Oathmark 10mm Dark Elves

This week I finished up the first part of my 10mm dark elf army for Oathmark. The miniatures themselves are mostly by Pendraken who do excellent army deals for their fantasy range. Coming in at £35 they are a steal for a starter army in this scale. Excellent quality with very little cleaning needed and a fantastic level of detail. 

 I started playing Oathmark a few years ago in 28mm fielding an undead army. I dropped it a while back, selling the army due to a number of reasons. I found myself quite frustrated getting to grips with rank and flank gaming so soon after leaving w40k. In hindsight I simply didn’t grasp the importance of deployment and manoeuvring compared with my 40k play style of charging headlong into fire and hoping for the best… 

 But recently the mass battle bug grabbed me again and not wanting to labour over months and months to get a 28mm army ready I opted for 10mm. This scale really lends itself to big fantasy battles. 

 Firstly is the painting time. This army was completed in a fraction of the time it would normally take me in 28mm. 

 Secondly the cost. When expanded I could easily have a 10000point army for under £100- unthinkable in a bigger scale.

 Thirdly is the gaming benefits - smaller storage, quicker set up and a real sense of an epic battle unfolding when all the units are on the table. Multibasing may not allow for individual casualty removal but I keep track of remaining troops using a D20 dice on next to the unit entry on my roster sheet. 

So here’s the army. Not my best paint job by any means - these were speed painted mostly with black and purple inks with the details picked out in flesh and silver. I found what really helps painting this scale is using black ink to fineline in shadows to create a bold sense of contrast.

The core of the force is based around 2 large units of spearman and 2 units of crossbows proxied as archers. With the fire over ability these units can hold the line whether offensively or defensively, the valuable archers shooting over the wall of spears out of harms way. To protect the flanks I have 2 smaller units of warriors.

For the crushing offensive a unit of 10 cavalry (big lizards!) and, as support against big scary beasts, I’ve just added 3 ballista from Vanguard miniatures.

I also managed to squeeze out a unit of Witch Elves to serve as line breakers when a little extra punch is needed

This gives me a solid core of an army for a decent evenings gaming. Next steps will be to add characters and spellcasters before maybe adding some other races to swell the ranks further.