A Warhammer Bestiary: Elves

Its been a while since I last painted any models in my Warhammer Bestiary project. If you don't remember what I was trying to do, I was attempting to paint an example of every model listed in the Warhammer Third Edition bestiary. I had made some pretty decent progress until I reached the elves, then something about the race just put me off. I have never been a fan of the fey ones if I am speaking honestly, and this lack of inspiration made work a turgid chore.

However, looking back now I found myself really enjoying the challenge of painting each of the four types and making them different once I got going!

Looking at the top image from left to right you have a Sea Elf, a Wood Elf Wardancer, a High Elf and a Dark Elf. 

The Sea Elf was the first model I worked on and I was keen to capture the feel of the sea and the maritime swashbuckler about him. I picked a Jes Goodwin Silvan Elf from the mid '80s Lord of the Rings range. Doing my best to do an 'Errol Flynn' colour scheme I worked from a blue trousers and whitish shirt look over a blackjack, dotted with silver and gold studs. I painted the equipment with reds, bright greens (proper old school Citadel colour that!) and golds. One area I was keen to improve was the painting of hair, so after a few chestnut and brown ink washes, I worked up the colour into a fairly flat blonde. Over this I highlighted on my own strands of hair taking the mix up to an almost white mix of the original tone. 

The High Elf came next and with this colour scheme I was inspired by the Ancient Greeks. Whites and golds were the orders of the day here, with very pale browns and greens for the non-metallic clothing. I found that by mixing my dark brown ink with chestnut I could create a shade that really brought out the depth of the gold. It was a simple case to highlight up with the original mix for the gold's base colour to bring out all of the detail. Gold predominated here as I was keen to reflect the wealth of the High Elves. I choose a fairly ubiquitous figure from the 1987 elf range (also by Goodwin) as I wanted something that was as far removed as I could achieve tow hat many people consider a high elf to actually look like. 

Next, I worked on the Dark Elf and chose a female model for the first time in this painting project. I really like this (Naismith I think) sculpt. Though its female it doesn't really have any of the silly boob fixated armour or impractical clothing that often plagues these sorts of designs. I kept the gold from the High Elf but darkedn it doesn somewhat with black ink washs. I picked out much of the colour of the colthing with purple and black as these are great tried and tested tones for villainous characters. I used an almost white to pick out the bone knife in her left hand as I wanted a different colour to contrast with all the dark tones. I was very pleased with the way the hair turned out too, it was very simply done, a little bit of edge highlighting and drybrushing. Though I feel the results are more to do with the sculpting of the hair rather than the skill of my painting! 

Finally, the Wood Elf Wardancer. This was quite a quick job really. You will probably know by now that the model is by Jes Goodwin. Much of the top half of the model is flesh, and I found quite a nice new way of creating a ink wash by mixing chestnut and red inks together. The hair was just a variant of the mthod I used on the High Elf and the Sea Elf. For the clothing, I choose two shade of contrasting greens to represent the woodland lifestyle of these warriors and these were quite simple to work up to a highlight. The flesh proved more of a challenge and I have been working on my methods for painting skin. I had a go at damp brush blending (a tip picked up from Andy Craig0 and was quite pleased with the result. A technique to try out again in the future. 

Next I had to work on the shields. As you may know, I used to be the crappiest freehand painter in the history of freehand painting. But through close inspection of the old school masters, I was able to refine my skills. I chose symbols that best reflected the background to each elf. A fish forthe Sea Elf, sylised leaves for the Wood Elf and High Elf and a dreaded spider for the Dark Elf. Source material for these designs came from a Google image search and were very useful indeed. When doing freehand painting like this it is essential to keep your paint very fluid, almost like milk, and to avoid overloading the brush to prevent flooding of your painting surface. On tip that works for me is the mixing in of a similar coloured ink to the colour you want to use, roughly 50:50 and this allows me to really move the paint easily but not loose depth of colour through watering down. 

Before I leave you, I mocked up a joke 'diorama' like you used to see in White Dwarf. The caption could read something like, ' A Sea Elf adventurer and his companion tackle a Dark Elf and her zombie slave while a Wood Elf looks on from the bushes!' 

So what do you think about my latest painting efforts. Opinions are always welcome here and I find them very constructive indeed! 

Acceptable in the 80s: The First Warhammer Battle Reports

The publication of the Dwarf Mountaineer rules in White Dwarf 116 was, in my opinion, the last fresh rule release for Warhammer Fantasy Battle Third Edition. There were more articles to come, however these were all tasters for forthcoming publications (such as The Lost and the Damned) rather than something totally new to the game. 

There were other fantasy rules and scenarios after WD116, but much of this was related to Heroquest and its follow up, Advanced Heroquest rather than WFB3 itself. Apart from some background material, the Marauder Miniatures line and a few odds and sods (mostly scenery building or army painting articles) Third Edition was 'done' as a game. The future would very much be Rogue Trader, and the big box games.

However, during this time a new idea crept into White Dwarf. An idea that began with rather charitable beginnings but would later grow to be an ubiquitous part of WD and one that became much derided. I speak of the battle report!

Many of you will be surprised to find out that the battle report wasn't always part of White Dwarf's regular output, and indeed did not become a regular feature at all until well into the 1990s. As far as I can tell, the first recognisable battle report appeared in White Dwarf 107 and was actually a report of a fundraiser rather than a design choice made by Games Workshop. The Roundabout Youth Club organised a twenty-four hour game of WFB3 as part of ITV's Telethon (no, I don't remember them either!) and an overview to the action was written up by Robin (future GW employee and White Dwarf editor) Dews.

24 Hours at Carik Mound by orlygg

Looking back over the article again, what really surprises me about the very first battle report is how many of the key features of the future were in place. There are photographs of the action (well, grainy back and white jobs - it was the '80s!) and difficult to interpret maps of the battlefield. Actually, this is rather cruel an observation as with a little effort it is possible to work out most of the movements of the troops during the game on the map, especially with the addition of a key. The piece also begins with a little bit of narrative to get the battle going, and this story is returned to several times during the article. In later years, the narrative became my preferred part of the battle reports that I would read, but as GW and WD began to lose writers who could actually 'write' these became rather generic and dull, at least to me anyway. 

Reading through the article's introduction brings back a great deal of memories of my own gaming in the 1980s. The plaster covered polystyrene tiles being once such fond memory. Now these were really good value and are still available, see here for example. I think I may well do a few old school experiments with these in the summer months and try and create a Carik Mound of my own. Another things that strikes me is the willingness to just chuck everything on the table and just get on with it. No rules lawyers here. No armybooks or rare choices either, if the group wanted to field it, it went on the table. A quick look through the opposing forces reminds us all what fantasy battles looked like back then, with the 'goodies' a collection of knights, humans, dwarfs and halflings and the 'baddies' practically everything else, including an undead war mammoth!

Unlike some of the appalling Battle Reports in the last issues of WD that I read, this battle is told as a narrative. You can feel that conflict slowly build and read about some of the more titanic events that happened due to the lively style in which the report is written in. There were no 'my orcs moved 6" fowards and I rolled to see what affect my Staff of Bamwham would have on the... zzzzzzzzzzzz'. But perhaps the most telling detail of this 'first battle report' is presented to us in one of the final sentences: 'Thanks too, to GW for several copies of WFBIII and about 200 figures.'

Imagine that in these corporate times.

Ten issues later, another battle report was published in White Dwarf. Again, it wasn't an official 'studio' game but a retelling of a game played at Games Day '89. In those days there were no tournaments as we have today, for they had something even better - the Osprey World Warhammer Fantasy Battle Championships! 

The Best Laid Plans Battle Report by orlygg

Yes, there was a Warhammer World Champion!

It seems that this article was intended to be one of several write ups about the battles fought in this World Championships, though only this one seems to have seen the light of day. Its a far more professional effort by Peter Morrison, with a detailed look at the army compositions (and some of the rules behind them) as well as some excellent artwork that looks drawn specifically for the article. I find the army lists really interesting here, as we can see how veteran players were constructing their forces for the skaven and wood elves in the late 80s. Anyone considering building a similar force as part of the Oldhammer Community may well want to have a more detailed look at these. There are, alas, no photographs of the game, but there are plenty of characterful maps to help show what was going on. 

Like the previous battle report, there is an interesting nugget for us old schoolers residing in the last paragraph of this battle report. 'This battle was a credit to both players, who conducted themselves in a sportsmanlike manner and avoided the temptation of trying to find gimmick armies.'

It seems that the 'cheese' build or 'loop-hole' brigade existed in the glory days of the 1980s after all! 

A few months later, in White Dwarf 123 Peter Morrison returned with a final 'Third Edition' battle report. There is no mention of the games being held at the Derby Rooms here, so I cannot state whether this was a game carried out at the World Championships or just an 'in-house' game of some sort. The article follows a very similar pattern as the previous one, with troop choices, detailed army lists (useful this time for Chaos and Goblinoid players), tactics and a detailed look at the battle itself. Again, the artwork supporting the article is excellent, and by Gary Chalk, though if these pieces were commissioned for the article I do not know - they look rather Warhammer Armies to me. 

96685745 the Clash of Evil by orlygg

Before I depart I would like to ask you a question. What is your opinion of battle reports? Do you enjoy them? Did you enjoy these? Or are you like me, and find them rather insipid and dull. An in the age of social media and all the apps at our disposal, what are your thoughts about what the future of battle reports might be?

Do tell!

Orlygg.