Another quick update folks.

Basically just plugging away still. Have now base-coated, washed and re-layered all the skin on these models and I'm now working through doing the armour trim. I've actually had a bit of a wobble over whether I should change the colour to something else, gold perhaps. I had actually planned to do my characters (and Dragon Princes) with gold trim rather than red but I'm thinking I might need to do a test model or two.

It's probably best to take a look at this now rather than after I've painted up this batch of models so I don't end up painting the trim on the current 60-ish I'm working on only to end up having to redo them, although it does mean I'll also have to redo the Archers I thought I was done with plus the Spearmen I was working on before Christmas if I do decide to change. Additionally, my metal White Lions, which I'm planning to sell once I've got my plastics built and painted, will stick out like a sore thumb if I do go the gold route as other than some basic retouching for tournaments I'm not planning on doing any more work on them. I'm planning to paint up a test model as well has having a quick look around on Cool Mini Or Not and Ulthuan.net to see if anything there grabs my eye.

I had hoped that the new order in which I'm painting my models would limit the amount of touching up that would need doing after the fact. Unfortunately, thanks to my cackhandedness when painting, it doesn't look like this will be the case and in fact I may come to regret having done shade and highlight on the Sword Masters' blue cloth before doing the armour trim judging by the number of times I've accidentally painted grey back over the top of the cloth.

Aside from painting, this Monday was the first roll out of the list I'm currently planning on taking to Summer Incursion this year. I thought I'd better start practicing with it now as I'm probably only going to get about 6 games in with it between now and the tournament, although with there being strong rumours of a new High Elf book in April or May I may find myself having to change the list to stay legal. Hopefully the worst that happens with the units I'm currently using is that they get a bit cheaper so I have the pleasure of finding myself with extra points to spend, although I doubt I'd have time to paint up any new units.

In any case, the list is mostly similar to what I've been running for my double Level 4 on the same lore experiments only I've dropped the Level 1 support Mage which gave me an extra 150 or so points free which I've used to boost the numbers in my White Lions. Annoyingly I now can't seem to find all my painted White Lion models to fill out the unit - I know I've definitely got enough painted as I've run a bigger unit at the Mansfield Maul in 2010. I've also changed the setup of my Archer units slightly. I had had three units of 17 with standard and musician (a relic of my intended list for No Holes Barred until I ended up not being able to go) but have now changed this to a unit of 21 with standard and musician and three units of 10 with musician. The overall number of Archers remains the same but the idea is that I can use the smaller units as chaff drops and sacrificial units if need be.

The other big worry, thinking about there being a new High Elf book, is if none of the model costs change (or for some reason get more expensive) as the 10 point command group costs in 8th edition would put this list over 2400 points.

Anyway, I got off to a good start with an emphatic win against Empire, although my opponent wasn't running the sort of list I'd expect to see in a competitive environment. He had no Demigryhs, no cannons, no Wizards (but three Warrior Priests plus a Waltar for plenty of Prayers and channelling attempts), did have a unit of Reiksguard Knights, unit of Inner Circle Knights and a big unit of regular Knights plus a Stank, BSB on horse, Captain on horse, unit of Handgunners, a unit of Outriders and a Hellblaster. Also he's been playing Malifaux for a few months, as a number of the formerly regular Warhammer players at the club have been, so he was a bit rusty on his rules.

Anyway, it was one of those games where the dice seem to favour one side over the other and for a change it was me the dice were favouring. I think my L4 on Metal miscast 3 turns out of 5, as well as my L4 Shadow doing so on turn 5 with the only spell he cast all game. I kept wishing I'd gone for the boosted Searing Doom when casting it as first turn I cast it on a 24 (and then I think it did around 1 or 2 wounds) then miscast when casting it the next two times. I Rusted the Reiksguard a couple of times and stuck an Eagle in front of them to slow them up and force a charge or keep them out of the game for a couple of turns - they charged the Eagle and tried for the overrun into the Sword Masters on that flank but failed and then couldn't stand up to the Sword Masters when they got charged with having to make armour saves on 5+.

On the other flank my other Eagle ate the Outriders who had vanguarded up and overran to where it was blocking the large unit of ordinary Knights who didn't charge it at the first opportunity but instead tried to go round, so the Eagle then flew back to where it was going to stop any forward movement at all unless they charged it to kill it (the Handgunners in the nearby tower weren't the pick of the sharpshooting crop and only took a wound off it when they had the chance while the Stank Commander pinged off another).

I think I got Searing Doom or Golden Hounds off on the Stank, doing several wounds to it an meaning my opponent couldn't risk putting more than a couple of steam points on it. The Sword Masters on the left ended up fleeing from his War Altar due to a failed terror test and the Waltar then went into my large White Lion block - unfortunately for the Arch Lector the Inner Circle knights who were supposed to accompany him failed their charge so the White Lions chopped the Lector off his wagon in that round and then finished off the Altar in the next.

The Sword Masters on the right charged the large block of Knights and aided first by an earlier casting on the Knights of Plague of Rust and then in the third (I think) round of Enchanted Blades on the Sword Masters, the Knights were chopped down, panicking the Handgunners.

My L4 with metal wiped out the Inner Circle Knights, who had already taken a couple of casualties from bowfire, leaving just a Warrior Priest and the BSB. The Warrior Priest got shot down by bowfire and the BSB decided to make a tactical withdrawal to behind the Stank, which currently had a unit of White Lions slowly poking holes in it, but his re-rolls couldn't save the Handgunners when they panicked after the large unit of Knights were killed.

My opponent conceded at the end of my turn 5 as at that point all he had left was the BSB, a unit of fleeing Handgunners and a Stank on 2 wounds. All I'd lost were the two Eagles, although my Metal L4 had taken a couple of wounds to miscast results, my L4 Shadow had also taken a wound from miscast results and lost The Withering when he miscast when casting it. The Sword Masters on the right had taken a bit of a pounding from the Knights (unfortunately I didn't manage to kill the Warrior Priest in that unit so the Priest, Knights and Horses all got re-rolls) but there were still about five or six left in the unit.

The only downside of the game was that I realised the Island of Blood Sword Masters I've been filling out my metal Sword Master units with need a lot more work on them than I'd realised - it basically looks like I've only basecoated them so they're in need of washes, shades and highlights.

So, painted my test model with gold instead of red trim but decided the trim blended into the bits out front of the lower armour too much so I'm sticking with red.

Managed to find the extra White Lions I was looking for (turns out they were in a box I'd been meaning to use to store my Warhammerr stuff in but hadn't thought to look in because it was on the wrong shelf and so I assumed it was still empty). Also found my Korhil model which I was planning to use as my Prince at Spring Incursion but it turns out he's nowhere near as painted as I thought he was so I may have to use a different model that doesn't quite fit the the gear he'll be running.

Aside from carrying on with painting at work, today I decided to draw up a list of painting steps for my models so I could figure out how much I have left to do, both on the main batch I'm painting at work but also the ones I've been using that had been part painted. While it's definitely going to help in making sure they're all painted up the same level it also made me realise how much work is left to do on both sets and how much needs doing from start to finish (currenly I've got 46 steps plus the generic "Cleanup" step which is likely to involve bits of all of them).

46 steps... I can't help but feel you're massively over complicating your painting aproach! I've not worked on any HE but was doing some DE crossbows&spears relatively recently which I'd guess are similar in many ways.

My steps for a basic model:
1. Undercoat/Primer (white)
2. Basecoat spray (chainmail)
3. fabric (pink)
4. leather straps, wood of spears and xbows
5. Face & hands
6. Highlight fabric
7. Wash metals (drakenhoff nightshade)
8. Wash fabric (caromburg crimson)
9. Wash flesh & wood/leather
10. Bronze/gold metals picked out
11. highlight to silver metals
12. Base - a. paint brown b. flock c. static grass/flowers d. black rim.

So 16 steps for a fully painted and based model.

46 might sound a lot but some of those are repeat layers where I know I need to do a layer more than once to get good coverage with the paint. The complexity of the model varies the number of steps - for example when I chop out the steps I don't need to do for my Archers there's only 28 steps.

So, we're at the end of March, how's progress?

Well I've been getting more done on the Sword Masters although I've not got as much painting done at work as I'd have liked (due to year end performance figures needing to be sorted I've not actually taken a lunch break for about three or four days over the past couple of weeks). At the present pace I've realised I probably won't have time to paint up both the Sword Masters and Archers in time for the Summer Incursion. This means I need to concentrate on the Archers and some quick bits on the newer Sword Masters I've got that are all pretty much done, as, if push comes to shove, I've got enough models to cover the number needed in my current list whereas for the last few months I've been proxying Spearmen for the Archers currently on my paint table.

The only other painting I've been working in is Korhil who I'm using as a Prince for the Spring Incursion next weekend. He's not at finished standard, and there's a bit of work I need to do before next week, but I'm reasonably pleased with how he's looking so far.

Quick update time folks.

In the end I fortunately didn't have a massive amount of touching up to do to any of the models I was taking to Spring Incursion, just a few plumes on the White Lions (and even then one of them managed to get chipped between home and the tournament), so I was able to carry on with my regular painting of my current planned 2400 point list.

Needless to say, Maunsfeld going into liquidation means I'm currently not working towards any particular deadline now. Summer Incursion was going to be my next event but even assuming Maunsfeld does get sold on to someone who wants to run it as a gaming venue the chances are they may well be starting from scratch with their own tournament formats or just letting third parties run events there. Assuming it doesn't remain a gaming venue once bought out that means I'm going to have to start looking further afield for two-day tournaments, which is going to make it even harder for me to manage to get in the four events I was hoping to go to this year as I'll definitely need to stay overnight and probably head off on Friday nights rather than Saturday mornings.

When you factor in the new High Elf book next month and the fact that I'll probably need some of the new models to be field a vaguely competitive army (if I ever figure out what one looks like...) at the moment I'm thinking I'm probably only going to be doing some one day events.

Anyway, while I'm planning to crack on and finish these Archers, I may have a brief break once I'm done with them to try and get some more work done on my scenery. As it stands at the moment, my Watchtower just needs undercoating (still trying to decide whether to put it on some sort of base or not), my Arcane Ruin needs some work doing so I can magnetise the columns for ease of positioning units on it, and I need to finish constructing my Dreadstone Blight, which I should be able to get on with now that I've got the new clamp which will allow me to hold my brass rod in place for cutting.

As a side note on the Archers, I was planning on doing two different colour schemes for their hair but having done the alternate one on the current batch I'm working on I'm not overly sure about it and am in two minds whether to just do it the same as the others or to experiment a bit more to find something I'm happy with.

For those of you who are interested, I should hopefully have the Spring Incursion battle reports posted by next weekend (keep an eye out on the Battle Reports section of the forum)

I tended to mix my hair colours up a bit on my dwarfs as it was a bit more dominant on the model but for my WE the hair was generally not significant on the archers so I ended up doing them all the same. Basically it comes down to whether you think the effect will be noticable and whether it actually adds something to the unit.

As for the new book GW have generally been pretty good about not totally ruining current units in armies, though 90 bloodletter daemons players may suggest otherwise, so I'd have thought you'd still be ok running your current build whilst you add on a few new units to give you the new stuff to play with.

What I might try on a couple of models is using a different wash - at present I'm using Ogryn Flesh (I think), following a GW painting guide for Island of Blood, but I could try some Devlan Mud instead. I'm not necessarily looking for a drastic difference in hair colour, just so long as it doesn't look like they're an army of clones.

With regard to the new book my main concern is the rumours that Speed of Asuryan is going. While Sword Masters and White Lions are rumoured to still be striking in initiative order, without the re-rolls I just don't see them being that effective any more. As it stands at the moment these two units epitomise the glass hammer-ness of the High Elves but that's down to the re-rolls. Without re-rolls you've just got glass.

Hobby time update once more.

Well, actually, not much of an update. Been doing more work on the Archers although as I've been doing different bits on them at home than at work, and not having done masses at home, they're current in a mixed state of completion, with some having had their armour done and some not.

Obviously the big thing that's happened since the last update is that thew new book is out - I've posted up my initial thoughts on the new High Elf book on my website but basically I think the book has gotten weaker - for every gain there is, on closer inspection, a loss that outweighs it.

Unfortunately I've not been able to get a game in with the new book just yet (I was due to have a game at the club on Monday but due to the weather and a bit of a mix-up I ended up not having an opponent). At the moment my list has basically just got bumped up unit sizes and a unit of Ellyrian Reavers to fill out the points now spare from points drops or magic items no longer available and the only new unit I've got in is a Loremaster of Hoeth who's replaced one of my Level 4s. While I do want to try out the Frostheart Phoenix I'm wary of running any of the new units at the moment in case I end up wanting to run them in tournaments as I just don't have the funds to buy any of the new kits to add into my army right now (not to mention the already quite substantial painting pile I have to work through)

Monthly update time once more folks.

I've actually had a bit of a hobby splurge this month, managing to get a fair bit done at home. Not only have I got the first armour pass done on my Archers I'm also three-quarters done on my Sword Masters' armour first pass too. (Unfortunately I couldn't be arsed to put them all together for an update photo so apologies for there not being one)

In addition I've also found time to undercoat my Watchtower and have gotten around to doing some more construction work on the Dreadstone Blight (which will hopefully give me hobby points with the wife since she bought them for me and they've not had much progress since I've been building them). Unfortunately the construction of the Blight has given me a few problems, in particular the first floor floor. which doesn't have any proper contact points (or at least mine doesn't the way it has come out of the mould). Quite why GW didn't sculpt the kit with post holes and the floors with beams to glue into I don't know. Anyway, I've had to glue the floor twice now and I'm still not sure the smaller part will stick properly.

A couple of work in progress photos below

Work in progress Dreadstone Blight on the table



Held up in front of the window to show some of the gaps that need greenstuffing.




So far with the new High Elves I've played two games at 1600 points, losing one and drawing one, and one at 2400 which I won against a comparatively inexperienced Empire player (who was running Karl Franz on Deathclaw)