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Sebasten Lizarraga

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Aug 3, 2024, 12:05:43 AM8/3/24

to arundiowi

@JTam I think there was an "aside from GW" implied in that post. Both for visual variety, and for financial reasons - the kit you linked for instance is more expensive than getting individual minis from their OOP metal predecessors on the second hand market.

Given the particulary nature of Dark Elves' society, at least two boxes should be made, one a mix of male & female warriors, the other one females only, either warriors and mages/leaders, don't forget that their leadership is pratically female oriented in the whole. Naturally a plastic cavalry set with lyzards would be welcome, to avoid excessive costs could be made only with mounts and legs, as RGD's amazons' cavalry box.

@Alessio De Carolis Please no mounts with legs cast on, I thought that went out with "RIFTS" it takes a dam lot of work to remove legs from machines or animals . Sell legs lose, with the machines or animals, but not cast on they`re a night mare the item can never be used on it own if the rider is fixed.

That'll vary based on the setting. D&D drow are matriarchal, and also have highly genderized battlefield roles. Males train as warriors or wizards, never clerics. Females always train as clerics, and almost exclusively fight with magical snake whips. Warhammer druchii on the other hand aren't too picky on most layers of society, with really only the ban on male wizards and the specifics within the cult of Khaine (female priests fighting unarmored and with two blades, male executioners fighting with greatswords and in heavy armor).

Indeed. Especially WGA as a company specializing in system agnostic minis should stay the hell away from that. Even saddles shouldn't be part of the mount sculpt, as there are differing styles between cultures and I often want to display wild monsters in D&D.

@JTam AFAIK the 9th Age community is both very aware of what GW offers (most of the factions and units in that game are intentionally designed to be continuations of warhammer things), and very open to alternative models. So I think I'll stick with my read here :P

Oh, oh, today I realized I'm missing something else in my army: shades with greatweapons and with additional handweapons! And also corsairs with crossbows, but those are less useful and I'll eventually just snag a cheap 7th edition kit. For shades GW never made any minis with the alternative equipment.

The Frostgrave Cultist sprue with Elf headswaps (Oathmark spares are a source) should make pretty good Dark Elves. Has spiky crossbows, has a suitable spear, axe and sword. Has a decent amount of CDSB accessories. Got that big glove look.

For that matter... the Oathmark Elves look pretty suitable for Dark Elf spearmen anyway. Their chain shirts look fairly similar to the older GW Dark Elf style. Use a single helm feather (or plastic card cut to a diamond with a gem on it) and paint them black and purple.

Also consider the Frostgrave Demon Sprue. Suitable crossbows, three of the bodies have normal knees, usable hand weapon. Most likely just a source for bits, though. The other two kits are more suitable for DE troops. Although the Demon kit does suit any characters in full plate.

@Alessio De Carolis Why not just do a female warrior set and then a male set and make both a mix of armored and unarmored, makes more sense proportionally and would help keep them from being ugly boogers.

From what I can tell the big compliant every Tom, Dick, and Harry has with the GW Elves in general is that they are fugly as sin in the Sunday pulpit. Which is basically because they are heroic, trying to be alien by being Hugo Weaving-Cat Hybrids sculpts and are a mixed gender kit. (i.e. NEVER EVER ASK FOR GENDER NEUTRAL HEADS FOR HUMANIOD FACES and expect a good looking and/or useful outcome,? but seriously don't ask for them?)

Which in-print models did you have in mind there, Brian? I agree the old Dark Elf regiment set was atrocious, but that's ancient history, man. The Bleaksword/Dreadspear/Darkshard kit (which seems to be the most recent troop version, with spear, sword and repeater crossbow options) don't appear to have boob armour, and all the heads except the (male) leader ones are fully enclosed helmets. There could be any gender mix in that lot. Some of them have long hair, but Elves, eh? The weapons are too chunky, but these are also pre-AoS sculpts (you can tell by the square bases).

@Mark Dewis I meant just GW's elves in general not just dark, all of them?. Though that might be because no one is actually buying the AOS elves due to the high price?? Though if these are the guys your talking about they still don't look that good, by the dice gods GW needs to just do fully enclosed helms for elves if they are going to keep making heroic?:

@Brian Van De Walker I agree they don't look that great, but it's 80% the chunky weapons and hamfists doing that. It might be interesting to see them made up with Oathmark Elf arms (anyone that's made those up as archers should have a bunch of spare spear arms). The basic bodies aren't too bad and a VAST improvement on the previous DE regiment sprue (the one with boob armours). They look best made up as spearmen IMHO.

@JTam oh, I think your post is HIGHLY relevant to the conversation, and I almost 100% agree (I don't think the Sisters are that bad. They only share legs and cloak with the Shadow Warriors. And they don't have enough corsets and fishnets for the Rocky look ?. Nothing wrong with female archers with broad shoulders anyway. I do not like the flaming bow look at all, but for general miniatures use you do at least have the option to convert them to use the Shadow Warrior bows, I guess).

The monopose plastics were decent... then they went backwards (before recovering with the Corsairs and some other late Warhammer era kits). From memory Jess Goodwin was the sculptor on the monopose ones and Aly Morrison was the sculptor on the multiparts?

I'm not a fan of the way GW spreads parts over multiple sprues, though. Essentially that locks you in to buying kits to get the parts for all the models and was probably designed to combat the single sprue reseller market. The new Blood Bowl Amazons really impressed me, though. Very, very nice sculpts that were easy to put together, and designed with exactly half the expected players on the sprue with a head option for each, so you can put together 12 models that are all different in some way. Cheaper than a unit box of 10, too.

I remember the plastic monopose Dark Elf Swordsmen. They looked fine... The biggest problem was that Dark Elf Swordsmen were about useless. And it wasn't like today were finding bits to make them spearmen would be easy.

Really? In 6th and 7th edition it is the other way around. These guys are supposed to not die, so the additional point of armor from handweapon & shield is pretty useful, and above-average movespeed means they are likely to be charging anyway so the spear can't be used. But those are also the editions where simple swordsmen aren't available at all.

Nothing in the world is going to make T3 1 wound Elves durable aka "not supposed to die." (Except perhaps heavy armor, shield, and being mounted on a barded warhorse - but we are talking about Infantry.) A shield with its plus one save doesn't count for much in a battlefield covered in save modifying halberds, double handed weapons, and lances.

Far better to have spears over swords and shields. The spears double the number of attacks from a pathetic one S3 attack per model to two S3 attacks per one model frontage. That's 50% more lethal. Maths! An Elf's best defense is not a shield but instead killing the enemy by striking first with multiple attacks on their super high initiative before the enemy can even strike.

IMO we're likely to see them in 4th edition, but not in the starter box since that's pretty much confirmed to be stormcast vs. skaven. Skaven in particular should be seeing a major range refresh, which means we probably won't see anything as dramatic as a brand new faction for the rest of 2024, so I'd guess Shadow Elves in 2025, probably as a new faction, though I could see them getting added to Daughters of Khaine as a combined dark elf faction with two different divine figureheads leading two distinctly themed subfactions between them, sort of like what I expect the Lumineth to become once Tyrion is introduced.

I sincerely hope that we do see Umbraneth in AoS 4th edition. They won't be in the launch box, as it has been all but confirmed that the primary antagonist for 4th will be Skaven. I have said it before but I would personally like to see the Daughters of Khaine, a select few Dark Elf Kits from CoS and a range of New Umbraneth kits consolidated and released under a single larger "Children of Khaine" faction in AoS 4th. I suspect that will not happen and if/when we do see Umbraneth they will have a handful of units in their own battletome.

I also think this is going to be a subfaction. Order is already packed with stuff and i think DoK has plenty of room to include a subfaction. Just like Sylvaneth has room for Kurnothi. I also hope Idoneth also gets something like a subfaction.