Dark Elf War Altar

[Willmark]

To the best of my knowledge I haven't seen one on the web and as we all know, GW didn't create one back in the day... So...

Now I'm working on my Nippon Army over at Dogs of War Online and of course I'm looking through the Warhammer Armies book and Dark Elves are the only ones who can utilize Nippon. This of course leads me to digging out my entire Dark Elf army with its crappy circa 1991 paint job A few nights later I've stripped a ton of paint and am sorting and arranging models. So not only am I creating a Nippon army, but now I'm apparently working on a Dark Elf one (again) as well.

Then I get to the Witch Elves. I have 14 citadel ones & 8 Marauder ones. Now, normally I like/love Marauder minis, but not the Witch Elves, thus they get set aside. I'm not telling anyone here that the 3rd edition witch elves don't have a lot of dynamic poses and only one with her hands above shoulder level, making it tough to haul a war altar. This puts a crimp in my plans for a war altar now doesn't it? So what to do? Conversion time! As you see, not only did the witch elf model in particular that I used work for the altar but for a standard bearer too. I went with the same model because as you can see in the pics the left arm works perfectly to drill through and use a rod for the altar poles. The right arms I had to cut off and reposition and glue with some gray/green stuff coming later.

Some further thoughts: I debated going with a 40mm base in the vein of what I did with my chaos dwarf general over at CDO, but it didn't really work; too big and a tad too long. I even had another extra base for a dwarf Throne of Power, but that didn't work either. In the end I had to start creating it from scratch. Right now its pretty basic. Still not sure what I'm going to put on the top. I also remembered some old regimental bases for the bearers, but alas no round insert parts. While doing this I did noticed that three 20 mm bases in a line (20 mm by 60 mm) would work perfectly and allow it to fit into the regiment of Witch Elves.

Next up is a movement base for the unit and as you can also see I need two more Witch Elves with the human flesh from Mengil Manhide's regiment for the additional altar guard and two more 3rd edition Witch Elves and I'll have a regiment of 20.

Enough talk here are the photos:

Here is where I started at as the basis of the conversion.

Snap to ladies!

Lining up

Lift on three!

Front View

The regiment WIP (once again? 25+ years later???)

That's it for the moment.Thoughts welcome.

EDIT: Head to here for further updates, by Dark Elf Army Rebirth Project: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7899

 

[Golgfag1]

Ah, but the point is, it is getting there and if, a thing is worth doing & doing well, it's worth the wait - looking good, now you've started the issue is keep going.

Paul / Golgfag1

 

[Naagruz]

Nice start & I'd have to agree with you regarding never having seen a faithful translation of the altar from the Armies book.
Maybe some gory bits, like Hippy Elf heads or hearts, would add to the altar. Heck, you could even magnetize it so that all sorts of random stuff could be swapped in/out. Make suitable sacrifices to represent all of your opponents!

 

[Willmark]

Nice start

Thanks!

Maybe some gory bits, like Hippy Elf heads or hearts, would add to the altar. Heck, you could even magnetize it so that all sorts of random stuff could be swapped in/out. Make suitable sacrifices to represent all of your opponents!

The swapable top idea has merit. In a way I did something similar on my chaos dwarf general's throne; banners: but they were glued on. This would obviously be different if for no other reason then it needs to be smaller. It's going to have to be small, like chaos familiar small to fit on top and look in proportion.

The heads hanging from the side is a good one too, I now have some ideas for that and the base of the altar, maybe some green stuff/gray stuff flesh on one side.

 

[King Arthur]

Hi Mark

This looks great! As you know I have a DE army that I will begin painting in March and I have the components for an 'Altar' but based around a Cauldron, your idea is great and speaks true to the Armies book with some top conversion work to boot Really looking forwards to watching this unfold

I'll certainly be following your Nippon work also, I'm curious to see how the Temple Dog looks now that's its working its way over from Germany to NY

Best Regards

Gary

 

[Willmark]

Hi Mark

This looks great! As you know I have a DE army that I will begin painting in March and I have the components for an 'Altar' but based around a Cauldron, your idea is great and speaks true to the Armies book with some top conversion work to boot Really looking forwards to watching this unfold

I'll certainly be following your Nippon work also, I'm curious to see how the Temple Dog looks now that's its working its way over from Germany to NY

Best Regards

Gary

^ the Gary guy is cool.

 

[Willmark]

Heck, you could even magnetize it so that all sorts of random stuff could be swapped in/out. Make suitable sacrifices to represent all of your opponents!

This turned out to be good idea but since I didn't have any magnets around I drilled a hole in the 20 mm base and I'll simply use a small mm tab/plastic pole what have you on each one to fit in the opening. Thus it achieves the aim of having swappable totems!

For the base one I looked at the picture in the army book a number of times and kept coming back to that moon. Then it hit me, Morrslieb the chaos moon! Where to come uo with one however? I have the chaos familiar but its way too small. But from the 6th edition Battle for Skull Pass set? Aces. That thing is thee gift that keeps on giving: I've used it a ton for my Chaos Dwarf army and now for going backwards to 3rd. The intent is I will paint it bronze with some muddy shadows to it.

Now its a tad too big overall but it establishes the maximum size I can realistically go in terms of a icon on the top.

Anyways here are the pics:

As you can see I snipped off the mushrooms from the chaos moon to make it less goblin-esque.

 

[dieselmonkey]

Really nicely done! I must get mine finished, it's been sat in a drawer since I finished the rest of my Dark Elf army a couple of years back.

 

[Blue in VT]

Thread locked at request of OP.

Cheers,

Blue