Workbench Update: Rivendell

Good morning gamers,

Today our travels take us to Rivendell, where we catch up on what we’re doing for my High Elves. Those who follow our blog know that I took a Last Alliance list to Brawler Bash this past January, taking the power of Elendil and Elrond to fight all comers. Had a bit of a rough go against a full-Rivendell list (Elendil and Gil-Galad had a not-so-epic show-down), had a good time though overall.

There are three big projects that have been in the works for Rivendell since that time: a) adding spears to some of my guys (can’t rely on Numenoreans being in position to support), b) converting a Cirdan model out of an old Celeborn model (because Cirdan is awesome and I didn’t want to pay a ridiculous amount of money to get the made-to-order one that was released recently), and c) making a banner for them (as well as one for Lothlorien).

High Elves: Spear Conversions

You can find spearmen online – they sell for ~$5/model regardless of whether you get them new or used. Plastic High Elf Warriors (especially bowmen) are very easy to find online, so I’m converting mine from some High Elf Warriors I acquired a while back. Here’s how the army used to look:

9 High Elf Warriors with shields

9 High Elf Warriors (vanilla – awesome pose retained)

9 High Elf Warriors with Elf bows

TOTAL COST: 270pts

While this is very points-efficient (you can literally get 10 points/model), it turns your High Elves into a mass infantry mob thanks to taking no spears (see a recent post by Rythbryt on these formations) and only 1/3 of the models are D6. Most of the armies we see at TMAT field a 1-1-1 combo of shield-toting, spear-and-shield-toting, and bow-toting High Elves. This would look something like this:

9 High Elf Warriors with shields

8 High Elf Warriors with spears and shields

1 High Elf Warrior with spear, shield, and banner

9 High Elf Warriors with Elf bows

TOTAL COST: 313pts (+43)

While this certainly makes your shieldwall both existent and more resilient (by actually having spears, giving shields to those spearmen, and adding a banner), I’m going for a slightly different tact:

9 High Elf Warriors with shields

1 High Elf Warrior with spear and shield

7 High Elf Warriors with spears

1 High Elf Warrior with spear and banner

4 High Elf Warriors with Elf bows

5 High Elf Warriors with Elf bows and spears

TOTAL COST: 310pts (+40)

First off, let’s just get this said:

I could add 8 additional points to give all of my spearmen shields. 

The choice to run fewer shields is simple: I need money for the heroes (as good as F5/D6 models are, heroes are what I think Rivendell is ACTUALLY good at). With three epic heroes (Elrond/Glorfindel I own, used to own Gil-Galad), several very good support heroes (Cirdan/Erestor-proxy/Arwen/Gildor-proxy I own, don't own the Twins/Lindir), and a host of good historical allied heroes from the Fellowship/White Council (of which I own almost all) to say nothing of Lothlorien (which includes epic heroes AND warriors that very nearly mimic your own), you get some very, VERY powerful army builds that can provide flexibility to your army. With 310 spoken for in a 700 point list, I have 390 points to spend on heroes, which could include any of the following pairings (I own all these guys, so these lists are in some ways informed by my collection as much as by what fits):

• Quake Team: 
• Elrond with heavy armor
• Arwen Undomiel
• Radagast the Brown
• 30 models, 2x Wrath of Bruinen, 1x Nature's Wrath that could be channelled to be like a basic Wrath of Bruinen
• Adding 5 shield to my spearmen could be accommodated by adding Sebastian and dropping 1 High Elf Warrior with spear
• Wayfarers: 
• Glorfindel with Asfaloth
• Cirdan
• Gildor Inglorion
• 3 Noldorin Exiles with Wood Elf Spear
• 2 Noldorin Exiles with Elf bow
• 3 Noldorin Exiles with throwing daggers
• 38 models, 8 fast/light infantry along with mega mounted hero, augmenting support hero, and immobilizing fast hero
• Adding 5 shields to my spearmen could be accommodated by dropping 2 Noldorin Exiles with Wood Elf Spears, and giving the Armor of Gondolin to Glorfindel
• Defense of Bruinen: 
• Glorfindel with Armor of Gondolin
• Arwen Undomiel
• Aragorn-Strider with bow and armor
• 30 models, two power heroes and one area-of-effect caster - note that you could drop the Armor of Gondolin and Aragorn's bow in order to hand out Asfaloth and a horse to Glorfindel/Aragorn if you think you'll get more out of mounts than their gear
• Adding 5 shields to my spearmen could be accommodated by dropping the bow on Aragorn

You also have options for good cavalry in Rivendell Knights, which I have currently foregone, but wouldn’t mind picking up at a later date (and running in Elrond’s warband, of course, so they don’t count to my bow limit). But all told, while I could probably eek out 8 extra points (or at least 5 – which I may do at a later date), I’ve decided that a predominantly D5 army is just fine. So, let’s get into the pictures!

The spear conversions I’ve done are simple – nothing like what Zorro’s done in the past. I’ve taken spears from a Warlord Games Saxon Thegns box and removed the Elven blades of some of my guys to get spears thrust downwards. One of the others retained his raised sword (love the pose, can't help it) and has his spear glued to his backs (neat-and-easy), and one other had an actual hand-swap happen. All five archers I own who aren't drawing arrow to ear lost their right hands to the conversion knife too.

Cirdan Conversion

Cirdan’s original model and Celeborn’s original model are incredibly similar: flowing robes, long hair, arms in boring positions. When Cirdan’s profile got the revamp with the new release (+1 spell, +1 free Will point each turn), I was like “I want this guy.” Of course, at the time I had this idea, he was all the rage and not available online. So before they offered him as a made-to-order purchase, I decided on a different thought: convert my Celeborn model.

Celeborn’s been dying for some armor for a while, so I took an Armored Haldir’s Elf blister that I’ve had forever, hacked off his head and Celeborn’s head, glued them on different bodies, and puttied around their necks/hair. Both turned out pretty nicely, though you'll notice across the army, I need to tidy up their basing (and some general touch-up paint as well). Expect to see an update on this at a later date.

Banner Spearman

At the most recent TMAT GT, I got to play 1 game and in it I faced Zorro’s High Elf list that had a banner. In previous editions, we didn’t see many banners – they began as really expensive, but even with their drop in price to a uniform 25 points across all armies, we still didn’t see them. But I don’t plan on leaving home without one anymore: your models get SO much better with one.

This particular banner came from a Warhammer High Elves infantry blister – it’s a good size, draws the eyes, love it to pieces. The icon on the front didn't come out quite well enough for my liking (probably going to touch it up this weekend), but it's the leaf emblem that represents the Rivendell faction in the alliance chart. Once you know it's that...it might be a bit more recongizable. Oh well, free-hand painting is pretty hard, what can I say?

Second picture because I wanted to show the back of the banner. The spear is modeled on in a simple way: glue it to the guy's back. Nothing to it. While I was at it, I took the staff off my old Thranduil model (since he doesn’t have it anymore in his profile) and gave it to a Wood Elf to use as a banner – could be used as a Noldorin Exile in a Rivendell list, or (more likely) a banner-wielding man for a Lothlorien army. Thranduil got a spare High Elf Warrior's Elven blade after one of the aforementioned spear conversions (since he has that in his profile and you should ALWAYS take it).

What’s Next?

Here’s the current army – plans in the future include changing the model of Arwen on Asfaloth to be Glorfindel, and maybe add some shields to people (though, as mentioned above, it makes the points come out weird sometimes). There are also four High Elf Warriors that I messed up a while back to convert into Ringwraiths, so cleaning those up is probably in the cards too. Until I decide what to do, I’m pretty happy with them as they are and can’t wait to try them out. In our next post, we leave Rivendell and head to their ancient allies, Numenor. It’s been a while since we paid them some care and they’ve got some great new additions I can’t wait to show off. Until next time, happy hobbying!