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Wow. The army looks great! It's definitely inspiring to look through this thread as I start my own journey into LotR.

Great work mate

Thank you all very much for the kind words.



These three models were painted some time ago, around 2005 - give or take a few years, and long before blogging was a thing to me. They've recently been drafted into Marouda's Kings of War Undead force as Soul Reaver Cavalry - that is to say Vampiric Cavalry, which seems about as reasonable an approximation of Nazgûl as you can get within the Army list. These three represent a "troop" of Vampire Knights, which would ordinarily be made of 5 models. Works well enough for me!



So while the models are old, and their paint is old, what's new is that I've gotten some custom-cut MDF and been able to make a unit base for them, in much the same way as I did with the Swarms that I painted recently. I think it makes them look quite nice, and certainly looks better than having them blu-taced down to a bare piece of MDF. I don't believe I've shown these models before, so it's all good.



For now, the Nazgûl will reside in the Undead Army, but at some stage they'll be split off into their own Mordor force - When I have enough Mordor models painted to field them as a reasonable army in their own right.

Love the work on the mounted Ring Wraiths. While technically their horses are supposed to be all black, I did mine that way and it tends to produce a rather dull, monochromatic miniatures. I think your brown horses look better.

Wow. Great work there.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Wow. Great work there.

It's been awhile since I finished any new LotR figures, so awhile since I posted anything new in here. So here's something new!
Also, I'm slowly repairing the damage that Photobucket did to my posts, so the mangled stuff above will be sorted soon(ish). I'm working backwards from the most recent posts to the oldest...



"He wondered what the man's name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace..."
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Book 4 Ch. 3 "Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit"



Amongst my many projects that are theoretically on the go at any given time are usually a bunch of "one at a time"-type things, where I have randomly gotten enthusiastic about a model or even a unit from an army that I haven't really even begun on, and started painting them. These Harad Abrakhân Guard are an example of that. They took me about 6 months, on and off to get painted - mostly because I'm easily distracted and small amounts of indecision on how to paint an accoutrement can result in literally months of delay before getting back to a model.



The colour scheme was pretty simple. I wanted to avoid the purple and turquoise seen in GW's scheme entirely, and instead go for black with a splash of bright red on the sash. I think black keffiyeh/shemaghs always look sharp, so again, that was a no-brainer for me. A bit of gold retained for bling, and the clothing looks pretty good. I painted the flesh tones in a light brown tone, similar to people of Lebanese and Jordanian descent that I work with, since unlike GW until just a couple of years ago, I don't think everyone in the world has caucasian skin pigmentation. My Tallarn (if I ever finish them) have similar skin colouration to my Haradrim. (I get the TE Lawrence/SAS reference, but I prefer the Bedouin one for them.)



As with a lot of the LotR metal range, these figures do suffer a bit from GW's "three poses only!" policy, but mixed together in a unit they still manage to look decent.





Finally, the Kings of War-oriented unit shots. Until I get a lot more Haradrim painted - which won't be anytime soon - these guys will get shoved into one KoW force or another as a unit of some sort of elite humans who hit hard but have light armour. I may also be able to use them as proxies for something in games of SAGA - Crescent and the Cross. Honestly, I haven't looked hard at that since I've got very little Crusade-Era stuff painted right now.

But hey - these guys are done, and I think they turned out pretty well, so it's all good!

Look very good, I like them indeed. The muted tones work well for Abrakhan Guard. Any plans on adding the Golden King? Slighty off topic question, but do you play the SBG or just KoW with them?

I do have the Golden King, though no plans to paint him up especially soon. I almost started on my Watchers of Karna but decided I need to get a whole lot more of my half-painted stuff finished before starting on a batch of brand-new models. I don't get to play SBG or KoW much these days, though I (theoretically) play both. I'd got the idea to paint all of the models from the scenario books in order, which is a project I need to get back to. Though on a very related note - since the dark riders turn up very early on - we have this guy, finally done!



The Black Rider flung back his hood, and behold! he had a kingly crown; and yet upon no head visible was it set. The red fires shone between it and the mantled shoulders vast and dark. From a mouth unseen there came a deadly laughter.
“Old fool!” he said. “Old fool! This is my hour. Do you not know Death when you see it? Die now and curse in vain!” And with that he lifted high his sword and flames ran down the blade.
– Gandalf’s encounter with The Witch-King of Angmar in The Return of the King, The Siege of Gondor

This model of The Witch King was one of the many that sat around half-painted for a measure of years before finally seeing completion at the end of one of my occasional bouts of focused “Just finish that effing thing!” a couple of months ago. With the chaos that has been happening lately, it took sometime to be photographed, and time again before being cropped, and now, finally posted. These were actually the photos I was working on when I noticed the hard drive beginning to fail a couple of weeks ago, as they weren’t saving first time and easily.



As with the others that I’ve painted previously, I’ve taken some liberties – the Witch-King’s steed here is dark brown rather than black, and I’ve also added the beaten copper to the horse’s icon, both in an attempt to add some visual interest to what could have been a more accurate, but far more boring paint job. Similarly, I’ve used weathering powders mixed with matte varnish to add a dirty effect to the bottom hem of his robes. This leaves me with 5 more “basic” mounted Nazgûl to paint in order to represent The Nine in games of SBG and whatnot, though naturally, I have a couple of mounted extras – because that happens when you buy large collections on eBay, plus the foot versions, and a fell beast or two, and also most (all?) of the “Named Character” versions of the Nazgûl that Games Workshop came out with late in the SBG’s pre-Hobbit life, because BUY THESE MODELS. To be fair, though, they’re overall a nice batch of models and as you guys know by now, owning unnecessary models is kinda my thing.



Obviously, this rather proud king has uses in any official LotR games, particularly the Strategy Battle Game, but he’ll also serve in the Undead Army for Kings of War (as a Vampire Lord) until such a time as my Mordor Army has sufficient figures painted to be up and running independently of the rather generic Undead force. (His not-quite-finished self can be seen in those pics, too!)