Oakroot- Treeman finished

Tree men. You just can't ignore them forever. Sooner or later in your wood elf army you're going to have to give up and get one.

Unfortunately, despite it's incredible background, awesome rules, great character and war hammer pedigree, we are left with this.

This is what I used for my current Treeman. It's not a bad model. But it's not an army defining, kick ass model either. Way back in White dwarf 190, I first became aware of Wood Elves after an incredible battle report. I'd never seen them before, and the treeman drew me to the army, probably for life. If I did the same now with the current tree man, would I be just as inspired? Probably not. I hoped a quick paint job and a mighty base would solve his problems, but I was wrong. He looks OK, and that's not what I want.

Here's the unavoidable faults, In my opinion.

1) the expression. I want terror. I want faces in the bark created by your mind when you're scared at night in a forest. I want malice! I get a bobbed out Tongue and a smile.

2) the 'hips'. Think about a treemans movement. In your minds eye, surely he's either lurching, or stomping. Your mighty treeman can do neither with the centre of his 'hips' thrust forward like a disco menace. Coupled with the expression, he looks like your drunken uncle out on the pull.

3) no arms. The branches are cool, but he needs two identifiable arms. Durthu had the right idea with his angry fist.

It feels good to say all this, because as a GW staff member I had to defend every model to the hilt. I had to make out it was incredible. Not that it's without it's virtues, it's size was a welcome improvement, and the bark sculpting is lovely.

So without further ado, I hereby declare that I like the oooollllddd treemen best, and will be basing mine on this fellow.

The main issue is the size. Compared to the modern treeman, the classic sculpt is closer to a treekin in size. There are two sculpts, the first with his arm raised in the air, the second with his arms wide. I won one of each on eBay for a fair price, but by some fluke I ended up with two of the second sculpt. My original plan was to use the first sculpt, and his 'slam dunk' pose would help the size problem.

So, the second sculpt (actually my favourite of the two). Whilst waiting for it in the post, I had many grand ideas about resculpting a head etc, but when it arrived, I got to see how nice this model actually is. It has tons of bark, trunk, foliage, little details, and I realised I had to do very little to it.

All I did was two simple things to increase it's height and overall mightiness. First, a huge base! Second, I pinned on a couple of dryad branches and sculpted the joins to match.

He was an absolute joy to paint, and was instantly preferable to the modern version, who I remember being a bit of a chore. Here's the finished article, Oakroot, tree-guardian of Everfall.

How does he square up to his younger cousin?

Quite well I think!