[hephesto]

Hello guys, figured I might as well put this up here. A bunch of us over at astro are doing a Tale of X Gamers-style of project. With each of us doing a fantasy army, for the total update check here


And here's mine :wink:




HEPHESTO'S FIRST UPDATE

Fluff - The Rangers of Ilandral – prologue

Gasping for air Ilandral woke, the memories of what he had seen pass so many years ago haunted him to this day. He would never forget the beastial sounds of the vile children of chaos for as long as he would live. His thoughts often dwelt to that time, a time when master Scarloc still lived and the great victory they claimed for Athel Loren when they destroyed the abomination that was Cyanathair. The deformed beast spitting out his final word to him ‘revenge’ as he spat forth his last breath of air.

But as is the nature of all things chaos he could not be truly destroyed, merely vanquished for a short periode of time. Though there was relative peace for over 200 hundred years and some of the most elder spellsinger even believed Cyanathair destroyed, but it was not to be. Deeply engrieved by his resurrection queen Ariel sent forth her most experienced shadow warriors of sneak through the realm of Bretonnian to the Forest of Arden to once more destroy the creature.

Thoguh they fought with favor and skill they unfortunately failed and Cyanathair, or Morghur as the creature called itself, was once more set loose upon the Old World. Bent upon the destruction of the Asrai he slowly turned his attentions to the woodland realm Athel Loren. I had been year since the battle of Arden en Morghyr had once more matured into the favored child of the Chaos gods. For months now small raiding parties of beastmen had been spotted on the edges of the forest and Ilandral had been ordered to take his rangers to the western glades to ensure none of these vile creatures would penetrate the forest. So like many of his kin Ilandral now travelled to the edge of the glades to stand vigil against the coming of Chaos.


A Tale of X Gamers you say?

Hello and welcome to my first update for the Tale of X Gamers, another one of the great projects at Astronomican. Right after DarthXander started this up my thoughts kept turning to that box full of Wood Elves goodies standing idle beneath my hobbytable. So I figured why not, count me in.

My approach to this will be slightly different from several of our other participating members, I am not blessed with the pressence of other WHF players in my neighbourhood. So instead of going for a maximised gaming army I plan to go with a ‘just for fun’ army, that although tough to play still has quite a bite to it. So I will mostly be focussing on the hobby side of the Wood Elves, something which will be quite a bit of work since I have no Wood Elf sized bits. The main focus of this army will be on its small, eight men (and women) scout unit who’s adventures will help give the army a reason for coming together.

But on to the contents of this update; first up is my armylist, followed by some of the conversions I’ve finished so far and finally my ideas for some of the stuff I still need to do.


Armylist

With the help of various forum members I’ve finally come to the following tough to use, but very mobile and fun army list. If I do happen to get a few games in it will definitely become a challenging game. During which I’ll need every bit of tactical wit I have, coordinating charges, moving woods around and keeping a close eye on my character’s special abilities and wargear.


HERO (probably the waywatcher lord model)
Noble, with light armour, additional handweapon, longbow and a hail of doom arrow
111 points

Cheap, versatile and the Hail of Doom arrow should really come in handy. As Indra said Wood Elven characters should be looked at as mobile, living artillery. And if necessacery he or she is pretty decent in hand-to-hand combat as well.


HERO (floating female spellsinger wihout staff)
Spellsinger, level 2, starfire arrow, longbow and the deepwood sphere
175 points

Decent spellcaster primairly focused on ranged combat with the fear causing starfire arrows and the treesinging enhancing deepwood sphere. I still need to think of something cool to do with this model, she looks decent enough now. But it can always be better, I’m thinking of making a small magic staff and a intricately decorated longbow.


HERO (drycha model)
Branch Wraith, level 1, annoyance of netlings and cluster of radiance
165 points

Very effective harreser with magic capabilities, who with the addition of the netlings and cluster will be a tough opponent in close combat and an additional magic buffer.


CORE
(branch wraith will join these)
8 dryads, 1 upgraded to branch nymph
108 points

Very cool models, who are cheap for their great abilities. This group will be heavily converted to represent the annoyance of netlings that accompanies the branch wraith.


CORE
8 dryads, 1 upgraded to branch nymph
108 points

A second harrasser unit of dryads, I still need to think up something to turn them into something special like the other group.


CORE (all converted, central visual unit of the army)
8 scouts, 1 upgraded to a lord's bowman
142 points

The first real unit of the army, though taking an insane amount of time they’re coming together very nicely. All of them will be extensively converted to form a small band of individual characters, kind of Mordheim style. Right now we have Ilandral standing on a treestump holding an insect while a hedgehog comes out of its home (isn’t he sweet), a yet unnamed healer and tracker/ranger. Other ideas I’m working on are a bunch of wicked spites taking of with a ungor skull (the next piece of fluff will clarify this), a beasttamer/talker and some kind of fox or wolf familiar. These guys should be finished be the end of the next update!


CORE
14 glade guard, including full command
192 points

Hardhitting large unit of glade guard can’t go wrong in a Wood Elf army, I have all the required models but I still need to think up something special to do with them. I’m not quite sure on these guys yet, time will tell.


CORE (bow lord will join these)
15 glade guard, including full command
204 points

Hardhitting large unit of glade guard can’t go wrong in a Wood Elf army, I have all the required models but I still need to think up something special to do with them. I’m not quite sure on these guys yet, time will tell.


SPECIAL
(wardancer lord model thrown in for good measure, serves as a normal wardancer)
9 wardancers, including command
193 points

Love the models, they make for an excellent distraction unit and they really can kick ass if needed. Right now I have five different poses and the female wardancer lord, now if I can just get my hands on a command blister I’ll be all set. No need to convert anything on these guys and gals, although I’ll probably do something cool with their bases. And their talismanic tattoes also need some thought, do I go with highlander style warpaint or intricate Elvish runes and stuff....choices, choices, choices.


SPECIAL - 3 warhawk riders
120 points


Great models, but a bit of a pain to put together. These guys will make for excellent scouts, taking on warmachine crews and contributing with flan and rear charges.


SPECIAL
(thinking of building my own) 3 treekin
195 points

No work done on these...yet. Still thinking about how to go with them, especially since I want to make my own treekin. Fortunately they will provide me with a nice tough, hard-hitting unit this army so desperately needed.


RARE
(thinking of building my own) treeman
285 points

Who doesn’t like a magic-wielding, walking, grumpy tree. Though I still need to start on this guy, I already have a few small ideas running rampant in my head. Those pictures Hawke posted of his outdoor photographing adventures really helped to give me some new ideas.


So that comes down to;
1998 points
5 cast
5 dispel
+ treeman's treesinging abilities of course
3 heroes
5 core
3 special
1 rare
72 minis and a bucketload of work


The Workbench


I haven’t had much time to work on my Wood Elves this month, something that should change in about a week. So right now I’ve only finished some conversions, but the next update should see a few finished units and a colourscheme or at the very least a series of testmodels. But on to the minis;

First up are Ilandral’s Rangers, the scout unit that will form the visual/conversion centrepiece of the army....I hope. First up is Ilandral himself, what started out as a simple pose conversion has turned into a completely new armylist. Ilandral is standing on a treestump, which a hedgehog calls home, holding some flying insect. Only later realised got this idea from LOTR, although that was a butterfly/moth. I’m actually a bit proud of this guy...yes, yes I know pride, before the fall.

Next up is the tracker, well they’re all trackers, but the best tracker of the bunch. I wanted to do something very different with this one, so I went with a command style scout. And by the looks of it she senses trouble, which she silently conveys to to other scouts.

The we come to, the also still unnamed, healer/herbalist. While I first wanted to go with all robes and masked scouts, I figured that a bit of diversity would also be good. So after some intricate converting and nearly sacificing a digit or two to the gaming gods she ended up with a magic staf and a healing root. Though a bit tough to see in this picture, the staf has a nicely detailed crystal as toppiece. The plant she is holding was actually a necessary solution that turned out pretty decent. Since both the glade guard and glade rider sprue have no open left hands, I had to do something else. And while I first thought about something like a magic potion, a more herbalistic approach to healing just seemed to much more fitting for the Asrai.

Now as some of you might remember, I promised to do a Mighty Kingdoms articles a while back. Unfortunately my local store still hasn’t gotten the box. So what was suppossed to be a Wood Elves unique structure with rules and everything will just have to serve as my home capital for the moment. So here is the mini-miniature Lathel Loren on a trimmed down, normal round base;

Next up I’d really like to give Kudos to GW for their excellent Wood Elven kit and the new Citadel Woods. For anyone in doubt about getting one of those woods, stop doing what you’re doing right now, run to the store and buy one. You will not regret it I promise. Even if you dont like the use of the bast you can easily trim the side of the trees and use them as stand-alone trees. They will need a bit of work because of the unavoidable moldlines, but they look fantastic. Using the various bits and pieces from the Wood Elf kit I’ve given mine a bit of extra Asrai feel, it would be long before some Bretonnian peasent will be telling stories in the local pub about small creatures living in them there woods:

And now we come to the final conversions and bits from what must be the most diverse kit in the Wood Elf range; the Dryad kit. I have yet to assemble my 16 Dryads, but I’ve been using the sprues for week. Not only did I use it for for my old Wordbearer Umbras, my trees but also for my warhawk riders. And I still have plenty of parts left over to build the Dryads and even more. So the final unit for this update are the warhawk riders, models I really like but I thought that GW left the bases very empty. So I tried a few things that failed miserably, until I came across an old picture of some Bretonnian conversions I did for a friend about a year ago;

There would be no need for heavily converting the already very dynamic and detailed warhawk riders, I just needed to focus on their bases. So using various bits and piece they turned out very wild and connected to nature (in a non-treehugging fashion of course);

Thoughts on the Future

Well I’ve managed to get a good idea in my head for the feel of the army and that within a few weeks. That must be a record! No to keep up this pace of work, hopefully kicking it up a notch over the next one to two months. So here is my planning for the next month and update;

1) Try to get all of Ilandral’s rangers together, although there is a very good chance that they’ll be one of the last things to see paint. I really want to get my colourscheme down before I paint these guys.

2) Put my two Dryad unit together, I’m going to my local store this week so I’ll pick up Drycha and hopefully that Mighty Empires box. And then it is on the converting an annoyance of netlings on one unit and coming up with something cool for the second one.

3) Get my Wood Elf colourscheme together and do some testpieces for the colourcombinations and no way less important do some testpieces to get a good feeling of how to get a good Wood Elf skin colour going.

4) Get some ideas on paper for the Glade Guard units, the Treekin and the Treeman. And while I’m at it check out which extra bits and pieces I’ll need to order from GW, already planning on getting classic waywatcher 5, maybe Collectors Wood Elf Standard Bearer Body 2, the old falcons (if I can’t make my own that is) and one or two of the new minis....and a few books I’ve been wanting to buy for a while....and some Dark Eldar cruisers (damn warhammerwiki-project for getting me all excited about these, my Dark Eldar might even get a revival.....that would really make GJ happy).

Well that pretty much concludes my first update, hope you guys enjoyed my rantings during my journey through Athel Loren. And I greatly look forward to reading the other updates!


Cheers,


-Hephesto-

 

[Skcuzzlebumm]

Looking really good dude, like what you've done with the warhawks. Keep it up and keep us posted.

 

[hephesto]

Thanks mate, I'll be doing a monthly update on this over at astronomican. But I think I'll show some extra thing here from time to time.

For those interested in reading all of them, check to like at the top of the thread :wink:

I'll also be taking part in a similiar project for apocalypse/40K, my Iron Warriors will need updating when the new codex drops. Might as well increase their numbers to 3000 points.

A similiar project for HO might also be a fun idea?

 

[The Wraithlord]

Awesome stuff Heph.


If others were into the idea, I think something like that could work here very well. What exactly is the premise behind it?

 

[hephesto]

Indeed a great project...need to get back to it next week after those testschemes and basing article stuff

The idea behind it is pretty simple, a certain amount of people interested in (in this case) starting with WHF join up in a series of articles;

- anyone can join in, be it to start game X, do another army or continue your existing army
- at the end of each month each person reports the progress in the form of an article with new stuff build, bought and/or painted. In this series you're also more or less obligated to put together some minor background story for the army's existence and goals.
- the actual speed and form of your progress is pretty much up to each individual participant, this way anyone can join in regardless of time and budget constraints.
- a large number of participants also results in varying types of articles, from tournament armies to purely modelling based armies, making it fun for everybody taking part in it and for all those that will read the articles
- in addition we also reasoned that an initiative like this, and some sort of deadline in the back of your head, would be a positive form of incentive to keep build on an army and completing one...something a lott of people (including me) have problems with.

Another iniative starting up at astro is an armsrace for 40K Apocalypse, building up your current army or a new one to be useable in apocalypse games. So ending up with 3000 or more point armies, Tyranids for me, uber synapse unit, trygon, meocitic mines and several carnifexes for me :twisted:

 

[The Wraithlord]

That is cool. We may have to get something like that going here at some point.

 

[hephesto]

HEPHESTO'S UPDATE – SECOND MONTH

Alrighty time for the second installment of A Tale of X Gamers. First of my apologies for the delay in my report, I was in Germany for a few days and had forgotten my camera’s memorycard. And as my report would be a bit bland without pictures I figured I should wait a bit before submitting it.

To be honest, my army has only seen a small amount of progress with other endeavors and distractions throwing up roadblocks at every turn. Though slow, I like to think the stuff that is getting done is pretty decent. This month I also have to sent special thanks to Drackonis, his pirate contest has given me ideas for both the background of the army and one of its more bizar converted units. To start off here are two new story chapters, those wishing to skip it may be surprised at what they find further below :wink:


THE RANGERS OF ILANDRAL CHAPTER 1 - OF THINGS SMALL AND WICKED


Finally all of Ilandral’s scouts had arrived and together, six men strong, they now travelled west towards the Crystal River and the Western Sentinels. For two days they sped through the woodlands, silently, unseen until they came close to the Crystal river. With still a good day’s journey ahead of them, the scouting party’s healer, Milhandra, became more and more restless. Gentle and kind as she was when attending the wounded, inside her she bore a great, burning hatred for all those that choose to harm or destroy the Great Forest that had sheltered and nurtured her kin for many generations now. Her knowledge of the land and the spirits that resided in them made her especially attuned to any tain in its natural balance. Seeing her growing discomfort Ilandral ordered the scouts to pause, turning to the dark clad Elf on this right he spoke:

‘Siradan, take point. Your skills will be needing here.’

Nodding casually the Wood Elf stepped past him and dashed into the thick woods ahead of them, the others following at a distance. Suddenly stopping he gestured Ilandral to join him while the other scouts take up defensive positions. Pointing to the disturbed ground he speaks to Ilandral in his usual cold, direct manner:

-Gors, about a dozen, no more then half an hour ago.-

‘We can not accept their vile pressence in these blessed woods, in which direction did they leave?’, responded Ilandral.

-To the southwest, to the riverbed-, Siradan whispered.

Gazing mezmerised the hulking gor watched with fascination at the brightly coloured fish it held in its hand. Slightly tilting its head as if it was a child that for the first time saw the towering walls of Middenheim he watched the fish die, the life slowly drifting away with each desperate breath. But the creature quickly grew tired of its newly acquired toy, throwing it into the bushes he turned back towards the crude encampment the beasts had erected on the river’s bank.

Striding through the camp he made his his way to his restingplace and stash, only to find it disturbed with a most prized item missing. Violently turning around, growling with rage he charged the first ungor within reach smashing him brutally into a tree. Head thrown to the sky, crying out a great howl he proclaimed his victory. The other beasts, quickly rosed, centered on the fight as petty rivalries grapsed the small warband, turning the encampment into a violent brawl as more and more gors and ungors proved to be as savage as their appeance..

‘Thank you, ancient ones’ Ilandral quietly spoke from his hiding place at the encampment’s edge as the two small, wickedly sniggering spites handed over a rune-carved ungor skull. ‘NOW’ he shouted as he bursted from the bushes.

As one Ilandral’s men fired their arrows at the gathered rabble of beastmen fighting in front of them, all six arrows striking their targets with deadly accuracy. The death of their kin seemed to rouse most of the beastmen from the fight as they refocussed their beastial rage on this new, loathed enemy. Grabbing whatever weapon they could they charged Ilandral as he fired more and more arrows at the mob rushing towards him. One particulary large gor, moving more like an animal on four legs, arrows pertruding from his chest a left arm managed to reach the ranger only to be met by another guardian of the woods.

Rushing from the brushes behind Ilandral a graceful fox intervened, launching itself at the gor’s neck as the ranger swiftly evaded the beasts’ clumsy attack. Grabbing desperately at the animal attacked to its throat the gor pulled the fox of, ripping out a great portion of this own flesh. Swinging the fox through the air the brute prepairs to smash the animal into the ground as another shiny, singing arrow sheered through the thick brushes hitting him directly in the chest. Fallen to its knees the brute, heavily breathing turned in the direction of which the arrow was fired. Moving silently another Wood Elf emerged from the woods, his faced hidden beneath a birdshaped mask. Walking next to him was the fox that had come to Ilandral’s aid. Stopping a mere metre away from the gor, who was now on his side still defiantly growling to his assailant, the Elf grabbed another arrow from his quiver.....a quick flash of light from the arrowpoint was the last thing the brute would ever see.

Pulling his blade from the bloodied corpse of yet another ungor Ilandral surveyed the encampment, on the right Mahadril was dispatching the last few ungors. His twin blades cutting a bloody swath through the largely unarmed beasts. The entire camp was lithered with the corpses of beastmen and arrows, nearly two dozen of the brutes had been struck down before they had a chance to flee. Sighting some slight movement from the corner of his eye he rushed through the camp only to find a mortally wounded ungor with a crude smile on its face holding up a sounding horn. With its last breath sending a signal to whatever may be out there, only for it to be answered by the faint sound of more horns coming from the west.

Signaling to the other Ilandral gazed to the west, whatever was out there would find a potent enemy in him and his scouts.


THE RANGERS OF ILANDRAL CHAPTER 2 - THERE BE SUMTIN SHINY OVER THUR

Glancing through his broken looking glass Gibbitz had spend the day idly playing around, high in the make-shift crowsnest the lookout sat above the Riva Pirates’ mighty battlebarge. Mighty in the eyes of da Captun anyway, not much more than pieces of wood bound together with rotten rope to others. Still it had been their home for months now, and for months they had raided small riverside settlements in Bretonnia. Whenever they encountered real resistance they’d just retreat, luckily there were always plenty of new gobs to replace those that fell to the landlovers...or infighting.

When they finally met their match it had been in the form of warboss Grombag, a particulary spitefull Orc who led a sizeable warband on the easter boarders of Bretonnia. Somehow the Captun had convinced him to let his boyz join up instead of suffering a worse fate, suspiciously over half of the ladz disappeared that day. The stew the shaman had brewed for the festivities that night was great though, Gibbitz never did figure out what ‘du spezul ingredent’ was though.

But now da new boss had send them to the northeast, up the river into the woodlands where those pointy eared tree pansies could be found. Not entirely sure what they were suppossed to do there Captun agreed anyway...not that he had much choice about it though. The only problem was that big Black Orc the boss had send with them, he was mean and tough enough to scare the rabble on ‘da ship’ into a sort of loyal crew. Just as he was thinking about how he’d show the rest of the boyz and get ride of that big Orc, a large shock threw him right out of this post and unto the deck four meters below.

‘Oj, you git...told you to keep an eye out upz da river’ the Black Orc growled as he grabbed Gibbitz by his lower leg. ‘Youz piratez only good as arrowfoddur.’

Squeling as if his life depended on it, which might very well be true, Gibbitz struggled to get free as the rest of the boyz watched from a distance half amused, half terrified. Clinging on to his looking glass, hanging upside down the Black Orc lifted him up to his face.

‘Shiny, big shiny things up ahead’, Gibbitz belched out with a screeching voice, desperately hoping that this would somehow satisfy the brute.

Not entirely disappointed by what he just heard the Black Orc merely tossed the lookout across the deck, hitting Snikrot right in the face. Half dizzy and slightly disorientated both goblins got to their feet, Snikrot obviously suffering more injury to his pride than anything else wobled his way in the general direction of da Captun’s quarters. Da Captun was not amused at all as Snikrot had been the roving band’s lucky charm ever since that river troll had refused to eat him, the little git was useful. And once da Captun was angry, few things could stop him. Mad and armed with blackpowder pistols blazing he roused da ladz to charged the Black Orc, who unimpressed stood his ground. With more luck than skills the Piratez slowly forced the Black Orc back, who quickly discovered why the lads had stayed away from the barge’s left side. The rotten wood unable to support his weight gave in and the lads got a front row seat to the spectacle of a Black Orc trying to swim......needless to say with was a plenty amusing, though bit short show.

Clearly calmed down da Captun turned to the still dazed Gibbitz, ‘Now wha wuz diz bout shiny stuff’?

‘Shiny, big shiny things up ahead.......’, Gibbits replied anxiously ‘.......me thinks’.

‘Right then you runts, backz to work. Letz find thiz shiny stuff’ da Captan shouted out with this usual, though often misplaced, goblin enthousiasm.

And through some small miracle there was indeed sumtin shiny further down the river, Gibbitz was convinced that him landing on Snikrot must have caused some of little snotling’s luck to rub of on him. As the boat made its way further down the river the crew got more of a glimpse of da shiny stuff. A bit deeper in the forest a gigantic crystal decorated waystone could be seen, but once da river pirates made it pasted the next turn in the river they discovered there was more there than new treasure.

Shouts and beastial growls greeted them once the waystone came in full sight, at its base a large group of beastmen had been working on some kind of blood-drenched shrine. The gors and ungors were to caught up fighting the weird tree creatures and a handfull of pointy-ears that came from the forest to notice the brightly coloured goblins slowly closing in on them.

‘Grim, getz to work’, da Captun shouted as he turned towards the snotling behind him who was playing with a cutlass. The little one immediately responded by running of towards the back of the barge.

‘Ok ladz, listen up. I wantz those shiny gems, so letz show them beasties and pointy-ears whoz da best at fightin’ da Captun spoke to his men.

As single goblin responded ‘Butz……they be all magicky and shooty’.

‘Shooty….shooty, theyz only got pieces of them treez. Wez gotz more shooty bitz them than. Wez aint no cowardly land-loving grots, weze riva pirates. Even lil’ Snikrot herez is ready to go.’, da Captun shouted in response while pointing at the frantically pacing Snikrot. And with that remark the barge dug itself into the riverbed as da pirates flooded into the skirmish surrounding the waystone.

As his boyz where fighting, shooting and generally keeping the both parties distracted da Captun wobled his way towards the waystone, disposing of several ungors in the process. The shaman at the altar had other plans than just to let him take the crystals and gems they had prod from the protective waystone. Calling the other beasts to his side the shaman prepared to confront da Captun, who in turn, slighty nervously, called out to his ladz Grim in particular.

‘Herez, boss’ the snotling replied, while vaguely saluting da Captun. Towering above both of them stood the lumbering Grom. Though about as smart as a drunk troll, his brawn was very useful here, dragging the heavy wooden framework across the forestfloor he pointed its barrel towards the beastmen charging.

A flash, a loud bang and a big cloud of smoke later the shaman laid on the forestfloor, his head nowhere to be found. Many of the other beastmen had been heavily wounded and a ‘poor’ grot crewmate had been crushed by the cannonette’s recoil. Sending tha ladz of to deal with the numerous other foes da Captun went straight for the waystone’s precious gems. But before the reached them a new opponent crossed his path: the ranger Ilandral appear almost right in front of him.

Face-to-face da Captun and the ranger stood, a gunpowdered pistol and cutlass versus an ancient wooden bow and arrow. Just as they were about to strike at eachother, a loud growl came bellowing from the other side of the clearing. Bursting from the trees a heavily armoured gor strode forward leading a large herd of vile Beastmen. Nervously grinning da Captun glances at his opponent and the arrow pointed at his chest.

‘Wut youz say we callz this un a draw, pointy-ear?’

Realising this overwhelming number of Beastmen would surely defeat his men and descecrated the sacred waystone, Ilandril reluctantly nodded in agreement as he turned turned his attention to what was clearly the leader of this chaos incursion.

Sensing an opportunity for survival da Captun bellowed his orders to da boys.

‘Leave them pointy-ears to their buziness, them chaos boyz is more stronger.’

And so gob and Wood Elf alike stood there ground against the tide or muscled beasts that stormed the waystone bent upon its destruction.


THE WORKBENCH

As said before, fairly little visible progress this month, but I do have many ideas running rampant through the dusty corridors of my imagination. First up are Ilandral’s rangers, only three build so far, but here’re the ideas for the others.

Build
1. Ilandral
– Lord’s Bowman and general hero of the background story.

2. Milhandra
– Healer and herbalist.

3. Siradan
– Master Scout, even more silent and grim than the other scouts.

Mental WIPs :wink:
4.
- Beastmaster/falconer character from the story, will probably include a special robe, mask and some animal familiars. Thinking of a bird/hawke/raven and some other creature...perhaps a ferret if I can pull it of.

5.
- Wardancer/bard character with some sort of muscial instrumen, something like a flute or small harp.

6. Mahadril
- Warrior/eternal guard character from the story wielding dual blades, will have to have a more armoured look to him than the others. The eternal guard artwork from the armybook will be of great help for this guy.

7.
Things small and wicked – scratch-build spites taking of with a ungor runeskull, some rough ideas are being worked on. Should turn out good I think.

8.
Animal familiar – attempting the fox from the background story, very challenging as I have to make the complete head myself. More on this critter next month.


Tha River Bandits

They’re mean, they’re green, but most of all they are seriously disfunctional! After starting on my entry for Drackonis’ pirate contest over at astro things went all screwy with me getting carried away with another project. One mini turned into a ten-gob strong pirate unit, not wanting to waste them I figured I’d just up them aside for some future Dogs of War project. However I just couldn’t get them out of my mind, the little green blighters somehow managed to drag me away from my Wood Elves. So I was only left with one option, somehow encoorporate them into the army......alright I’ll be honest, I was planning on adding them as soon as I put the first pirate together. And as such, much to my shame, my first pained mini for my Wood Elf army is a goblin pirate

So here they are, the entire second fluff chapter was added because of these guys. They’ll be replacing one of the glade guard units, I know a bit unlikely as they are nowhere as brave or accurate as Wood Elves, but there sheer firepower from the cannonnette and blackpowder weapons should make up for it. And as river goblins seem to be braver (WD) than your everyday green critters they might very well end up trying to outshine the Woodsies instead of running away.

To help things a bit clear (if the forum doesn’t mess it up that is) here’s the unit’s composition;
8 9 10 11 12 13 14
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1. Snarg
- Short of stature, big of sword.

2/3/9/10. Grim and Grom
- Wez more shooty boyz than them pointy ears. The cannon is entirely scratch-build, save for a Golbin shiled, no GW bits were used for it.

4. Snikrot da Lucky
- More lucky charm than real River Bandit, self-preclaimed keeper of shiny bits. Although da Captun will greatly disagree with this daring claim.

5. Da Captun
- Ojh….I said salut mez whens Iz shows up.

6. Wava da Banaboy.
- Bannerwava, fanatically devoted to his Banna, or Wavy as he calls ‘her’.

7. Nazrog
- Mez be very hitty, mez got me a big, shiny blunderbuz.

8. Oznag
- Good thing he’s taller than most of the other grots as his aim is about as effective as a Snotling fighting a Black Orc.

11. Basha
- Forget about personal hygiene, but if you need someone to dish out a good stompin’ he’s your Grot.

12. Zognab
- Youz can nevah have enuf pointy things.

13. Gibbitz
- Lookout and spotter, which would actually make him useful…if he didn’t have the concentration of a Squig on darkcave mushrooms that is. He’s also often the butt of the River Banditz jokes and tricks.

14. Nagah
- Shoot! Shoot! Shoot! Shoot........howz you use one a dez thingz again?

Dance baby, dance!

After some searching, pleeding and dare I say begging I’ve managed to acquire all the different wardancers from the normal blisters. Together with my two bought items of this month (wardancer lord and wardancer command group) I now have all the minis needed for this band of singing , dancing nutters. Need to give their colourscheme a bit more thought as I’m not entirely certain how I’ll tackle their talismanic tattoos. Might do some freehand swirling green tattoos, although woodraider/braveheart themed warpaint should/would also work great on them.


THOUGHTS ON THE FUTURE

As always I don’t like to plan ahead to much for these kind of things to much as inspiration and creativity know no time, but I will at least set some probably unachieveable goals. Here goes;

- Paint da riva pirates.
- Finally decide on a colourscheme and try it out on some spare glade guards.
- Put together and convert the branchwraith unit, including adding an annoyance of netlings that has infested through the unit.
- Try to figure out what to do with my characters, adding some extra stuff and deciding what I wan to use as my
- Figure out how the story will progress as I haven’t got a clue at the moment

The first few new things are already underway; some skintests and WIP beastmaster and fox.

Well that’s it for my second update, hope everybody will enjoy it. So best of luck to all the other participants and see you guys in a month :wink:

For the other updates check here