High Elves - Part II (Infantry)

This week it's the High Elf infantry! 

I love the notion of each region of Ulthuan providing unique troops to the larger High Elf army. It made for a diverse force that is still cohesive because of the armor and weapon aesthetics. While the mounted troops of the High Elves are great, the infantry are where the elves shine. The stalwart Spearmen and Sea Guard, keen eyed archers, terrifying Phoenix Guard, vengeful Shadow Warriors, brave White Lions and whirling Sword Masters made the High Elf army elite.

The Swordmasters of Hoeth were super cool and my favorite unit. For the Storm of Chaos worldwide campaign in 2004, one of the events that the local shop ran was to bring a single unit with a lord character in it. There was no points limit of the unit, so I brought a 20-man Swordmasters unit with a lord. The unit had some banner that made them stubborn and the lord was fully kitted out. I just remember them completely surrounded by hundreds of Nurgle Daemons killing everything until the last of them (the standard bearer) was pulled down. The lord took down a couple of Nurgle heralds before taking a charge of some Nurgle beasts alone, it was epic! The highlight of the event was a Daemon Slayer fighting Archaon for three full turns before being struck down, what a mighty doom! He even brought the Lord of the End Times down to his last wound... well Archaon's sword helped the Dwarf out too. The Chaos forces won handily as they had almost twice the players as the good side, but we on the good side agreed to play it out as fighting against overwhelming numbers made perfect sense.

Anyways, I had some good times with the pointy eared elves. In truth this whole project can be summed up as pure nostalgia. However it is a fun break to paint up some gaudy elves instead of drab historical miniatures all the time. 

Next up to paint, thirty White Lions!

The full army again.

Man, do I ever miss seeing huge 28mm formations on the board.

A High Elf Repeating Bolt Thrower

Plastic Swordmasters of Hoeth.

The are one piece plastics, but amazing quality.

I saw that the starter box these came in have been re-released, a great deal.

Plastic Lothern Sea Guard, also great miniatures.

I always liked the Lothern Sea Guard.

Older metal Shadow Warriors.

I bought a ton of these on Ebay for very little.

I have a mountain of these old plastic Archers, but they are boring to paint.

 I also have a lot of plastic Spearmen, that seem like a chore to paint, still a WIP.

But I still like these better than the most recent multi-part plastics.

Phoenix Guard, I have 15 more of them to paint.