Elves Rampant - Avelorn and Chrace skirmish log

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Vermis
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Elves Rampant - Avelorn and Chrace skirmish log

#1 Post by Vermis »

First, the talky bit.

Hello all! I'm new here on Ulthuan.net, although I've followed Warhammer for years, since sometime during 6th ed. I started off with lizardmen, skaven, and ogre kingdoms (I have a thing for monsters) but after a while I decided WFB wasn't the game for me - especially after introduction to the mass battle games among GW's Specialist Games.
But you never really quit Warhammer cold turkey. I still loved the background and kept up with most of it. Reading the Silmarillion in the meantime also gave me a greater appreciation for elves, and I gathered a few Warmaster high elf units from ebay. Maybe I'll start another log for those, but right now...
I've looked at other, compatible fantasy rulesets since quitting WFB and after a while Dragon Rampant fell into my lap. I can understand why some might not like the generic, abstract rules and units in the game, but for me the small force size and ability to use any minis opens it right up for all sorts of ideas and personalised armies. It revitalised my interest in GW's 28mm minis, and the nooks and crannies of the Warhammer world, even as GW was preparing to burn it all down.

I can't even remember some if the initial army ideas I had, but the two main ones involved high elves. I was always a bit bothered than generic high elf armies, especially in the army books, tended to look like they plucked a dozen or two warriors from each province of Ulthuan and mashed them together. While I know that isn't a hard and fast rule among gamers, I wanted to see if I could build a couple of retinues from specific provinces, myself.

Firstly, Avelorn. It's the part of the Warhammer world that seems closest in feel to the forest kingdoms of Middle-Earth - especially Doriath - without going full 'Deliverance' like Athel Loren. Also, one of the few instances of female warriors in Warhammer. Can I turn a couple of units of those - one OOP - into an entire small army? It'd be something to try.

Secondly, Chrace. Again, there's a bit of a Middle-Earth connection with the axe-armed elves of Brethil. I also like the idea of a haughty lord riding out to hunt with his retinue, like Maedhros and his brothers in the east of Beleriand.

I haven't too many models built yet, although I could've put the kids of some online bits-sellers through school. So I'll have to beg patience for now. But with a little encouragement, and reference to the 7th ed army book, Uniforms and Heraldry of the High Elves, and Gray's excellent Avelorn army here, I'd like to describe some of the ideas I have.

For Avelorn:

Dragon Rampant's historical forerunner, Lion Rampant, is described as a game of retinues, and for Avelorn that suggests one leader above all: Alarielle the Everqueen.
I quite like the second version of the Alarielle mini. (not so much the current half-tree beetle-rider. S'alright but not what I'm looking for) It's hard to get a metal cast, though. I managed to get a finecast copy off ebay, but it reacted with the paint stripper I use and went... limp. Weird. The headdress, staff and flowing robes are similar to the mage from IoB/Spire of Dawn - I wonder if some heavy conversion is in order.

Also, I can't accept that the queen of the elves is forced to travel and fight on foot. I may give her a chariot, Boudicca-style, although it's a big points sink for Dragon Rampant. (Heavy riders + chariot and spellcaster rules) That or a nice horse. (Light riders + spellcaster) 'Spellcaster' could be whittled down to 'wizardling', giving her just a few buff or defensive spells from the list.

After that, she'll need her maiden guard. They're mentioned in the fluff as a 100-strong regiment. That's about two to three times the size of a Dragon Rampant force! It'll also be a bit boring if all the units are the same. The 7th ed army book describes the maiden guard as 'schooled in the arts of war till they equal or exceed even the greatest Elven knights with spear and bow'. I'll say that gives me license to split them up into my initial ideas: infantry, cavalry and archers.
In Dragon Rampant, riders and basic foot share three historically-based tiers: elite, heavy and light. Maiden guard will occupy that top elite bracket, I think.

Maiden guard: elite foot. I don't think they need many other rules tacked on.

Models: Gray has an impressive block of the original metal minis here, but I've seen how much they go for on ebay. That option's out! Also, even the more recent handmaiden mini shares a certain foible: they show quite a bit of skin among a fairly heavily armoured army. Not quite chainmail bikini levels, but noticeable.
So I need a conversion, and I'd settled on phoenix guard torsos, cloaks and halberds; white lion legs; and wood elf eternal guard heads, plus modifications. I've fitted the parts together, and the combination isn't altogether bad.

Maiden guard knights: elite riders. Level headed to remove the wild charge rule: they're bodyguards, not about to go haring off. Conversions using the same eternal guard + phoenix guard bits, with lances or spears. Horses are tricky. I'd like to use the IoB reaver horses (about as heavily armoured as old silver helms horses) but that's an awful lot of cutting. Another option is to up-armour chariot horses. I don't want to use dragon prince horses if I can help it.

Maiden guard archers: scouts, possibly with enchanted weapons. Gray's fantastic Avelorn rangers made me think twice, to perhaps make some of my own and put maiden guard archers as light archers. Although I do want to keep the hunting theme for Chrace.
Models: sisters of Avelorn, of course! With some tweaks and modifications. Most notably those flaming bows. Fortunately glade guard hands and bows fill the gap nicely.

More basic troops would include the old standbys of spearmen and archers. With the sheer amount of armour and shields that high elf spearmen have, they could only count as heavy foot in Dragon Rampant. I'll use sea guard minis, although the bows will niggle me. Too much to cut out, I think. Should be easier to shave off the Lothern imagery and 'feminise' some of the features.

Archers... I'm still annoyed that GW never updated these before AoS! Alternate minis from other manufacturers don't quite fit my fussy standard, so while I'm waiting to see what 'aelf' archers look like, I might have to chop up some old WFB archers and get kitbashing. Good thing the unit size is only 12, and that Statuesque Miniatures exists.
Counts as light archers with sharpshooter. Natch!

Greater or lesser warbeasts: sky's the limit when it comes to Avelorn, right? Especially with great eagles or a phoenix. Gray's hounds are also a good idea. But I'm thinking 'treeman'.

Other inspirations from Gray: silver helms and court champions. (in the same post as his maiden guard) Both easily put under the same banner of brash young nobles out to make a name for themselves. I'd like to show them as just a unit of silver helms, and might follow Gray's example to make them look up-to-date. But should they show Avelorn livery, or something other? The 7th ed book is clear about nobles flocking from all over Ulthuan to join the Everqueen's court. It'd break with the overall look of the retinue, but it could be an interesting diversion.
Rulewise, heavy riders (not as good as maiden knights, dragon princes etc.) but given the wild charge rule. They will go haring off.

Also, Gray's loremaster is making cogs spin.

That's it for the Avelorn plans, so far. Sorry for the block of text and no pics (and congrats if you made it this far), but hopefully I'll make up for that. :)
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Re: Elves Rampant - Avelorn and Chrace skirmish log

#2 Post by Shannar, Sealord »

Archers... I'm still annoyed that GW never updated these before AoS! Alternate minis from other manufacturers don't quite fit my fussy standard, so while I'm waiting to see what 'aelf' archers look like, I might have to chop up some old WFB archers and get kitbashing. Good thing the unit size is only 12, and that Statuesque Miniatures exists.
Counts as light archers with sharpshooter. Natch!
Get some of the metal unarmored archers from 5th edition. They are fantastic.
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Re: Elves Rampant - Avelorn and Chrace skirmish log

#3 Post by Prince of Spires »

+1 on the metal unarmoured archers. They are amazing models (if you can find them). And since they're not as "famous" as either the metal lothern sea guard or the metal maiden guard they go fairly cheap on ebay. For an idea of what they look like, check this post in my plog.

A note on the maiden guard, don't give up on them just yet. They usually go for ridiculous prices (same for the metal everqueen). But every now and then you come across a fairly cheap batch on ebay. You need a bit of luck, a job lot which includes a bunch of them or a seller who doesn't really know what he's selling and just wants to get rid of them.

I'm looking forward to any pictures you'll have. Don't worry too much about the time it will take before you have a decent army painted to a decent standard. I've been busy collecting and painting 8 years or so and I still think I need more models. And it took me at least half that time before I had an army I liked fielding without any proxies in it.

Rod
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Re: Elves Rampant - Avelorn and Chrace skirmish log

#4 Post by Aerendar Valandil »

Great that you try other rulesets. I have DR as well, although I haven't played it yet, I might sometime this year. Im have been painting and collecting HE (and quite a few other armys and periods) for a very long time, I play Wh not very often, once a year at best. I do use the models for other games at the club though Frostgrave and even SAGA onze. I have picked up Song of Blades and Heroes (as well as the Advanced version) for skirmish-type play. It's a nice, interesting game and with less than a tenner very cheap.
Vermis
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Re: Elves Rampant - Avelorn and Chrace skirmish log

#5 Post by Vermis »

Shannar, Sealord wrote:Get some of the metal unarmored archers from 5th edition. They are fantastic.
Prince of Spires wrote:+1 on the metal unarmoured archers. They are amazing models (if you can find them).
Aye, there's the rub! I've looked long and hard at the 5th ed metals, and for them. (I like Gary Morley's versions better than Jes Goodwin's, which surprised me.) In my experience they seem to be almost as rare as maiden guard, and not a lot cheaper. Right now on ebay there's one armoured version going for £5... :?
Aerendar Valandil wrote:I have picked up Song of Blades and Heroes (as well as the Advanced version) for skirmish-type play. It's a nice, interesting game and with less than a tenner very cheap.
ASoBaH dropped through my letterbox yesterday. :mrgreen: The working plan is to use these models for three levels of games: small 'gang' skirmish with ASoBaH; large skirmish with Dragon Rampant; and mass battles if both retinues together are large enough.
I've heard a lot of good things about Frostgrave and Saga, and Frostgrave's scenario sounds interesting to me, but I think I've got enough to work on for the moment!

Here are a couple of pics to show where I am right now.

Image

Testing a solution to the aging spearmen problem: sculpting a new bottom half in place of the wide skirts and big feet. It'd probably be a lot easier if I stuck with basic cloth, but the amount of work involved - not to mention replacing the giant hands and spears - made me stick with IoB sea guard.

Image

Sticky-tacked mockup of the maiden guard conversion I'm thinking of. Imagine that she has a phoenix guard halberd too. I'll probably trim back the shoulder guards, maybe nick the axe blade off the halberd, and of course scrape back all the non-Avelorn details.

Image

Part-built sisters of Avelorn for the 6-strong scout unit. Told you the glade guard bows fit nicely! There are also a few tweaks and swaps to personalise them a bit.
For example, there's one of the Statuesque Miniatures heroic heads I mentioned elsewhere. I narrowed the nose and cheeks a little, and added putty to sharpen the cheekbones, chin, etc., but it was hardly necessary. I think they're so good, I'm going to use them for bare-headed archers, too. The lump of wire sticking out of the back of this head is an armature for a braid I hope to sculpt.
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Re: Elves Rampant - Avelorn and Chrace skirmish log

#6 Post by Prince of Spires »

They look pretty bad-ass :) A great start to an army. And I agree that sculpting a lot of details for rank and file models is usually not worth the effort. It's a lot of work for not that much gain. Though, it must be said, your sculpting looks great :)

As for the metal archers, £5 per model isn't that expensive (though it starts adding up if you need a lot of them, I agree). But already basic R&F models from GW start at £2.50 per model and up. And you can find them cheaper then £5, though it takes a bit of patience and keeping an eye on ebay. Generally, bigger groups of models are cheaper per model then the same model as single model. So while you can easily see some rarer single models (and even not so rare models to be honest) for £10-30 per model, you'll rarely see the a group of 10 of the same model go for £300. Instead, as the group becomes larger the price per model gravitates towards the £2.50 per model GW charges.

The best deals are of course the big army / random model lots. These tend to offer rare models on the cheap if you can find them. But again, it takes a bit of patience before one comes up. For instance, I once managed to pick up a set of 25-ish WH books containing a Mordheim rulebook (one of the more expensive books on ebay), for less then the Mordheim book would have cost if I had purchased it separately. Finding these deals is part of the fun of ebay shopping (and pretty much the only way I can convince my wife I need more rare models ;) )

Rod
For Nagarythe: Come to the dark side.
PS: Bring cookies!

Check out my plog
Painting progress, done/in progress/in box: 167/33/91

Check my writing blog for stories on the Prince of Spires and other pieces of fiction.
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Re: Elves Rampant - Avelorn and Chrace skirmish log

#7 Post by Shannar, Sealord »

On those unarmored archers, a couple years back I decided I needed all the sculpts (I only had 4 different ones and command before). I picked up a couple different lots at just over $1 an archer. Then I sold the extras for around $2 an archer. Just be patient. Good deals are out there if you are not in a hurry.
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Re: Elves Rampant - Avelorn and Chrace skirmish log

#8 Post by RE.Lee »

Great sculpting skills! =D>

I'm in the armoured archers camp - I have enough of the metal ones to add some variety but even the plastic clone warriors work for me.
cheers, Lee

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Re: Elves Rampant - Avelorn and Chrace skirmish log

#9 Post by Aerendar Valandil »

The 4th edition spears and bows work very well. I have them in plastic, big units of white with blue facings and smaller bow units, one with red facings and one dressed in green. If set up as big spear or archer unit, or combined bow+spear, they look very disciplined. And you know what is so nice? When well painted with acrylics and well varnished they are light and next to invulnerable in (public) transport.
Last edited by Aerendar Valandil on Thu Feb 02, 2017 10:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Elves Rampant - Avelorn and Chrace skirmish log

#10 Post by Shannar, Sealord »

RE.Lee wrote:Great sculpting skills! =D>

I'm in the armoured archers camp - I have enough of the metal ones to add some variety but even the plastic clone warriors work for me.
I like those models too, but the unarmored ones just seemed a better look for Avelorn/Charce.
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Re: Elves Rampant - Avelorn and Chrace skirmish log

#11 Post by RE.Lee »

Thats true :wink:
cheers, Lee

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