Ulthuan

I had promised a full army shot by the end of this month, buuuuuut it looks likely that I won't get chance to work on the army much over the next couple of weeks

Soooo with that in mind I gathered the troops and laid out everything that was finished (or near finished in the case of the silver helms) and laid them out for a photo session.











Bizarrely it is still a Caledor themed army with NO painted Dragon Princes!! That will have to change eventually Also Although not technically a legal list under ANY set of restrictions this does now come in at around 3,000 points so I'm getting close to being able to field a decent fully painted army!!

Good flame effect on the Phoenix.

Coming on nicely, I especially like the idea of the little dragons. Post one of these up on the Army Shots thread Andrew, I think you've enough done!

I based up the first of my RBTs (crew still to come). I used a waywalker base and painted it up as cracked up marble - there's already plenty of that scattered across the rest of the army so I figured it would work... But now I feel it's come out a little too dominant on the rest of the model.

I did flowers/weeds growing up through the cracks

The white is strong, so the pale RBT struggles to stand out a bit I guess.

I switched from snow bases to grass on my army for exactly that reason.

Lovely elves you got going on!

A quick question - do you gather one could recreate your Phoenix's visual with warmer purples?

Sure, I'd definitely say it's possible to recreate the same but with purples. The trick I would say is to start with a white undercoat. Then heavy overbrushing with your first shade, then a light overbrushing, then a drybrushing aiming to highlight with it, then repeat these principles shifting the shade 1 back for each layer of wings you pass back over.

When you get to the back you need to do lots more layers to build it right the way up to black. I'm certain purple would work but the key is to go right the way from white to black

@SpellArcher, I agree with you. There's not enough contrast. There may be a little more once I've added the crew.

Given that 1 of my crew for 1 RBT is attached to the bolt thrower (he's the guy in process of firing), I have made the decision to put 1 crewman on each of the bases. The remaining 4 crewmen will each be based separately. Aaaaand since the 4 metal crew have slotted bases, it makes sense for it to be them that get their own bases.

It means each RBT will have effectively 1 spare crewman as a wound counter. When both crew are dead then I've lost the RBT anyway!!

RBTs are done now, but they're in the display case so I'll grab a picture tomorrow. I painted up this guy too. He's kind of a kit bashed noble with a great weapon and a bow. If you ever are going to field an infantry noble that's the way to do it and as a model kit bashed from spares he's pretty cheap (at free!!)







I've got a kit bashed Mage on steed ready to paint up too at some point. Well to be honest the list of stuff still to paint for my high elves is pretty massive.

2 dragons, at least 4 nobles/princes, at least 4 mages, 60 Archers, 15 Dragon Princes, 70 spearmen, 10 reavers... I'd guesstimate that I'm halfway and I do now basically have various permutations on how to field a legal army which is nice.

I've decided to paint up a chaos Lord next as it's been ages since I did anything chaosy. Then I'll switch back to the Reavers. Aim to get the reavers finished this year.

Also I'm due to be moving house at some point in the next 3-4 months so that's likely to slow things down and make projects tricky.

Andrew_uk wrote: It means each RBT will have effectively 1 spare crewman as a wound counter. When both crew are dead then I've lost the RBT anyway!!

I like the Noble. He looks like he means business!

Andrew_uk wrote:I've decided to paint up a chaos Lord next as it's been ages since I did anything chaosy.

Hard to resist though, isn't it?

Just some WIP pics of the two unit fillers I'm working on for my spearmen...









Reckon I'll get them finished up tomorrow maybe make some progress with the Reavers. I am determined that I WILL get the Reavers and silver helms finished this year.

Next year will be Archers and Dragon Princes (minimum!!)

Andrew_uk wrote:Just some WIP pics of the two unit fillers I'm working on for my spearmen...
Reckon I'll get them finished up tomorrow maybe make some progress with the Reavers. I am determined that I WILL get the Reavers and silver helms finished this year.
Next year will be Archers and Dragon Princes (minimum!!)

Great fillers! Always like to see dead Druchii
Can we see entire unit with the fillers?
Plz. keep us posted with the progress.

Myth wrote:

Andrew_uk wrote:Just some WIP pics of the two unit fillers I'm working on for my spearmen...
Reckon I'll get them finished up tomorrow maybe make some progress with the Reavers. I am determined that I WILL get the Reavers and silver helms finished this year.
Next year will be Archers and Dragon Princes (minimum!!)

Great fillers! Always like to see dead Druchii
Can we see entire unit with the fillers?
Plz. keep us posted with the progress.

The entire unit, with fillers included is already posted further back up in the blog







Buuuuut, I'll post some better pics once I've finished them both.

I reckon by the end of November I'll have finished the 10 Reavers, the mounted mage and both spearmen unit fillers. Then just finish off the gems and flowers on my silver helms (an job that's been outstanding for too long) and I'll be pretty happy with my years progress.

Next year 60 Archers, 20 odd Dragon Princes, a mounted BSB and a dragon... assuming I can keep pace

At some point I'd still like to finish off my WoC too; I'd like to do a unit of Chosen, both customised Hellcannon, the marauder horsemen and a couple more characters... but technically speaking that's MUCH fewer models.

Sooooo, I just did a points tally this morning to work out roughly how much I've got in High Elves. I've been telling people it's about 8,000 points, but that I reckon I could build a legal 6,000 point army for any recent edition.

Turns out I actually have 9,600 points worth of High Elf models

My WoC I've always told people is smaller, probably around 6,000 points with the ability to legally build a 4,500 point army. So I decided to apply the same method to that too to work out exactly how large the army is.

Turns out I was wrong again. It comes in at more like 8,300 points

They are starting to look great. And It's becoming a pretty impressive unit this way. You can run some fun HE lists with that unit. A spearman horde is something that's still on my "to try" list. Although I first need to paint up some more models. I always like unit fillers because they add a bit of character to a unit. And these are very impressive. Unique and fitting

Andrew_uk wrote:Sooooo, I just did a points tally this morning to work out roughly how much I've got in High Elves. I've been telling people it's about 8,000 points, but that I reckon I could build a legal 6,000 point army for any recent edition.

Turns out I actually have 9,600 points worth of High Elf models

I know how you feel. I performed the same calculation a while ago thinking that it would be great if I could put a fully painted 2500pts list on the table. Turned out I have 4000+ points of fully painted models...

Rod

Prince of Spires wrote:They are starting to look great. And It's becoming a pretty impressive unit this way. You can run some fun HE lists with that unit. A spearman horde is something that's still on my "to try" list. Although I first need to paint up some more models. I always like unit fillers because they add a bit of character to a unit. And these are very impressive. Unique and fitting

Andrew_uk wrote:Sooooo, I just did a points tally this morning to work out roughly how much I've got in High Elves. I've been telling people it's about 8,000 points, but that I reckon I could build a legal 6,000 point army for any recent edition.

Turns out I actually have 9,600 points worth of High Elf models

I know how you feel. I performed the same calculation a while ago thinking that it would be great if I could put a fully painted 2500pts list on the table. Turned out I have 4000+ points of fully painted models...

Rod

Yeh - I guess for me the limiting factor on army size would be having enough core to match the number of characters... I mean I got to the above figures by listing 3 dragons and 2 archmages, plus a whole load of nobles and mages on top so all in all that's probably 3,000 points Minimum in Lords? Yet I only have 126 Spearmen, 60 Archers, 12 Silver Helms and 10 Ellyrian Reavers = Circa 2,500 points MAX

Andrew_uk wrote:Yet I only have 126 Spearmen

I think I have...twenty-six.

The Reavers are turning into a slowish paint and it's all starting to stall :/ I'm making progress; I'm hitting them with a paintbrush for around an hour a day for each of the last few days and they're definitely moving. Just slowly.

I reckon I'll have something to share with you all soon

This is my general experience with elves on horses. Somehow they take a long time to get painted. Something to do with the horses I think. Don't worry, as long as there is progress you'll get there. My DP took 2 years or so to get finished. So as long as you manage to get them done faster then that you'll be fine

Rod

Exciting news!! A friend of mine and I are going to give the 9th Age a try. Dark Elves are one of his armies so I've suggested we start with that for thematic reasons.

I've only skim read the rule book and it looks like it's basically just a tweaked version of 8th. I still think using 7th as a starting point would be better, but it's not to be...

In 9th age though (albeit on first reading), Infantry looks like it rules supreme. Am I right? I'd like to field as much painted as I can and white magic seems to synergise nicely with lots of the stuff I have painted up

So how does this look as a first draft?

Prince [615]
Ancient Dragon
Prince of Rhyma
Glittering Cuirass
Dusk Stone
Charm of Cursed Iron
Lance
Shield

L2 Mage [165]
White Magic
Asfad Scholar
Ring of Fire
Tome of Arcane Lore

15 Archers [175]
Banner - flaming, Musician

28 Spearmen [338]
Full Command
Heavy Armour

5 Reavers [100]
Musician
Bows

10 Archers [90]

14 Flame Wardens [219]
Full Command

14 Sword Masters [208]
Full Command

5 Knights of Rhyma [210]
Devastating Charge
Full Command
War Banner of Rhyma

4 Reaper Bolt Throwers [180]

2 Eagles [100]

Total = 2,400 points on the nose

I just picked up a paint brush for the first time in 2 years!!

In Jan 2017 I split up with my girlfriend, it was the best relationship I’ve ever had and the only one I’ve ever thought would “last forever”. Looking back I can tell that the communication skills (from both of us) weren’t good enough, but that just makes me even more sad because it could all have been so easily salvageable had we got the basics right.

Anyway, I didn’t paint anything through 2017 (possibly due to depression and lack of motivation, also other major health issues going on) and then I’ve also moved house (twice) since so lots more upheaval.

Anyways, my physical and mental health are both now much more stable and I decided to unpack some of my WIP bits. This weekend I’ve made pretty significant progress on the spearmen and a couple of characters. I’ve based all the metal, washed, highlighted, and based the cloth. Estimated 24 hrs painting time to finish the lot but given how little time I can realistically dedicate to it that may well mean approx Xmas?

Either way, I’ve got the motivation back!!

Glad to see you back. Bummer on much of the rest of it, but learning and growing is an important part of life. Often a painful part.

Looking forward to seeing your painting progress.

Nice to see you back Andrew. The other stuff sucks. But glad to see you here again and painting a bit. And it sounds like your life is slowly getting into shape again, which is always good news.

I'm looking forward to the painting progress as well. Pictures are always good even WiP ones.

As for finding painting time, what works best for me (though I currently suck at this as well), is to have everything in a single spot with very low setup time. At most 2 minutes from deciding I want to paint to actually sitting down to paint. That way, planning just half an hour a day to paint is very feasible. And that time very quickly adds up to a lot of progress. It's 2.5 - 3 hours per week. And it's a lot easier to find 30 minutes in a day then to find 2 hours straight.

Anyway, let us know how it goes.

Rod

Andrew_uk wrote:Either way, I’ve got the motivation back!!

Go, dude!

Andrew_uk wrote:I just picked up a paint brush for the first time in 2 years!!

In Jan 2017 I split up with my girlfriend, it was the best relationship I’ve ever had and the only one I’ve ever thought would “last forever”. Looking back I can tell that the communication skills (from both of us) weren’t good enough, but that just makes me even more sad because it could all have been so easily salvageable had we got the basics right.

Anyway, I didn’t paint anything through 2017 (possibly due to depression and lack of motivation, also other major health issues going on) and then I’ve also moved house (twice) since so lots more upheaval.

Wow, down to the last details EXACTLY the same, what happened with me and my (ex-)girlfriend at approximately the same time... Creepy...