Hi All,
As we sit around and wait for updates to roll out about the Old World release I thought I would start to examine the old Warhammer Fantasy armies and their current state. My thought experiment for each of these articles is: If I was a new player who wanted to collect this army? What advice would I need? As such these reviews will largely be focused on minis without respect to edition. You can find people playing every edition of WHFB and even a lot of home brew options. As such I will focus on availability for all models in their range.
Old GW Range:
Few armies ranges have taken a bigger hit than the High Elves of old. For an army that used to have a ton of model options only the Shadow Warriors/Sisters of the Watch, Phoenix Guard, and Phoenix models have carried through into Age of Sigmar. While these can be quite useful in most armies, it is but a sliver of their old range. Secondhand models can also be somewhat hard to find. Many of the older spearman and archers persist due to their wonky sculpts. The Lothern Seaguard models can be found for high but not exorbitant costs. The same goes for White Lion and Swordmaster minis. Many of the units in the old Spire of Dawn/Island of Blood set are around including the Prince of a Griffon (never useful but always cool) and the Reivers. Sadly, the ever-reliable bolt throwers, Dragon Princes and Great Eagles are gone. As are the chariots (Chracen and otherwise), Skycutters (RIP an amazing sculpt) and all 50,000 elven heroes.
Substitutes:
No we can sit here and scrape ourselves with pot-shards over what has been lost, or we can think about substitutes. Starting with GW substitutes, much of the Lumineth line ports over if you like the asthetics. These models can stand in for:
- Spearmen/Bowmen: Straightforward substitute*
- Starshard Ballista: Bolt Thrower
- Windchargers: Reivers*
- Bladelords/Stoneguard: Swordmasters*
- Dawnriders: Silverhelms
- Bannerblade: Prince BsB
- Assorted Heroes: Assorted heroes (especially the Underworlds set)
- Not sure how easy they will be to rank up.
Scraping around the other GW lines, the Eagles from the Lord of The Rings work perfectly as Great Eagles. This still leaves some noticeable gaps in the range that you will have to use 3rd party models for. Fortunately these exist in droves and can be found around the internet. And, while they lack the majesty of the original sculpts you’d be surprised how much majesty you’d be willing to forgo to save $80+.
A tip I have found some sites on Etsy will sell 3d print Stls so you might be able to find a sculpt even if you don’t have a 3D printer.
FLG:
It would be irresponsible, nay negligent, of me not to mention some of the High Elf models that are available on the FLG second-hand store. So if you are looking for nifty models check these out:
- Lothern Sea Guard (Old)
- High Elf Chariot
- Swordmasters of Hoeth (Old) (Multiple sets available)
- Sisters of Avelorn
- Dragon Princes (Old)!
- Archmage and Mage (NiB)
- Prince on horse (Who I almost thought was Tyrion)
- Prince on Gryphon from Island of Blood (Needs TLC)
- Reivers
- Plenty of Spearmen and some archers (Not linked you can find them easily).
If I was starting an army, I would definitely grab the mages, prince, Swordmasters, Dragon Princes, Reivers and Sisters. You can also grab the chariot and griffon prince as they are cool and fun models. That would give you a small but interesting force. It is easier to find stand-in heroes than units these days so keep that in mind as you look around.
I hope this article has been useful if you are starting a new army, filling one out or just checking out some of the cool old models. I hope to see each of you on the battle field in the coming years whenever the Old World emerges again!
And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!
