So as mentioned, the counterpoint to this Ogre army for KoW is a Twilight Kin one. Originally the plan was to use GW High Elves in a KoW “Elf” Army, but through some discussion with JudgeDoug it slowly morphed into a Twilight Kin (Dark Elf) army list via my suggestion of using my few Dark Elves at the time and then Doug finding the most appropriate list for the figures I had at the time. In the last month, however, I found I nice bloke in the UK selling off a shitton of Warhammers, and managed to pick up a whole lot of his Dark Elves (though not as many as I’d liked to! Damn those eBay snipers!). In any case, the “Elves” have had another turn, and now the Twilight Kin going to be a “Proper” Dark Elf force, with a whole new colour scheme I’ve worked out, and the (High) Elves will remain in their previously planned colours – when I get around to painting them. Right after these two armies, hopefully! I’ll also have to ask Doug to rejig the TK army list to reflect the loss of the High and addition of many more Dark Elves.

This first Dark Elf is from the previous/recent metal range. I have to say that while I liked the look of the executioners in pictures, their separate greatswords just looked like an accident waiting to happen. I also didn’t think much of this guy in pictures, as the visual balance always looked right off, with his obscured face, and overly-silly-large-hairdo. Once he was in hand, already assembled and sprayed black, I was somehow compelled to paint him up. So I did. Not sure where he fits exactly into the TK army list, but he’ll go in there somewhere, for sure.

It took me awhile to figure out what colour scheme to give the Dark Elves. While Purple/Black always looks good, it’s also the standard GW go-to colour (like Blue/White for High Elves) so again I wanted to do something at least a little bit different. After close to a day of poking around on the internet and looking at different models, these two images on Google Search helped me decide to go for some deep sea-green armour, based on the look I prefer for Sons of Horus. With sea green chosen for my main armour colour, I gave a local paint store a call to see if they had any sprays in sea green, and it turns out that they can literally make spray cans (or pressure packs, as they call them) in any colour off their extensive colour charts. So I went around, was somewhat overwhelmed with the amount of choice, and chose one from the 6 or so that were in what I felt was the right range. I also decided to go for a metallic tint, since I felt it would work a bit better (and hey, otherwise I may as well just mix up some custom dropper bottles). Later, I found some more images with metallic Sons of Horus, so I may eventually do up a squad of those guys as well.

When I got back and gave him a spray, I then had to figure out what to do with the cloth parts. I originally wanted to avoid any reds, but saw another pic of the Sons of Horus where a very small amount of red was used effectively (sorry, can’t find the pic now) so went with it – on the lower cloak, and also using a reddish-brown for the leather on his topknot-wrap and sword handle. Using a purplish shade to his skin also warms the figure, slightly and provides a contrast to his armour. Again, taken from a good blog article – this one talking about Dark Eldar skin tones. The hair was finished, but it looks like the end of the topknot has had something splash onto it.

I knew I wanted to do some freehand on the cloak, so I was originally going to go with flames on the cloak, Legion of the Damned-style. Then green flames. Then a black cloak with “glowing green” runes – palette inspired by the Cryx boxed set. In the end I went with a faded spiral pattern on the inner cloak, and plain wet-blended turquoise for the outer. I’ll likely varnish the whole model next (after fixing the hair) and then work out what to do on the cloaks – either some freehand or just leaving them as they are. Suggestions welcome. What was particularly nice for me was getting this guy to this point in about 2 1/2 days from the original black sprayed model.

Then there’s his little mate who came with him that I’ve just started – a DE Assassin. Again, not sure where exactly he’ll fit into the army, but not too worried about things like that. I’m basically happy with the cloak being a P3 Coal Base-Trollblood Base, and the metal armour in the same colour as the other model, but not entirely sure about his turquoise thigh-high go-go boots. Perhaps shade them down and see how it looks? I plan to paint his undershorts black and skip the spot of red on his clothing, unless it’s a touch of face paint. But yeah, the main delay on this one is working out what to do with his booties.