Then I picked up Dragon Rampant. It's a fairly simple game, you slot any model or background into it's basic troop types, with a limited amount of extra rules to stack on top. It's limited in that way, but personally I find games like that to be somehow freeing, too. All the mathhammer, power creep and rules bloat are what put me off Warhammer, and the generic rules and small warband size of Dragon Rampant sent all kinds of background and modelling ideas spinning through my head.
Two of them - just two! - involved high elves, and that's what I decided to start with. One was to explore Avelorn and the guards of the Everqueen, aspects of the fluff that seemed to have been a bit neglected in the game. The second was Chrace, with white lions being apparently based on the axe-armed Sindar pouring out of the forests of Brethil, in the Sil. Also because of a visit to the British Museum during one London trip to Salute, where the Assyrian reliefs depicting royal lion hunts made a bit of an impression on me.
I had started hoarding boxes and bits for these projects, but a few years ago I dipped out of wargaming altogether and they didn't go anywhere. I've only recently blown the dust off some boxes to have another go. Not a significant part of the story, except that waiting patiently for new spearmen models and neglecting to actually buy very many white lions, kind of backfired on me in the meantime. I've had to move a few aspects of my plans about a little. A bit more on that further down.
So I've started and stalled again already. I don't have much to show off in this first post but I want to try to motivate myself somehow. The first are these six almost-done sisters of Avelorn, which might show why I ran out of steam so soon.
I put in so much work on these because I'm fond of more toned-down fantasy. The ladies will be a six-strong scout unit for Dragon Rampant, so I wanted to remove just a bit of that plate and scale. Also to take away those flaming bows and replace them with glade guard bits. (They fit fairly nicely into the sister wrists, although I reinforced them with a plastic rod pin and a bit of a putty fill) And to introduce a bit more individuality into them.
The metal head is a Statuesque 'large heroic' female head, IIRC, which fits quite well with the original sister heads with a few tweaks about the cheeks and chin. Worst bit is sculpting hair on, and that big braid almost broke me.
The head on #6 is from wood elf eternal guard, with the crest cut down. This is what I planned to use for maiden guard conversions, with phoenix guard bodies and white lion legs. The legs are now going back to the handful of other white lion bits I have, to try and cobble together at least one unit of white lions. (12-strong unit of 'bellicose foot') The new plan is for lumineth spears to stand in for MG. These'll be like the rest of my elf units, with nowhere near as much putty work as the sisters!
Now, can anyone tell me why that eternal guard head fits better with the sisters models, than the heads they actually came with?
Here's a test spearman, started a few years ago. I gathered enough of these IoB minis for two 12-strong units, and I was going to divvy them up between Avelorn and Chrace. This one was going to be part of the levy of Avelorn, with a shield design nicked from the High Elves Uniforms and Heraldry book. I was hoping for new generic spearmen because of the work of scraping down those shields, as well as snipping off and covering up all the other Lothern details.
I still consider this to be less work than the sisters! I think it'll also be less work than freehand-painting the shields, where I'm involved. For me it's easier to scrape back putty than paint, when my hand decides to wander.
Anyway, with no new Ulthuan elves on the horizon, these 24 minis will go to be Chracian levy, as 'light foot' with the mixed weapons rule. (I.e. spears and bows) The Avelorn warband will be entirely maiden guard. I don't think a Dragon Rampant army will come close to the 100-woman limit on that.
