Bandwagooooooooooon

[Chunk]

Hey everybody!

I've actually lurked here before rumours started about our new book, the Wood Elf avoidance playstyle intrigued me greatly since it was so different to what I was used to (mainly giant fighty blocks crashing together)

But my first games will be with the new book nevertheless! I've currently got:

Treeman (I want to use this guy as a Treeman Ancient, he's the new kit and I love that wizardly staff!), and a Glade Guard box.

As well as a hodgepodge of miscellaneous stuff. I'm hoping to get an army which has at least 3 treemen in it at 2000pts (Ancient + 2 in Rare), even though this means I can't access delicious Waywatchers.

Anyway, my next purchases will probably be more treemen, more glade guard (to act as Deepwood Scouts), wild riders, sisters of the thorn, and glade riders.

Thanks for accepting me into this great forum! Does anyone have any advice for a new Wood Elf player? Maybe something you wish someone had told you before you started them?

[Gurthaur]

Welcom to the forum, Chunk!

I for once welcome all you lot of Bandwagoners with open arms.

Since it seems you have already put some thought in to what you want to get and what the downsides of your starter army could be, and since your saying you are into the avoidance game, that already covers the main points i had hoped someone would have told me when i started the army. (aka: Think about what units to get and be aware of your movement phase.)

So my only advice is that: Put a lot of thought into how you would like to paint your minis. Despite the immidiate image of green folks, that wood elfes pop into your mind, the army actualy offers a huge and deep variety of very stylish and cool possible color shemes, that goe beyond "hey, im gonna paint them green" or "hey, im gonna paint them red". I only say this, because i realy wish i would put more thought in my painting. Since i tend to get a new army because of their playstyle i usualy just paint them "somehow", which led to the fact that out of my 6 armys, 5 Have gone through the time consuming process of re-painting, thanks to awesome idead i had when i became mor efamiliar with the fluff and wanted to give my armies a "face".

[Chunk]

Thanks for the advice, Gurthaur!

I know exactly what you mean about having a clear idea of what you want your army to look like. I've given it a bit of thought, and reckon I'll go with either an Autumn or Winter scheme.

Considering I want a few treemen in my army however, winter doesn't make much sense, so autumn it is! Lots of deep reds, yellows, and purples, which will hopefully help to differentiate it from other Wood Elf armies.

On that point though, how do you think I could make my treemen look autumnal? I was thinking red leaves, but what about the bark?

[brechttomme]

Welcome! On making your forest spirits look autumnal, I can see it being the easiest with a mixture of light and dark browns (dark for the outside bark), with red/yellow/orange leaves. I do remember seeing an amazing thread somewhere though, where all the wood was painted as birch (white with black stripes) combined with yellow/orange leaves and some purple tints. Ah, found the link! Take a look at this army, and see what you think: http://www.asrai.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=19980

[Gurthaur]

Well, i would have said th elighter Brown for the outer Bark and the darker on the inside.

If you take a stroll through the forest (or googl img search) you will quickly realize that bark isnt just brown at all in nature, but comes with a lot of diffferent shades of green and grey.
I would stay away from too much green, since that would somehow colide with the autumn feeling the army shoudl emmit. But i would consider to add grey and mixtures of grey and brown to your colors.

A simple way to get some leaves on your treeman is too use some leftovers from the GW wood, if you have any. Another possibility, thats also looks quite nice on the bases of your models to give them an "autumn feeling", are miniature leafs like these: . They come in different sizes and are usualy too big for the scale of the model, but hey, its a magical forest, and you want to see it on the board. I have never tried to paint some of these though.

Also you can get all kind of moss and lichen in warm colors that you could glue to your treeman or his branches, and if you spray varnish your model this stuff usualy doesnt fall off too easily.

[Chunk]

@brechttomme: Wow, those silver birch models look amazing! I don't think I trust myself to paint white though, but I might try it on my treeman ancient's staff, I reckon it'd look awesome against the dark/light browns and reds.

@Gurthaur: I have at least one citadel wood, so I should have some leftover leaves somewhere...even if I don't, I'll be buying at least 2 more so I can employ Acorn/Moonstone shenanigans, so I should have a bunch spare. Good call on the different colours of Autumn, I agree that putting green in would probably confuse things a bit, what I might do with the leaves is a red base, green and purple wash, then a red drybrush followed with an orange/yellow drybrush, that way the green is very subtle.

It's a shame that GW no longer makes Charadon Granite, that was a great colour for painting the branches and twigs between leaves, now I guess I'll just do a brown/grey mix and try to get it as close as I can.

Thanks for all the help, it's really great!