Warmaster Wood Elves
Filed Under: Hobby
This project has pushed by miniature photography skills to their limit.
Warmaster was one of several short-lived Games Workshop systems released during its late-90s-mid-2000s Lord of the Rings-license boom era. It depicted 10mm-scale armies fighting grand-scale battles in the Warhammer Fantasy Old World setting and, like many of its contemporaries (Epic, Mordheim…), its appeal has long outlived its official rules and models support, which crawled along for over a decade before rattling its death in the early 2010s. Nowadays the game is kept alive by a devoted community of fans playing and developing the unofficial Warmaster Revolution ruleset, buying/selling/trading old official models, and creating new unofficial models and even whole new unofficial armies through the wonders of 3D printing.
Glade Guard, the mandatory core of any Wood Elf army. Technically I should have more than one unit.
One such whole new army is Wood Elves, who never had rules in the original ruleset or any of its infrequent official expansions. Lore-wise, they don’t really seem suited to the kind of warfare Warmaster aims to represent: they are guerrilla fighters, ferociously defending their woodland enclaves but rarely venturing beyond them in numbers. Nonetheless they are a well-developed and popular force in the Old World setting and embody a classic fantasy trope, so it was inevitable someone would make rules for them in Warmaster Revolution, and even more inevitable that someone would make beautiful STLs (3D printer files) to represent them.
Eternal Guard, the Wood Elf melee infantry option. Shiny! The leader of the central unit is a reference to a cool Glade Lord model Citadel used to make.
My Wood Elves are prints of the STLs designed by Forest Dragon, who are one of many creators and sellers of 3D printer files now operating in the space. You can purchase their STLs directly (or from other vendors, I think?) or become a patron on their Patreon. In addition there are various 3D printing shops that are licensed to sell prints of their designs. There are now quite a lot of miniature designers who use this business model, and several who produce designs for Warmaster. It’s a good time to be in the hobby.
Wardancers. These are not technically a unit - instead you attach a stand of them to an elf infantry unit like Eternal Guard or Glade Guard and they boost that unit’s combat prowess.
I for one cannot be arsed with 3D printing as it seems like a whole hobby in itself. Even if it would be extremely useful to be able to print models and terrain for myself on demand, all the faffing about it seems to entail makes it not my cup of tea. Fortunately Kara has a resin printer, and she wanted to play Warmaster, so I got to benefit from her hard graft.
The majority of them were printed in April but it took a while for them to make their way onto my painting desk and an equally-long while for them to make their way off it. Nevertheless, finally, they are ready for battle!
Dryads, the smallest of the Forest Spirit units.
Here is my army list:
Wood Elves, 945 points
Warmaster Revolution
--------------------------------
65 - 1 Glade Guard
180 - 3 Eternal Guard
60 - 2 Wardancers
60 - 1 Waywatchers
60 - 1 Dryads
90 - 1 Glade Riders
110 - 1 Wild Riders
85 - 1 Warhawk Riders
155 - 1 General
80 - 1 Spell Weaver
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945 - 9/5
I’ve left out upgrades for now to keep things simple while I learn the game. Also, I should probably have an additional unit of Glade Guard but the “2 per 1000 points” rule is a little ambiguous. Anyway, this seemed like a good starting point.
The Spellsinger and the General.
Painting a 10mm army for the first time was an interesting new challenge. I had to learn how to balance detail painting with speed painting at such a small scale. I was glad to have the two character models (the General and the Spellsinger) on which I could focus my desire to paint details. This allowed me the freedom to go quickly on the actual units. I learned that washes and drybrushing are my friends here just as much as they are in the bigger-scale world. I also learned that I could skip some steps and details because they simply don’t show up when looked at from more than a few inches away and are often hidden behind other models in the stand.
Oh, that’s another thing about Warmaster - units are composed of one or more (usually 3) 40x20mm ‘stands’. Infantry are aligned with the long edge of the base and cavalry the short edge. Characters are free-wheelin’ mavericks and can be based more or less however one pleases. I have opted to put my two on 20x20mm bases.
Waywatchers, elite archers who can ambush. They are unusual in that a unit of them is composed of only two bases. The tree leaves are just clump foliage, superglued to the trees that are part of the print.
All I had to pay for this army was a small contribution to the cost of the resin used, the 40x20mm bases from Warbases, and the cost of paints and other materials, which I already owned. Did I mention the rules are free, too? And even if I add another 1000 points to this army, it’ll still fit in a shoebox. So all in all I would consider Warmaster to be quite an accessible wargame, as it is both cost and space efficient.
Glade Riders, light cavalry with bows and spears.
That’s all for now. I shall soon finally find out first-hand how Warmaster plays on the table, and report back!
Wild Riders, slightly-heavier cavalry with melee weapons mounted on. They are also, I just discovered, also Forest Spirits. I don’t remember the lore, but I guess they’re elves who went hard into the whole tree-hugging thing.
If you’re interested in Warmaster Revolution, you may find this YouTube playlist useful. And there is a very good online army builder available at wm-selector.github.io.
Warhawk Riders basically sell the whole army. Flying light cavalry, yes please.