The 7th army

When my painted Empire reached a playable size (well over 2 years ago now - in fact, not that long before I started this blog), they became my 6th painted army. They had been preceded by High Elves, Wood Elves, Orcs and Goblins, Dwarfs, and Ogres. As anyone who has been following this blog can attest, I then made a point of focusing on painting Empire, building them up to an excessive size.

Through all of this, there have been two other armies sitting in cupboards, waiting for their time in the sun. Those armies are Bretonnians and Dark Elves, and they have been waiting their turn for years. Both have had the odd model painted now and again, but I've never gotten around to sitting down and painting up a proper force of either.

Well, it seems like that is about to change. Apparently deciding that it was about that time of the year again, Owen the Hippo appeared, brandishing paintbrushes with wild abandon and challenging all and sundry to another round of Duelling Paintbrushes. This time it was decided that the challenge would take place in October, and the 1000 points that each participant painted would be required as part of one of the 1500 point armies being used for the Warhammer World Series in mid-November.

I had a few options that I could focus on for the challenge, however the main contenders were to flesh out my Empire Ogres to a fully autonomous 1500 point Ogre Kingdoms army, or to finally get around to working on one of those long-shelved (although never really forgotten) armies. When Nick Gentile (of The Dwellers Below) expressed interest in painting up a High Elf force for the challenge, it seemed logical to pair them off against an army of their arch enemies, the Dark Elves. We then set about plotting a pair of well-matched armies for the occasion.

About halfway through the process it occurred to us that the rumour mill was strongly suggesting that the next army to be updated for Warhammer Fantasy was the Dark Elves, and that this major overhaul was meant to be occurring in early October. In other words, all our careful list planning was about to become meaningless. It sounds like nearly all the models are being updated as well. The timing was less than ideal. Not to be deterred, I decided that the chances are good that a relatively similar list can be planned out when the new army book is available, and I would just work with the existing list in the meantime.

In terms of what I have to work with right now, here is my mighty Dark Elf army as it currently stands:

All my painted Dark Elves. About half of which are assassins...

I like the Morathi model, although if I were her I'd wear a little more armour into battle. The old Mystery Imp familiar was painted as the model's Focus Familiar back when I used her.

A mighty 15 Dark Elf Spearmen. Not that happy with their banner any more. I think I need to make some custom banners out of green stuff.

I love Witch Elves. They have not always been the best unit choice, but they always look the part.

5 Assassins. The centre one is a basic conversion of the Aenur model from Mordheim, and the guy to the right of him is actually a Wood Elf who lost his bow and developed some fashion sense. Everyone looks better in black, right? Just ask Batman.

A recent addition - 10 Crossbowmen who are still waiting for a proper banner.

As you can see, it is awe-inspiringly huge and I have practically everything anyone could ever want. OK, so maybe that is not the best assessment. Although I do have 5 assassins, which is a goodly number. It's a hangover from the one time I did get around to using Dark Elves in a tournament, back in 7th edition. I thought it would be hilarious to borrow other peoples' Dark Elves, pack the list with an improbable number of assassins, and stab the world to death in a sinister fashion. Turns out that it wasn't the best plan, and despite winning 2 games and drawing one, I came 4th last in the event - my worst ever tournament result. It was indeed funny, however. After that, the army got no attention as it was so far from a playable size in its own right and I was more excited by other projects. 

Anyway, I may not end up using the Morathi model or any of those assassins in the World Series list, which means I have very little of my 1500 point army ready to go. Realising this, I actually painted up the 10 crossbowmen last week in an effort to improve my starting position. I will probably try to get a few more things done before October as well, to make sure I don't put myself under too much pressure before the tournament.

In terms of my options, I have nearly everything in the current list waiting to be painted. So I won't really be restricted there. I just need to hope they don't bring out a whole pile of incredibly sexy new models that make me feel sad about painting the stuff I already have...