"Deceitful witch!" yelled the orc, and swung at her again, but he was knocked off balance by an arcane bolt. The white-haired sorceress Lyana stood nearby, her staff glowing, a smirk on her face.
The orc turned towards the new threat, and swung a third time, but this time there was a blur of motion, and a fiery green blade parried the axe. A blind, shirtless aelf, covered in glowing green tattoos, and wielding a pair of warglaives now blocked his path.
"Go! You two can save the Ancient! I'll hold this one off."
'But..." started Selena. Her eyes swept over the battle in the field ahead. It was not going well. All the Sentinels and Black Guard were dead. Only the spectral Nightwatch were still holding ground against the orcs, though as she watched, two of them dissipated. They would not last much longer. She hated leaving people behind, but the Nightwatch were cursed to haunt the realms forever - they could be temporarily destroyed, but they would return eventually. Selena turned to Lyana, who stretched out a hand. Selena grasped it, and the two of them vanished in a swirl of arcane magic.
Demon Hunter
Name: Cordon Shadowfury
Role: Hero
Warscroll: Witch Hunter
Made out of: Wild Riders, Sisters of the Watch, Black Guard, Chaos Warriors, Spirit of Durthu
Shadowfury was the first night aelf hero I built, constructed out of bit from all sorts of sets. His body and limbs are from Wild Riders, which, being mounted, are not really suited to standing. Fortunately, by placing him on a rusted metal thingy that comes in the treelord box, and using a bit of liquid green stuff to fill in the gaps, he came out ok. His warglaives are actually bows from the Sisters of the Watch box, with the arrows cut off, and donated to me by Brad. Warglaives in Warcraft are usually more glowing than actually on fire, but, hey, I have to work with what is available. Lastly, he has a Black Guard head, with a blindfold made of green stuff, and horns that I cut off a Chaos Warrior helmet (donated by Michael) and glued onto his forehead. Which was quite a delicate operation.
Shadowfury is currently dead, slain by Brad's orcs, but his death was not in vain - it gave Lyana and Selena enough time to escape. Of course, if you have played World of Warcraft, you will know that it is not very hard to bring demon hunters back from the dead. Initially I used Shadowfury to reperesent the aelf Assassin unit, but I've decided that when he returns he will be played as a Witch Hunter, cause they get bonuses when fighting daemons and spellcasters. The fact that Witch Hunters have a ranged pistol attack was a problem for me at first, but now I've played one in Warcraft, and discovered that they can throw their glaives at things, and it turns out that in Age of Sigmar pistols and thrown weapons have the same 9" range. He doesn't have the aelf keyword sadly, but that's ok, aelves don't really like demon hunters anyway.
Keeper of the Grove
Name: Califax
Role: Hero
Warscroll: Archmage
Made out of: Wild Riders, Dryads, Branchwytch
Though he looks pretty impressive, Califax was not very hard to make. All I did was cut of the head of a Wild Rider mount, file off its saddle, and then stick the body of the Wild Rider onto the remains of the mount's neck, using an arm from a Sylvaneth Dryad to depict his tree-claw. Finding a good warscroll to use him for was much harder. I was planning on making an archmage model based on Farondis from Warcraft, but then I discovered that the Archmage unit can be given a mount for free, and there's no real drawback to it, so why would you play an unmounted Archmage? I was annoyed about this until I realised that Califax would make a pretty good mounted Archmage instead.
Califax joined the army after Lyana and Selena rescued the Ancient Protector (a treelord), forging an alliance between the ancients and the night aelves.
Shadow Warden
Name: Mirana Starlight
Role: Hero
Warscroll: Tenebrael Shard
Made out of: Anointed, Wild Riders, Black Guard, Spirit of Durthu.
Making a Warden was the hardest of . I knew from the beginning she would use the speedy, teleporting Tenebrael Shard warscroll, but actually making a model that had the unique armour and weapons of the Wardens was quite a challenge. Her body is that of the unmounted Anointed from the Flamespyre Phoenix box. Her head is not actually a head at all - it's from the top of the Wild Riders banner, with the antlers cut off and replaced with a Black Guard ponytail. The arms are also Black Guard. The closest I could get to a crescent umbra weapons was to cut a piece out of the sword from a Spirit of Durthu.
Mirana's job is not to take out heavily armoured units. Those will most likely survive her attacks and then hit her back, which is bad. She is really good at taking out lightly armoured units - battleline units, artillery crews, and wizards with bad saves.
Priestess of the Moon
Name: Selena Starlight
Warscroll: Loremaster
Role: Hero
This one was easy mode, as the Mistweaver Saih model looks a lot like a Moon Priestess. She lacks the tiger and bow, but that isn't very representative of how Moon Priestesses act in WoW anyway. That pic is not my actual model, which is still unpainted. It is the colour scheme I intend to use, however. I am torn between using her as an actual Mistweaver Saih (which is a pretty cool wizard) and finding a priest-keyword warscroll to use instead. It doesn't help that Moon Priestesses in Warcraft appear to be some sort of cross between a druid and a priest.
Highborne
Name: Lyana Lunastre
Warscroll: Sorceress
Role: Hero
For thousands of years the night elves banned arcane magic, sticking to druidry and holy magic. But recently the Highborne who survived secretly places like Dire Maul and Suramar have returned to night elf society. Lyana represents this reborn aspect of the night aelves - and hails from Surmar, where the night elves were altered over time by magic use to have blue skin and white hair. She is also the strategist of the group, able to give orders to the battleline and other non-hero units.
