Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

In the long term I'm intending to build a high elf army (with a focus on all those wonderful flying models!) however before I set any plans down I'm wondering few things about possible conversions of the models. Namely how easy and possible it is to take Dark Elf Cold One mounts and use them instead of the horses for the High Elves. I tried searching, but the results were buried in a sea of regular dark elves on coldones.

So has anyone done or seen this done - is it just a simple case of swap the riders or it is more tricky?

It would be a bit more tricky. As of right now, the best looking cavalry kit for the High Elves(Dragon Princes) has the legs attached to the horse bodies.

The Cold One Knights, however, do not have that. The rider is fully separated from the mount.

I'm curious as to why you would want High Elves on Cold Ones though? Just in terms of a fluff perspective, mind you. The models for the Cold Ones are pretty awesome.

Purely for the looks of it - that and my view is elves should be riding something more exotic than horses. I did have a mind to keep the Dragon Princes on their horses as they are well detailed and armoured. The Silver Helms though could be good on cold ones.

I've also heard of these Ellyrian Reavers who appear (for some reason) to be only sold in the two player boxed set so they could also be a potential conversion path with cold ones.

I'd avoid the Reavers, they are snap-fit models and the riders are almost entirely sculpted to the horses. Cool idea, though, and I agree that in WFB's over-the-top fantasy style, elves just riding horses is a bit underwhelming.

 Overread wrote:
Purely for the looks of it - that and my view is elves should be riding something more exotic than horses. I did have a mind to keep the Dragon Princes on their horses as they are well detailed and armoured. The Silver Helms though could be good on cold ones.

I've also heard of these Ellyrian Reavers who appear (for some reason) to be only sold in the two player boxed set so they could also be a potential conversion path with cold ones.

Then basically you're stuck with the Silver Helms. It seems to be that the cavalry kits are moving towards being simplistic where the riders are part of the actual steed models. The Dark Rider/Doomfire Warlock kit is basically just a choice of upper torsos.

I, personally, do not see why you have such a hard time with the Elven horses. Bear in mind that the Cold One Knights are a result of the Dark Elves not having a steady supply of Elven steeds. The Shade clans that steal Ellyrion steeds pretty much get to set their prices. When the Storm of Chaos campaign book came out, we found out that one of the gifts that the Elves gave to Valten(the avatar of Sigmar himself by all accounts) was an Elven steed.

The horses are that good.

Maybe but everyone rides horses - not everyone rides a lizard

 Overread wrote:
Maybe but everyone rides horses - not everyone rides a lizard

True, but have you read the in depth fluff on Cold Ones and the Knights that ride them?

If not you should. It's kind of interesting and will give you a bit of perspective as to why the High Elves don't use Cold Ones as mounts.

I've not read the fluff and I did expect that I was likely making a terrible crime against fluff with this choice. But at the end of the day I don't worry too much about the fluff - its nice and I do like the background history, but I'm not slaving myself too it.

(plus this fills my desire to make a Exodite Eldar army without having to build an Eldar army and do much heavier conversion work )

 Overread wrote:
I've not read the fluff and I did expect that I was likely making a terrible crime against fluff with this choice. But at the end of the day I don't worry too much about the fluff - its nice and I do like the background history, but I'm not slaving myself too it.

(plus this fills my desire to make a Exodite Eldar army without having to build an Eldar army and do much heavier conversion work )

Oh no, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying don't do it--just saying that there's actually a reason that the Dark Elf nobility are the only ones aside from the Saurus who ride Cold Ones. The Cold Ones attack anything warm-blooded. The Knights have to anoint themselves with the slime from the Cold Ones, which is incredibly caustic and noxious. The slime burns the nostrils, destroys the taste buds, and numbs the skin so that the knights cannot feel the touch of others, taste or smell food or anything like that. It's considered a kind of mark of ambition amongst the Dark Elves.

Something you can do with reasonable ease if the aim is simply to make something "exotic" looking is actually leave the front legs off of the Dragon Prince steeds and fill in the gap with plasticard and green stuff and trim off the tail/reshape the faces a bit.
They end up looking like angry chocobos.

Haha - sadly I've been on the internet long enough that making a chickenhorse might just leave in in stitches whenever I used them

I'd think Cold Ones, looking like wingless dragons would be perfect mounts for Dragon Princes. Can you put DP torsos on COK legs? Would that work, I'm not sure how compatible GW elf models are at this point.

Have you seen the Coldones that gamezone make?

http://gamezoneminiatures.de/dunkelelfen/dunkelelfen-echsenritter-box.html

If I was doing anything to represent wingless dragons I would have to use these?

Also I'm not sure what you green stuff skills are like but a chain mail skirt could just added to Dark Elf legs to make it fit in more.

Cheers
Pastel

Those look very lizardy lizards - the photos make them look more chunky than the GW versions though (I prefer the sleeker look for the smaller cavalry). The only other thing is I see at least one or two have their legs crouched up high on the back rather than straddling over the sides which might be tricky to work with when adding a GW model to the top.

Don't high elves have some lion tamer thing? Maybe the panther mounts from the Mantic Basilean range would be different enough from horses for you but not lore breaking. Can't speak for the quality of the kit, some Basileans had problems, not sure if this was one.

O.O Now that is an interesting option!
I did consider lions, but the chariot lions looked to be too broad of back to fit a rider without lots of fiddling with legs and greenstuff and lots of small cuts.

Not sure if I like the Basilean lions, faces look a little angular on the model; but now I'll have to hunt around and see if there are any more lion cat models out there. I know PP does their Skorn riders with shot tail cats; reaper I don't think has a big enough lion model (they've lions but more just for wild lion showing).


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It seems I spoke to soon:

http://theminikingdom.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/white-lion-riders-complete-part-one.html

http://theminikingdom.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/white-lion-riders-completed-part-two.html

Tempted now to do both conversions since high elves do have variety in their mounts and it lets me differ them by mount type on the table top.