying lots more minis' :p

I'm pleased to say I was able to more than meet my needs from the trading groups rather than resorting to the dreaded evil-bay. My thanks to Lee G, Marc P, Carl H, Ben P, and Gavin M all of whom were a pleasure to deal with and helped me fill in the gaps in my changed OWAC plans at short notice, as well as picking up some Goblin wolf riders for my eldest, and a near mint copy of the 5th Edition Magic supplement - so we even got to play an actual game with my OWAC minis this month! :D

A solid Elven back line is supported by two wings designed to press forward and fall back

The plans was working perfectly, the Lion Warriors moving in for the kill, until...

A bloody great Zombie Dragon and Vampire Lord turned up to ruin everyone's day!

Sadly, shortly after this picture was taken the High Elf Mage had his head ripped off by the Vampire Lord and the game ended in victory for the Forces of Evil.

Right, enough of that embarrassing loss! Let's get to this month's painting.  First up were a handful of reinforcements for my Shadow Warriors, with four more to bring me up to a unit of 12 overall, and another four Swordmasters for a unit of 20 in total.

Apologies, I've just noticed the one at the front is out of focus, but it's too late now!

As a prestige unit my Dragon Princes clearly needed a full command group, not least because it is another chance to do a banner, but also because the DP special rules in WFB 4th /5th Edition mean that they get their standard bearer for free (rather than having to pay double, as you would normally). 

My green stuff skills are a bit lacking, but I was fairly happy with this in the end.

The same rule does not apply to the musician however, and at 86 points I'm not sure many HE players actually bother(ed) to take one for their Dragon Princes in 4/5 edition. That may be why they didn't get a musician model until the much later release of newer Dragon Prince sculpts. I managed to get my hands on one of the horn arms from the newer DP sculpts and do some very ropey metal and putty work to convert an older DP trooper into a musician.

R to L Standard Bearer, Champion, Musician, Trooper

My family are by now well trained in spotting useful bits of junk on the ground to bring home to see if they can be used in junk builds and scenery projects. This time my wife played a blinder by bringing home a scrap of old rubber from a netball, as she thought the dimples made it feel like lizard skin. She was not wrong and it makes an excellent dragon hide banner!

The elven rune is named Caladai 'the symbol of the line of kings, the dragons of flame', which seemed perfect for the haughty Dragon Princes of Caledor. I'm afraid the weather was turning so I didn't get a chance to take a picture with the rest of the unit, but there are 9 of them in total now and I've just managed to acquire the bits to make another horse, so a 10th might be on the cards in the future.

I also added another five Reaver Knights in the same blue and golden yellow colour scheme as those I painted in February. Back then the blue and yellow colour scheme just happened to match the flag of Ukraine. This time it's deliberate and I hope the emblem of the phoenix on their shields is prophetic. It's always an important and sobering moment for a fan of 'war games' of any description to be reminded of the realities of war. My experience however is that most wargamers are actually keen students of history and well aware of the evil and misery of war, and it has been heartening to see the response from the community as we come together to hope for peace. 

I had started to hate painting these, but love how they look as a big group. I've got another 5 waiting, inc. command, but I'm in no rush to paint them quite yet!

Total for the month:

4 Shadow Warriors (12 pts each) - 48pts
4 Sword Masters (16 pts each) - 64pts
5 Reaver Knights (w/ spears, bows, and shields - 33 pts each) - 165pts
4 Dragon Princes (43 pts each) (inc. Champion*, Standard**, and Musician**) - 233 pts

* DP Champion = 61 pts
** DPs have a special rule that means the unit gets the standard bearer for the same price as a standard trooper, however the musician costs double as per normal.

Total: 510 pts

I also managed to rebase an existing unit of Silver Helms, and replace their mostly blank shields with a matching set with horse head design from the WFB4 box set, although looking at them in the photos I think they could 'pop' a bit more so I might look at those again at some point.

They had also been badly missing a banner, so I've added a simple pennant with the elven runes Sethai meaning 'Flight, wind, cry in the far mountains' and Harathoi meaning 'Youth, boundless energy, jealousy' used together here to represent the speed and potency of the young elven nobles that make up the Silver Helm cavalry.

May will hopefully be leader month, although I might yet swap things around and play a wild card before finishing with my leader. We shall have to see how the dreaded 'Real Life' behaves ;)

Thanks for reading and bon courage to all my fellow challengers. The end is in sight! :D

Paul's High Elf Heavy Cavalry - Rank and File Month One (263 pts)

These guys definitely look like they have black undercoat

I decided to go in at the deep end for my first rank and file month and tackle my heavy cavalry, the slightly daunting Dragon Princes of Caledor. 

These have always been a prestige unit for me, with sumptuous box art and regular appearances in White Dwarf, and although I started gathering a unit early in my Warhammer collecting days, I'll admit to having always been a bit intimidated by actually painting them.

Well, that's what the OWAC is for, right!?

Right.

I started laying down some base colours, following a fairly pedestrian trio of Citadel Greens. I remembered a few things along the way. I get why people moan about Caliban Green (base) not being the same/as good/dark as the old Dark Angels Green. I remembered (too late) that the new Dark Angels Green (Layer) is far too thin and glossy for what I was looking for, but it sort of worked in making the carapace for the barding look more shellacked. And finally I remembered that if you highlight your greens in the traditional 90s GW fashion with Sunburst Yellow, then they risk blurring into your traditional 90s lurid goblin green bases. Doh!

On the plus side, VMC Hull Red proved a real winner as a base for my deep dragon scale red, and GW Warpstone Glow and VMC Intermediate Green gave me somewhere to go that wasn't Sunburst Yellow, and served to keep the overall look of the greens quite dark, which is what I was after. I've used VMC Gun Metal on the chain, and the lances (with just a touch of highlighting of Citadel Leadbelcher) and I like the contrast of the dark oily chain under the bright armour plate.

Green on green on green on.... *snores*

Far worse than any of that was the moment I realised that my OWAC prep had let me down - one of my horses had the standard/human plastic heavy cavalry head rather than the metal Dragon Princes one, and it had been well cemented in place by the original owner.  Could I find an extra metal DP head? Yes, I had one in my HE bits. Could I find a replacement horse and get it prepped in time? No. Could I try and sculpt some horns on top of the Hvy Cav head to make it fit in a bit better? I got as far as grabbing some 0.8mm piano wire and the greenstuff before remembering that my sculpting skills are junk and I just ripped the bloody head off in frustration.... 

Well... shit.

Thankfully, although it initially looked pretty awful, some very basic green stuff repairs and the new metal DP head meant I was able to get it back in line with the others pretty quickly. Phew!

If you only look at it from this side its fine! ;)

I decided to go that little bit further with this unit than I might have otherwise done, and added some pennants or streamers in the red and green of Caledor, which I think along with the (badly press moulded) dragon themed shields from the HE plastic spearmen help to finish off the unit.

I found this little snippet just underneath the DP entry in the 5th Edition HE Army book, and although not expressly linked to them I felt like there could be some unit background here:

The wind howled, lightning flashed, and thunder boomed as the sea foam soaked Caledan, the young thrain, and his steed on their perilous trek down the cliffs. The Cave of the Crone awaited far beneath him, while above the jagged crested silhouettes of his noble kindred barred his way back. 

A hoof slips, rock cracks and tumbles, and the wind wailed... calling to him.

Elven folk lore held that these sea caves on Caledor's inner coast were home to the Banshees of Morai Heg, their wailing foretelling the death of any who approached the caves. 

Caledan boldly urged his steed onwards into the promise of death, for it was also claimed that an Elf who could survive the caves and withstand the keening cry of the Banshees could find immortality... as a Dragon Prince of Caledor! 

Sadly I've really struggled to get decent pictures of these, and they either come out looking very flat, or showing highlights as yellow when they are actually scarlet. I'm really quite proud of them and don't feel my photography is doing them justice (although on the other hand it may be saving them with soft focus in some eyes!)

Anyway, here they are again, this time enjoying a prance around the garden :)

I also couldn't resist painting up this Chaz Elliott sculpted 'Elf Noble' from Ral Partha Europe. In my mind he makes an excellent Champion for my Shadow Warriors, who also got a slight brush up and re-basing this month to match their new leader.

Here they are out on manoeuvres. 

So here's my output in points for month one:

5 x Dragon Princes of Caledor - 215 pts
Shadow Warrior Champion - 48 pts

Total for the month: 263 pts

Next month will be some light cavalry, and a quick brush up of some Sword Masters of Hoeth, followed by tea and scones in the village hall.

Cheers!