Tuesday 17 March 2015

More Dark Elves from the Backlog

Up from the Archives

I said I would and I have some time to, so I'm going to introduce a few more units that are (still!) under the brush. As ever these have already been snapped on the Oldhammer forum thread Protist's Works Progressive.

1st Marauder Dark Elf Company

Marauder Dark Elf Infantry
The later Maruader Dark Elf Infantry
These models (apart from one - can you tell which one though? He fits very well in stlye so its not that easy!) were the later addition to the Dark Elf range from Marauder Miniatures, sold as a regiment with the MB03 code from 1990. They're pretty solid sculpts with a definite and cohesive design and give an excellent sense of movement. With 4 unique character models and 4 different troopers there's also reasonable variety. Especially when compared to Citadel's earlier Regiments of Renown range with their mono-pose troopers, these Marauder regiments must have felt incredible when they were first released. Even nowadays its not always possible to get units with 8 individual sculpts in a strongly coherent design.
It is unfortunate that the success of creating more dynamic looking models came at the expense of practicality, they are exceptionally hard to line up properly, with nearly every model extending way over the bounds of the base. They're even less forgiving once the shields were on - more on that in the future though!
I wanted to vary at least some of the units in the force so these guys have kept the orange/turquoise theme only for trim and detail, and have proper evil, black chainmail.

2nd Marauder (... well, mostly) Dark Elf Company

This unit, even back in October 2014, was almost finished. It is now even closer and I should be able to get a post written about them this weekend.

Marauder Infantry, MM70
MM70 Marauder Dark Elves
The MM70 set didn't just have crossbow armed elves (see the previous post), it also had regular infantry with hand weapons, shields, spears, halberds and large swords, all really well sculpted - well mostly anyway! I think they did a great job on this range, personally; they have a good dynamic range yet rank up well and importantly they tie in perfectly with the Citadel scultps, of which there are quite a few hiding in this company. Can you tell them apart? Even better, can you tell which ranges the Citadel ones are from? The command models are the regular Citadel range from the 3rd edition era, I'll give you that one for free because this is my favorite musician model - though there is one I don't have that might be even better.
I painted the banner using the icon on the top as a starting point for the idea, though I wonder if this was actually a good idea. Ah well, it doesn't really matter because I think it looks pretty good! I also haven't decided if I should work up the blades in that deep green colour, or do something else entirely? Either way they won't be steel coloured.

Chaos Warrior Allies

A small but deadly unit of chaotic warriors as allies. Everyone loves the whacky designs of the early Citadel chaos ranges. The variety of sculpts, the plethora of design ideas, both the unearthly and the unrealistic combine to send most collectors into a Khornate frenzy of figure frothing...

80s Chaos Warriors
Heavy armour, huge weapons, that can only mean one thing... Chaos
Most of these sculpts have been re-released a number of times over in different ranges. Some were originally pre-slotta though all of these were cast with tabs. I think the models pretty much speak for themselves, all I'll add is that I tried to make each as individual as possible and that I need to add some more detail to the bases before I call them finished. One thing that the allies lack at the moment is a leader, but I have something in mind for that already.

2 comments:

  1. I think one of the hardest things to decide with CW's is choosing the colour scheme. You've really done a great job on these guys, should get off my arse & do mine :)

    Cheers.

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  2. Thanks mate! To be honest I did only a little choosing, in that I wanted them to be different, so I just tried a few colourful ideas out and tried to make as much contrast between them as possible.

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