Skarloc and Pals

Let's start the Wood Elf army with an Oldhammer classic - the legendary Regiment of Renown: Skarloc's Wood Elf Archers!

Originally came with "runesword with runes of swiftness, armour and protection"
(whatever the hell that does).

"The Hooded One"

I got these as a random bundle of metals (it added up to 10 archers, hence the appeal for a neat little unit of archers), so I didn't get all the scouts, or the characters that came with it (this was back in 2nd Ed - a standard regiment came with a leader, wardancer champion, named musician and wizard - that's no less than five statlines for the unit). But I'm glad I picked up Skarloc himself - he was a cracking miniature to paint.

Same model, albeit one has a cut-down bow.

Sawn-off longbow: devastating at close range.

The colour scheme for these guys came as a surprise to me (which is odd, considering I was holding the brush at the time). Most of my existing Wood Elf colour scheme uses green, with a touch of yellow, and no red whatsoever.

Once I'd got the yellow on these models, I tried green hoods etc. but didn't find them too inspiring. Putting Vermin Fur on the hoods looked better, and started veering me towards an autumnal look for the archers.

With the added bonus of resembling the elf from Hawk the Slayer.

Recipe as follows:

• Hoods: Vermin Fur, Agrax Earthshade wash
• Tunic: Coat d'Arms Golden Yellow, Agrax Earthshade wash
• Sleeves: Tallern Sand, Agrax Earthshade wash
• Trousers: Leprous Brown, Agrax Earthshade wash
• Boots: Steel Legion Drab, Agrax Earthshade wash
• Belts: Balor Brown, Agrax Earthshade wash
• Bows: Spearstaff Brown/Tallern Sand

You may have noticed that practically everything on the model got washed with brown - I actually did this section by section, but it would probably have been easier to dip the damn models.

There are eight variant models, and I get four of these duplicates.

There are no osteopaths in Athel Loren

I keep trying out different methods of getting blonde hair on wood elves (which at least keeps it varied). For this lot, I put an Agrax Earthshade wash (of course!) directly onto the white undercoat, then drybrushed Golden Yellow over the top (followed by very light drybrushing of Ushabti Bone, to take the yellow edge off).

This one came with a shield nub. Normally, I'd have snipped this off, but I was caught up in the Oldhammer vibe and found a old shield with a hole in it.

I went with a leaf design - and even that proved a struggle for my freehand abilities.

Painting those buckles was a massive waste of time.

I quite like how the colour scheme turned out (although I'll have to wait and see how it works with the rest of the army - I may be representing all the seasons here), although I wish it had occurred to me before I did all the gold effects (which are really getting lost in all that yellow).

The musician model, even more than Skarloc, sold me on the unit. The Celtic war horn is very characterful (and bigger than he is).

Known as a 'Carnyx', in case you were wondering.

The old musicians had names: meet Araflane Warskald.

As an afterthought I grabbed an old Wood Elf spearmen (back when they were called 'Glade Guard') and converted him into a standard (greenstuffed the standard pole, High Elf spearmen banner and blade, Empire regiment wreath).

Being an 11th member of the unit, and a standard bearer to boot, he's probably as welcome as an Orlando Bloom cameo, but he rounds off the unit, and you never know when I'll need him.

I'm getting better at the freehand banner, but it's still less fun than painting eyes.

The plastic wreath was too rubbish to take an ink wash, so I had to hand-paint in the leaves.

And now we come to my personal favourite. This model was lobbed into the unit at the last minute to make up the numbers. From the look, it was obviously not part of Skarloc's range, but it was an oldmetal elf with a bow, so I thought I could keep him at the back.

Brings a sword to a bowfight. And a mandolin. And a rockin' hairdo.

That all changed once I started painting him. To begin with: his wargear includes a banjo.

He's not even the unit musician. It's just there for jamming around the campfire.

Secondly, there's his quiff-mullet-muttonchop combo. You don't really see that much facial hair on Wood Elves, but to me, the sideburns make him look distinctly Elvish.

Thankyouverymuch.

Not only that, I have since discovered that this model was 'Malmir the Elf' from the 1985 'Shadows Over Bogenhafen' set. This had me stoked.

Veteran WoffBooters may recall that my first foray into WFRP was playing an elf in the Bogenhafen campaign. Celeriac - played with such an ignorance of elf psychology that he ended his days sinking into the Reik, filled with crossbow bolts, having pledged his soul to Khorne.

Ahh Celeriac ... no-one missed you.

And if all that wasn't enough, he also resembles the sleazy villains of mid-90s coming-of-age cult teen movies:

Rex Manning!

We finally got there: the first unit of the rejuvenated Wood Elves come to fruition.

The Copper Beech kindred