Alternative witch elves

[xaljorn14]

So I'm looking to collect a daughters of khaine army and was wondering if there are any good alternative models for the witch elves?  They're just too expensive to me. $60 per 10 and you need 30-90 of them? No way.  

[Vasshpit]

Could pick up a few of those start collecting boxes off Ebay (at discount) and sell off the throne model and make a good chunk of your $$ back. 

Just an idea. 

[Overread]

Are there many out there? The UK stock of the cauldron and elves kit is out of stock and has been for some time. So ebay prices might not be that cheap - course depends on the country. 

[xaljorn14]

I know I'll likely be trying to get 2-3 of that Blood Coven box, but getting 6-9? That's rough.  The biggest problem with trying to resell the Coven Throne part is that's what a lot of people are doing right now, so I likely won't make that much back.

[Lucio]

Dark Eldar Wyches don't look terribly out of place in the army, particularly if you combine them with hair from the Escher gang box.

Weapon wise, have an equal mix of Witch Aelves and Sisters of Slaughter so you can buy one box of Sisters plus one box of Wych Aelves to get 20 models done for £53 which is far more comparible to other armies. If you can adapt the Dark Eldar weapons, you could push that a little further too

[WilsonUndead]

Check out Raging Heroes, they have dark elves and lust elves armies and both have some amazing minis. 

They also have alternative witch elves. 

[kenshin620]

Perhaps Mantic Succubi models could work? Swap heads with something elf like and shave tail off.

Avatars of War used to have their own but guess it went out of production or something, though they have harpies.

[Lucio]

4 hours ago, WilsonUndead said:

Check out Raging Heroes, they have dark elves and lust elves armies and both have some amazing minis. 

They also have alternative witch elves. 

Does nothing towards making the army more affordable. £20 for 5 models is slightly more expensive than GW plastic

[WilsonUndead]

38 minutes ago, Lucio said:

Does nothing towards making the army more affordable. £20 for 5 models is slightly more expensive than GW plastic

Damn I thought they were cheaper last time I checked, my bad. 

[xaljorn14]

5 hours ago, WilsonUndead said:

Damn I thought they were cheaper last time I checked, my bad. 

Yeah, I'd looked at them too. They're good looking models but sadly not any cheaper.  

 

12 hours ago, Lucio said:

Dark Eldar Wyches don't look terribly out of place in the army, particularly if you combine them with hair from the Escher gang box.

Weapon wise, have an equal mix of Witch Aelves and Sisters of Slaughter so you can buy one box of Sisters plus one box of Wych Aelves to get 20 models done for £53 which is far more comparible to other armies. If you can adapt the Dark Eldar weapons, you could push that a little further too

I'll have to take a look at those.  Thanks.

 

6 hours ago, kenshin620 said:

Perhaps Mantic Succubi models could work? Swap heads with something elf like and shave tail off.

Avatars of War used to have their own but guess it went out of production or something, though they have harpies.

I'd seen a link to the Avatars of War, but couldn't find the models anywhere.  I'll take a look at the Mantic Succubi, thanks.

[Shadowspite]

The Mantic/KoW succubi are nice models, especially for the price. I used a few as the basis of some of the kitbashed marauder women in my Slaanesh mortals army (alongside GW daemonette and wych parts). I have to warn you, though, that some of the tails are  really awkward to remove, and you will probably need to resculpt parts of their legs with greenstuff afterwards.

[xaljorn14]

1 hour ago, Shadowspite said:

The Mantic/KoW succubi are nice models, especially for the price. I used a few as the basis of some of the kitbashed marauder women in my Slaanesh mortals army (alongside GW daemonette and wych parts). I have to warn you, though, that some of the tails are  really awkward to remove, and you will probably need to resculpt parts of their legs with greenstuff afterwards.

Thanks for the heads up on that.  My only concern is the quality of those minis.  Everyone I know speaks pretty harshly about them, so I'm a little unsure of buying them. 

[Shadowspite]

The casting detail isn't quite up to modern GW quality, but it's still pretty good for plastic. About on par with where GW was back in the early 2000s, I'd say. Except for the standard/icon/banner thing, which for some reason looks like someone hung a bog roll from a 1980s fantasy movie prop. The heads/faces actually have more character and range of expression than a lot of GW rank-and-file, though they're not as 'pretty' as GW's witch elf heads.

[zedatkinszed]

On 3/30/2018 at 9:52 PM, kenshin620 said:

Avatars of War used to have their own but guess it went out of production or something, though they have harpies.

I've played a witch elf based force for a long long time and from experience:

• The Vestals of Nemesis from AoW are horrid. Stay away from them. According to their own Facebook AoW discontinued them so if you do find them on ebay etc - avoid them. The plastic detail was sub-par and the faces were IMO destroyed by the way the mouths are modeled.  I found the plastic itself to be less than high quality and the models were absolutely covered in flash. They are the only ever model I returned for being ... bad looking.
• The Raging Heroes TGG2 Blood Vestals are a NSFW alternative but no cheaper.
• The older Raging Heroes set are quite alot smaller in scale than AOS models. YMMV but IMO they look completelely out of place on the same table as AOS models.
• The KoW Succubi are devil ladies. More equivalent to female bloodletters IMHO. They're cool but looked roided up.
• The Dark Eldar Wyches are not in anyway equivalent to Witch Aelves (if anything it'd be more a case of converting Witch Aelves to Wyches than the other way around). They're more like female Black Ark Corairs but YMMV.

In short while I was waiting for plastic Witch Elves I looked at every possible alternative and TBH none worked. The plastic GW Witch Aelves are the best value for what they are.

Are they excessively expensive  - yes. Are they hard to paint - Very. Is there a good looking and cheaper option - TBH no.

[kenshin620]

1 hour ago, zedatkinszed said:

I've played a witch elf based force for a long long time and from experience:

• The Vestals of Nemesis from AoW are horrid. Stay away from them. According to their own Facebook AoW discontinued them so if you do find them on ebay etc - avoid them. The plastic detail was sub-par and the faces were IMO destroyed by the way the mouths are modeled.  I found the plastic itself to be less than high quality and the models were absolutely covered in flash. They are the only ever model I returned for being ... bad looking.
• The Raging Heroes TGG2 Blood Vestals are a NSFW alternative but no cheaper.
• The older Raging Heroes set are quite alot smaller in scale than AOS models. YMMV but IMO they look completelely out of place on the same table as AOS models.
• The KoW Succubi are devil ladies. More equivalent to female bloodletters IMHO. They're cool but looked roided up.
• The Dark Eldar Wyches are not in anyway equivalent to Witch Aelves (if anything it'd be more a case of converting Witch Aelves to Wyches than the other way around). They're more like female Black Ark Corairs but YMMV.

In short while I was waiting for plastic Witch Elves I looked at every possible alternative and TBH none worked. The plastic GW Witch Aelves are the best value for what they are.

Are they excessively expensive  - yes. Are they hard to paint - Very. Is there a good looking and cheaper option - TBH no.

Yea perhaps the truth is hard to swallow. Believe me I was on a forum like 5-6 years ago and I distinctly remember a member on that forum always complaining either

1. Alternative Warhammer minis company "ignored" pleas to make witch elf equivalences.

2. If they did exist, they weren't good.

In almost every topic about alternative model companies.

 

Not that there shouldn't be a replacement, but the minis market is a tricky one for sure. Hard to balance the "cheaper than gw" to "high quality of models thing" especially if the business is more or less a garage operation. Half naked elf ladies are harder to look good than Space Marine head alts.

[xaljorn14]

I appreciate all the replies so far! I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one feeling this way about them.  I think I'm going to pick up a box of the dark eldar wyches just to see what I can feasibly do with them. If nothing else, a friend of mine is looking to build dark eldar, so if it doesn't work for me, he'll at least get some models out of it.   I think the biggest issue I'm having is this is the first army with a horde battleline that I'm looking to build (besides death).  Which I understand why the skeletons are so cheap, I honestly hate those models.     

[zedatkinszed]

10 hours ago, xaljorn14 said:

I appreciate all the replies so far! I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one feeling this way about them.  I think I'm going to pick up a box of the dark eldar wyches just to see what I can feasibly do with them. If nothing else, a friend of mine is looking to build dark eldar, so if it doesn't work for me, he'll at least get some models out of it.   I think the biggest issue I'm having is this is the first army with a horde battleline that I'm looking to build (besides death).  Which I understand why the skeletons are so cheap, I honestly hate those models.     

Even if they don't work for you as Witch Elves the Dark Eldar Wyches and Kabalite cultists can work as Darkling Coven units or as I said bitz for (female) Scourge Runner Privateers (it aint the easiest conversion but I made a few this way). They also make decent bodies for Darkshards or Bleakswords. Or if you wanted to push it they could be freeguild  

[kenshin620]

Well on the bright side, AoS is far more acceptable to have things that don't exactly fit with original WFB so who knows, maybe there is indeed a section of the multirealms where some elves wear "super crab carapace armor" and spandex!

You know I'm also surprised that Mandrakes aren't a AoS unit yet. If Chaos Daemons get Soul Grinders (for some weird reason) why not some of the less sci fi portions of 40k!

[xaljorn14]

I'm going to see about filing off the hoses and maybe using green stuff to cover up the back vents and such. Probably going to be a lot more work than it's worth.

[Jalvik]

You got to check out the Dark Eldar from 40k. There Wytches and Scourges would be pretty awesome in Age of Sigmar. Plus they are only $35 Canadian dollars a box.

[xaljorn14]

51 minutes ago, Jalvik said:

You got to check out the Dark Eldar from 40k. There Wytches and Scourges would be pretty awesome in Age of Sigmar. Plus they are only $35 Canadian dollars a box.

Scourges might take a bit more effort to make work for Age of Sigmar.  Though they are only $25 a box for me, much cheaper than the new Khinerai models.

[Jalvik]

For me that’s the most fun! Hahaha I’ve personally picked up a box and there’s enough melee weapons for everyone. They look pretty awesome in my army. A lot more unique and certainly fun. I use the Blades shields from the Sisters of Slaughter spruces. 

[xaljorn14]

10 hours ago, Jalvik said:

For me that’s the most fun! Hahaha I’ve personally picked up a box and there’s enough melee weapons for everyone. They look pretty awesome in my army. A lot more unique and certainly fun. I use the Blades shields from the Sisters of Slaughter spruces. 

You got any pics of them?  I'd like to see how they turned out.