High Elf Army - Warhammer Old World - Phase One

 High Elf Army - For Warhammer Old World

Background

If you search around the early posts on this blog you will find an old and dusty post from April 2017 where I was getting excited about collecting a High Elf army for Warhammer Fantasy Battle (WFB). Sadly, after collecting bits and pieces, mainly to realise a long-held dream inspired by images of Dragons in White Dwarf, the End Times hit before I had even played my first game, old miniatures and bases and rules were out and Age of Sigmar (AoS) came along to replace WFB. I sold up what I could (at a profit - phew!), kept some items I had already started on, and some other important pieces I would probably paint as a one-off project...

Fast forward nearly a decade later to 2024 and Warhammer The Old World (TOW) comes along with a new set of rules in an era hundreds of years before the End Times. I'm already deep in other projects with a Blood Bowl teams backlog, a Adeptus Custodes army and later, new Deathwing Terminators. But friends of mine are getting excited about collecting Empire armies, and I decide to delve into the 'cupboard of shame' and and retrieve my remnants of the High Elves...

Long forgotten in an old WFB box.... High Elves

...and the Lord of Dragons.

High Elf Lord of Dragons - weighty in metal

There's a lot of work to do...

See Games Workshops High Elf first wave release video.

Lord of Dragons

First things first was just building what I thought would be a fun one-off project. I did this back in early 2024, but never posted here. Finally building and painting the Dragon I got back in 1994, but never wanted to start as it scared me! If I compare my modelling and painting ability compared to then I have improved hugely, but compared to what I see online these days, I'm a very average table-top painter. Still, it's fun to collect and paint and just measure my output by my own goals.

Firstly, I put the model together. I will note here, I didn't realise at the time that the base size increased in Old World, something which I corrected recently...

All-metal Dragon & Lord pieces

Filing, pinning and gluing... metal dust on my fingers once again!

High Elf Lord of Dragons - pinning & assembly

Following on from the paint scheme I devised back in 2017, I swerved the traditional white & blue for High Elves, opting for a purple theme for cloth, robes and soft material, with an orange trim to the metal scale armour.

The original Prince Imrik? - painted!

Being Prince Imrik, and thinking about what I will paint the Dragon Princes on horseback as, I went for a red dragon armour theme which should contract nicely with the purples of the dragon. I decided this would be a Moon Dragon, as smaller and younger than the Star Dragon featuring later in this blog post.

Photos always show up things I need to touch up/redo... I will do this later as the army advances!

Prince Imrik - Happy enough with the face and gems... but the sword in particular needs work!

Lothern Sea Guard

I realised that back in 2017 I had painted 80% of the Sea Guard unit, but I hadn't done the vast majority of the spears, and there was a lot to touch up - see the incomplete unit below.

Lothern Sea Guard without spears and needing some love

I decided to move away from wooden spears as I couldn't get the effects right and there was just too much brown/orange/sandy colours going on. I opted instead for a "wraithbone" look (stolen from my Eldar army look). I also but the base colours on the banner - Again, something I will come back to later.

Lothern Sea Guard - complete with painted spears/right arms.

You may have noticed that the theme I have gone for is to have the scale armour as silver, but the armour plates, such as helms and shoulder trim as a flat grey. This may be my undoing, but I wanted a colour scheme that was a little different from the "silver pointy hats" you see everywhere. A subtle but important difference, which may not be to everyone's tastes.

Swordmasters of Hoeth

These haven't had any more attention since 2017. I want to apply some of my 40K sword techniques to them though, as the swords are what make this unit more scary. Again, something to come back to... I might tackle all the blades across the army in one mini-project later. 

Swordmasters of Hoeth

The important thing first is to get some units together to play a game! I did notice that the launch photos of the High Elves in 2025 have been tweaked slightly from the Isle of Blood models above. Games Workshops own notes on the release say "the Swordmasters have been separated out and granted new command options, though the bulk of the troops are untouched."

Games Workshop's image - Note the new leader and muscian

Bases

You may have seen me mention above that the new The Old World (TOW) miniatures have an increased square-base size to 25mm from 20mm. Spiky Bits covered the new base sizes for the models for High Elves, in case anyone was interested.

I wasn't interested in rebasing the Swordmasters or Sea Guard that I had already done, so I looked on the web for 20 to 25 mm converter movement trays at Blotz.

The great thing with the Blotz movement trays is that they come with the base board and base grid separately, so you can sandwich a magnetic sheet between the two (cut to fit).

See Blotz.co.uk for the trays - magnetic sheets sold separately

I also had to rebase my Dragon on to a 60mm x 100mm base... and of course, re-pin the heavy beast!

Rebasing the Dragon for TOW

Prince Imrik - or generic Prince on Star Dragon (aka Minaithnir)

I also bought Imrik and Minaithnir back in 2017 as you may have read from that first post. Getting the metal file out again felt a bit odd after having built so many more recent GW models in the meantime. It was fun though!

Plastic body and metal extremities

As some who know me on Facebook, I decided to get this model out of it's box and paint it up.

Superglue, greenstuff and pins... and a prayer or two!

With a plastic middle body and metal head, arms and tail, this model needed careful balancing whilst pinning and supergluing. By this time I knew the Dragon would need to be on the larger 60mm x 100mm base at least! This new base size actually helped with the length of the model!

I found that despite taking care with priming and basecoating, the model is very prone to chipping. I also tried and failed to properly clip the shoulder dragon horns and seat Imrik flat on the shoulders... But he is also pinned in case I want to swap out a "yet-to-purchase" mage in his place.

I will add more features to the base later. For now, sand will do.

Archers

Before I knew what was being re-relaunched in 2025 for High Elves, I bought some old High Elf Archers, with pointy hats and scale armour off eBay. They weren't in great condition.

Again, they were on old 20mm bases, but when I put them on the movement tray converter they didn't line up well...

Work in progress - High Elf Archers

...so I easily unplugged them from the slot and put the back row on the slot slightly off centre so they could line up.

Off centre slot choice on different ranks

The archers still have a bit of work to do, but base coating and washes done... just needs highlighting and base edges blackened to finish off.

What's next?

For those keen of eye on the earlier images, you may have noticed a number of other mini's in the box of shame. Here are the models still in my collection.

I understand that both Teclis and Tyrion, despite 'being around' in the Old World may feature later, but not yet, so I have put them aside for now.

In the meantime I have built the Gryphon (or Griffin or Griffon - no right answer here apparently!) and put him on the right sized 50mm square base...

I also have two Eagle-Claw Bolt Throwers in metal to base on 50mm bases and the two crew per weapon will be going on 25mm bases. I don't therefore need to buy the "newer style" Bolt Thrower.

I also have two old metal Eagles to break out of their original blister packs and put on 50mm bases.

Games Workshop is re-releasing a newer Eagle...

Games Workshop image - TOW Eagle

...but I think as I have Eagles already, I may as well save myself from further spend and use those!

I also have the old metal horse-mounted Dragon Princes to build and paint too.

Pre-Orders

I have gone all in on as much as I felt necessary on the first wave of pre-orders for High Elves that were available this weekend. I've ordered the following:

• Dice set
• Batallion 
• Cards & Arcane Journal
• Ishaya Vess Sentinel of the Silent Isle
• Korhil Lionmane
• Lord of Chrace
• White Lions of Chrace
• Handmaiden of the Everqueen

That lot should keep me busy. I did reduce the cost by buying what I could from other online retailers that give a 20% discount, but I had to order the "online only" items from Games Workshop. Ho-hum.

I suspect I will be getting Silverhelms and some Mages that I don't have in the second and subsequent waves, along with a unit of Phoenix Guard and a Frostheart Phoenix, and possibly a Skycutter. I don't build for a competitive list, but instead for a variety of units that interest me. Having yet to play Old World, this will always be more about the collecting and painting for me.

However, I did swerve buying the Myrwyrm - I know it's a classic model, but it just doesn't appeal to me! I also decided not to get the newer Dragon as I had two classics already! And I don't think I needed the transfer sheet either. No doubt the cards will be out of date before I get to use them, and so will the Arcane Journal, but they are nice to own.

Anyway, stay tuned for my Phase Two post. I don't know when that will be, but as you can see, like many, I've set myself quite the challenge! 

I hope you enjoyed this post. Feel free to comment and like, follow etc etc. Until next time!