Sigur's Dark Elves.

[Battle Brush Sigur]

Heyhey, how y'all doing? Had a great christmas? I do hope so.


I rebased my Dark Elves army. It wasn't extremely pleasant, but I had the feeling that it should be done.


full size image: https://www.tabletopwelt.de/uploads/monthly_2023_12/2warhams.jpg.aa92bf28bd591808a1e827ac9ace2f25.jpg

Painted them about 20 years ago when I got into warhammer fantasy for a second time, then based "to fit the army" rather than gaming tables or opponents' armies. Which of course is a weird thing to do, but I was more young than practical.

Here's a shot of my army's last major outing in 2015 for a Kings of War test game:



...and now they hopefully go better with various green gaming tables. I left the painting as it is, with one small exception - the witch elves were eight so far; now they're 27, although I cheated and added the two guardians of the Cauldron of Blood, a cheerleader (they're going for stupid money on the internet, as I saw yesterday) and another plastic sorceress from 2010 to get the unit to 27. But even without cheating it's still a nice block of 24 figures. Because everyone needs a cheerleader in their ranks. Painting is kept very simple; just so that they match the rest of the army painted 20(!) years ago. Concerning the witch elves- yes, those are the ones from 4th edition. I had a bit of a crush on the 4th/5th edition dark elves back then, even if they're not objectively incredibly pretty. I was also happy with the 2000 dark elf range, with two exceptions: the hydra (and the dragon, compared to the 4th edition dragon). They're too iconic) and the witch elves. They were too thin and too 'ripped' for my tastes, and the hair just wasn't even remotely comparable to the glory of the hairstyles on the 4th edition witch elves.

I also like the new plastic witch elves (although they don't even come close to their Marauder counterparts in terms of hairstyle). But they hadn't been released then, so a bunch of years ago I bought a lot of the Marauder witch elves when I had the chance.


Of course, the standard-bearer of the Cold One Knights was added later as well; it must have been very soon after the release of that box, so 2010? 2009? I don't know.


I don't have an exact plan for what I'm going to do with them, but at least that's done now. It was kind of on my mind. I still have a few things in reserve (remaining plastic cold one knights box, another complete metal chariot and the three boxes of fat stuff that came out from GW [new hydra, new cauldron with show stairs, new black dragon]. I bought those a few years ago in case they disappeared with Warhammer. Didn't happen anyway, but having something like that is better than not having it. )

Btw, the sorceress (in the army photo with the corsairs on the front left) always looks like the one on the left in my head.
Same with the witch elves.

What still needs to be done, however, apart from possibly tackling the things mentioned above: The Dark Riders still need pennants for their lances, and the Cauldron of Bloos is missing those scythe blade things. I took them off for Kings of War when the cauldron formed a unit with the Witch Elves. Now I wanted to put them back on. After looking through various boxes, I had to grudgingly realize that I can't find the one round thing. It would be rather annoying if that was gone and my cauldron was no longer complete. Fingers crossed.

Of course you could do a LOT of touching up with the painting and so on, but for now it's nice that I now have a unit of witch elves, the whole gang is now based more nicely in my opinion, and also photographed together. I hadn't done that before either. And for the "omg I have a few days off, I can make my own stuff, what should I do!" Christmas project it was ok. Hope you like them!

[Khusru2]

I made a 1/48 scale helicopter. It wasn't hard as it was just a click together one. A decent size, and price, for Zona alfa games.

[Elbows]

Finished up some ogres, and then "saved" some orcs I was going to throw out - added a few models, got them all based up for some rank-n-flank action.  So, topped off my year with a quick 21 additional figures finished.  Felt good getting some stuff off my table that I'd been avoiding for a while.

[ced1106]

Another Gloomhaven: Crimson Scales scenario. Rescue the infected guards!

Except that I have to halt the scenario to paint some infected guards!

Wildspire Miniatures Monster set catfolk miniatures as proxies for the guards. Maybe they shouldn't eaten the raw fish?

CS : Free download : https://www.thecrimsonscales.com/
W: https://www.amazon.com/stores/WildspireMiniatures/page/B343BFEF-3714-440E-9750-50FC66D51848?ref_=ast_bln

[Battle Brush Sigur]

I made a 1/48 scale helicopter. It wasn't hard as it was just a click together one. A decent size, and price, for Zona alfa games.

Perfect! These are always handy. Years ago I got a die cast  emergency services helicopter of "appropriate" size for 28mm figures for my modern zombies collection. Never seen action in a game, but my niece likes to play with it. At some point though it will be handy. Because one can not "get to da choppa" without a choppa.

@Elbows: Indeed. Sounds a bit like what I experienced with my Witch Elves.

@ced1106: Oh, Crimson Scales, eh? I shall pass this info on to my brother, who's got a Gloomhaven group (right now they started getting into Frosthaven. Of course I was arm-twisted into painting the figures for them..).

[DalyDR]

Since Christmas, just this guy -



Pardon the lousy phone photo.

[Battle Brush Sigur]

Oh, that is one good dude. Very cool!

[Battle Brush Sigur]

Hello, friends. As I recently started working on an Empire army for Warhammer, I of course also look at my Dark Elves, neaten them up in places, add some bits here and there. Because somehow, for some weird reason, I play Warhammer again. Life is strange.

So here's what I added/did:

Went and ordered figures from Games Workshop's online store, because I found out that plastic corsairs are surprisingly reasonably priced and I was kinda worried they'd disappear. So I bought and put together ten Corsairs. Swiftly painted, and now my Corsairs got two more ranks in case they need them.






My lovely friend virago gave me a sprue he got somewhere and never put to use. It's that 7th edition DE pirates captain. I did a weapon  and head swap, now he's a general on foot. Hooray.




Finally finished that Gamezone Sorceress on black pegasus!




....and the latest thing: Cold Ones do-over! Painted them in 2004, never really did the highilghts on the scales, so I did that. Added very uninspired little stripes on the red ones along the spine, added 2 layers of highlights on the green scales and the heads, now they look a lot nicer than they did for the past 20 years.




I even varnished them afterwards! Crazy times. Hope you like the picture and have a lovely weekend!

[Rick]

You mentioned the image on the front cover of the Sorceress? You do know that GW released a plastic model of that Sorceress in almost exactly that pose? I think it was included in the Talisman box when they re-released it with plastic figures and components. I think I might still have it somewhere.

[Battle Brush Sigur]

You mentioned the image on the front cover of the Sorceress? You do know that GW released a plastic model of that Sorceress in almost exactly that pose? I think it was included in the Talisman box when they re-released it with plastic figures and components. I think I might still have it somewhere.

Oh yes, one of my all time favourite figures. I try to squeeze her into any fantasy game I play. Here she is as a hero in my lock-down campaign of Sellswords and Spellslingers:

[Frugalmax]

Classic models, great paint jobs- Very nice!

Re: the sorceress- which came first, the plastic mini or the art?

I didn't look it up but my money's on the miniature as I think all of the Talisman expansions for that edition were out by the mid-90's, and if I recall Dark Elves were on the late side of Warhammer 4th edition. Of course, that art may pre-date the Army Book, so hmmm....

[Major_Gilbear]

Hello, friends. As I recently started working on an Empire army for Warhammer, I of course also look at my Dark Elves, neaten them up in places, add some bits here and there. Because somehow, for some weird reason, I play Warhammer again. Life is strange.

I even varnished them afterwards! Crazy times. Hope you like the picture and have a lovely weekend!

I love your WHFB armies Sigur! Every addition you make to them is honestly a treat to see, and your Dark Elves are particularly cool. 

Re: the sorceress- which came first, the plastic mini or the art?

She's in the army shot of the very two first photos in the Dark Elf Army Book on the inside cover, so I'd guess it was the miniature. She was first released for the 3rd edition Talisman expansion "Dragon's Tower", which was dated 1995; the Dark Elf Army Book was released in 1996, so that would make sense.

Aso featued in the book is another plastic miniature - a Witch Elf, who was released in 1994 (also for 3rd edition Talisman - the "City of Adventure" expansion). She can be seen in the centre colour pages of the army book at the front of the Witch Elf unit, but if you have good eyes you can just about pick her out at the front of the same unit in the second photo on the inside cover in the army book. She was painted in a slightly different pose in the artwork on the front of the army book too, where I assume her right arm was lowered for composition reasons, but the rest of the artwork's pose remains the same as the model.

Of course, that art may pre-date the Army Book, so hmmm....

Also very possible! 

Oddly eneough, I do remember reading somewhere that the minis were based on some concept sketches by David Ghallagher, and the minis then helped inform the art he painted for the army book. The models also got a couple of official paintjobs, and at least one set of them were inspired the colours of the army book artwork. So the real answer may in fact be much more symbiotic than mere publishing dates would suggest!

[Battle Brush Sigur]

Thanks for the very kind comments!

It's a very interesting topic indeed. Just a few weeks ago I listened to the Crown of Command podcast episode on the 4th/5th edition Dark Elves army book. They had GeOrc there as a guest; one of the top in-the-know people about the topic. And he also mentioned that when the army book was written, the illustrator had a ton of freedom, because large parts of the figure range wasn't really done while the book was written, so he had a lot of freedom with the illustrations (which always favours the illustrations, I think).

I'd love to have that Witch Elf. a.) because 3rd edition Talisman is probably my favourite. I'm sure I posted it a ton of times before, but last year I got to play it a lot.





b.) I just really like the visual style of these plastics. Very round, very smooth looking. Also, it's a mid-90s Witch Elf, and I want it.

[Major_Gilbear]

I wish they'd release all those single-figure Talisman plastics again, even as a Made-to-order. As long as they weren't set to match ridiculuous eBay prices, I'd snap them up in a heartbeat! Ah well, my wallet remains safe I think.