Six 28mm, masked Elven Halberdiers from Warhost stand guard in the forest
I've always enjoyed the iconic flashback scene in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings where Elrond and the Elves are receiving the charge of hordes of Orcs. As the enemy closes, the Elves whip up their halberds and then spin them downward cutting down the first two ranks of chargers. So, when I saw this pack of Elven Guardians on the Warhost website, I wanted to get some for my Dragon Rampant army. I wasn't 100% sure about the creepy faceplate mask, but figured I could decorate it up on the style of Late Roman or Early Saxon ones rather than an evil clown mask. As it stands, this will be the final batch of Elves for the army, though after my first game I am exploring different troop type options for fielding Wood Elves. So, you never know...!
Probably the most heavily armored of the infantry, these actually painted up very quickly
Anyway, these actually went faster than either of the previous batch of spear or cavalry. They appear to be more heavily armored, so doing the base coat of Gunmetal Gray, then Bright Gold, and finally metallic yellow accent was the most time consuming part. Once that was done, the tunic and cloak seemed to be a breeze to finish. I stayed with the lighter green shade under tunic and darker cloak on top that I've been using in this army, so far. I did my usual pattern of dots on the colored borders for the cloak. This time, I added in a border on the bottom of the tunic, too.
With this final batch of six, my Dragon Rampant Wood Elves army is now officially complete!
I gave them the usual shades of blond hair (where you could see it), and more brown tones on the equipment and shoes and such. I certainly have Elves down to a routine, by now -- almost 70 figures later! I'm definitely going to be taking a break from painting up DR! armies for a little while and give a little more attention to my other projects. That doesn't mean I haven't enjoyed watching my vision of Wood Elves come to life. They were always my favorite fantasy race, and I like how Warhost evokes the Tolkien mythos. Of course, my friend Keith -- who thinks the Orcs of my Bonefish Band look like Saxons (I know, but you just can't talk to him sometimes) -- will probably say they look like Huns or Celts or whatever! Honestly, I'm pretty sure he does it to "poke" people to get a reaction. Yeah, Keith, all those commenters on this blog and the Lead Adventure Forum are wrong -- they don't look Tolkien-like, they look like Uhtred Uhtredson...ha, ha! Maybe we can all join in together and say, "No, Keith, you're wrong...!"
I decorated the armored face masks with my smallest nib black micron pen - how do they look?
The trickiest part of these figures was doing the face masks, of course. I'm not 100% sure how I feel about them, yet. I would honestly love to hear your comments whether the tiny Micron pen patterns make them look less creepy and more "Ancient race decorative," or what. Given a choice, I would have preferred that Warhost didn't sculpt the Guardians with their masks, but hey! I bought them anyway, right? I used my smallest nib black pen to do swirls, dots, and even a leaf petal design. After the decoration was done, I painted the eye slits in the masks. Then I did the eye itself -- so there was a lot of work done on those masked faces!! Hoping they look decent, but as I said, I'd love to hear your opinions pro or con.
Another look at the detachment of the Warhost Elven 'Guardians' in the woods
The bonfires that the Elves are gathered around in these photos are more amazing 3-D printed scenery from my friends at Bad Goblin Games. I bought one each of their Large Bonfire and Campfire at Historicon 2026 a few weeks ago. They are printed in an orange translucent material. Typically, for their flames, I do a orange-red wash on it so that it softens the bright, plastic look. After that was done and dry, it was a snap to paint the logs with my usual wood tone recipe, and then the rocks, and finally apply the ground and flocking. I painted both the pieces identically, and once done, slid the supplied watch battery into the LED light holder. I pressed the LEDs into place from underneath the fires and voila! A very cool, flickering bit of scatter for the gaming tabletop.
A few second video of the Large Bonfire flickering away, with an Elven Halberdier standing watch
So, now that the Wood Elves are officially done, what's going to be the next project to cross my painting desk? Actually, there will likely be three that I'm juggling simultaneously. Regular readers will remember my decision to alternate a batch of older figures (bought prior to this year) and newer ones (2026 purchases). Well, luckily the three projects fit neatly into that scheme! The older figures (and next batch waiting in line) are Pulp Science-Fiction figures from Hydra Miniatures. Originally, I purchased them to be a faction in games of Xenos Rampant. Since then, I've had an idea for a convention game using them that I think will be really cool. Building the board for it (a city in the clouds, ala "Cloud City" from The Empire Strikes Back) will likely be a late year or 2027 project. In the meantime, I want to get a half dozen factions for the game done using Hydra Miniatures amazing Retro Raygun line. Previous purchases of them give me enough for three factions, so that will be one of the things I'm working on.
Small, 3-D printed LED campfire from Bad Goblin Games
The other faction is to finally paint up some reinforcements for my Viet Cong in games of Surviving 'Nam. These will be figs bought earlier this year from Gringo40s (but not 40mm scale...ha, ha). I will also continue to work on batches of figures for my Devilry Afoot games set in Franklinton on the American frontier. Yes, yes, I know it has been a long time since my first game...! I've been busy!! So, look for batches from those three projects soon, along with more buildings and scatter terrain!
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