Drow

The Dark Elves, or Drow, are largely made up of prepainted plastic D&D Miniatures (DDM). Many of the figures are used as is; some are repainted, and some required surgery -- often torso swaps with other figures. Surgery with DDM figures is super easy -- chop with a sharp exacto knife, glue back together with crazy glue, done.

Drider Cavalry

Some of the coolest Drow figures are their Driders -- Drow-Spider mixes. Basically a Centaur, except instead of Human/Horse, they are Drow/GiantSpider. There are two challenges with these figures -- they're expensive now on the ebay market, and there aren't a lot of poses. The solution for the first problem is to go back in time to 2008 or so and buy them then. The solution for the second one is surgery. The Drider on the right has a torso-swap from a foot figure. Gives more pose variety.

And there is one more problem. On 80mm wide bases, the wide legs of the spiders means that it isn't really possible to fit two figures on a single stand. But a single figure alone looks kinda sparse and wrong. Solution? Add a regular giant spider to each base as a fighting companion.

In Fantasy Triumph these are rated as:

Javelin Cavalry (Slow -1/2, Terrain Affinity (Rough and Steep Hill) +1/2): 4 pts each

The Drow have a home topography of the underground realm (Dense Topography with lots of Rough), and their spider legs are very good in that environment. In regular difficult terrain with water they are less capable (Marsh and Stream). You can argue that they might be good in forest (Woods and Wooded Hills) but Terrain Affinity only applies to two difficult terrain types, and my justification is that these are underground spiders who almost never see trees -- they aren't familiar with them and so can't navigate them as easily as the giant spiders of Mirkwood.

Slow is natural here because a 6mu movement is quite fast enough -- spiders scuttle well, but they don't gallop as well as horses in my view.

Drow Scorpion (Scorrow)

Nasty looking creature, eh? Love it. Another supernatural hybrid, this between a Drow and a giant scorpion.

In Fantasy Triumph these are rated as:

Knight (Slow -1/2, Armored +1/2): 4 pts each

Armored here reflects the fact that a formation of these guys is much better defended than normal Knight stands (who only get a +2 defense against shooting).

Drow Skirmishers

Drow are sneaky fighters, very capable in ambush and retreat, so Skirmishers are a natural part of a Drow army.

In Fantasy Triumph these are rated as:

Skirmisher (no battle cards): 3 pts each

Giant Spiders

There are two types of giant spiders shown in the images. Wolf spiders on the left, and regular Black Widow type spiders on the right. At the moment I don't choose to differentiate them; both function the same.

In Fantasy Triumph these are rated as:

Light Foot (Fast +1/2): 3.5 pts each

Fast is nice here because it allows a formation of Driders to move at the same speed as these spiders, and maintain formation. It also allows these spiders to disengage if needed from enemy human Light Foot, which is appropriately devious and sneaky.

Drow Infantry

The Drow live underground (Dense Topography), so their infantry should be appropriate for that sort of terrain. They are elite troops (deadly, well trained, motivated, etc.). So naturally they are Raiders.

In Fantasy Triumph these are rated as:

Raiders (no battle cards): 4 pts each

The figures shown come from a wide variety of individual DDM poses. Some even are other DDM elves, repainted to be in the typical Drow color palette. At least one of them (sixth from the right below) is a surgery result from a torso swap with a Drider figure.

Drider Bow

This is a special Drider figure using a bow, not melee weapons, so I based it differently with two escort spiders. Capability for archery is what distinguishes Elite Cavalry and Horsebow. In this case I wanted Elite Cavalry -- if I had more than one of these figures I might have based them up with a single spider and called it Horsebow instead.

In Fantasy Triumph these are rated as:

Elite Cavalry (Terrain Affinity (Underground: Rough) +1/2): 4.5 pts each

I decided not to spend points on Ranged Attack for these guys because their native underground topography makes volley fire impossible in their normal environment. So their training and skills is in using their bows at short ranges, like most Elite Cavalry and all Horsebow.

Heroes

Some Hero images for Drow stands. The priestess below is actually a pair of DDM "figures" -- the swarm of red spiders is a separate DDM figure, chopped from its base and added to the priestess to make her look more powerful and magical.

In addition to the normal hero powers, battle cards for Magic Resistance might be cool for the Priestess, and Ranged Attack either for her or for the Sorceror.

Drow Priestess

Spider Pile

Drow Sorceror

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