Mighty Armies: Dark Elves

I can't believe it has taken me nearly all of September to complete this little army. I guess I've erroneously concluded that small scale means super fast painting. To a degree this is true. However, there's still a lot of models to cover, with lots of detail, and neatness still counts. Basing these guys is half the battle too. It's a little more challenging with multi-figure bases, at least for me.

Enough whining! Here are some pictures of the Dark Elves. First up are a few different views of the army all together. I couldn't decide which set up would show them better. So now you have two shots of them. You need to enlarge the pictures to see the details, of course.

All told there are 16 stands and about 46 models here. I've got units of great swords, spears, crossbows, and cavalry. I've added in a monster, a "dragon man" and its handler, as well as two commanders and a wizard.  Here are some detailed shots of the army.

I think you can tell which pictures are which units. I made my leader units different colors in case I wanted to run two different Dark Elf armies. My theme colors are dark red with silver and dull orange accents. The blue leader, who turned out to be a chick, was to be my main general. I was thinking the different color would make her easy to see on the battle field.

This was a fun army to paint, though I wasn't inspired to start it.  Maybe that's why it took so long. But once I started working on it, I found myself really enjoying these models. They're excellent sculpts with lots of detail. Like all dark elves, there are female models mixed in with the males, wearing the obligatory useless armor. I kept my painting faithful to the model, no matter how impractical. At 15mm scale showing some midriff is not that exciting. But whatever.

So I'm done with all my 15mm Mighty Armies stuff for now. I plan to reinforce each of my armies before moving on to new ones. Right now, Mighty Armies isn't high on my "game time list." So it'll be a while before I get to them. Still, I really like this line and will certainly expand to more armies in the future.

WW2 Micro Armor: US Armored Infantry

This must be the year of going small for me.  When I converted to 15mm for a lot of my games, I thought I couldn't go any smaller.  But now I find myself the proud owner of WW2 US Armored Infantry in micro armor scale.  I don't know how small that is, but it's small!

These are all GHQ models from the Combat Command boxed set, US 1944 Armored Infantry Combat Team. I threw in an extra blister of Sherman tanks.  What you see above are:

• 9 infantry stands
• 6 jeeps
• 2 bazooka team stands
• 1 M20 armored car
• 3 M8 Greyhound armored cars
• 1 MA41 mortar carrier
• 3 M10 tank destroyers
• 8 M4A3 Sherman tanks
• 8 M3A1 half tracks

That's a pretty sizable forces For those who are unfamiliar with micro armor scale, here is a picture of the force next to a US penny.

That's pretty small! While painting that small was not too difficult, and American armor is s cinch to paint, assembly was a massive pain. The armored cars had to have their cupolas and machine guns glued on. The same with the M3A1 half-tracks.  I couldn't tell the gun barrels from flash. There was a ton of flash on these models.  I'm not sure if I just got lucky or all GHQ models come like that. Anyway, putting these together tested my patience.

I based the vehicles, simply because I think that will protect the models. I think visually they look better without bases, but the gun barrels bend easily or those delicately glued machine guns will pop off at a touch.  I went with a very powdery flock for the bases. Static grass would look like elephant grass or worse. 

Storage for this army couldn't be easier. Everything fits right back in the box that it came in!  Here's the force in storage, lucky penny included. There's still space to expand.

I plan on using these models with Blitzkrieg Commander, thought they can go with a lot of different rules. Since everything here was pretty cheap, I'll probably get a few more forces to have different choices. Some friends have played Flames of War in this scale, and I'd be willing to try that out too!

So now I've got WW2 covered in micro armor, 15 mm, and 28 mm.That's good for a guy who had nothing for WW2 just over a year ago. All that's left is to conquer 20mm. Not that I plan to do that, but I should never rule out anything too soon.

Bones Kickstarter

The Reaper Bones Kickstarter is over.  I'm pretty excited about being part of this. The final count is something like 224 models for the $100 pledge, plus options to get some nice stuff at really low prices.  The amazing thing, for me, is that there's not a single model in the package that I can't think of a use for! I updated the graphic on my previous post to the final rewards package.

This ended up being the third largest Kickstarter to-date.  Wired.com ran an interesting article on this.  Check it out here.

Reaper Bones Kickstarter

So I'm a little late to the game with this, but I actually joined Reaper's KickStarter campaign for the Bones models. Reaper is currently at $1.2 million raised.  It goes without saying that they're getting a lot of support. I know I'm excited to see some of their best models converted to cheaper and lighter materials.

The Bones models are excellent quality, just as good as the metals. By joining KickStarter now you can get a ton of models for a very low price. I personally did the Vampire level, which delivers a lot. It's well worth the money.  Check it out below. They keep adding to this package as their pledges increase.  The campaign only runs until August 25th. So if you're thinking about it, better act fast.

US M10 Tank Destroyers

I have bags of 15mm WW2 US forces sitting on my table, just waiting for assembly and paint. I like painting US armor and vehicles, as there's nothing much to it.  These M10 tank destroyers are from Old Glory's Command Decision line.  They went together easily and the paint job was quick. 

There are a few more models than I need to make a single TD unit.  I'll be using four in a Flames of War army, and the other two can sit with my individually based 15mm WW2 armies. I just need to put together a few more jeeps to complete a mid-war TD platoon, or I could get the armored cars for a late war force.

So that was a nice, quick project. I'm not sure what I'll move onto next.

Dark Elf Heroes

As I promised in my last post, I completed a few Dark Elf heroes to lead my Kings of War Twilight Kin army. I also painted 4 replacement Witch Elves for old school Witch Elves mixed into my unit. I managed to find a few of the metal blisters of the new sculpts for a good price on Chaos Orc Superstore.  I love that place.  I didn't bother taking pictures of the four witch elves.  But below are the two new leaders.

Up first is the Lokhir Fellheart model.  I'll be using him as a Twilight Kin lord. I dispensed with all the fancy sword painting that GW does, going with a basic metallic. I gave his helmet a few washes of brown and green to make it look old.  I think it came out nice. 

 
Next is a Dark Elf Sorceress. She'll play the same role in my Twilight Kin army. I gave her colors that tie in to the spearmen's shields. She came out nice, I think. I have her the typical "Drow" treatment that I've given to all of my models.  She just exposes enough hair and flesh for you to see it.

I'm going to work on something else next.  When I return to the Twilight Kin, it will be to complete a 20 man unit of crossbowmen and some cavalry.  But I want to do something else for now.  I just haven't figured out what that is yet.

Dark Elf Spearmen

While I haven't been posting up much, I've still been busy with my various miniatures projects. I've had a lot less time to work on models than I'm used to having. So my output has decreased. But today I put finishing touches on more of my Dark Elf / Twilight Kin forces.  While these are GW dark elf models, they work perfectly for Kings of War Twilight Kin, which is what I'm planning. Here are two core units of 20 spearmen each.

I've tried to stay away from the purple and black color scheme that seems "dark elf standard" these days. I've gone for a pale gray green with subdued darker greens and dull reds. I've also been painting their flesh with Reaper's Dark Elf Skin triad, and it works great. The old school GW models even show hair, so that got painted white. Hopefully they look like Drow!


Here are a few sample models I pulled out.

The lot of dark elf models I bought earlier this year actually came with printed banners on adhesive paper. I only got one but liked the looks of it. Most modeled banners looks so heavy, or you get the banner hanging in the faces of other models. This one bends back naturally to get out of a neighboring model's way. I wish all banners were like that. But I also understand the challenge and rewards of hand painting your own banner. I thought about doing that for my other unit. Maybe some other time.

I have one more "core unit" for the Twilight Kin force and that is 20 crossbowmen.  From there I can work on specialty units. Up next immediately are 4 witch elf replacements for the old school witch elves I have. Then I'll paint up two characters to lead the army. After that I'll probably move on to a different project for a while.