Defenders of the Shifting Isles - 4K Warmaster - High Elves vs. ???

[Verm1s]

In November I'm putting on a game of Warmaster for Omagh Wargames Club. (now recruiting!) The problems are, it'll be my first game of Warmaster too, and I need two 2K armies for it! This plog will be a record of whether I make it or not.

So. I already have a small lead pile of high elves from the depths of time. That gave me the idea for the simple scenario in the title of this plog, though it isn't much more fleshed out than that. If I press some BoFA wood elves and eagles into service that'll be comfortably over 2K points. Great. I just need to paint them all, now.
The attached pic shows what I already have ready to paint, or partially painted. One unit each of Phoenix Guard (counts as spearmen in the rules, probably give 'em a magic item); archers; BoFA archers; Shining Helms; Reaver Knights; chariots; and two characters. Better pics when I concentrate on each unit.



The first thing to do is think about the colour scheme for this revamp. The part-painted minis are pretty standard high elves - blue and white. The new scheme won't be much different, but with a warmer blue and duller gold. A bit more regal and cold, maybe. Hopefully it'll just involve a touch-up on what little I've done. The wood elves will be in different colours, but again nothing too divergent from the GW studio's take. More on all that in the next post.

One other thing is that I have no dragons. Didn't buy any. If anyone knows me from here or other forums, you'll know I'm extraordinarily fussy about the design and quality of dragon minis and other monsters. Very stubborn and hard to please. There's only a handful that I really like, few of them from GW, and none in 10mm. But I'm also a bit fond of pushing putty, so I might put my money where my mouth is and sculpt a dragon for this army somewhere down the line. I could try for a griffon too, before or after the November game.

And now the big question. The ??? What will the second army be? I also have just over 600 points of lizardmen in blisters, but it's going to cost a pretty penny to bump them up to 2K, directly from GW. I think I could get a full 2K army of something else, for much less on ebay.
I bought a few empire units there a couple of months ago, but they never turned up. That soured me a little; and thinking about it, I'd have to agonise over which province to paint and force myself to pick out bright colours on quartered uniforms and blah blah blah. I don't have the time to go obsessive on two armies. I could try chaos or undead instead, which would suit a quick 'n' dirty paintjob. But the theme I've chosen calls out for one army in particular, and after seeing how well the strips take a dip, I'll most likely go for greenskins.

[Verm1s]

Here are the ideas for the colours. Starting with bottom left, and going anticlockwise:



- Warm blue. Coat D'arms royal blue worked up with Miniature Paints indigo. The latter's maybe a little more purple in RL, but I think it looks fine. Light enough, too?
- The warm blue has some accent colour tests orbiting around it. With 'yellow' as the other main colour, I plugged them into a colour wheel and got orange-red for a triad. O-R and blue-green for a tetrad. Not much difference in the oranges, so I'll go for the easier one. I won't use too much turquoise, but the cooler, bluer one looks better to me.
- White. Straightforward - astronomicon grey, CDA elven grey, and white. Probably wash it with blue-grey. (I picked up a pot of celestra grey in the unlikely event I run out of astro. Bit cooler, but that won't matter when it's all layered up.)
- The 'yellow' - pale wood colour. Base of zandri dust, with MP sand (on the left), bleached bone and MP cream. I think I prefer the extra hint of colour with the sand.
- Silver. CDA enchanted silver (= mithril). Best to keep it as clean as possible - no dousing in dip or devlan mud! Black ink for lining, maybe a wee bit of blue ink for depth.
- Gold. The lighter metallic here is MP old gold. I like the colour, but it does need a bit of help not to look like slightly dingy silver. That's where VMC bronze - the darker one - comes in. Also, black rather than brown ink, yes?
- Cool blue. Just for comparison with the warm blue, as a possible accent. Turquoise beats it.

That's most of the boring plog intro done with, so here's a pic: an old one, of the part-painted BoFA elf archers. A lot of washes and thin highlights went into those cloaks, and I couldn't remember how to do it again, even if I wanted to. I'll be keeping things a lot more simple, but hopefully still looking good.

[wreiro]

Warmaster is fantastic. I never picked up the BoFA box but I wish I had. The archers are looking great so far. Nice to see highlighting on 10 mm figures.

Keep up the good work I will be following this with interest. (May actually paint some of my units too, no promises though )!

H

[shelfunit.]

Do more. The cloaks look great.

[Student]

The shading on those cloaks looks great. Its even more impressive when you consider how tiny they are. Good work.

[Brother Alexos]

Nice, I really like the amount of detail on such small models. the colouring is nice, and the game should turn out great. I do have some ideas on who the High elves will fight, some of them a bit more bland (To introduce gamers to the world of warhammer.) Whilst others are a bit more different (to show that Warmaster is different).

High elves vs. Skaven: pretty much to mirror the Island of Blood starter box; it will show a definite link between Warmaster and Warhammer. .

High elves vs. Orcs and goblins: Grom launches his WAAAGH! into Ulthuan and has to take the Shifting Isles first. This one shows the more hair-brained aspect of Warhammer.

High elves vs. Dark Elves: The Dark Elves are angry, so they take it out on their cousins. Classical Good Vs. Evil.

[Verm1s]

I aten't dead! But I've neglected these elves and I'm paying for it in grey hairs. The game is next Saturday, and I still have to paint most things. I might be able to make it if I stick with basecoats for now - the club is fairly insistent on painted models as opposed to tin-man armies, but free 'n' easy about the paintjob quality.

I've tinkered with the roster a little, too. Here's a pic of the entire army, all cleaned up, stuck to painty sticks, and ready to prime. (which I did this afternoon) Mirkwood contingent to the left.



General
Hero
Wizard
3x Spearmen (2 BoFA, 1x Phoenix Guard)
3x Archers (1 BoFA)
Silver Helms
Ellyrian Reavers
Bolt Throwers

1,000 points exactly. I would've thrown a magic weapon onto the Phoenix Guard to differentiate them, but why rock the boat.

Some bits of greenery: the banner head of the Silver Helms had a lot of mould slippage and looked very wonky, so I resculpted part of it. Fairly pleased with it...



The components for the general's stand, clipped out from a spearman command strip and bolt thrower crew, and prettied up a bit. This took me all of last week, which is a lot of wasted painting time, and it'll be a while before the negative feelings outweigh the good. (we'll see in a week's time) But again, fairly pleased with how it looks. I was going to sculpt scale armour on the horse's barding, but... no. No.



Also, the opponent problem was sorted out some time ago, thanks to Warseer Daemonkin, who lent me 1,000 points of Warmaster Skaven. So like Alexos says, I could rename this thing Island of Blood. :P Although the WM/WH connection is not likely to impress most people in the club...
I still have to paint some of those, too; but they're all primed and just need a drybrush 'n' wash job. Pics and roster in the next post, maybe.