Abrakadarkelf – Dark Elf Sorcerer

The dark elves need some magic users to support their nefarious doings and my force is no exception. I have a couple of sorceresses lined up to do the heavy lifting there, but what about the low level magical stuff that the senior magic users can’t be bothered with. That level 5 magic user who exists only to wield a dispel scroll.

Dark Elves L to R: Warrior with Repeating Crossbow, Witch Elf, Sorcerer, Warrior

I have added some elf ears to this classic Hero Quest Wizard to create my low level sorceror……Abrakadarkelf.

Abrakadarkelf

He is of course based on the character of Abracadaniel from the excellent Adventure Time TV Show.

Abracadaniel from the Adventure Time TV Show

He has been painted fairly simply using GW Contrast paints for the most part with some highlights on the top.

Abrakadarkelf – Rear

I am happy with this guy as his pathos of essentially being a nice guy who works for dark elves will surely serve to bring guffaws to the games.

Hi Mum!

Sea Reiver Raid, Rivers Run Red

Recently I have made some new additions to my growing 3rd Edition Warhammer Slann army project.

I managed to paint up many copies of my own Bizaza blowpipe trooper sculpt and added in a couple of the vintage Perry Twins sculpted Citadel Slann models to break the monopose up a bit.

The colour scheme is straight outta Warhammer Armies ;P

I got the enthusiasm to finally finish off 5 Bob Naismith sculpted cold one riders. The riders themselves are Trish Carden sculpts, although I think the leader, who is a 40k Slann, might be a Perry.

Bull Slann Riders

I have heavily modified the basic cold one by adding on a fur saddle, an idea coming from Steve Beales blog. This helps me to fit the rather oddly posed riders on convincingly. That era of Slann were designed with wide open leg stances to be used as either riders or foot infantry. I also added a banner pole onto the back using brass tubing and brass wire to detail. Finished by sculpting a feather onto the top. The banner bearer is done similarly. Shields have had feathers sculpted on also. I made the long spears using brass rod, with some green stuff to simulate bamboo. The spear head is from an old Slann spear top.

Here we see our lady elf from the recent #makeatrish painting competition recently on one of the popular Oldhammer friendly Facebook groups.

Dark Elves are expert sea raiders, marching up the beach in a tight protective armoured formation, supported by fast firing repeater crossbowmen who use the main block for cover

Fast moving armoured missile cavalry

Dark Elf beach head

Cold ones surge forth in a frenzy

Bull Slann Rider Champion

Bull Slann Riders with Standard

Citadel Perry Slann

Jungle Warfare

The Venom Tribe

El Jefe waits for his moment….

….and strikes

Hail to the King Baby!

Marauder Witch Elf

Conversion of a Marauder Witch Elf for the #makeatrish painting competition on The Oldhammer Community Facebook page. I choose a small subject for this one as I didn’t really have loads of time to lavish on it and I certainly wanted to contribute something in my style as Trish Carden is a major influence on my work and certainly a great pioneer in miniature but particularly monster sculpting.

Marauding Dark Elf Female

I have taken a stock witch elf model, which came from friend Curis over at Ninjabread. The unfortunate lady was missing her right hand, so I replaced it with a plastic dark elf hand and rigged her into a sword and marauder plastic shield pose.

Juvenile Treeman

I sculpted a juvenile Treeman onto the shield loosely based on Trish’s iconic Treeman design. I chose this as it’s the model that really illuminated for me just what an awesome miniature designer she is. I have modeled to look like it’s been nailed there by our fair lady to discourage whoever is shooting those arrows.

I glued some modeling sponge to the tops of the branch arms to give some nice green colour and texture to the model and which really makes the treeman pop.

The little leaves are from birch tree seeds.  They are lovely things to work with.  I enhanced the colours simply by using red, green or brown glazes on top of them.

Finally, there is a hedgehog on the base and she has surely ruined it’s rest with all her nasty doings!

Dark Riders

I have recently added some light cavalry to the force for some mobility and firepower on the flanks.  I prefer lighter cavalry for the Dark Elves as it fits with my vision of their ambush oriented hit and run style tactics.

Dark Riders

The models are from Marauder miniatures, except for what I assume is a drow from the D&D range – he is a cool sculpt anyway.

Leading them we have a Lv 10. Witch-Helm riding a Cold One.

The force is shaping up nicely now.  A couple of more units and it will be a rounded out fighting force.

 

Next we need to add some of the infamous Dark Elf Repeating Crossbows to this lot….until next time.

Dark Elf Death Dealer on Doomsteed

Leading the Dark Elves to war we have this chap, a “Death Dealer”, a medium strength hero.

He is made from a Cold One Rider Champion, sculpted by Aly Morrison.  I have stuck him on an Empire horse body with metal Chaos Steed head.

With the same black, red, steel, gold scheme of the Dark Elf Warriors the army is going to look very tight on the table.

I am not using any highlights on the black, rather I am using a gloss acrylic on the black armour bits, a matt varnish on the horse.

The skin and red elements are shaded and highlighted as normal and the steel/gold elements are edge highlighted. The hair is just brightly painted and washed with crimson.

It’s important for this to be a quick effective paint job that I can repeat to get the army done quickly and also look pretty neat on the table.

Dark Elf Warriors Unit

Dark Elves!  Gotta love em.  Gotta love em so much I have decided to paint an army of them during this year.

Warhammer Armies 3e Entry for Dark Elf Warriors.

It is intended as a Dragon Rampant force with an eye to use in Warhammer related games.  Dragon Rampant units tend to be 12 models strong.  I have 20 of these guys which I would need for Warhammer, so I went with painting all of them at once, otherwise I would probably never come back to them.

Plastic Dark Elves Designed by Aly Morrison

I got some old plastic Dark Elf warriors from a buddy recently and couldn’t resist using them for the core of this force.  They are actually Aly Morrison sculpts.  They are chunky nuggets of fun.  I expect that this miniature is a Talisman prototype that somehow made it into production as the regiment in the box set above.

 

I ditched the stock shields immediately in favor of the classic Marauder miniatures shield – probably sculpted by Aly to increase the Alyness of this product to 11.  The rounded shape balances out the outrageously pointy shoulder pads.

 

20 Dark Elf Warriors

The colours are very restricted for me.  Just Black, silver, gold, red, with a few other colours for hair here and there.  This will keep the army looking tight, as I intend to mix in a fair mix of Dark Elf models, or other Elf models that I can shoehorn in there convincingly.

Tray has 3 extra spaces for characters and afford handling during play.

They get a movement tray, which is handy for storage and generally keeping them together both on my shelf defending against my many cats and during massed combat games.

The hex bases I love for these types of projects as they allow you to lock the bases in formation and still look good when standing alone in skirmish games.

The little leaves are from birch tree seeds.  They are lovely things to work with.  I have enhanced the colours simply by using red, green and brown washes on top of them.