The Last Alliance of Elves & Men (Planning)

The Elves of the Last Alliance

I'm not quite sure where the last two months went... a combination of a bad back and a rapidly-growing garden conspired to keep me from my models but today I managed to find some hobby time.

The Goblins are almost finished (one cave troll left to subdue) so I'm looking ahead to my second army - the allied forces of the elves of Rivendell & Eregion and the men of Numenor.

This army is going to be a force built around the heroes of the Last Alliance - all of said heroes are rather expensive points-wise so I don't think this will be a particularly playable army... but it will look nice and satisfy my desire for thematically appropriate forces!

The Men of the Last Alliance

The full army list is as follows:

Warband 1    11/12
Elrond with Heavy armour;
11 High Elf Warrior with Elf Bow;
----
Warband 2    11/12
Gil-galad
4 High Elf Warrior with Elven Blade;
6 High Elf Warrior with Shield; Spear;
1 High Elf Warrior with Elven Blade; Banner;
----
Warband 3    11/12
Glorfindel, Lord of the West with Armour of Gondolin;
4 High Elf Warrior with Elven Blade;
6 High Elf Warrior with Shield; Spear;
1 High Elf Warrior with Elven Blade; Banner;
----
Warband 4    11/12
Elendil, High King of Gondor and Arnor
4 Warrior of Númenor with Shield;
6 Warrior of Númenor with Spear; Shield;
1 Warrior of Númenor with Banner;
----
Warband 5    11/12
Isildur
4 Warrior of Númenor with Shield;
6 Warrior of Númenor with Spear; Shield;
1 Warrior of Númenor with Banner;
----
Warband 6    11/12
Captain of Númenor with Shield;
11 Warrior of Númenor with Shield;
----

A total of 72 units, of which 11 have bows, for 1497 points.

And because my inner-accountant wants to keep track of the cost of all of this:

My initial forces consisted of:

• Glorfindel
• Elrond
• Gil-Galad
• Elendil
• Isildur
• High Elf Warrior w/ elven blade x 8
• High Elf Warrior w/ bow x 8
• Men of Numenor w/ sword & shield x 8

I believe that all of these originally came from the Battle Games in Middle Earth magazines at a cost of £3.99/hero and £3.99/sprue of warriors giving them a total cost of £3.99 x 7 = £27.93

And I supplemented these with a few additional purchases:

• 2 x boxes of Warriors of the Last Alliance £19.20 via Ebay (£30 retail)
• 6 x Men of Numenor £2.98 via Ebay
• High Elf Command £8.20 (GW)
• 12 x High Elf Warrior w/ Spear £48.00 (GW)
• 9 x Men of Numenor w/ Spear £24.60 (GW)
• 5 x Men of Numenor w/ Spear £6.21 via Ebay (£13.66 retail)

For a total of £137.12 - I attempted to source more of the spearmen through Ebay, but unusually it was generally cheaper to buy them directly from Games Workshop. It's actually kind of nice because I've been feeling a little guilty that I've been merrily trotting into my local shop for advice and paint and then sloping off to the internet to buy my models! It also means I'll get a chance to try out the new Finecast range, and I will reserve judgement on those until I actually get my hands on some.

There will be a few spare elves and men so I may experiment with a few conversions or try to paint up some test models before I get going on the main army.

The Eagles & Elves are coming...

I went home to visit my parents this weekend to celebrate my birthday so I didn't get any painting done - I did however pick up a lovely haul of miniatures to play with over the coming months.

Mum & Dad kindly agreed to buy me a selection of Elves and Men of the Last Alliance - I've had the heroes and bowmen / swordsmen for a while now but haven't managed to pick up the (rather more expensive) spearmen to round out the army. I now have enough spearmen to complete my warbands and the command pack will make two banner bearers for my forces.

12 High Elf Spearmen

9 Numenorean Spearmen + High Elf command

Sticking with the elven theme I also asked for two packs of Galadrhim - these guys will be ranked up with Haldir to command them for a Helms-Deep themed force.

And finally, my sister bought me a box of Giant Eagles - I've wanted these Hobbit miniatures for a while now because the detailling on them is exquisite. I couldn't resist building them as soon as I got home so here are two mostly-assembled eagles.

They are appropriately huge compared to the standard miniatures - check out that wingspan

Last Alliance Elf - Test Model

I've started working on a test model for my Last Alliance elves - it's still very rough and ready at the moment but the colour scheme is starting to take shape.

I've chosen a different colour scheme from the traditional GW blue cloaks/tunics for these guys - I was re-watching the films recently and noticed that whilst Elrond & Gil Galad wore blue cloaks the rank & file troops definitely didn't.

My go-to reference book(1) notes that Gil-Galad and Elrond wore midnight-blue cloaks, "the colour of [the] king's banner", with the other elves wearing cloaks of Elven Silk "coloured a silver grey-green". When looking for a nice grey-green paint I discovered that GW don't actually make that colour so I have mixed my own up from what I had on hand. I may try and find a 'proper' shade from another range (I think some of the WW2 ranges should have something appropriate) but for now the mixing wasn't too awkward and gave reasonable colours.

Elrond & Gil-Galad will have deep blue cloaks and Glorfindel will probably have one too to keep all the commanders the same. My banners will also be coloured with deep blues & golds to carry the theme.

I decided to go with non-metallic gold simply because I've always wanted to try the technique and these guys seemed like a good opportunity to use it. I used the colours and methods from this tutorial and added a couple of green washes at the end to get the tone I wanted. My blending is still pretty rough but I'm hoping that will improve with practice!

At present the colours I have used are;

NMM Gold

• XV 88 Basecoat
• Washed with Agrax Earthshade
• Highlighted with Balor Brown then Zamesi Desert
• Outlined with White Scar
• Washed twice with Athosian Camoshade

Cloak

• 2:1 mix of Skavenblight Dinge : Elysian Green
• Highlights done by adding Dawnstone and eventually White Scar

Under-skirt:

• 2:1 mix of Stormvermin Fur: Ogryn Camo
• Highlights done by adding Administratum Grey and eventually White Scar

(1)Reference Book: "The Lord of the Rings" Weapons and Warfare by Chris Smith