Lords of Middle Earth

It's been a little quiet on WwB recently, but now I'm looking forwards to a few days off to paint, game, and generally recharge my batteries.

I recently received Lords of Middle Earth, the expansion to War of the Ring. I quickly painted the (somewhat uninspiring) figures to match my (if I say so myself) marathon effort earlier in the year.

Aragorn, Gandalf, Galadriel, Elrond

Witch King, Mouth of Sauron, Gothmog, Balrog

Still, better painted than unpainted. They'll add to the game, because the one thing that WotR needs is more decisions (sarcasm smiley goes here).

I also picked up Treebeard via the BoardGameGeek store.

Pirate civilians

This is a Part 2- read about how they were painted and varnished here. I didn't do anything more to them other than touch up the bases.

These are the Village Mob from the Old Glory pirate range. I got them for pirate gaming but they could be used for other genres with ease. One (the black coat with red trim) was from the OG European Sailor pack who didn’t look the part for my RN crew (seen a little bit here).

Crates are from Battle Works Studios (Out of business...). Barrels and fences from Renedra. Buildings homemade.

An experiment with matt varnish

My ongoing experimentation with dipping continues…

Pre-dip

Pre-dip

Pre-dip

These pirate-era civilians (Old Glory Village Mob and a pair of Reaper barmaids) were undercoated with Army Painter Leather Brown. This gives a good hard coat without the need for primer, but it has quite an amount of shine and very low ‘tooth’. I block-painted the figures, spending a bit more time on the females (especially their faces). With the males’ faces I left dark areas around the eyes/ nose/ mouth and under the cheekbones. The sculpted faces are really nice and somewhat cartoony, and I don’t know if this was a necessary step. My feeling is that the face is the focal feature of a miniature and time spent here is not time wasted.

Anyway, I pressed on (they were really fast to paint, 5-10 minutes per figure tops) and painted over them with Walnut stain and left them to dry. I didn't water the Dip down far enough, and the miniatures are a bit dark for my tastes.

Post-Dip

Post-Dip

Post-Dip

I’ve divided the figures up and given each group a matt spray with either:

Army Painter. $A25 for 400mL

AKA 'Dullcote'. $A11 for 85g

Micador Mat Spray. $A11.95 for 450g

Here they are:

Micador.

Testors Dullcote. NB The barmaid is not matt varnished.

Army Painter. NB The scullery maid is not matt varnished.

My clear preference is for the Testors Dullcote. It's the most expensive and hardest to find in Australia. I'll respray the others and have a finished result post in the future. I can't confess to be entirely happy with them so far. I think I'll add a few highlights, which somewhat negates the point of dipping in the first place ie speed.

Battle Cry Diary Day 4.5- finished!

I just ploughed ahead last night and got them done by 11pm, so I put on the matt varnish and went to bed. This morning I took some photos and played a solo game- great fun!

All the figures

I'm really please with them- I can't believe what a difference the matt varnish makes (Testors Dullcote).

Johnny Reb

If I was really keen, I'd trim down or touch up the edge of the flags where the stickers still show white. Also, I'd bend the flags a bit.

Yankees

Overall, I'm really impressed with the utility of the dip for a project like this one. I got these on Wednesday night, prepped and primed them and did up a few test figures on Wed/ Thurs, then got into them on Fri and Sat and they were done by late Saturday. I've never painted so much so well so fast.

Union Artillery

Cavalry

Confederate Artillery

Infantry

General Officers

Edit: and it goes nicely into the box as well:

Battle Cry Diary Days 3-4

Well, I've leapt into the painting. I got a bit of feedback from my previous post, and went for a very slightly darker grey for the Rebels, and stuck with the darker blue for the Union. Then I just sat and painted. I took all the shortcuts- no buckles or buttons, few straps, no beards, horses and hair all the same colour, etc. And I've churned them out. The base painting is finished: all they need is dipping, flocking, varnishing and base touching-up. And the sticking on of flags. I intend for them to be done by lunch tomorrow.

For a purely gaming project, I've been impressed with the speed this has gone down. I'm hoping I don't muck up the dip. I'll post detailed pictures when they're done.

Battle Cry Diary Days 1-2

Another grasshopper gamer change of pace! I received my copy of Battle Cry yesterday, and am planning to smash out all the units quick-smart. I will be using my dip experience from my WotR painting.

I've already shown my preference for painted boardgame pieces here, here, and here.

I know very little about the ACW. I can name the famous battles, but who won them, and which side Jackson or Lee fought for, are a mystery to me. Battle Cry nicely scratches an itch by being a self-contained game using the first iteration of Richard Borg's Command & Colors rules, which I have really enjoyed for Naploeonics.

I'm just going for a quick and functional paintjob here. All the units will be identical; no different trousers for the Southerners from me, no fancy flags, all very vanilla! I do want it to look right to my eyes, however, and have done a quick trial of coats and trousers for both sides.

I prefer the darker blue (right) for the Union.

I think that the pale grey Confederate trousers (left) look better than the blue-grey or same-as-my coat-grey.

These will eventually get flocked and matt-varnished. The figures are a firm plastic, akin to plastic cutlery. I was expecting something softer and more rubbery, but was pleasantly surprised. I haven't done any deflashing, and didn't have to straighten any flags or rifles. Nothing was broken.

122 figures!

I prepped them by a quick wash in soapy water, then sand was PVA'd to the bases, and finally stuck to tongue depressors and sprayed Army Painter Leather Brown.

Less typing, more painting! And Ken Burns in the background.

WotR Day 13- Here at the end of all things

You'll have to excuse me being a little self-indulgent today, but it is over. From this:

The horror, the horror

to this:

War of the Ring!

in less than two weeks, including several days of prep. I owe a lot to this:

Liquid gold...

Today I painted the base edges in faction colours based on the board, and then I varnished with Micador Mat Spray:

Should be labelled 'Satin'

which is not 'mat', unfortunately (the other option was 'gloss'). I half expected this, but am not too fussed with a slight sheen on these boardgame pieces. They may be slightly less sheeny (is that a word?) than they were after the satin dip, but it's only gone from ~50% to 40% sheeniness. The Testors Dullcote I trialled a week or so ago (it feels longer...) dropped it down to 5%, but I wasn't going to waste a can or more of that good stuff on these boys. They feel plastic-y and durable now.

Then I flocked, and this really brought the figures to life. I used a green blend for the good guys, and wasn't going to flock the baddies, but I did a trial orc (they put up with a lot for me) with some yellow-brown stuff and it looked just right.

And here they are!

Mordor!

Easterlings!

Isengard!

Dwarf!

Elf!

The North!

Gondor!

Rohan!

Ringwraiths!

Mouth of Sauron, Witch King (with extra flocking...), Saruman

The Fellowship of the Ring, and friend

There we are. Two hundred and five figures, and, if I may say so myself, they look wonderful on the board. It has been worthwhile getting them painted.

This blog has been a real aid in getting this done. I'll put my thoughts on my first dip experience up in a later post.

Thank you to all those who have offered advice and encouragement, and I hope I can encourage one or two people who have been thinking about maybe getting this project done as well to do so.

Now, who wants a game?

Board set up to go!

UPDATE: Pics of the Lords of Middle Earth expansion here