Red Arrows

Jesus, Conrad! Same team!

 

The RAF website describes the famous Red Arrows as an aerobatic team. These guys can't fly, so they're merely an acrobatic display team. What more could you want from your sprightly light cavalry?

GW doesn't stock Ellyrian Reavers right now, presumably because no elf player would use them when you can get Doomfire Warlocks instead they're doing a new box set in the coming years. But what is an elf army without some super-bantam-weight fast cavalry?

 

Sword, spear and bow - surprisingly well armed for light cavalry, these chaps. Or just very indecisive about their battlefield role.

 

General Stylus knew General Palafox wouldn't want to find out the answer to that, so he did some appropriate conversions.

 

 

Using bodies and legs from (I think) the High Elf chariot sprue, horses from the same, a variety of Spearman and Archer limbs and sheer goddamn ingenuity, he's come up with this unit. A purist might grumble that the legs don't fit the horses perfectly.

 

Thigh muscles like suspension bridge cable, every one of them.

 

That purist can go to hell, I reckon. As superlative elven riders, these guys ought to be way up high in the saddle, ignoring their reins like a proper Hunnish horse archer. If not actually up on top of the horse and doing handstands, and oh boy, was I tempted to assemble the unit champion like that.

 

Look at him! Moments away from leaping off the horse and pirouetting on an orc's head, like any good Legolas!

 

Mostly, I stuck with the red and yellow theme for the elves. But I'm terrible for sticking to templates, so I started tweaking the colours a little. The yellow is mostly in the champagne palamino horses, and rather than the bright Golden Yellow I've used a lot previously, these have dustier, more muted tones. And the gemstones aren't the same blues as before, although I'm damned if I can really tell the difference.

 

Pamparaapamparapaaaam

 

The bases aren't (as with all this lot so far) finalised yet. They were old fashion slotta bases, with big slits in them. I tried to cover these with a sand and glue mix, but it didn't work. It's my usual method, but the mix kept slipping out for some reason. In the end, I plastered newspaper over the slots and then put the sand on top, and that worked so well, I'll do it again.

 

Painting Guide:

• Mostly the same as the previous High Elf units, so go and look at older posts if you're really consumed with curiosity
• Horseflesh - Kommando Khaki with a layer of 50-50 Zamesi Desert and White Scar, then White Scar socks and Rhinox Hide hooves
• Leather Barding - XV88, Agrax Earthshade
• Leather Armour - As above, but then Tau Light Ochre layering and Tyrant Skull drybrush
• Gems - Abaddon Black layered with Stegadon Scale Green, Temple Guard Blue and Skink Blue with the usual White Scar dots. So I was expecting it to be a bit more turquoise than the last lot, but it's really not much different. Weird.
• Wood - Steel Legion Drab, untreated
• Reds - Same as usual, but I used a bit of Scab Red for the darker bits to heighten contrast
• Fletching - Red, hence the title. Tenuous, I know

 

 

 

And that's not all!

 

Holy shit, those aren't horses at all! What were we thinking?

 

What a lovely model this is. I love chariots, they're pretty much my favourite kind of unit at the moment. This one has some of Warhammer's best draft animals, the titular White Lions. I've never painted a lion before (not even a model one) so I looked them up on the net.

 

I was expecting to get pubs, not this regal fellow.

 

Turns out they aren't just fantasy creatures, which disappointed me slightly for some reason. Maybe because I knew I was unlikely to be able to paint them well - white is a bastard to paint. Hey ho, I knew I wasn't going to get away with doing them green with yellow stripes (I did offer).

 

How does it go? Thundercats - Miaow! Something like that.

 

I didn't stick with genuine manes, because I thought darker ones would look more striking. And I'm pretty happy with the white, actually - took a bit of touching up, but a thickish wetwash of Scar White covered up the original scratchy drybrushing nicely.

 

The banner is magnetised for ease of transport, which is an excellent touch. The stylised flame icon is a simple affair because I was so pleased with how the red cloth came out, I didn't want to wreck it with anything too splodgy. Bonus points if you recognise what I pinched the design from (hint - I typed 'flame emblem' into Google)

 

Just the heavy horse and a few heroes left to go! And I have word from the postman that a big box is waiting for me down the depot. A mere week of waiting to clear customs, and the Reaper onslaught has made its timely arrival - tune in next week for an unboxing!