Tor Taliesin *WIP Archers update*

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zoneofdanger
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Tor Taliesin *WIP Archers update*

Post by zoneofdanger »

Deep in the near impregnable rainforests of the Southlands lies the tower of Tor Taliesin, home to a small community of elves. The House of Taliesin originally hails from Chrace and Sire Maelgwyn Taliesin’s Great-Great-Great-Grandfather set sail from Cothique with other Chrace colonists during the latter years of the reign of Bel-Shnaar the Explorer. Setting up a small trading outpost called Yor Reansar on the coast of the Southlands the Chrace woodsmen began cutting down the thousand year old evergreens, with Southlands Wood becoming the most sought after material for ship building from Nagarythe to Lothern.

During the Civil War that followed many of the colonists returned to help the armies of Chrace fight against Malekith and his Druchii. The few remaining elves continued to send as much wood and other supplies as they could to Ulthuan to sustain the Asur battlefleet. Once peace returned the colony exploded in size with Yor Reansar becoming home to thousands of elves, however over time the colonists slowly lost their ties to Ulthuan as few colonists took the perilous return trip and instead elected to live their remaining years in Yor Reansar.

When the call to return home to defend Ulthuan against the Druchii was issued the majority of the elves of Yor Reansar returned home leaving only a few hundred who, unwilling to live in a mostly abandoned city, migrated deeper into the Forest cutting off regular contact with their Ancestors.

The colonists, led by Einion Taliesin began exploring their wider surroundings coming across a horrible find, deep within the steaming jungle, where the carnosaurs roam; there stood a towering ziggurat, a temple to the most delirious of voices, the Chaos God Tzeentch. From within the jungle pilgrims from all ends of the globe slowly migrated to receive the blessings and chaotic “wisdom” of the Temple Priests, while fell mutant beasts and corrupted human warriors protected the temple from any lizardmen patrols.

Unable to accept such blight upon the world the elves determined that they would raise their own Tower in defence of all that was natural and led by Einion Taliesin the citadel of Tor Taliesin was built and the Grey Elves as they now called themselves, or Nikri, swore oaths to protect the forest and end the baleful influence of the Temple, no matter how many millennia may need to pass.

While still remaining culturally linked to their ancestors the Asur, the Nikri no longer fight in the same style as their cousins. In fact their fighting style is more reminiscent of the Asrai and like the Asrai the Nikri have long standing treaties and alliances with many of the Tree Spirits and animals of the rainforest.

Generations have passed as Tor Taliesin continues its shadow war against the cultists, priests of a temple the Nikri do not even know the name of – simply knowing it must be destroyed is enough.

Led by Einion’s grandson Maelgwyn Taliesin the Nikri strike out from Tor Taliesin, patrolling hundreds of miles of forest, ensuring the chaotic taint does not spread. The elves do their most to destroy the caravans of pilgrims heading to and fro from the ziggurat but lacking the resources and forges of Ulthuan the Nikri have resorted to ambush and hit and run tactics. Making them a nuisance, a powerful nuisance, but they lack the strength to make a frontal assault on the Temple and casting it stone by stone to the ground, assuming they can navigate through all the enchantments and illusions.

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So my mate has a great Chaos Army that he themed on a temple in the Southlands - . He's a great a painter and I'm going to post some pictures below, but I've generally played tournament style warhammr with my standard game size being 2800pts. I used to work at the LGS and before that would be in there 3-4 nights a week with my mates playing ultra competitive games, nothing said "fun" in 7th ed like my Empire army; War alter, 3 lv2 Mages, 6 x 5 knights w/mus, 3 Great cannons, 2 Steam Tanks. But coming back to the scene after a year of not playing has made the more competitive side of the hobby sour for me so I'm going back to my roots and making a nice themed army with strong character and not worry about how effective or powerful the army is.

As I'm not really doing Wood Elves I'm going to try and use a mix of Asur and Asrai models. I'm mainly thinking of using the new Shadow Warriors as my Glade Guard as they seem to be lightly armoured and flowing enough to be capable of travelling fast through the forest while still bringing across the Ulthuan look and I'll paint them in greens/browns to tie them in properly.

As for army lists I haven't sorted out the exact list but have the following ideas. The ultimate army will be around 5000 points but I'll be setting a base of 2800pts to begin with, not that I'm going to be rushing as I do work.

I'm thinking of having at least 1 maybe 2 blocks of 40 Sentinels (Glade Guards). Both units would be Shadow Warrior based but one with the flaming banner so I'd use the bows from the Sisters of Avelorn (just paint the bows/arrows like fire).

My characters will probably be Wood Elf range but Im thinking of using the Handmaiden of the Everqueen as a BSB. Most of the the army will be counts as or conversions (at least that's the plan - lets see how lazy I become).

As such I'll still have Archmages and Mages rather than Spellweaver/Spellsinger.
Sentinels will be glade guard and I'll be coming up with more ideas and names for other units as I go along - any suggestions or thoughts on cool ideas are welcome.

I'm also not sure what to do about my tree spirits, I could simply use the GW ones but I feel I should be trying to make them appropriate for the setting and was thinking of using a Carnosaur as a treeman but it's iffy at best as a counts-as. So again any suggestions please let me know. Also I'm not just talking about models I mean the idea of dryads/tree-kin/treemen. Instead use different creatures.

I hope this is the right place for this, I want to be able to discuss army lists and ideas, post fluff about the army and region and eventually post pictures and this seemed like the best area to set up what I hope will become something like a miniblog.

Ether way here are pictures of my opposition

Here are the High Priests of the Temple his Sorcerer Lord and Chaos Lord:

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Here are two priests of the temple, Sorcerers:

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His Marauders:
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His Chaos Warriors:
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His Warhounds:
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His Warshrine:
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Trolls:
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His Chaotic Knights with his BSB on Disc and his Chaos Lord in Gold Armour also on Disc:
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HIs mighty Shaggoth!
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His WIP Carnosaur (Slaughterbrute):
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Today I got Korhil, The Handmaiden and 40 Shadow warriors along with the WE lord with Great weapon and Spell Weaver with staff, going to paint up some test models tomorrow and will stick'em up tomorrow night

Moved to the Meadow of Arts ~ Beithir
Last edited by zoneofdanger on 26 May 2013, 18:18, edited 1 time in total.
zoneofdanger
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Re: Tor Taliesin *WIP Test Models*

Post by zoneofdanger »

So here is my WIP front rank of archers, will be paintnig up a test fig or two shortly and will edit this post when they 're up.

The arms took a bit of work on the archers as the Shadow Warriors kit is designed for them to fit onto the maiden bodies and the heads are meant designed to be straight (what ever happened to GW's multipart plastic make what you want kits...) the left arm of the elf drawing his bow is in 3 parts I think. Still it's only minor modelling stuff.

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OK here are my test models, still WIP at the moment. The cloaks need to be cleaned up but at the same time they look a lot better then the photo suggests. The boots I just did and it's 1am and I'm not exactly sober so I got a feeling come dawn I'll want to redo them.

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zoneofdanger
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Re: Tor Taliesin *WIP Archers update*

Post by zoneofdanger »

hmm is this the wrong place to expect comments or are you guys waiting for more?
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Jossebuschman
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Re: Tor Taliesin *WIP Archers update*

Post by Jossebuschman »

I would say this is the right place.
I have been active on the forum for a few weeks, so hadn't seen your post. Also, I don't think it helps that they are not actually wood elves.

They look very cool, although the colour hurts my eyes a bit :P. I think the handmaiden as bsb works really well, I have thought about that myself for a while.

I hope to see more.

I'm sure you are aware of this and the setup is just for pictures, but I thought I would mention it; the character in the trolls needs to be on the side of the unit and can't be in the middle. Also, the disc riders in the knights will need to use their ground movement (Which is 2" or something I believe?) as your whole unit must use the same type of movement. So joining the knights might not be such a good idea.

Josse

edit, maybe this isn't the right place, I actually thought I was in the meadow of arts forum.
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The Wood Whisperer
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Re: Tor Taliesin *WIP Archers update*

Post by The Wood Whisperer »

I completely missed this topic!

Beautiful use of color. It all looks so smooth and vivid.
Very nice blending as well, especially on the capes. It almost looks as if you used color pencils instead of paint.

Congrats and keep up the good work!
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The Forest Lord Daereth
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Re: Tor Taliesin *WIP Archers update*

Post by The Forest Lord Daereth »

Great blending! I love the variety of models in the unit too. That shadow warrior kit is great, I think. The sisters' bows and arrows look really fragile though - I'm worried I'll break mine.

Bravo! :D
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apexkitano
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Re: Tor Taliesin *WIP Archers update*

Post by apexkitano »

Really like this idea and all the fluff you have come up with. Love the idea and great painting with the vibrant green on the cloaks. More please
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