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Hi,

I was thinking about starting a small Retribution of Scyrah force for Warmachine - after my Necrons and Chaos, I wanted to paint something alive, not grimdark, (relatively) nice, in colours of spring. Also, I'm a fan of forces consisting of 10-20 miniatures plus a big robot-monster or three. And finally, and unfortunately, I got hooked on a particular feel and colour scheme -- the one of Viridian elves from Magic: The Gathering:





The combination of yellowish/greenish flesh, brown/copper clothes and armour, and dim green lights is perfect for me, just as lithe and agile silhouettes of the elves and a science fantasy feel.

And then, oh horror, I realized that:
1) Warmachine is pretty expensive if I were to collect an army (did you know that Games Workshop, with it's greedy business model, has some of the cheapest 28 mm miniatures on the market?), and worse:
2) Retribution models seem to be mostly chunks of armour or heaps of clothes, and myrmidons kinda suck. And actually, few miniatures look particularly cool.

I'm still thinking of painting a small force like the Mirrodin elves. I don't mind painting miniatures not suitable for any game (my friends are quite acceptable when it comes to proxies). Do you know of any miniatures with a similar feel?

Closest I can think of in terms of lithe builds and 'painted on' (thin, closely formed) armour are Mantic's elves. They work quite well with copper/gold color schemes, but also predominantly have tall helmets, which aren't represented in your source art. Size may also be an issue, as they're true-scale 28mm in terms of height, but also incredibly thin. From what I've seen of WMH models, they'd be especially weedy... but they're also cheap as chips, by comparison.

I was thinking the same before I got to oadie's post - mantic elves, perhaps with a few head swaps.

There's also Hasslefree's Ceril and Daphos you could drop in for leader figures if they take you. they're pretty gaunt and tall.

Thunderbolt Mountain Miniatures makes the absolutely best Elves ever to be produced.... If you are looking for the Tolkien Standard Elf.

They are incredibly lithe, without being emaciated (as are Mantic's - if you remove the armor, they would have to be skeletal).

Tom Meier remains one of the best miniature sculptors to have ever lived (and hopefully will continue living for some time).

The figures are extraordinarily well proportioned. The details are crisp, and often very subtle (sometimes being quite a challenge to paint).

The only down-side to his Thunderbolt Mountain 30mm fantasy lines is that the eyes are sculpted rather strangely (they are not spheres embedded in the socket, as he used to sculpt, which made painting them extremely easy), making painting them a bit of a challenge in itself (I have been tempted to drill outs the eyes and re-sculpt them as embedded spheres).

But that is a minor, and rather niggling point.

He has a line of both High Elves (Noldorin) and Wood Elves (Sindarin or Silvan Elves). The High Elves do not yet have a command group, but they have a selection of Spearmen and Archers. The Wood Elves contain both Spearmen, Archers, Scouts/Skirmishers, and Cavalry, as well as Command Groups.

They look even more like what you would expect Middle-earth Elves to look like than even Peter Jackson's woeful attempts have achieved.

MB

Thanks, good suggestions! Hasslefree looks especially cool.
I've been also thinking about using LotR elves, as I've got some of them in my drawers. So I guess I will start with them, and then we'll see.

Reaper have a metric butt-load of Elves. Their Bones range is reasonably cheap.

Not always the most consistent look for a whole unit though.

https://www.reapermini.com/OnlineStore/elf

 SilverMK2 wrote:
Reaper have a metric butt-load of Elves. Their Bones range is reasonably cheap.

Not always the most consistent look for a whole unit though.

https://www.reapermini.com/OnlineStore/elf

DAAAAMN!

Whose butt are we using to load these things into?

Most people I know do not have butts nearly large enough to contain all those elves.

But, yeah... It would be kinda hard to find a consistent unit of elves out of those.

OH!

Iron Wind Metals is also re-releasing all of the original Tom Meier Fantasy Collector's Series Elves.

If you are into a "retro" thing. The original Tom Meier Elves were THE Elves for gamers from 1979 to around 1990.

I am hoping to talk them into scanning them to re-scale them to 30mm figures, because some of them are so small compared to most of today's miniatures.

But they are freaking gorgeous.

Some of the Reaper Elves come close, though.

MB