BSB difficulties

I've converted up Araloth to be my Battle standard bearer and it was a lot more effort than I thought it would be. I like how it's come out but bloody hell it was hard work

The first unit!

I finished another 5 today! That means I have completed the first of 5 units! Now the technique is down I can actually do these quite quickly and hope has been restored that the army can be finished in time. I think I've fixed the problem I had with the bases in that they needed starker highlights.

The first 5!

FINALLY!!! After lots of intense family issues and worky business things I finally managed to finish the first 5 Wood Elves! I love the Glade Guard models but they're so detailed that in the end I left a bunch of the details brown. I'm not convinced on the bases yet, feels like they're missing something (maybe the brown needs some more highlighting or a bit of stone here and there) but I love how the flowers look. 

Only another 37 models to go!

Wild Riders and Spellweaver

The final reinforcements for my Wood Elves arrived yesterday and I managed to get some time on this lovely Chocolate Sunday. The Wild riders are lovely models but they're in so many pieces that after the first one I was really eager to see them finished.

I ummed and erred over whether or not to make these Sisters of the Thorn instead but I figured that with all of my archers I really had the support aspect covered so went with some hard hitting cavalry. I'm glad I made that decision as that left enough pieces to convert up a Spellweaver for my force!

I had some spare Glade Guard legs and added the Sisters of the Thorn champion body. I think it's come out nicely but only a decent paint job will show up what it really looks like. Right that's all the figures I needed for my force so now on to painting! 

Seeing the Wood for the Trees!

My Wood Elves arrived on Thursday YAY! Two days later than they should have due to Royal Mail BOOOO! So I've been itching to stick them all together as fielding this -

- would not win me any prizes at Battle Brothers in May. Now I have two months to get all this assembled and painted (plus 5 Wild Riders and a Spellweaver) which I thought would be incredibly easy. Assembling them was only going to take a couple of hours right? WRONG!

First of all Wood Elf models are exceedingly complex, nowadays most of GW's range is incredibly detailed and I'd forgotten this. Second I decided, as you can see in that last picture, that I wanted scenic bases. A nice base increases how good a model looks tenfold and it's so easy when you're using cork. I intend to make it look like a mix of raised mud and rocky outcrops, still needs a few roots and bits and pieces but you can already see that it creates a couple of different levels in the units to make them more interesting.

After sticking together 31 Glade Guard I was glad to move on to the beautiful Wildwood Rangers. The models are gorgeous and I can't wait to get these guys monster hunting. But after these guys I finally got to the model I'd been waiting to put together all day. The Treeman!

I love the model but the 3 standard builds aren't completely to my liking. The Ancient and Durthu have a bit more movement in them but I love the strangleroots shooting out so I did some clipping and changing and there you have it! A simple modification to the build and it's a lot more dynamic, my only concern is that those strangleroots are super fragile. I can see them breaking at some point and me being very sad.

Finally after so many hours I completed all of the boxsets, as you can see from the family shot above. Really excited to have a Wood Elf army again and I can not wait to try these guys out int heir first game!