Arms Race: Wood Elves

My project for this summer, which I am dubbing the Arms Race, is for me to collect and paint 2000 points worth of Wood Elves. I've never really gotten to grips with Fantasy Battle, but upon seeing the new Treeman, I felt that it was time to put the Dark Elves to one side and start with a clean slate.




The rules I have come up with are simple, and based around the classic 'Tale of 4 Gamers' model that is so popular. I start with a 500 point force that needs to be painted by the end of May, each month I get £50 budget to add to that core and paint it up within the month, this repeats until I get to 2000 points.

I have started with a Glade Captain. This is a really great sculpt and I used him to get my general colour scheme right for the rest of the army. From the start, I decided that I would either go with the vibrant green and red hair of a typical Wood Elf, or, I would go in completely the opposite direction and go for a cooler palette to represent the Elves that would hide deeper in the woods.

My inspiration for the scheme of the army came from this piece of artwork on the right. For those that don't know, she is the Drow Ranger from DOTA2. I loved the muted palette, the blue skin, in fact, just the unearthly look of the character.

I felt that this would be a good challenge to try and translate this look into the Fantasy universe and have a unique look on the tabletop, especially when you consider the Wood Elves aren't a bright and happy race in the first place, they are staunch and arrogant protectors of Athel Loren, equally tainted by the light and the dark.

To add to my hero choice, I chose a box of Glade Guard. This has given me 16 archers, with the ability to choose various types of ammunition for a given situation. They seem really strong, so I am planning on expanding these over the coming months to have two 20 strong units.

Again, the colour scheme seemed to work well, I tried to keep it as simple as possible for these rank and file because I would be painting loads of them, and any super fine detail work would get lost.

Next up were some Dryads. I'll admit, these were purchased solely on the fact that I would get and Owl or two to play with. But I also needed some close combat units to protect the archers, and these seemed to fit. I think I will only keep one unit of these, but buff them to 20 strong.

For the paint scheme, I kept it simple by drybrushing up through the highlights, and in order to break the monotony, I split them into groups of 4 and tried to give them different bark. This would hopefully make the unit more interesting to look at.

After all of that, I found I had over 50 points to spare, so I threw in an Eagle. This is one of the Hobbit eagles as opposed to the Warhammer version for one simple reason, it is a far superior sculpt.

I painted this chap in between painting the Glade Guard as a way of breaking up the large amount of repetition. I am really happy with the way it has come out, and it's definitely a step up from the brushwork on the Phoenix I did earlier in the year.

All that is left now is to paint up the free Wood that the Elves get as part of their rules, then, it's off to consider what I would like to pick up next month to strengthen the force.