Middle Earth Terrain

 The first of my post-AHPC XV projects are some pieces of Middle Earth terrain that were prepared for the painting challenge, but put on hold when terrain was dropped from scoring status. These are two sets of hard plastic terrrain from Games Workshop - 'Ruins of Middle Earth' and 'Ruins of Osgiliath' that I acquired years ago. They have since been rolled into a single box with some deletions.

First up is the 'Ruins of Middle Earth. It consisted of two identical sprues of ruin corners, some fallen pillars, a fallen statue, a standing statue, and a campfire. The standing statue was glued to a 35mm wooden disc to make it less prone to falling over on the gaming table. The ruin corners were only a few millimeters in thickness, so I decided to beef them up a bit with a thicker layer of XPS foam cut using my Proxxon hot wire cutter. I glued the foam to the inner side of the the corners, clamped in place until the glue was dry. I then trimmed them with a handheld hot wire cutter, cut some stonework into the surface, and applied a coat of Mod Podge. Once that was dry, they were primed dark grey with a rattle can, and then dry brushed with light grey latex paint, followed by white latex paint. The wooden platform was painted using acrylics, as was the campfire and adjacent weapons and shields.

Original box art for the 'Ruins of Middle Earth' set

'Ruins of Middle Earth'

 

The second set was marketed as 'Ruins of Osgiliath' and had structures with much thicker walls, and stonework on both sides. The set I got was slightly warped. The large wall sections rocked back and forth a bit, so I evened out the bottoms using epoxy putty to prevent that from happening. I also added some walls to the section of stairs using some plastic card and epoxy putty as I didn't like the void underneath. Again the statues were glued to 35mm discs to make the base wider. Once all the glue was dry and the putty had hardened, the pieces were painted in the same manner as the first set.

Original box art for the 'Ruins of Osgiliath' set

 

'Ruins of Osgiliath' (A side)

'Ruins of Osgiliath' (B side)

Both of these sets are now out of production in this format. The thin walled sections from the first set have been dropped, and the remaining fallen pillars, statues, and campfire all rolled into one box with the Osgiliath ruins.

Thanks for stopping by.

AHPC XV Submission #4 - Warriors of Númenor

 

My fourth submission for AHPC XV was a Númenorian army from the end of the Second Age of Middle Earth. It consists of 49 figures from the Games Workshop Lord of the Rings collection, specifically 12 warriors with bow, 12 warriors with spear and shield, 23 warriors with sword and shield, and 2 banners. The bow and spear figures are metal I bought in 3-figure blister packs, while all the rest are plastic figures from the Warriors of the Last Alliance boxed set. These are all 'eBay rescues' of which most were painted to varying degrees of proficiency. Since the boxed set only contains only 8 Númenorians, along with 16 High Elves, the 25 figures represent the remains of at least four separate boxes. Two were missing their shields, but I decided to convert these into banner bearers. 

The metal figures had their mold lines cleaned off and then were mounted on their bases. I added a layer of fine sand to the base with PVA glue. The plastic figures got a soak in isopropyl alcohol followed by a scrub with a stiff toothbrush to remove as much of the old paint as possible. The alcohol bath didn't seem to affect the ground work that had been glued on, but those figures with an excessive amount had some of it removed with an X-acto knife, especially around the feet and the bottoms of the cloaks. Three warriors had the position of their sword arm changed to distinguish them from the rest as I was going to used them as captains. The warriors missing shields had the recess where the shield attached carved away, and a pole added using florist wire.

Once everything was assembled, they were primed black with a rattle can. It would have been easier for painting if the shields had not been glued in place, but they were all solidly affixed in position, so areas where I couldn't get a brush in behind the shield were left black. All the figures were then painted using Vallejo acrylics. As these are fantasy figures I won't bore you with a paint list, but I used a lot of shades of grey to differentiate between the surcoat, shield, trim, and cloak. For those that I modified to be captains, I used either silver or gold to trim their shields and surcoats to make them more readily identifiable.

The Númenorian Host with Isildur and Elendil at their head

 

The First Company

The Second Company

Close up of the First Company

Númenorian Spearmen

Númenorian Bowmen

Númenorian Captains and Banners

Thanks for stopping by.

Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge XIV #4 - Easterling Warriors and Command

For one of the special challenges of AHPC XIV I painted a group of twenty-two 25mm Games Workshop Easterlings consisting of a captain, a banner, four spear and shield, eight sword and shield, and eight archers. These were in the queue for the previous year's challenge, but the clock ran out before I could get to them. 

The miniatures were second-hand that needed some cleanup and repair to get them ready to paint. They got an overnight soak in rubbing alcohol (2-propanol), followed by a scrub with a stiff toothbrush to remove the previous paint job. Two of the archers had the upper half of their bows missing, and these were repaired with pieces of florist wire. A few of the spearmen and swordsmen had been assembled with their shields upside down, but I didn't think it was worth going through the effort to remove and re-attach them. After being primed with matt black, all the figures were painted using Vallejo acrylics, followed by a wash of Citadel Seraphim Sepia on all the armour, shields, boots, and gloves. Finally I went in with some 'Old Gold' to highlight the raised areas of the armour and shields.

 

A Shadow in the East

Complete group of 22 Easterling Warriors

Command and Spears

Archers (Can you spot the repaired bows?)

Swordsmen

At some point I think I will have to supplement this force with some Easterling Kataphrakts and a few faction heroes, but that is a project for the distant future. Thanks for reading.

More Ancient Germans and... Ancient Citadel Aragorn and Boromir??

                                     

Back again with another post from the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, starting with some command  (C, S, M as we used to say) for my Germanic tribesmen. These are resin models from Warlord Games.

These dudes actually mix quite well with my Foundry models, after I cut off the integral bases. The models' feet are stuck straight down to the bases.

These guys seem to be quite fond of their severed heads, no??

Not to be outdone, the carynx-blower has a head hanging off his belt too. Nice models. 

To complete a mini-project I've also painted a couple of "equally ancient" Citadel models from their 1980s Lord of the Rings range. 

This is Boromir, from the ME21 "Boromir of Gondor" blister. Nice model in the old chunky Citadel style.

The other one is Aragorn, from the BME1 "Fellowship of the Ring" boxed set. Also a nice model but slightly gangly compared to Boromir.

Here's the whole crew from Citadel, with Aragorn and Boromir done that completes my old-school Citadel LotR collection. Good to have 'em done.

Now that the command is done for a German unit I need to get on to painting the unit... that'll come shortly.

Citadel "Fellowship of the Ring" BME1 from 1985!

Well I do love me some old Citadel models, and their Lord of the Rings range from the mid-1980s has a special appeal. Don't get me wrong, I also love the newer LotR "movie range" models from the early 2000s till now, but the old chunky Citadel style really gets me where I live. They're oh-so-characterful and easy to paint too!

I already had an old Frodo Baggins in the cabinet so some time ago I decided to acquire the rest of the Fellowship. These models comprise the BME1 set (minus Aragorn, Boromir and Frodo) and were all procured via ebay... despite being long OOP they're not that hard to find or expensive, thankfully!

 

First up, Legolas... I really like this sculpt. Unfortunately the metal ferrule at the bottom of the bow shaft had broken off so a cack-handed greenstuff repair has to suffice.

 

I finished the model in earthtones and think it turned out OK.

Gimli son of Groin Gloin!

Sam Gamgee. This is a pretty good model. I love the walking stick.

And all the pots and pans of course!

Merry and Pippin! Can never tell which is which.

Little packhorses aren't they!

Gandalf. The Gandalf models from the old range are great, really iconic and representative of the popular image of a "wizard".

And Bill the pony!

I didn't take a ton of time painting Bill, you may be able to tell. Packhorses are a pretty low priority for my painting desk tbh.

And the catalog page from the Third Citadel Compendium. I guess Merry and Pippin are identifiable this way :-)

Still missing Frodo, Aragorn and Boromir from this set. I don't really feel a need to paint a Frodo because I have already done one from the Citadel ME range. Aragorn looks pretty cool but I prefer the Boromir model that came from the "Moria and the Balrog" set (that model is pretty pricey though). Anyway I have Aragorn and Boromir from the modern range (inasmuch as you can call 20+ year old models "modern") so there's no rush on that.

Hope you enjoyed the trip down the Middle Earth memory lane!
 

Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge XIII Submission #12 - High Elf Warriors and Command

 This submission consists of 10 High Elf Warriors with spear and shield, a Captain, and a Banner Bearer, all by Games Workshop. Four of the Elf Warriors are a recent purchase and made of resin. The remaining figures are all metal. When I first got into Middle Earth gaming, I acquired some secondhand plastic High Elves from the 'Warriors of the Last Alliance' box. I wanted to flesh them out with some warriors with spear and shield and had picked up the metal figures as 2 or 3 figure blisters, and more recently got the last four that are made of resin. The resin figures are the same sculpts as the earlier metal minis and look identical once painted.

 All the figures were cleaned up and assembled, and mounted on their bases. Some fine sand was glued to the base with PVA, and they were then primed black with an airbrush. Painting was primarily done using Vallejo acrylics, but also my long-serving Partha True Blue and Bronze Metallic, which are still hanging in there. I also used some Citadel Reikland Fleshshade wash on the faces. Here's the final result.

 

High Elf Warriors and Command

 

Metal High Elf Captain and Banner Bearer

Metal High Elf Warriors

Resin High Elf Warriors

My High Elf host with Gilgalad and Elrond

 This completed the last of the High Elves I had in my storage boxes, but since then I have picked up a box of six Knights of Rivendell to add to my elvish muster. Thanks for reading. More to follow
 

Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge XIII Submission #11 - For Gondor

 After leaving Rohan, I opted to head south to Gondor and paint up some defenders of Minas Tirith, specifically a dozen old school Knights of Minas Tirith, a mounted banner, 3 spearmen and 3 bowmen of the Citadel Guard, Beregond, Pippin from the Heroes of the West boxed set, a set of resin Gondor Commanders, a mounted Boromir, and Boromir as a Captain of the White Tower, all by Games Workshop.

"For Gondor!"

 

 The Knights of Minas Tirith and the mounted banner are the early version of these figures consisting of metal riders and plastic horses. They are a bit different from the more recent release from Games Workshop which have the riders equipped with shields, and pennons on their lances. The plastic horses come in two poses, identical to those of the Riders of Rohan, but with a different style of chanfron. I painted the horses in three different shades of brown using craft paints, changing the colours of the mane or adding socks to produce some additional variety. They were then given a coat of Army Painter Strong Tone Quickshade. The riders' armour was painted with gunmetal followed by highlights of silver. 

 

Knights of Minas Tirith with mounted banner

 

  Next is a group of Citadel Guard of Minas Tirith consisting of two 3-figure blisters, one of guardsmen with spears, and one of guardsmen with longbows, Beregond, a minor hero who can act as a bodyguard, and Peregrin Took, Guard of the Citadel. The Citadel Guard now come as a 6-figure set with three spears and three bows, rather than as seperate blisters. All of these are metal miniatures that were painted much like the Knights of Minas Tirith but with added gold trim, and cloaks that I painted using Payne's Grey acrylic paint. To do the bases, I covered them with a layer of squares made of thin card to resemble flagstones. This required trimming the strip at the bottom of the figure that is supposed to fit into the slot of the base to form pegs that would fit into drilled holes.

 

Guards of the Citadel of Minas Tirith

 

  Unlike all the preceding miniatures in this post, the next four are a relatively recent purchase and came as a set cast in resin. I can't say that I am a fan, especially when some of the poles, spears, or swords come out warped. They also required a lot of cleaning up, not just of mold lines, but all kinds of extra little wedge pieces that have to be carved away. The set is the Gondor Commanders box that consists of a warrior with a warhorn, a banner bearer, a Captain of Minas Tirith (stepping on a dead orc), and a Knight of the White Tower. They were painted using the same method as the rest of the figures. The bases for the warrior with warhorn, the banner bearer, and the captain are done up to resemble the rubble of Osgiliath or Minas Tirith during the siege.

 

Warhorn, Banner, Captain, and Knight of the White Tower

 

 The last two figures are different versions of Boromir, the first as a Captain of the White Tower in armour, and a mounted version dressed as he was for the journey to Rivendell. Both of these are metal miniatures, and they are still available from Games Workshop, although the version as a Captain of the White Tower comes as a three figure set that includes two models of Boromir on foot – one carrying a shield, the other with the famed banner of the White City – both of which are clad in heavy armour. The mounted version is also bedecked in heavy armour and comes with the option to assemble him with sword or banner held aloft. I bought mine as blisters many years ago when you could still get them separately. The armoured version of Boromir was painted much the same as the Gondor Commanders, while the mounted version used a lot of browns and washes on his fur cloak, and I tried to match the colours of earlier versions of Boromir that I had painted.

 

Boromir, son of Denethor

 This finishes off the last of my Minas Tirith minis. Thanks for reading. More to follow.