Wood Elves & The Learning Curve

Yesterday I had my second game using Wood Elves and it went a lot smoother than the first. My first game was against Beastmen and I got pretty much crushed. This time I rolled out against an experimental all-cavalry Warriors Of Chaos army that Matt really wanted to try. The result? Well, I lost again but this time we actually had to total up the victory points to work it out.

Still, the fact I went from being crushed by a slightly outdated lower-tier army to only narrowly losing to a higher-tier one feels great. Especially as I used the same army list in both games so what improved was how I used my units and not what units I chose.

I'm finally getting used to the idea that moving and shooting isn't a terrible idea. My Deepwood Scouts have trueflight arrows so they shoot without penalty and the Waywatchers have such a high ballistic skill that it hardly matters. Both are skirmishing units who can float round outside of the enemy's charge arc shooting off volleys of arrows. Let me tell you, Matt loved them, in the sense that he dedicated the whole of his final magic phase to exacting revenge on the Deepwoods. Positioning is the key: keeping them in range and out of charge arc.

Shooting really is the key to the army. In the first turn Matt used his Vanguard moves to bring up two units of Marauder Horse and one of Hellstriders to unnerve me, distract me and make me call hasty charges.

Between the Glade Guard, Glade Riders, Deepwood Scouts, Waywatchers and the Treeman's strangleroots, all three units were vapourised by the end of my first turn. Which, okay left me with two units of Chaos Knights that I never really managed to shift for the rest of the game but it meant far fewer distractions bouncing around the table. If I'd had fewer shooty units I might have ended up target blind.

Combat is my weakness. My Dryads spent most of the games out of position and fighting Chaos Hounds whilst my Eternal Guard got eaten by Skullcrushers, an enemy well above their weight. Like shooting, its just a case of picking my targets better and I'm confident I'll get there.

A Truthsayer comes to the Grey Mountains

Sometimes in this hobby you just inherit random models from friends. In this case I've inherited Matt's old Truthsayer and Fenbeast from the Dark Shadows campaign.

We've been talking about using mercenaries in our games, incorporating some of the rules from Triumph & Treachery and Storm Of Magic. Having an itinerant Truthsayer wandering into Castle Desfleuves with his squelchy pal seems like a good way to start testing this out. There are perfectly good rules for both in Storm Of Magic's bestiary, after all.

The as-yet-unnamed Truthsayer will bounce between my Bretonnians and Wood Elves, maybe even the Dwarfs who will be very confused about the whole affair. He has his own agenda, his own wrestling-esque enforcer in the form of his Fenbeast so no one really wants to question what that agenda is.

There's not much background on the Truthsayers as individuals but I see them (or at least this one) as an Odinic sort of figure, both a wise man and a trickster because as we established yesterday...

… I have a type when it comes to mysterious, morally questionable wanderers.

Painting Journal #2: Hitting Stride

(Many thanks to my friend Matt, who was kind enough to photograph my models on an actual camera for this post.)

After a couple of productive painting sessions with Matt my painting table is a lot clearer than it was and I have (I feel) some very nice models to show for it:

First off, my nemeses, the Tomb Kings Skeleton Horse Archers. You'd think that after the endless frustration of building them the trade-off would be that they'd be surprisingly easy to paint. Well, let me be the one to tell you that you thought wrong. Oh, the skeleton and the skeletal steed are very easy to paint, especially with the use of Zandri Dust primer but...

… oh, the quivers. So many layers, so many different materials, so many opportunities for all those dark colours to spill over onto the carefully drybrushed bone. Still, they are finally done and that's what matters. Looking at the finished product I am tempted to make another five of them but I think I'll leave that for a long way off.

Next up are some good old Skull Pass Night Goblins, probably the best starter models GW have ever produced. As I mentioned before, I only painted this particular colour scheme because I needed to test out some methods and these little chappies were ideal. I really like the effect, though and so these are the first five models of the Red Caps Tribe, named in equal part for the mushrooms and the Scottish vampire legend. Lighting obscures the fact but there's not much highlighting going on with these models. This is by choice since I'm going to be painting a lot of them (having bought two Skull Pass sets back in the day I have at least 120 of these fellows) but I feel the effect will stand up in a large unit.

Finally getting a little more done on my Wood Elves with the old female Glade Lord. This will represent the Lady Tevaril, ruler of Anmyr and my general. (Her wife, Lady Delynna, will be represented by one of the female Spellsingers.)

I'm not entirely happy with how this model came out but there comes a point when you just have to power through and get a model off your painting table. You can't really see it in the photo because there's so little bare skin on the model but I am not happy with the finish of the Kislev Flesh, so a little more experimentation there. The green cloth and the bronze armour have come out okay and those methods are going to be used to unify the look of the army. A slightly patchy job on the skin is something I can live with. Plus, she's metal so I can always strip her and start from scratch if it ever really starts to bother me.

Finally, a rank of very simply painted Squigs I dashed off once I realised I had a really good red method going. These were very quick to paint since they only have a few different colours to them: skin, teeth, eyes and claws. Even the spinney one on the end wasn't too different: I did the spines the same as the claws and just added a little Mephiston Red to highlight the scales along its back. I have a bunch of these just sitting in a box unpainted and I think I might just use them whenever I want to paint something quickly just for the feeling of progress.

Speaking of, I find quantifying things help me remember I'm making headway so let's inaugurate a little Hobby Log at the bottom of these posts:

2016 Total Models Painted: 17

Orcs & Goblins: 10

Tomb Kings: 6

Wood Elves: 1

Total Points Value

368

The “points value” of the models, by the way, don't include intangibles so I won't be counting things like armour upgrades, magic items or additional wizard levels unless the model for some reason actually portrays an upgrade like the Glade Lord's spear or a Skink Priest's Cloak of Feathers.

One Week Hobby Challenge end of week review

(Okay, long story short: when I looked at these pictures on my laptop while I was writing this post they looked fine. Now I look at them on my desktop as I post them they look far too shadowy. Hopefully they look okay but I really need to get one of these daylight bulbs people on hobby forums enthuse about and maybe that'll solve the problem once and for all.)

A productive week. Not only did I get the Glade Lord finished for my One Week Challenge but a few other bits and pieces along the way. I've got a head of steam up now and hopefully I can carry that momentum forward and get more done next week.

This week's models, in order of completion:

Model 2015.1: Astra Militarum Silvik 23rd "Fixers" Guardsman with lasgun
(Statuesque Miniatures head conversion)

Test model for my Astra Militarum regiment the Silvik 23^rd “Fixers” using the Statuesque Miniatures heroic scale female heads conversion set. As previously noted the head doesn't have the right connector to fit the torso, at least for any pose other than ironsighting so I'll need to learn to sculpt a join before doing any more.

I think a darker grey for the flak armour would compliment the grey better in future, though. I'm rather proud of the red edging, though.

Models 2015.2 and 2015.3: Orks Gretchin with grot blasters.

These Gretchin represent something important to this project: easy victories. Small, simple models that can be dashed off in a session or two. Its a nice feeling to finish something and it gives you a boost to your momentum. Since between the twenty-strong Gretchin mob, Mek Gun crew and other random Grots I've got about thirty that I can stick on one side of the painting table one or two at a time just to chip away.

Model 2015.4: Alvin Callum, Inquisitorial Acoltye with laspistol

The first of my Inquisitor's warband: Alvin Callum,Imperial Strategist and former scrivener for the Avalon Free Press' devotional pamphlet The 700 Wonders Of The Imperium. He's a polymath recruited by my inquisitor to act as his mission operator. His strategy commission was part of a longterm undercover assignment. I've been using this character for over ten years in every Imperial army I've ever had and its actually a bit of a treat to myself to finally make a model for him.

Models 2015.5: Wood Elves Glade Lord with great weapon and Asrai longbow

The main event, of course, is the Glade Lord I was painting for my One Week Challenge. Its a lovely model to paint, at least once you've worked out where the loincloth ends and the cape begins. I “highlighted” the armour using a shade since its far too delicate for me to even attempt it with an actual brush. I'm really going to have to work out some background for this guy as I want to use him a lot, I absolutely love this model

Model 2015.6: Mehendri Korendorf, Vampire Counts Necromancer

 

I've been using this Necromancer model for the better part of a year with it very nearly almost completed and I took the chance to finish him off. I'm not entirely satisfied with the pale flesh method I tried but I really didn't feel like repainting it.

Model 2015.7: Orks Mek Gun Crew Gretchin

Another Grot, this time crew for my Mek Guns, and probably my favourite of all the Grot sculpts. I like the little welding mask and the comical little pose. It also have me a chance to experiment a little with what I wanted armour plate to look like in the army. I didn't want to go with any of the usual Orky colours and the blue-green of Stegadon Scale Green suits my idea for a navy theme.

One Week Challenge #2

If there's one thing my Ork army needs its more heavy armour, plus I want to try something rather larger than a single character. The Meganobz seem relatively simple: once I've got the green flesh and the armour painted there's just the details to fill in. Also, they were a birthday present (well, three of them were) and it seems ungrateful not to have painted them. 

One week hobby challenge, one day later

Its not going too badly, I might actually finish the Glade Lord tonight. What's better is that as well as getting quite a way into painting the Glade Lord I've finished up three other models (a couple of Gretchin and my female Guardsman proof of concept model) and got some layers on a few others. All the time, though, I've been making steady progress on the Glade Lord because that's what I want to get done in a generous time limit.

I think I might have finally found a decent motivational method.

The Glade Lord is also really enjoyable to paint. Its deceptively simple, I got the base colours and inks done in an afternoon. It has a lot of large, block areas and it all divides up nicely into clearly defined areas. Plus the way I'm doing the armour is dead easy: Balthasar Gold followed by Sycoraz Bronze and done, maybe a little Runefang highlight. 

One Week Hobby Challenge: model selection

As a spur to get some momentum behind my painting I've determined to start and finish a model within the week. funnily enough, even the process of choosing a model, one that will give me maximum enjoyment in painting, has been quite fun.

The photo even came out well, now I just have to work out how that happened.

Its going to be the Wood Elves Glade Lord with Great Weapon, a lovely sculpt that's aged very well. Its nearly ten years old, it made the transition to resin very well with all that lovely detail on the armour and the quiver. It also has a lot of different materials to paint: armour, cloth, wood, the steel blade, the hair, so I'll be getting a lot of practical experience for the rest of the army.

Time for a shout-out because I'm not painting this completely on my own initiative: I'll be making a lot of reference to this painting tutorial by The Apathetic Fish on Youtube. He does great painting tutorials and I recommend them to anyone painting GW miniatures. Not only does he explain himself well, working stage-by-stage so you can follow along, but he generally uses GW paints. I realise there are probably better paints out there but the GW Citadel range is what I have easy access to and I imagine that's true for a lot of hobbyists. Its useful not to have to stare at the screen trying to work out what GW paint corresponds to the colour on screen and hoping it'll layer the same way (which it usually won't because chemistry). This way is just more useful to me.

So I have my model, I have a list of techniques I want to test out, I have seven days to do it and once its done I'll have either 151 or 79 points of my Wood Elves finished (can't decide whether this will be a Glade Lord or Captain).

Begin!