I don't have many Elves in my backlog for reasons rooted in my many attempts to build different armies for Warhammer Fantasy Battles.
My Wood Elves, as regular readers will be aware, have been one of my go to armies since 6th edition. They were built from a variety of plastic boxes with a smattering of metal miniatures. Pretty much every miniature I could put into the army has been.
I've never owned many Dark Elves, although I did make moves towards an army at one point, painting up a small unit of Witch Elves and starting on some crossbowmen. However, this project never got off the ground and the last of them were sold last year.
I did actually have an army of High Elves (half of it painted), based around the contents of the 4th edition boxed set. Tyrion and Teclis led an army of archers and spearmen supported by small units of Dragon Princes and Phoenix Guard, with a Tiranoc Chariot and a Reaper Bolt Thrower along for the ride. But these also were all sold before I got back into the game after leaving university.
These four miniatures were bought to be part of that army many years ago. I stumbled across them in my local model shop and bought them to use as a squad of Shadow Warriors. However, I never found a suitable leader for them and so weren't with the rest of the army when it was sold.
I had recently intended to sell these as well, but when I was researching what the actual models were (I had never seen them in any other context) I discovered that there were actually Deep Elves (Noldor) from the Citadel Middle Earth range from 1985, and this was enough to finally pique my interest enough to paint them.
They are oddly posed miniatures and there are places where the casting was a little rough, I think they represent an early attempt by Citadel to manufacture miniatures that you could rank up easily.
Painting was simple as they are encased in metal. I've given them black hair to fit with Tolkien's description of the Noldor (except the House of Finarfin), and the dark blue shields felt right for the children of the stars.
The leader model isn't from the same range. In fact he's technically not even from the same manufacturer. He's a Marauder Miniatures High Elf from 1989. Marauder were a splinter company that were eventually reabsorbed back into Games Workshop later.
I think my holy grail of miniature projects would be getting my hands on either a Marauder Dark Elf of Dwarf army as advertised in the pages of White Dwarf. I so wanted to take advantage of the deals offered for buying a whole army at once.
This chap came to me via a friend but seems appropriate to lead this little unit, even though he's significantly less well armoured.
Again, I've leaned into the dark blue for his tunic and shield, and the design on the shield is a Space Marines transfer that reminds me a little if the Star of Feanor.
I've no idea what I'll use these for, as I have nothing much to add to them to form even a skirmish force. However, they may show up as a patrol in games of Five Leagues from the Borderlands or 7TV.
The final addition in this post is another plastic Dwarf from the Fantasy Regiments box.
I had two spare bodies and was delighted to find another head when I was looking for the Elves. As one of the bodies had a crossbow welded to its back and one had no axe head, I chopped them up to make a single useable model.
He was painted up just like the others, with a shield on his back to hide some damage to the model, and adds another body to my tiny force.
As well as getting these six painted (as well as disposing of what was left of the mangled Dwarf body), this puts marks some significant progress as I've been selling more than a few miniatures again.
I was pushed into action by the unexpected appearance of a bunch of British Napoleonics in my backlog. Therefore I took the opportunity to clear out some models I'd never get round to: a number of WizKids D&D Miniatures, a box of Fireforge medieval cavalry, the remains of several Wargames Factory Zombie and Survivor kits.
Importantly, this takes me below 300 models left to paint, and given the progress I've made this year, raises the very real prospect of me finally achieving my long term goal of painting everything I own.
Acquired: -124
Painted: 463
Lead Mountain: 254
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