Pulling Out the Dark Elves

With the imminent release of the new Dark Elf book, I figured it was a good time to break out my old Dark Elves and take stock of what I had.

About half my painted Dark Elves

As I pulled out the two cases and box, I was surprised to find that I might have underestimated just how many Dark Elves I have. In the painted portion of the army, I had the above, plus 20 Spearmen, 12 crossbowmen, Shades, 5 more COKs, and some reaper bolt throwers. For the most part, they're in decent shape, though I was less than happy with the Executioners - too bright. The executioners and Cold One Knights had quite a few missing blades/arms/etc., but all pretty minor updates.

Spearman Banner

In addition to the painted models, I had assembled and mostly primed 20 more corsairs, 16 more crossbowmen, a Manticore, ~12 Black Guard, and ~10 Harpies. From there I dug a little into the box of stuff, which included new/unassembled models and models I'd received from a friend in exchange for buying him Dwarfs with my employee discount (in the short time I worked for GW). Just guessing from what was in that box, it looked like I had ~40 witch elves, 20-40 more corsairs, a cold one chariot, 1 or 2 Hydras, a cauldron of blood, and ~10 more executioners. I believe there were also a unit of crossbowmen and spearmen in there as well, but the box was predominantly metal.

 Above is my collected wizards, featuring a Truthsayer and Dark Emissary from the Battle for Albion summer campaign. I actually fought for the side of the good at the time, and the Truthsayer really complimented my army by giving buffing spells and dispels. The Dark Emissary was more a mirror of a High Sorcereress, and didn't bring anything new. In the end, the models are cool, and I also have 3 fenbeasts kicking around somewhere.

My Cold One Knights, lead by Malus Darkblade acting as my Dreadlord were probably my favorite unit. Unfortunately, they were a pain to store and, partly because I didn't pin back then, most of them have broken somewhere.

My other favorite unit, the executioners are great models, so I'm waiting with bated breath to see the new version. I was a little surprised with how bright I had painted them, and they might be updated before I paint some new units. In particular, I want to try some RMM shading/highlighting methods I've seen while kicking around the blog-wor

Without a doubt my favorite Core unit, Corsairs are great models, and the new plastics are possibly even nicer, without the chunky metal blades. They were also one of my favorites because they were good - tough (for elves) and tons of attacks, they usually were my main infantry combat unit, that would take out any unit lured into charging some of my warriors.

My Corsair champions, one of whom I used as a Lord. I did a pretty good job painting him up, but spilled some superglue on the base and apparently never cleaned it up. Generally, he should only require a little bit of touchup to be presentable at a nice standard.

Two more Hero choices (at the time), one was the ubiquitous Assassin, who usually lurked in the spearmen, while the other was a Lordling converted from the warrior sprue, with Dark Blade and Shield of Ghrond.

I recently picked up some more Dark Elves from Todd at Sincain40k, probably more than I should have, but will add 30 Corsairs, 10 Witches, and 10 Cold One Knights to my force. With those additions, there are really few holes I see in my collection, and the only things I could see myself adding from the new models are more black guard and maybe the new Hydra or Cauldron of Blood, partly because they're cool minis.