Dark Elf Warriors - Swordsmen I

Dark Elf Warriors - Swordsmen

Today I want to write about the simple troppers of the Dark Elves Army. But not about the plastic miniatures most of you will think about now. I want to write about the metal version of this regiment. I first came across these miniatures when noticing that one of the two displayed regiments of the Eavy Metal pages in the Armybook contain more than one monoposer. Several years later I read the story of these two miniatures on the Collecting Citadel Miniatures Wiki pages:

"While the metal Dark Elf Swordsmen look like prototypes for the single-pose plastic Swordsman, they were released and sold blistered by themselves in packs of 2. When originally released, single-pose plastic Swordsmen came in a box of 10 (without shields or waterslide transfers), this was later reduced to a box of 8, with added shields and transfers. Shield transfer 2 was apparently the only transfer sheet sold with the plastic swordsmen. The plastic Swordsman model may have originally been intended for use with the Talisman fantasy boardgame (like the single-pose plastic Beastman & Skaven models), but the Dark Elf character was dropped from the game prior to publication (rules for the Talisman Dark Elf character were published later in White Dwarf magazine)."


 
The History of the Dark Elf Swordsmen
Indeed these Warriors were some kind of prototypes. As their metal tab reveal these two miniatures were sculpted by Aly Morrison in 1993. Therefore, these were some of the first Dark Elfs designed by him while most of the miniature range was designed later in 1995. A few other miniatures also have a tab dated 1993 e.g. some Warriors with Repeating Crossbows, a Witch Elf and two Spearmen. The latter were of special interest here as both are conversions which based on the two Swordsmen. Therefore, Aly used the Swordsmen to design his first Spearmen in 1993. These two Spearmen were converted a second time in 1995.

                                                    Dark Elf Warriors and on their basis converted Spearmen


In contrast, the plastic Warrior was designed in 1994. Consequently, the metal version were produced first. A closer look on the plastic Warrior shows that his design based mainly on Swordman 1 but also shares some design elements from Swordman 2.

                                Dark Elf Warrior - Swordmen plastic version from 1994 in reference to the metal version from 1993


When the Dark Elfs were released in 1995 the metal versions of the Dark Elf Warriors were shown on the Eavy Metal pages painted in a Red/Blue colour scheme. A closer look revealed that the regiment consisted partly of metal and plastic Warriors. Only 5 to 6 metal miniatures can be spotted in the two ranks.

Dark Elves Warrior Regiment painted by the Eavy Metal Team

Additionally, the metal miniatures were listed in the catalogue pages of the first UK Dark Elves Armybooks with product codes DE6 and DE7.

Catalogue page from the Dark Elves Armybook (UK Version)

The cataloge pages seems to disappear in later printings of the UK Armybooks and were replaced by product pictures of an example army. To my knowledge the original catalogue pages were missing in Armybooks released in other languages. With the release of the Dark Elves Army only the plastic miniatures were featured in the White Dwarf and the metal versions were never catalogued in a European catalogue. Quite different in the US, here you can find the metal Swordsmen in the Warhammer catalogues from 1996 and 1997 as well as in the complete catalogues from 1997 and 1998 available under the product code 8510D. The Dark Elf Swordsmen were sold in blisters of two miniatures using this product code but sold less in Europe and the US due to the limited informtion and because of the cheaper plastic miniatures.   

My hunt for building a Swordsmen regiment
Today these metal Warriors were very rare and only appear from time to time on Ebay and the second hand market places. When I started to repaint my 4th Edition Dark Elves army I decieded to close the gaps in my collection. I saw the Dark Elf Swordsmen first in a polish market place, but had no chance to get these miniatures. However, after some time I found an Ebay auction from the US selling six of these guys. Two more Ebay auctions with 2 and 9 Swordsmen, both from Canada filled my ranks with 17 troopers. Finally, I added a command crew and my unit was completed with 20 Dark Elf Warriors in total.

Dark Elf Warrior - Swordmen regiment

I needed half a year to collect this regiment and in my experience, getting these miniatures only on the other side of the atlantic ocean confirmed that these Warriors were sold in Europe only in low numbers.


Painting the Swordsmen - A story of Try and Error
Painting the first Swordsmen was not easy. I wanted to continue with my purple/red colour scheme but had no idea how to distribute the colours on the miniature. With this question I started a journey on the long road of try and error. I know that most painters hide their failures and failed projects. Here you get an idea how it looks like when projects fail and how you learn by try and error.     
   

      
 
I wanted to paint the Warriors in red colours but I feared that painting all details in red makes them look like candy. As all my Dark Elfs of this army contain red and purple in different amounts, I had the idea to bring in more purple. Instead of focusing on one colour I balance both and painted them in equal amounts. It shows that, this does not work as purple and red were used here as saturated colours and therefore the eye does not find a focus. The result does not look harmonic and I knew that I had to change something. From the beginning the red colour was my favorite one. A second try followed in which I skipped the purple and replaced it by unsaturated blue in relation to the studio paint job. For the blue I took the same colour as I used for my bluish Cold Ones. The result looks better but also pale and finally not convincing. I wanted that these Dark Elf Warriors look more aggresively. I assumed that I had to paint the blue parts in red as well. But, this required to repaint the clothes for a third time adding a lot of paint to these parts. One guiding principle of my way of painting is that:

The miniature should look coloured, NOT painted!

This principle required a fine paint job with as less paint layers as possible. Now that I had already parts on this miniature which were repainted for one time makes it necessary to strip the paint of the miniature. Otherwise these parts would look smoother and with thicker colour as parts painted for one time only. Therefore, both miniatures went into the glass with acetone. I needed a new test miniature. I decided to paint the Champion, as he has less clothes which will allow to check how a miniature with red on most details will look like.

Painting the Dark Elf Warriors - Swordmen Champion
I used my already painted purple Dark Elf Champion as reference and swapped the purple to red tones and vice versa. I made one exception, the border of his chain mail which I painted also in red. The rest of the miniature is nearly identical with the other Champion. I added a nice freehand on his cloak for which I used a Dark Elf symbol of a star from the Dark Elves Armybook as reference. Finally, my redish colour scheme looked very good on this one and I get a lot of very positive feedback for this Champion. The result motivated me to transfer the colour scheme on the Warriors.

Painting the Warriors
I started by painting on many areas of both miniatures at the same time to get an idea if the coulour scheme works. My first impression was, that adding more red does not disturb the overall look. Then, I started to add more and more details, lights and shades. With that, I realized two problems on these miniatures. First, the swords get to much gold and second the Warrior with the feather on his helmet misses details to add some purple.

To avoid to much gold on the sword required to paint the triangle on the blade in a different colour. I saw two options, paint it also in red or in metal. Because I wanted to avoid to add more red, I choose the latter and repainted these areas in NMM silver. Consequently, the swords looked much more like the sword form the Champion what I liked very much.

The feather was the next difficult area to find a solution. I started to paint it also with a red ending and then decided to make a transition from black through purple to red. The result was really stunning and is one of the parts of these miniatures I like the most. I was really satisfied with the overall look of these two guys. But there was one thing left... the shields!

Finished Dark Elves Warriors - Swordsmen without shields

For the shields I wanted to show some kind of heraldy. As these Warriors will by the related to the General on Cold One I wanted them to carry a related symbol from him. Therefore, I wanted to add the dragon wings, but instead of a winged skull I wanted to add the winged gem. I had the option to give them black or red shields. Finally, I decieded to try the red ones, as this was much closer to the original one on the General. I started by painting the whole surface in red. The I painted the symbols completly free on the shields. Here I started with the golden gem socket which I put into the middle. Then I added the single fingers of the wings and finally the tail. Then I made the lines marking the skinny part of the wings. Here you can see the finished first sketch.

Freehand works on the shields - Initial sketch

To this sketch I added more and more details, light and shadows to seperate the symbol more and more from the background. Finally, I added a gold edge around the shield and add some scratches. Here I avoided to destroy to much of the symbol and placed them more in the periphery. In a last step I painted the backsides. I did not used glue to put the finished shields on the miniatures. Instead I used Patafix (some kind of Blu Tack). Here you can see the final result.

These two guys were a real challenge. They are wonderful miniatures full of details which makes it really hard to find a colour scheme allowing to show as much detail as possible. Even if it was a hard and long way I enjoyed painting these two miniatures. I like how the red work on the Champion and his two troopers and they share a really Roman look. What´s next?! Two finished means that there are only 15 left to complete the whole regiment. Additionally, I have to paint the standard bearer and the musician. But as the colour scheme is set now, it is only a matter of time to complete a first unit of 10 Warriors which will be extended step by step. I hope you like this guys and as well my research and this article. Let me know what you think and share your thoughts in the comment.

Kind Regards,
GeOrc