Warhammer Dark Elf army

Welcome to another post!

Apologies for another lengthy delay since the last. I'm currently separated by international borders from any hobby equipment as I've recently moved to Spain and haven't brought any of my stuff over yet. Sadly other things had to be prioritised...

Nonetheless, I did take some photos a while back which I haven't had the opportunity to post yet. I have showed you pictures of my Khemri and Von Carstein armies and now it is time to show some pictures of my oldest Warhammer army, my Dark Elves!

So where to begin on this walk down memory lane. I suppose the beginning is as good a place as any! When I first got into the hobby in the early nineties Dark Elves were my passions almost straight away. I remember the plastic one pose warriors, rakarth on his dragon, male sorcerers (before the fluff changed) and so much more. I must have had at least one of most things. All of that old school stuff has since been traded or sold over  the years. The models in this post are from when Dark Elves got a much needed reboot and some fantastic sculpts. Onwards to more photos and I will elaborate more on the way.



The army pictured above is only a small portion of what my total force was. It happened to be all in the same case that I stumbled upon. There were also a lot of crossbowmen, more bolt throwers, Malekith, lots more knights a cauldron of blood... Where all of those models are now is anyone's guess!

The models pictured would have been painted by me approximately 14 years ago I think. My Dark Elves, or smurfs as they were known due to their blue tinged skin, saw a lot of action and were generally very shooting heavy, however towards the end of my time with them I branched out somewhat in favour of lots of small hard hitting combat units.



Here we have a few Witch Elves and an Assassin. There were lots more of these girls and I used to run them in only 2 ranks with a very wide frontage to get maximum attacks. The new plastic models are fantastic but I still think for their time these models were very impressive.

The purple that you see if I remember correctly is broadly speaking liche purple with
various highlights and washes added. The skin was always based on space wolves grey.



Here we have  small unit of corsairs led by none other than Malus Darkblade himself! This unit I entered in Golden Demon (around 2001/2 I think) set on a nice display base with a couple of slaves lying about (the dark eldar ones from Vects raider). I placed as a finalist and received an invite to warhammer world where I got a tour of the factory! Those were the days.

The pictures sadly don't do them justice as even today they look very nice. It makes me think though how much the standard of painting has improved over the years as I can't imagine them getting anywhere near the finals now!



Here we have a unit of spearmen, who I understand are now called Dreadspears. These guys were once again revolutionary at the time with the ability to have the front rank with their spears pointing forwards in the shield nook, with those following having their spears at various angles. It was a great plastic kit for its time. I'm unsure yet how I feel about the new plastic kits being rather more 2 dimensional and less poseable, however I imagine it makes ranking and painting a lot easier!

Behind you will see a few cold one knights on the prowl. My favourite cavalry in the warhammer world without a doubt!



A couple of twin sorceresses converted from beastmasters. Even then magic was very powerful and I liked to run lots of wizards in the army to overwhelm my opponents. These models were some of my first attempts at greenstuffing.



You can see the host of Naggaroth advancing behind these two menacing fellows...



and here they are brought into focus! Sadly only two of them, but here are the Black Guard! Once again I think these sculpts are beautiful. I loved the models but sadly they suffered the curse of being made of metal and therefore very expensive. For some reason I never managed to finish painting a whole unit of these guys. The two pictured would have been painted shortly after the corsairs which explains the move from black to silver armour.



To finish off a photo of the limited edition Malus on foot sculpt.

I've still got a real soft spot for Dark Elves and all this end-times excitement is pushing me ever closer to starting a new dark elf army. It is proving harder and harder to resist ordering a few boxes of the lovely new models...

Thank you all for taking the time read through this. So, what do you think? Is it about time I made a return to the old world for the end times?

Finished Praetorian Taurox

Finished! That's right finished. I can't remember the last models I finished painting but finally we have two new additions to the army, a Taurox and a Taurox Prime!

This post will be very light in terms of words as I will let you (hopefully!) enjoy a load of photos. Any questions just post a comment. 

Thanks for having a look!

Praetorian Taurox painting update

Hey everyone

Enough necromantic activities for the moment, it's time to get back to the glorious IV mechanised infantry!

I've been getting busy with a pair of Taurox and am now tantalizingly close to finishing them. Last bits that need doing are the black and the red lenses and gems. After that there will be limited free hand (notably writing Praetorian IV somewhere, not sure what else, ideas very welcome!!) and then weathering with paint chips, socrch marks and finally with a sponge.

Have a look at the photos and let me know what you think.

Above here is the Prime.The red and white livery is in keeping with all the support elements in the army and it is intended that this transport will be for the new highland scions.



The regular Taurox is red and green and will be the transport for the light infantry of the 1st infantry platoon.



I've used the Scions plates for both Taurox (the side lion) and also on the Prime I have used the front plate with the Scions part filed away. I might write something there but I'm not sure.



A better photo of the side plate. My tanks have lots of lions on them so it made sense to use the special scions plates.

That's your lot for the moment, thanks for taking them time to have a look. Hopefully the next post will be titled "finished Praetorian Taurox...."

Thanks!

Warhammer - Tomb Kings

Hello everyone, as promised we have the next post showcasing some more more of my rediscovered Warhammer collection!

In this post we will have a look at my Tomb Kings of Khemri. The army was started when the Tomb Kings first came out in what the internet informs was 2002. This means this army is about 11-12 years old.

At the time I pretty much only played Dark Elves (I was and guess still am very mono army when it comes to collecting!) in fantasy so it was my first proper experience of using a different army. I got them all as new releases hot off the press and painted them up in record time, having them live for their first few months in the GW display cabinets down in Poole.

If I remember correctly the army was finished in several months and saw action in a few games to moderate success. The only part of the army which is missing is a casket of souls. It was the centrepiece of the army but its use was short lived. Back in circa 03/04 (if I remember correctly) I left it behind at my local GW and when I came back to collect it... it had disappeared never to be seen again.

So without further ado, here is the army!



In the army we have a unit of skeleton warriors, some horsemen, a liche priest, tomb swarms, ushabti, charioteers and the Tomb King and a Tomb Prince with the battle standard.

I went for a very simply unifying colour scheme for the army. Blades were silver but any other metal was painted gold, a bronze (brazen brass perhaps) base, a predominantly shining gold colour with flesh wash and highlights with mithral silver (ah the good old paints!)



The Ushabti are fantastic models and in my opinion still the best ones in the Tomb King range. They have so much character and really scream Tomb Kings for me. I'm not sure if the fluff has always been as it is now, but I love the image of them being the Tomb Kings bodyguard in life and then becoming this in death. I always thought they were statues came to life back in the day!



The heads of the ushabti portray various Khemri gods. Cac't recall which are which though!



The other main colour in the army is the white. It would have been glorious and bright back when they were all living, however now the colour is faded and dirty with age. The skeleton swordsmen all have the Khemrian helmets and the swords. If I recall correctly you didn't get many in the box so I had to borrow them from wherever I could!



Here we see the Prince and the King in all their splendour. The gems are all bright blue and red often in alternating sequence. Sadly the photos don't do them justice but they look wonderfully shiny in the flesh!



The bone in the army is painted to be bleached by the Khemrian sun. No drybrushing, everything was highlighted by hand (it probably drove me mad).





Here we have the tombswarms, another model for me which have so much character and importantly... are very easy to paint! A little bit of blue black highlighting and they are pretty much done!



Here we have the Liche Priest with lots of red in his armour and weapons to signify his seniority. I always felt the Liche Priest models were some of the weaker ones in the Tomb Kings range. I'm not sure if they had different sculptors to the Tomb King models, however the casket of souls priest was much better.



A close up photos of the skeleton light horsemen. On the banners hanging from the icon I made an attempt at some Khemrian hieroglyphics.





A close up of the skeleton warriors. They were one thing really lacking in my army, I only managed to paint 17 of them and clearly got a bit fed up of painting all the bone!





The combined Von Carstein and Khemrian army! Perhaps they need a Nagash to lead them...



I couldn't resist adding a quick Praetorian photo at the end. I've been getting to work on a couple of Taurox and am very much liking how they are progressing.

The Prime will be for the new highland scions while the regular Taurox will be for another squad in a platoon, as such it will have red and green on the squad colours (to match the chimeras).

I'll get back to some more Praetorian posting soon, but still to come there are some Dark Elves, a few Bretonians and a Battle Fleet Gothic fleet...

Thanks for reading, as always comments very welcome!

Warhammer - Von Carstein Undead

Don't worry, your eyes don't deceive you, this really is another post only 11 days after the last! I remember the good old days when they'd be every couple of days. Ah well, what can you do!

Anyway, this post is going to be the first of several slightly different posts looking at other models in my warhammer collection. In particular models from a good 10 years+ ago.

This post will be about a converted Von Carstein Vampire Counts army I started putting together almost 12 years ago when I was about 16 (if I remember correctly I had glandular fever at the time and a lot of time on my hands). They were a project I embarked upon as I was starting to lose interest in the hobby, consequently the army was never properly finished or expanded and never saw the field of battle in anger.

The thing I enjoyed the most about the Von Carstein vampire blood line was that essentially there still Empire. The nobles had all turned to vampirism and their soldiers were forced to fight in life and then subsequently in death! As such I wanted the army with the uniforms and colours to have a real Empire feel to it.

The army was led by Manfred Von Carstein. The model pictured is such a fantastic model, capturing the nobility of the fallen lord in the more classical Gothic vampire style. I'm not a fan of the new vampire models, aesthetically they don't really do it for me. You become a vampire and all of a sudden everything you wear is super spikey and oversized? Sorry ain't buying it. I'm sure many will disagree, but this model hands down beats any of the newer ones.



Showing the army's age, at the time of construction you could have grave markers which you would use when summoning more minions. I used them as an opportunity to get creative with some left over bits.



You have the hanged zombie and another still crawling around the floor. I think they add a nice bit of character to the army though I don't know what you would use them for now.



The old black coach model is another classic. Still great looking and fits in perfectly with the aesthetic I was going for. Inside the back is a coffin with a powerful vampire inside. The coffin itself I'd painted in a dark marble with gold details.



For the infantry I had 20 zombies and 20 skeletons. The thinking as previously mentioned was that they were all alive Von Carstein infantry and so fight for their undead lords in death as they would have in life. Given this and that they haven't all been interred in the ground their uniforms etc are all still in reasonable shape.



The slightly newer members of the undead, the zombies. I viewed them as being more of a milita or peasant rabble pressed into service when the Empire and Dwarves etc came looking to end the Von Carstein line. Once again would have started off as human infantry before being pressed into service in death.



Another close up of the skeleton infantry. I've got to say I loved putting this army together at the time and I'm pretty sure I love it now. So much character and such a striking colour scheme. Not sure what I will do with it now though, it's currently sat in a box feeling sorry for itself. Perhaps the new Nagash book and the phenomenal model might persuade me to get back into fantasy, or perhaps ebay might come a calling. Who knows!

Now unless you have been pretty belligerent in looking at these photos you would have noticed some undead of a different variety lurking in the background... Watch out for the next post when their Khemrian cousins will be featured!

Thanks for reading, I'd love to hear your comments!