Wednesday 10 February 2016

Impulse Buying

Evilbay

Its a bugger, it really is. I merely pop online to make sure that my Everqueen price estimate in my previous post was roughly correct and I find something, the great temptation, a Porsche for the price of a Vauxhall...

Apparently searching for "Everqueen" in Ebay's search bar also turns up Maidenguard, in my case a whole mess of them. I saw 20 of the old Gary Morely sculpts, with full command up for £65. Barely believing it, I put in a starting big for a laugh and then forgot about it. Imagine how shocked I was when I get a confirmation email through that I have won the auction...

No one else bid and I won, almost unintentionally, to be honest. I didn't even want to spend £65 at that particular point but I was not about to let these lovelies slip by. This now leaves me with somewhat of a dilemma, the Maidenguard have no place in the army lists I have written and I now rather desperately want to paint them. A little voice in the back of the head is saying: 

"Just do one, it will be a nice diversion from your project and then you can get right back to it"

However I have dealt with this little bastard before and know exactly what he is up to. Currently my resolution is holding strong, mostly because I have not had time to paint anything at all after an Ikea frenzy. A frenzy that has amongst other things landed me with a spangly new desk and dedicated painting area. Still, assembling a painting area almost counts as painting right? I wonder how many points that would technically class as?

So, fuck all then.

I may well compromise and paint my Everqueen as a mage in the army, I have always wanted one so meh, it might be a good way of shutting up evil me. It would also only be one miniature for me to paint in an otherwise busy month.

I do have one concern about the Maidenguard though, while some look exactly as I would expect a few are quite....shiny. They might have just had a really rough strip job (eek) but I am worrying it might be a recast. If anyone has an opinion or experience please let me know.

Sunday 31 January 2016

Target missed!

Mission Failed. 

I have not hit my 100 point target this month. First poor showing of the campaign but not the end of the war.

I have successfully painted 4.5 sea guard and a selection of bases to be used in the future. A rather pitiful 63 points, plus whatever some bases are worth. There are a whole host of excuses that prevented me from attaining gaming nirvana this month but I will not bore you with them here, suffice to say I will have more work to do in the coming months.


Onward and upwards


Talking of the future; my High Elf army may well change in composition over the coming weeks,  Weazil from http://warhammerforadults.blogspot.co.uk/ has mentioned that he may be running a 4th edition game at BOYL 2016, which is something I would love to take part in. As regular readers will know I do like a bit of 4th (or is that 5th?) edition Warhammer Fantasy. However it would require a rejig in army lists as a lord character must be chosen in the later editions, it is Hero Hammer after all.

The core units of halberd armed melee infantry, archers, cavalry and scouts will likely remain because of the flexibility and flavor they provide. The main questions that puzzle me most are: Can I fit in a bolt thrower and where to put the general? Make a mega unit with the Silver Helms, have him on a monster by himself or lounge around with the infantry? I am leaning towards sticking him on a Pegasus but that might be a bit expensive. When I know more about, points and magic item distribution I can think in more detail.



The legion grows

Of course during this quiet month my purchasing urges have not diminished. I picked up a quintet of High Elven characters on the Old Hammer Trading Group, in fairness this caught my eye for two reasons: 1, It was a tenner and 2, had the Everqueen in. Alarielle is one expensive lady and is going for £25 on ebay BIN's which is normally too rich for my stingy self. The others were an archer champion that I have liked the look of for years, a Gary Morely mounted hero and a marauder standard and musician.


I had always thought the marauder stuff was.... stocky but standing next to Jes Goodwins seaguard they just simply do not look Elven. More so a rather butch pair of humans playing dress up. I think these will go back on sale at some point soon, I just cannot see myself wanting to paint them. Should anyone want to pick them up from me please let me know.


I did possess the Everqueen before at some point in the mists of time, god knows where she went but I now have a duplicate and am inordinately happy about it. This means any army I now run will include a Mage on foot, so I can use the miniature. She, along with the archer champion has been stripped and are currently being prepped for painting.


Where to go from here?

I am going to take a break from painting Seaguard once the 10th member of the unit is complete, mainly to mix things up and have a break but also to allow me to get the Shadow warriors unit up to a legal 5 many unit and get cracking on the other ranged elements of my army. I am currently trying to resist the kid at Christmas approach of wanting to paint Alarielle, instead I will use her as a reward after getting a shit load of archers done instead. This also gives me some time to learn how to paint shear material which will not necessarily expose the Evernips™ but just break up the monotony of a green dress because I suck at freehanding designs.

Tuesday 29 December 2015

A tale of Oldhammerers Play Along: Update

Celebration


Holidays are brilliant. I get to sit on my arse while painting and listening to Motorhead very loudly. Good times never last for long so I am enjoying the time I have before I go back to work.

Painting time has helped me hit my targets for my play along at home, much to my relief. By this point, in all honesty I had expected to fail; just another project started with enthusiasm and left alone within days. There is a long way to go of course but its a solid second step.

5 Elven guard with a standard bearer is 84 points

2 Archers are 28 points, bringing me to a total of 112 points painted since the 19th of this month.

To say I am pleased is an understatement, maybe some semblance of willpower is beginning to manifest itself in me after my first couple of decades of dicking about.

These guys join 4 Seekers (72 points) and a Silver helm (37 points). Bringing the grand total to 221 points. Phwoar, I am sure the collective hoards of the Warhammer world are having their underwear menaced by the mere thought of them. Maybe not.










Photography

Hmmm, so photography is quite a skill. A good picture can really present a miniature to its best. Sadly my camera skills could be considered in need of improvement at best and down right shoddy if reviewed honestly. The best pictures I could get off my phone involved daylight from the front and a backlit screen from behind.... not exactly professional but hopefully it gives an idea of what these guys actually look like. My phone seemed to especially enjoy picking up all the dust and rogue static grass on my laptops chassis and in many other pictures did its best to ignore the miniatures completely.

For the next batch, I will try and get a more advanced set up prepared after calling upon the knowledge of a mate who knows a darn sight more than I do.

Learning

One of the best aspects of doing anything is the opportunity to learn and improve as you go along. Even in seven miniatures, I feel I have improved in some aspects and learned valuable lessons in others. The way I produce skin has improved steadily, my mixes are getting closer and more sympathetic each time. The last guardsman I painted being my favourite in that regard.


I also learned that the material bit on the spear looks shite in green. The one Guard painted like this may well change but for now, I will leave it as a cautionary tale to myself.

An old White Dwarf also yielded a gem painting tutorial which I have followed on the last two Guards and they are a massive improvement. I may well go back and update the older miniatures.

Moving Forward

Up next will essentially be a ditto, 5 more Guard and 2 more Archers. A bit bland but important for several reasons; firstly it allows me to get the Guard unit up to a minimum size unit according to Warhammer Armies, which for me would be one hell of an achievement. Secondly, it means in a following month I can bring an Archer unit up to a similar state.

As I have a few days left of December and enthusiasm to spare, I hope to find the Silver Helms lance and shield so that they can be painted up and attached. There might also be some greenstuffing to do to smooth out a join for him.


Monday 28 December 2015

Compatability mode

Set Up

As readers of this blog will know, I am an avid proponent of Warhammer Fantasy Batlle 4th and 5th edition, which often does not get the love I feel it deserves. The wealth of background information, army books and campaign packs really help complete the image of the Warhammer world for me. However, the main rule set is not a patch on Warhammer Fantasy 3rd edition.

Most races are well represented in Warhammer armies. Dwarves have their many different varieties of hardcore infantry with lots of warmachines, Chaos is its wonderfully varied self, Dark Elves have their signature Cold ones and Witch Elves but once again the High Elves get the shaft a little. Especially with Kithbands, Warrior Kindreds and Ships Companies being more or less the same things with only minor equipment differences, I thought it was time to spice things up a bit and have a controlled merging of generations.

Processing

What I didn't want to do is to make the army better; no that way lies madness and power gaming, this is not the way to fun gaming for everyone. My goal is simply to add variety. Every pro will be suitably counteracted with a con such as additional points cost or restrictions.

I will use the experience system in Warhammer armies to designate statistics and will not deviate from that. If a bit of extra variety is needed then skills from the Warhammer 3rd edition rule book will be used.

Execution

I am leafing through the 5th edition and most rules heavy High Elf army book ever created. While it is great and characterful it is also very fussy, with countless special rules for each unit type. Not what I want but excellent inspiration for background etc. so I will work through one army list entry at a time.

Dragon Princes of Caledor

Noble Elves that are descended from those that once (or some that still do) ride dragons. The kin of Kings and blatant warmongers. These arrogant little bastards do little other than train their martial skills and swoosh around in a superior manner so in my mind they have to be +4 Elites, the best that can be fielded but will only ever ride on their little dragons (horses) fully equipped and armoured. I imagine anyone that tells them different will be met with sneers and sarcastic remarks. As they are elite troops, they need to be restricted, tying them to the amount of dragon riders in the army seems like a sensible idea, helping give that Caledorian theme.


Silver Helms

Already described admirably by Warhammer Armies for 3rd Edition Pg 48. This has been uploaded by some kind soul for your convenience here http://www.scribd.com/doc/100191674/Warhammer-Armies.

Ellyrion Reavers

Already described admirably in Warhammer Armies for 3rd Edition Pg 48 as Shore Riders.

White lions

Rugged woodsmen that have a reputation as brave and capable warriors, often used as bodyguards for important people. While they spend much of their time in the field as lumberjacks and monster slayers par excellence, not all of their skills are based on fighting despite their ferocious reputation . I would make them +3 Elites, with the Foresters skill. Often used as the bodyguards of Important Elves, their availability depends on the amount of higher level characters also present.


Phoenix Guard

The Phoenix Guard protect the Shrine of Asuryan, they are well trained and drilled, sworn to a magically induced silence and spend long periods of time on guard duty. They have never been represented as exceptionally powerful and occasionally causing fear due to being unnervingly quiet. However, this is not an option that is available within the restrictions I have set myself and moving outside of these starts the slippery slope toward power gaming. The best fit within the parameters is as +2 Elites with no additional special rules.

Swordmasters

Messengers of the white tower, secret agents who root out spies and agents of the chaos gods, these guys are martial artists that have no peers. Able to use a greatsword as others wields a butter knife, they have to be +4 Elites. No other rules really fit them or are really required, they will go through what ever enemies are in front of them like a hot knife through butter. Most often they are used as the hand of the white tower, directed by Wizards and Seers to intervene at critical points. Because of this their restriction would tie them with Mages on the table.


Lothern Seaguard

Already described admirably in Warhammer Armies for 3rd Edition Pg 49 as Merchant Companies

Spearmen

 Already described admirably in Warhammer Armies for 3rd Edition Pg 49 as Kithband etc.

Shadow Warriors

Already described admirably in Warhammer Armies for 3rd Edition Pg 50 as Seekers.

Archers 

Already described admirably in Warhammer Armies for 3rd Edition Pg 49.

Shut Down

I had forgotten how bad at using Photoshop I am so the cards are not perfect but they present a general idea. If you have any ideas, comments or rotten tomatoes to throw, please let em now what you think!

Sunday 20 December 2015

Age and Resurgence

Preamble


Getting older is a double edge sword. On one hand I have more hair on my chin than my head, my knees and ankles crack as I walk and my short term memory is shocking to say the least. However, it does give you a wider (if not somewhat sketchy), sense of time and long term planning.

Recently, I spotted my High Elf shadow warriors on my shelves, remembered writing about them "a few weeks ago" on the blog, then wandered off again, probably distracted by something mundane such as employment or the need to find sustenance.

Inspiration

I have been following the tale of four Oldhammerers blog posts on the web, enjoying reminiscing about the original TOFG in White Dwarf and remembering how I had been following along at home. A thought then struck me, I could follow along with these gentlemen at home and maybe even reach my lifelong goal of having a well painted full army. The goal I had missed first time round by starting one army, changing on month 3 and never catching up. Maybe this time I would succeed?

It was at this point I realized that I was already behind as they had started in September and it was now December. To catch up, I was going to have to get organized quickly and and maybe increase my monthly point count but I was sure I could do it! The challenge was set, 1000 points by August and I knew I wanted a High Elf army, so I opened up Warhammer Armies and quickly thrashed out an army list:

Spellbard(118)                                                                                   141           
Warhorse(6), Barding(4), Protective symbols (10) and Woad(3)

Earl(88)                                                                                             103           
Halberd(2), Heavy Armour(3),  protective symbols(10)

17 Elven Guard(216)                                                                        264           
Standard(14), Heavy Armour(17), Halberds(17)

10 High Elf Archers                                                                          140           

7 Silver Helms(245)                                                                          259           
Heavy Armour(14)

5 Seekers                                                                                           90

                                                                                                  Total 997

I adhered to my own limitations of <25% characters allowance and >50% units allowance. I firmly believe Warhammer should be about units and not heroes which this restriction represents nicely. The Spell Bard would be the figurehead leader due to looking more dynamic and important on a fine steed but practical leadership would most likely come from the hero on foot. I wanted variety in the units where possible so went for 1 unit of melee infantry, 1 unit of ranged infantry, 1 unit of skirmishers and a unit of melee cavalry. This gives me a nice rounded force to take on all comers with that should be fun to play with and to me seems quite elfy.

This activity reminded me that one of the great strengths of  the High Elf army list is that it has no compulsory troops choices, so it lets you choose more or less what you want. Which is neat and makes life easier on the leadpile and therefore my wallet.

Climbing the mountain

With my army list in hand I headed to my leadpile to see what I could dig out. A quick search revealed:
20 metal sword masters,
15 lothern seaguard in a horrible state of paint after being purchased off ebay some time a go,
5 Silver helms,
16 metal archers
and a hero on a horse.

The swordsmen were quickly thrown back as their weapons did not represent halberds in any way shape or form, the mounted hero went back too as it was of no use to me. This left me with Seaguard to represent my Elven guard, which their heavily bladed spears could do in a pinch, all the archers I needed and most of the cavalry too. I then remembered the shadow warriors on my shelf that I had blogged about "a few weeks ago." It turns out that a few weeks was in fact over a year... Amazing how time flies isn't it? So after my first sift, I had the majority of my units but no characters. Ho hum, I will have to shop around a little to find something suitable but still, it was a solid start.

The shopping list

Mounted mage: It seems to be nigh on impossible to find a nicely done, mounted female mage. I have Googled until my eyes bled (slight exaggeration) and even asked the Mrs to help me look. The only model I actually liked is from GameZone miniatures, it from their faux Bretonnian range but is genuinely a thing of beauty. Sadly it is also almost impossible to buy, even the vendors own website would not allow me to purchase it. I will, however, persist as I now have it in my head that she would be perfect. If anyone knows where to get it please let me know.





Hero on foot with a nice big spear: Fortunately there are quite a few of these about, I will most likely use a converted version of this fella or the crewman from the old Tiranoc Chariot. I have wanted this miniature for years and think his antlered helmet will fit in nicely with the planned "natural look" of the army as opposed to the often used flames or phoenixes. (Edit: Ooooh or maybe a maiden guard)
  
Units: I also need 2 more Silver helms, 1 shadow warrior and 2 more seaguard. Blimey, Seaguard can be expensive on EBay these days! 20 quid for 4 miniatures seems a piss take when I bought 15 for £25 not so long ago. Still, patience is a virtue and I am sure there are still bargains out there to be had, especially as I am only looking for 2.

The plan

To hit my targets I cannot mess about painting bits here and there then panicking because it is almost August. No, this way is my usual route and its destination is failure. Instead, I drafted up a painting plan, separated in to 8 sections (no particular order), one each month until the target. I already have 4 painted Seekers and one Silver Helm so they do not need to be on the list.

2 Archers, 5 Guard

2 Archers, 5 guard

2 Archers, 5 guard

2 Guard, 4 archers, 1 seeker

3 Silver Helms

3 Silver Helms

SpellBard

Earl

This should leave me with needing to paint on average 7 models a month or a big spangly character, a feat that even I should be able to accomplish...maybe. Well I will try anyway. Whipped up with enthusiasm for the project, this is exactly what I did. In quick succession I painted my first 2 archers and 2 Elven (sea)Guards.

Since taking this picture, I have almost completed a third (sea)Guard and half completed the units standard bearer. You may notice that the spear shafts are black and a bit messy. This is down to my indecision on how to best proceed, I put up a plea on the Oldhammer Facebook page for advice and was met with a wave of sagely wisdom, many good ideas and smutty comments. I have decided that I want to see what the unit look like as a group before deciding a colour, they may even stay black but we shall see.
Progress so far




I intend to buck my usual tend of getting distracted and actually stay the course with this project. I am hoping that by publicly declaring it I will not suffer from waning enthusiasm as quickly as I usually do...

Monday 20 October 2014

Hero Hammer

I have a confession to make. I quite liked 4th and 5th edition of Warhammer Fantasy battle...

It was unbalanced, entirely focused on characters and monsters (as the description "Hero Hammer" might suggest) and had many elements of 3rd Edition simplified to make it more approachable for younger audiences. But I still kinda liked it. Let me explain why.

Army Books

Compared to the lack of background material for 3rd edition, 4th and 5th had a huge influx of content in the form of army books. Each book began the modern concept of describing, fully and completely one race or faction of the Warhammer world. Both in background and rules, the foundations of the races were laid down, units described and hobby ideas given. I still have quite a few of them on hand to read when bored as the imagery they present are, to me at least, the definition of the Warhammer races. The artwork was great throughout and really brought the world alive for my 10 year old brain (and little development of the grey cells has occurred since), even though it was mostly black and white the intricate pencil works and contrasting, smooth inks just kicked something primal in my head.

Later editions of the army books are more or less rehashes of this format, maybe they move sections about but the general shape of it is there. With one notable and rather tragic omission. In all of the Armybooks, barring the first High Elf and Undead books, there was a dedicated hobby and army building section. The reader was presented with a one thousand point army list, made of only models from the book, few magic items and the majority of the units made from the plastic regiment boxed sets. Following this was a brief discussion on what the units were for, roughly what they did, how to expand the force and what to do with older models as you bought more. This presented a much needed shove in the right direction for new players of the game, basically saying " I know this book may seem confusing, but here, use these guys and the rules for them in this book and you will have fun."

I cannot, for the life of me work out why this section was removed for later editions.


Supporting Content

This was a period when White Dwarf magazine was at its best, in my humble opinion. Featuring scenarios, battle reports, painting and modelling tutorials and new rules to support its existing games. Naturally interspersed with adverts for new and old products that for some reason didn't feel quite as obvious as they do today. This might be down to adult cynicism on my part though. 

A Gathering of Might battle report and surrounding fuss was a tour de force of these principles. For those that do not know, A Gathering of Might was the biggest battle report featured in White Dwarf to date. Using all of the Orc, Goblin, Chaos Dwarf, Empire and Wood Elf armies in GW's cabinets to fight as big a battle as they could. No one bothered to count the points for it but they guessed at about 25000 on the table.



Additional rules were provided for command and control, as with 4 players per side communication needed to be limited to simulate the Generals on field difficulties and prevent too close a co-operation. Mobile phones have of course yet to be invented in the Warhammer world.

Robin Dewes had written a short story as a pre-amble for the battle, mentioning two previous battles that had lead to this titanic conflict. Both of these tussles with greenskins had actually been White Dwarf battle reports, creating a sense of story and emphasis that this wasn't a random fight in the park. The battle was fought, fun was had and the Empire was dealt a heavy defeat. A few months later, follow up scenarios that describe the Empire's subsequent actions were printed. The two linked games were simple, if the Empire won the first battle they would be able to fight united in the second. If they didn't win, their reinforcements would be delayed or not turn up at all. So very simple but so very satisfying.



There also seemed to be a concerted effort to show an army building progression for newer players, to show them, in baby steps, how to grow their army and of course spend more money in their local GW. The 4th edition boxed game contained a staggering 104 plastic miniatures as well as card cut outs as stand ins for larger models that you could buy at a later date, or not. Split between 40 High Elves and 64 Goblins, it gave a great base for their respective armies. This was demonstrated in a White Dwarf battle report that used the boxed game as a base for both armies and included a few more additional units as well. These miniatures were then used to fight an Ambush scenario. To me, this is salesmanship at its finest. Showing that with just a few more miniatures you could recreate this spectacle and move on to have your own fun as well, yet didn't feel far out of reach as everyone already had the core of each army...

Man-O-War was also still a fully supported game so the ability to add that extra level to your game was also there, ever tempting by GW's cunning sales team.

The models



Much of the 3rd edition and earlier miniatures were around still, if they were not in the shops then they were available via mail order. Yet there were still a steady stream of releases, not always for the army of the moment but others too, including my favourite, High Elves and the 5th edition Army book. I will be honest with you, before 5th High Elves had it rough, 3rd gave them a motley bunch of poor (in my opinion) casts and 4th brought in a raft of chunky marauder metals and a glut of plastic spearmen and archers. For 5th, they were given some of the finest metal models they have ever had (again, in opinion), Gary Morley's mounted characters were fantastic, having such fine details and regal bearing they were often drooled over by a much younger me. Later on, the White Lions were released which again I found to be particularly fine.



5th did usher in some of the worst multi part plastic kits GW produced though to be fair, from comical Zombies to hunch backed Chaos Warriors. The again plastic models are the devil, so I ignore them anyway...

I do wish they hadn't painted so much stuff red though... If they had simply kept the aesthetic of  3rd it would have been perfect.

The bad and the really bad

For all of its completeness, 4th/5th had some serious downsides. The huge amount of magic items available made characters highly customizable and to all intents and purposes almost unstoppable. While most characters could be made pretty damned heroic, they never really stood much of a chance against a fully formed unit but some builds were definite stand outs. One particularly horrible aberration was a Chaos Lord of Khorne (ws9 with 10 attacks thanks to frenzy) wielding the blade of darting steel (all attacks hit automatically) just having drunk a potion of strength (+3 Strength) with the Helm of Many Eyes (always strike first). If the player was a total cunt, he would mount it on something flying as well so you couldn't get away from him. So yeah, that's 10 strength 8 hits that always go first and there is fuck all you can do about it. Units, monsters, even other characters, couldn't really do anything other than be removed from the table. Not really much fun. 



And sadly that was not the only cookie cutter beat stick. So 5th turned in to a character fuelled arms race giving it one of the worst reputations with players as so few people actually had fun playing it.

Which is a great shame really as it is so very easy to fix, yet for some reason GW never tried.

It also lacked quite a few of the complexities of 3rd and so suffered to a degree from a tactical angle. The moral system seemed particularly odd and it wasn't uncommon to see entire armies turn and run at the first loud bang.

Army selection

Army selection had only a few, broad outlines. Only 50% of your army could be spent on Characters, 25% on monsters, 25% on warmachines, 25% on allies and at least 25% had to be spent on units. It really doesn't take a genius to see where the emphasis lies looking at those numbers. 

Now what happens if you reduce characters to maximum 25% and put the minimum of units to 50%. All of a sudden the power builds are not possible, the points are simply not available. Units now must be the majority of the army, meaning that they have to do more than be artillery guards to justify their points. All of a sudden things start looking more like an army. Not really that difficult, is it?

Yet, GW didn't do this, they just released an entirely new version of the game designed to use more models and subsequently sell more boxes. A bit rubbish really and a way to put the final nails in the coffin for what could have been a golden age.

Tuesday 14 October 2014

Army of four

So after a recent visit to Worcester Wargames, my local purveyor of new and old wargame tomfoolery, I have picked up some elves I did not recognise from the second hand boxes. Too new for me most likely but I have to say that they are fine models. I think they are Shadow warriors from the WFB 7th Edition releases but if anyone could confirm that it would be great. Usually, I am not fussed by a lot of the newer miniatures but these seemed particularly well done and certainly fitted my aesthetic of Elfdom, even if the leader does have a striking resemblance to Jon Bon Jovi in the 80's.

In the picture below they are about 70% done, all that remains is to sort out the skin properly and the smaller details, I think. Chances are I will find something else I don't like and spend ages pissing about with them.


Looking at the photos now I can see a load of different stuff that I have missed and/or want to do differently. The big knob on tip of the leaders sword is one culprit, I am rather aghast that I did not see that while painting but now it seems so obvious. Photography has multiple uses it seems, not only can I share what I have painted but can also used it for error checking!

Painting was super simple, as befits the one who painted them*: Green bits were Dark Angles green, highlighted up using progressive percentages of Goblin Green. The white(ish) was Astronomican grey highlighted up with more and more white before black wash being applied to the recesses. The dark brown is Vallejo's Dark Flesh with Graveyard earth mixed in for highlights. Light brown is Graveyard earth with Witch elf flesh mixed in for highlights. The skin is Vallejo's Bronzed flesh highlighted up with Vallejo's Elf flesh, all washed down with Gryphonne sepia.

*All paints are from GW unless otherwise stated.

Painting faces in helmets is causing me some trouble. As readers of some of my other blog entries may know, I struggle with flesh in general but on a helmeted head there is so little to work with it just seems to end up looking like a messy splodge. Any pointers would be gratefully received.

I am also looking to "Oldhammerify" them a little, so some stripy trousers may well be working their way in to the picture very shortly.

Life in the field

I hope to use these guys in 3rd Edition fantasy at some point so I went to the rule book and smushed together some rules for them.

Bon Jovai, wanted dead or alive in 6 realms will be an Elven Hero, with longbow, hail of doom arrow, light armour and a greatsword. That sword is far too large for a hand weapon but I am not sure where he will put his bow while using it. That is a problem that Bon must face alone.

He will be accompanied by six (as soon as I can source another three, if anyone has some up for sale please let me know) Elven warriors. +1 missile Elites, with longbows, light armour and greatswords (again the swords on the miniatures are huge). They will also be scouts.

Just out of curiosity does anyone know if Bon needs to pay to be upgraded to a scout or does he just get it by joining the unit?

Scouts in 3rd Ed don't get to deploy closer to the enemy like they do in later versions of the game so use of the advanced forces will get them half way there for some close up longbow action. Skirmishing and standing around some bushes should keep them relatively safe from missile fire but in close combat they will be living on a prayer.The hail of doom arrow should also be a nasty shock for any heavily armoured units not expecting it. 

I have also started work on some Silver Helm knights, so keep an eye out for them soon.