Shadespyre's OWAC VI Wrap-up Post - Dark Elves / Drow

Shadespyre's OWAC VI Dark Elf / Drow Army - Wrap up post

July

It already feels like a long time ago...

I had a go at collecting the whole army together, setting it up on some painted boards and taking some nice photos. It didn't work out so well - impossible to get good lighting - but at least you get an idea of what 200 odd miniatures look like.

As it happens, the final model count of 211 is very similar to that for the Gnolls last year (I think that was 209?) but somehow this project felt much bigger!

You can probably tell that I finally got around to making movement trays for every unit and respraying them all in a uniform pale grey. I tried a few in white first and it was just a bit too stark. 

I made the trees using a Woodland Scenics kit. An odd experience - the kit include flat cast metal armatures which you twist into shape with pliers before gluing on the foliage. It would probably have been a more satisfactory process if the castings weren't badly flashed, but the end result was pretty good despite being a lot of hard work. Not sure I'd do it this way again, though.

Likewise, I'm happy enough with how the snow bases came out, but I'm not sure I'd do it this way again. The main problem being that it's almost impossible to go back and add more and get a "realistic" smooth fresh snow look if you miss a bit first time around.

In terms of the project itself - overall I'm happy. The theme was slow to emerge (and still hasn't presented a nice name) but I enjoyed finding the AD&D references to add here and there. I stuck to my aim of only using early Citadel ranges, with just a couple of plastic bits used to repair or enhance models, and managed to tie in some properly old miniatures as an excuse to get them painted.

There were the usual frustrations of building an army of such old minis - I couldn't collect all the unit types I wanted to; the poor quality of some castings made painting them a trial; forcing the figures available to fit an only slightly compatible army list - but as this is my third army of this type that was all to be expected. 

The purple colour scheme looks pretty good but was very fiddly, I ended up dropping about a half of the stages from the initial method and I don't think it really shows. Painting lots of narrow trim around armour and so on made for a lot of work, as did paints of wildly different consistency despite all being from the same range. My appreciation of Citadel Foundation Paints will remain long after I've emptied my last pot!

Highlights for me include finally painting a version of that Tony Ackland War Eagle, enjoying the White Dragon even though it was forced upon me, and the Displacer Beasts that used to be Weretigers. 

Next Time?

I'll definitely be in again for OWAC VII. Maybe I'll finally build a 3rd edition army with contemporaneous miniatures? I've got a few more all-pre-slotta projects that I could tackle, but it may be that the "novelty" of painting dozens of the same sculpt to make a unit has worn off a bit.

A few things on the list:

Pre-slotta High Elves

The Other pre-slotta High Elves (!)

Wood Elves

Zoats

Fimir

Eldar Pirates

Some sort of odd hodge-podge of the Half Orc, Hobgoblin, Ogre and Giant Mercenary lists from Warhammer Armies, because I don't have enough of any one to make an army.

It also occurs that I've never painted so much as one unit of Dwarves. But I'd have to buy a whole army from scratch to do that...

Previous Posts:

June (Wild Card)

May (Leaders)

April (Rank and File)

March (Rank and File)

February (Rank and File)

January (Rank and File)

Intro Post

Shadespyre's February Post - Rank and File (II) - (Still still unnamed) Dark Elves (662 points)

OWAC VI - Rank and File (II) - And Now For Something Completely Similar...?

February

Here at CAMRA* HQ, we believe painting should be a joyless, shoulder to the wheel, grinding experience, and so for month two I have painted EXACTLY THE SAME MINIATURES AGAIN. Well, not quite - the Mengil in this unit has a different shaped sword blade, because the original was missing. Woo.

And almost the same ten crossbowmen. I'd apologise for the out of focus pictures, but if you want to know what they look like, just nip back to the January post...

Something I WILL apologise for is the continued plain grey bases. This is down to logistical issues - I actually ordered a bunch of supplies from my usual vendor at the end of November, and finally cancelled the still unavailable order towards the end of January... I have since over-compensated by purchasing way too much wintery basing stuff which I shall have a go with next month, begging our munificent (and handsome, wise and kind) Overlord's indulgence.

I also had some thoughts on theme and shield designs and things, but I'm still feeling my way with that. I'm loathe to interrup the painting process by overthinking these things too early!

Now I imagine most of you are bored stiff by now, what with there being no NMM or game board or round-based frippery to look at, so here's a bonus unit - Witch Elves!

20 Witch Elves in a mix of the four different poses. No command group because there aren't any minis for one - I'm sure I'll add a Hero to lead them later on. Sadly neither great swords nor shields are available to them in the 3rd edition list (though crossbows are!?), so this unit will have to be armed with merely poisoned dual hand weapons.

I did consider giving this unit a variety of pink / purple hairdos, but I think the white hair makes the unit stand out more from the rest of the army. And it might look nice with the snowy bases, but who can say right now? 

Army List Additions:

Scores for January:          662 points    50 models

20 x Dark Elf Warriors    (Standard Bearer, Musician)                               242 points

10 x Dark Elf Crossbowmen       (Shields)                                                       140 points

20 x Witch Elves (Poisoned Attacks, Additional Hand Weapon)              280 points

Running Total:                  1044 points    80 models

(Chances are I'll end up adding a champion to each of my close combat units, but that's for another day.)

I've now met (actually, surpassed) the minimum unit requirements for a legal army. Nice. 

Coming Next:

I'll be honest, this month really has been a grind, but Onwards! I said last month I needed to get my originally posted army finished during March if I was to be able to include all the fun stuff I'd like to further down the line. And so I hope this time next month I shall be bringing you 20 painted Cold One riders AND a bonus unit AND some wintery bases.

*CAMRA - The Campaign For Real Armies

Shadespyre's January post - Rank and File (I) - (Still Unnamed) Dark Elf Army - 382 points

OWAC VI - Rank and File (I) - Back to Bases / Purple Haze

January

You'd think that having decided to paint an army purple, it would all be easy from there? But I couldn't settle on any of the three purples that I already owned, and spent ages mucking about trying to find just the right colour. In the end, I stumbled upon this boxed set from Vallejo:

Surely one of these would do? After some experimentation, I produced a first mini which I quite liked the look of using SEVEN of the eight in the box. I do like to make life hard for myself. I strongly suspect that i can cut at least two of those as we go along, but we'll see.

I chose this lady to paint first because she doesn't actually have an assigned space in the army yet, so she's in some ways "disposable" - but of course she's also not very representative of the rest of the force, which makes her a rather poor test subject. You'd think I would know better by now?

Other than the two-tone purple, this also confirmed that my other idea would work - the classic Drow combination of dark skin and white hair. Now I know Warhammer purists won't like it, but it follows my old school D&D influences - the same ones that brought you yellow skinned Goblins (or was it Gnolls?) and brown skinned Orcs. Just like those two armies, little else will follow D&D logic, so this'll be a WHFB Dark Elf army in all other aspects. 

I hope it's obvious that the "dungeon grey" base is not going to be the final look? I'm still thinking snowy, but until I get chance to try a few things we'll all have to wait and see.

But, let's talk about bases - specifically, why I've moved away from plastic slotta bases to MDF ones.

The perceived advantages were:

20mm bases are 20mm across at the top, allowing more space for that preslotta lead base to fit; fit together neatly so no visible edges when in movement trays; Can drill holes through them to neatly fit magnets rather than fiddly fixing under slotta bases; save my supply of old slotta bases for slotta figures (yes, I do collect those, too)

Turns out there are some issues that come with them. They are not as tough as plastic, I've squished some corners when dropping them. Drilling holes through them was easy but doing it several hundred times (two magnets per cavalry base) was very tedious. And the bases fit so neatly that it can be hard to get them in and out of the movement trays.

Ultimately, I don't think we can call it success or failure until I have a unit with finished bases and tray to look at.

I bet you really came here to see some painted miniatures, though? Right then, this is what I've got ready to share this month, representing half of my compulsory troops under the Warhammer Armies list

First up, a regiment of 20 of Mengil Manhide's famous Company

I wasn't sure how to approach the manhide cloaks, I roughly mixed Rotting Flesh with various othe normal flesh tones and then slapped it on in random pathes, I think the variations are mostly so subtle that they are lost, but still.

The shields remain unadorned for now, this will remain so until I hit upon an overall army theme (or just panic and pick something). I think a simple device in either white or gold. I've got some ideas but not a clear favourite at this point.

And you may notice that the standard bearer is *not* the one from the RR4 set, but instead a conversion of the trooper model. The one "proper" standard bearer I have got has been co-opted to the Army Standard role, for now. With a second regiment planned, it makes more sense to do this than have mismatched bearers, in my mind at least.

The other compulsory unit is Crossbowmen, so here are the first 10 of those

They end up with a very different balance of colours without the brown cloaks and bright shields (though most of them are shielded, just slung on their backs). I'm pretty pleased with how this worked, and I rather wish there were more unshielded, uncloaked minis to repeat this look with. But as ever, the miniature range dictates what I have to work with. 

Army List Additions:

Scores for January:          382 points    30 models

20 x Dark Elf Warriors    (Standard Bearer, Musician)                                242 points

10 x Dark Elf Crossbowmen       (Shields)                                                       140 points

Running Total:                  382 points    30 models

Chances are I'll end up adding a champion to each of my close combat units, but that's for another day. 

Coming Next:

It'll be no surprise to regular viewers that my "paint early, paint often" policy means that other units are already under the brush. So though February is a shorter month, I'm going to try to finish the same again *and* another unit from the core list I posted in the introduction. If I want to squeeze all the possible extras on, I need that list done during March to create a "spare" Rank and File month.