Your Bone Tithe Is Due

   So, yes, this is another new army project - but only my 4th for 2026 and the second that is from a magazine, which makes me feel a bit better about it. This is an army that if we are being entirely honest, I have been tempted by for a few years but never enough to even contemplate paying full price for, so it was doomed to live in the "never going to get around to to" list, until we saw it would be included in the magazine.

   As always, I am getting on with the bulk infantry first but I did add the HQ figure to the batch, partly as he was built and partly because he didn't look very complicated to paint. As none of these guys are much more than bulk models for the faction, I kept their paint scheme purposely simple - this is going to be a simple army to paint.

I have 2 more units of these to build and paint, but as they don't take long, that should be fairly soon?

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Bigger Bugs Pt23 - Prime With Added Lash Whip

   When buying the Combat Patrol magazine, I ended up with 4 Tyranid Primes with wings (full unit name there) but a use for one at most, so the other 3 went into the stock pile. Then GW brought out a new Prime, this one with a last whip instead of wings and, while the model is pretty, I can't justify the price tag when I am not using 3 of a similar model.

   So, I hatched a plan, use the core body and spare warrior arms to create the same unit. Even if it looks dreadful, it hasn't cost me anything. But I never seemed to be able to find both sets of components at the same time*, until now!

*which tells you a lot about the state of my shed

   The model is supposed to be armed with a single lash, a claw and a pair of scything talons, but I couldn't find spare talons and I went with the rule of cool and added bone swords**. Instead of a slightly janky model, I found a model that I really liked the pose on and it is unique to me.

**before realising the base model had talons on it's sprue . . .

I really want to get it on the board now

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Ship Weaponry?

   When I bought the initial box of High Elves, I had 3 different 600 point lists written, all trying to use as little that didn't come in the main box as possible. The list I figured I could get onto the table the easiest only needed me to buy a single Bolt Thrower, so on a trip into London for work, I stopped in Element Games and picked a box up.

   I painted mine up in a scheme to match how I have been painting my elves - more silver and less golds/bronzes, which has made these bolt throwers a touch washed out, but I am pleased with how they have come out.

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High Elf Upper Middle Classes?

   Reading a lot of the Old World High Elf novels and fluff, I slightly disagree with how a lot of people put their armies together. Ulthran has a serious class structure and very little in the way of a trained military, with the bulk of their armies being made of militias. The call goes out and your family sends it quota of fighters - the poorest send archers, lower middle class send spearmen, but those who want to stand above their peers but are not yet true nobility, send knights to join the Silver Helm units.

   So while I am happy that units of archers or spears might have a local unit marking on their shields and banners - either supplied shields from the garrison itself or they know what unit they always join and their personal shields are painted accordingly, I see Silver Helms working differently. Each guy will have their own heraldry and their own equipment, while a commander might be expecting a certain amount of units of their regular troops, I suspect Silver Helms are an unknown factor and lumped into a single mixed unit as they start to arrive.

   With all that in mind, I painted my knights in my normal white and blue scheme, but instead of giving them a single unit wide province colour, I gave each guy their own province colour instead, mixing the main 4 colours that will be seen if this army gets big enough - yellow for Tiranoc, purple from Ellyrion, black from Nagarythe and red from Chrace (although, I see the latter two not having many actual knights).

   I still have another 4 of these guys to paint, but in the meantime, this is my 750 point Battle March army ready for a campaign I have joined.

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Reinforcements For The Garrison

   It's been a bumpy few weeks with work and other stuff but I am back on the painting band wagon to keep this project moving. The chariot from the last post was painted basically straight after the Spearmen from early September and just not posted for some reason.

   This post is the second unit of Archers, this time from Ellyrion, a neighboring province which uses purple as an accent colour. I think this unit shows how the army scheme will come together with the white and blue going across all units, but each unit having an extra colour that will vary across the army.

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Quick Be The Charioteer

  I have the next infantry unit built and sprayed ready to go, but I thought it might be nice to get a unit done that I know I will struggle to paint when the motivation is gone - a Tiranoc Chariot.

   The box I bought came with 2 chariot kits, and from what I understand in full games, these work better in pairs as they just don't have the hitting power alone, but this army is only going to be small to start with and I would rather use the second as the other unit type to get the most from this box.

   I stuck with a similar paint scheme to my other units from Tiranoc - the whites and blues with the yellow accent and even put a similar badge on the banner of the chariot as the spearmen have to really tie this garrison together. I went with less fantastical horse colours too - planning on leaving the colours a lot of people like to paint their elvish horses (greys and whites) for the units I feel would be richer - the chariot feels more like a working unit with real working horses.

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High Elf Spearmen

   Quick on the heals of the High Elf archers comes a unit of spearmen. I'm still expecting this to be a fairly slow project, but while momentum and time is on my side, it makes sense to just chug on through and see how far this will carry me. I'm doing a Battle March army for the moment - 600 points with a slightly different set of force org rules - so there isn't a lot to get done - somewhere about 40 models, although, I have three different lists written to allow me to paint what I fancy.

   This unit of spearmen is from a similar province (I think Tiranoc by the colour and motifs) as the mounted noble and the last unit of archers. I kept the same white and blue from all the studio elf armies, and added the yellow accent colour. This should make a core of models that look like they might be the original garrison who have been reenforced by units later on.

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