Into The Wild

 It is fair to say that these days my enthusiasm for Warhammer is at a low point. While I do still nominally enjoy it, my excitement for Warhammer is on its last legs, having been suffocated by the return of the Tourneycorn Sour Prude math hegemony that did far more damage to the game than GW ever could have. Even the prospects of a few eager 6th-curious folk near me has done little to rekindle my joy or stave off the intrusive thoughts of fire and plastic. 

It's so bad that the 10-year anniversary of my getting into Warhammer came and went without so much as a quick acknowledgement, so drained of excitement have I become. And the press releases surrounding the fan fiction accompanying GW's TOW system have only awoken an ice-hot rage not felt in many long years. 

But it was not always so. Ten years ago Warhammer promised to be the dawn of an exciting new age, a revolution in my tabletop hobby. 

It was, most fittingly, one late summer's afternoon when I went home from university with a Wood Elf Battalion box, and it took all my strength to wait until I got home before tearing off the shrink wrap and poring over the sprues inside. And what a marvel to behold they were! Knife variants! Cloak variants! Special jeweled cloaks for the champions! Banner variants! And best of all, a huge array of beautiful fun little doodads to stick on bases. My first taste of Warhammer models was so amazing it put me right at ease and I completely forgot my crushing intimidation at painting not only beautiful Wood Elf model sculpts, but also banners and tiny elven runes for the first time. 

I immediately set to work preparing the infantry figures that were at the top of the box - conveniently its contents were layered top to bottom in exactly the order I wanted to tackle them in. The box contained a surplus of archer sprues - enough to make eight more than the band of 16 Glade Guard I had planned. Two of the extras were used as the test models I've shown earlier. One was reserved for a particularly special purpose - we'll get to her later. 

But the remaining five became my first ever Warhammer unit, the Wood Wasps. 

This army actually marked the official start of my tradition of always starting with a unit of foot troops where appropriate - because unless it's a game of giant starships or robots infantry are usually going to be the most important cornerstone of the fighting force in question. Unlike later armies however, the starting infantry unit was a band of elite reconnaissance troops, because their composition as loose formation skirmishers made them closer to the Warhammer 40,000 infantry teams I was more familiar with and that made them a more natural stepping stone into Warhammer as I worked up towards ranked units. 

Besides, from the outset I knew I wanted a force of Scouts in the army, because I also always want the best reconnaissance and scouting capabilities I can get. Victory often goes to the side with the best eyes and ears, and being able to identify and track opposing formations and get good intimate knowledge of the local area is always a powerful advantage. In my Tau army that had always been accomplished by a team of Pathfinders, so for Warhammer it was only natural to go for a unit of the best scouting troops available to the best game faction at scouting and reconnaissance - the Wood Elf Scouts. 

It did not take a tactical genius to identify them as the direct Warhammer equivalent to Pathfinders, only making use of great stealth over great speed. Since gas turbine engines, satellite navigation, laser target designators and long-range surveillance space radars weren't things in this setting. successful information gathering would come down to cunning, wit, keen eyes and ears, a good elven cloak for camouflage and the stealth to closely observe the opposing army without them ever knowing it. 

The painting was fairly straightforward, following the step by step instructions for painting Glade Guard outlined in the Wood Elf army book. The process went surprisingly smoothly and I was very pleased with the results. Like the Glade Guard they use the hooded head variants, but the pattern is flipped - where the Glade Guard rank and file have masked hooded heads and the command group have unmasked, here it's the reverse, with the rank and file sporting no face masks to maximise their field of vision while only the champion retains a mask. 

This is also just about the only Warhammer unit I ever made with anything less than the full command options available to it. This was mostly because at the time some vague wording in the army book meant I was not entirely sure if Scouts could in fact take command options of any kind, only learning later that they could (and even then it was years before working out that it made them the ideal delivery vehicle for a Banner of The Zenith). But having just a Champion is enough for a tiny 5-elf scouting party so I'm not too bothered even now. 

It also marked the first real beginnings of the backstory behind the army. 

The Wood Wasps 

The presence of the Wood Wasps is rarely seen in the Meadows Of Heaven, for they spend much of their time outside the domains of that realm. As the principle Scout kindred of the Meadows of Heaven it is the Wood Wasps who man the Outer Sentinels that guard the approaches to Athel Loren, as well as the Inner Sentinels that guard the approaches to the Meadows Of Heaven within the great forest itself. They also frequently range out into the lands beyond Athel Loren to watch, learn and gather news, reporting back to the Wishmaster when they return to keep him and his court up to date with the goings on of the wider world. 

The Wood Wasps were the only Scout kindred in the Meadows Of Heaven to survive Cyanathair's first invasion of the Meadows of Heaven, and remain the secret fifth major warrior kindred to form the bulk of the Meadows of Heaven's fighting force. They are comprised of the Asrai living there possessed of the greatest curiosity and wanderlust among their kind, putting their passions to good use in their role of ranging far and wide and scouting out the enemies of the Wood Elves. 

Each army sent from the Meadows of Heaven is always accompanied by a party of Wood Wasps to range ahead and act as the commanding elf's eyes and ears. Wood Wasps act in small bands of just five Asrai, which keeps their presence as inconspicuous as possible, and the lack of numbers is no hinderance for their main purpose is observation and surveillance rather than direct battle, though they will not hesitate to inflict what havoc they can on the enemy should the opportunity present itself. 

Wood Wasps fight with the Scout Bow as their principle weapon. While this design of longbow lacks the punch and stopping power of the heavier Glade Guard Longbow, it is considerably lighter and more compact, making it less encumbering when moving through dense terrain for extended periods, and it is still precise enough to strike wild game or errant goblins with equal ease. 

For close in fighting Wood Wasps carry the elven daggers common to all warriors of the Meadows of Heaven. Also like most warriors of the Meadows of Heaven Wood Wasps wear Lauralinae cloaks, enchanted to provide concealment amongst undergrowth, keep water out, bring warmth in winter and never wear or tear. Wood Wasps also travel with an array of messenger birds for relaying information back to their friends, including falcons for dangerous trips and owls for night-time communication, crucially important for coordinating the nighttime  manoeuvres that commonly employed by the armies of the Meadows of Heaven. 

But the most important wargear of all for a Wood Wasp is their keen elven senses and their sharp wits. Wood Wasps spend much time studying the world, especially the plants and creatures not only within Athel Loren and the realms surrounding the great forest, but also many many other corners of the world. They keenly study matters of geography, history and culture among as many regions as possible, and this wealth of knowledge, carefully cultivated over many mortal lifetimes, allows them to understand the world such that they might better guide the Asrai of the Meadows Of Heaven with superb precision and insight. 

And that was my first concrete step into Warhammer. Perhaps one day I will touch up the wear and tear on these pioneers, but until then I still remain pretty happy with them. 

And they were in time joined by others....