This is part four of the Tale of a Gamer series, this particular set of articles centers around my Wood Elf army, as it grows.

I say Wood Elf army, but as it stands my army is 100% the creatures of Athel Loren: Treeman, Dryads, Branchwraiths, Tree Kin and soon to be an Eagle. And, if i’m brutally honest, for the time being I’m quite liking that. Fuck the meddling elderkin, this ill shit was here first.

For the 500 points, I’m pretty much there. I’ll take a Branchnymph for my unit of Dryads, three Tree Kin, an Eagle and a Branchwraith for HQ. I’m assuming this sits in with my infantry, but I’m not sure on this point as I’ve only read the fluff in the army book. I’m shit at rules, that’s what John Marsden’s for. But I digress, that’s about 460 points, add a few magical things and we’re ready to rock at 500.

I wanted my Tree Kin to be dead-looking, but magical. They’re the dead tree matter of the forest anyway and are supposed to look pretty creepy, which I imagine they would. I went for a black undercoat but didn’t want to go grey highlights like the GW ones as my Dryads were worked up to grey, I wanted these to be different looking. If you’ve been following this, I’m using some reclaimed 1992 metal Dryads for the Kin, my brother in law offloaded a tonne of Wood Elves to me for free, and as it happened there were 3 old Dryads. Worked perfectly!

I decided a blue highlight would work on the black, I’ve never done it before, but thought I’d give it a go, so with some more colour theory from Kev Walsh, (cheers mate!) I went for a heavy drybrush of Necron Abyss, worked up to Ultramarine Blue, then got stuck. They still looked too dark and there wasn’t enough texture. Again, Kev came to the rescue and mentioned desaturation. I didn’t have a fucking clue what that meant so after reading an article he sent, it clicked. I mixed in Space Wolf Grey and Skull White to Ultramarine Blue and bang, the thing popped. The moss I wanted to be the same as the rest of my trees, again, moss grows even on dead stuff so that was the same Dark Angels Green, Agrax, then drybrushed in Camo Green and Rotting Flesh. Ice Blue eyes and grey highlighted talons finished them up nicely. Final detailing was just painting the base in the same way the rest has been and adding snow and winter tufts from Army Painter. Et Voilla!

I’m hitting up the eagle next using a Tale of Two Painters guide. I’m fucking dogshit at painting anything that’s actually alive, armour, piss, wood, not bad, skin and feathers? Fuck that. The tutorial there seems pretty much what I’m after though, the Hobbit eagles are similar to the old Wood Elf ones in colour, only with less grey, so on any further ones I can just add grey once I’ve got the hang of it.

Athel Loren goes to war!