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Long time, no update. Until now.

Showing off some models recently painted, as well as some models less recently so.



These four - 2 of each sculpt - are the Citadel Blackroot Vale Archers Command. Some of the last waves of metals I bought from Maelstrom Games shortly before GW brought into place the ROW embargo onto UK retailers and customers in Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere. They're reasonable models, though the sculpts are nothing special. Solidly on a par with many Historical sculpts - though far more expensive - and not up to the same high standard that much of the LotR range is. It appears that I started them about a year ago, and finally forced myself to get rid of them from my painting desk a couple of weeks ago by knuckling down and completing them. I'm not sure why GW decided to go with the Blackroot Vale moniker, as they're not really correct for those troops anyway and Faramir's Rangers lacked a command section for games like WotR. In my thinking they'll be used (thematically) as part of the wider force of the Rangers of Osgilliath. They were the final models needed to complete these two units for my Kings of War Army of Gondor. I had thought these were painted earlier this year, but looking through my painting list it seems they were actually finished in July last year - the first batch one day off from a year earlier to their commanders.



The troops, made from the Rangers of Middle Earth catch-all plastic box are to be quite blunt - poor models as far as modern HIPS plastic kits go. Softly and mushily detailed, slightly oversized to the rest of the LotR range, and featuring overly-chunky details in their cloaks and clothing. They are a lazy boxed set marketed in a lazy manner - replacing all of the previous metal ranges of rangers. I'm ok with mine - as I got them all second-hand from eBay - and seeing what the sculpts were actually like I decided to paint them with the effort that they deserved. So I used base coats in a series of naturalistic colours, added minimal highlighting, and washed them all in Army Painter Dark Tone (aka Devlan Mud). I did the skin in a speed-paint version of my usual way, and did bother to pick out the eyes, but they're simple wargame models painted as simple wargame models - not as "nice" pieces. They look good enough and appropriate in a block on the table.



I have a bunch of the "proper" metals, and they'll be painted either this year or next since I want to finish off all of my Gondor (and Moria) stuff ASAP, but for the time being they're down the priority list while I continue to try and clear other models from my desk. In the meantime if I get around to playing through the LotR scenarios in the SBG books, there's enough of them painted now to cover most instances from the first several battles they appear in as well as two units for the mass battle KoW tabletop.

More Lord of the Rings stuff today.

I recently finally finished what felt like an endless run of metal Moria Goblins. I know some of them were definitely released as "Captains" while others were probably released as them, and others might have just been released essentially as metal grunts. No matter! If they're metal, I'm promoting them to captains - to keep the unruly and also-endless horde of plastic plebs in line.









Because of the piecemeal nature of how I acquired these figures over quite a few years, there was no strict rhyme nor reason why I have any given models. No attempt has been made to differentiate them from one another, with the exception of slight variations in dirty-hair colours. They'll all stand out well enough when dropped into their own units. I could do with a few more spearmen and a few less swordsmen, for their Kings of War use, but c'est la vie.

I added the little bits of slate in order to more easily distinguish them from their plastic counterparts when playing SBG and for friends less well acquainted with the various sculpts. The slate also serves to tie them in a little better with the model of Durbûrz, who will be one of the leaders of this force in many instances. Stones on bases becoming a mark of leadership - at least of sorts.



The usual group shot of the models from today's update. This many "Captains" will help fill out quite a few units for Kings of War, LotR SBG or anything else I might wish to play using them. I'd have taken pics of them slotted into their units, but it would be long and repetitive, and as such, bloody boring. So I thought I'd skip that.

 Azazelx wrote:
The troops, made from the Rangers of Middle Earth catch-all plastic box are to be quite blunt - poor models as far as modern HIPS plastic kits go.

I have to agree. I decided to go with the old, metal "Faramir's Rangers" sculpts for my own Blackroot Vale archers. Of course they are still bare metal. Honestly, I think your paint job actually makes the Ranger plastics look pretty good.

I recently finally finished what felt like an endless run of metal Moria Goblins.

Looking pretty nice! Love the slightly tarnished look of the armor and the flesh tones have a nice range to them. I need some more of the plastic Moria Goblins. They are just so cheap (and so poor in combat) that you need a lot of them for a game.

Thanks, the rangers with a bit of paint do come up decently, and they look just fine on the table, but I think the metals will be much nicer. All I have to do is actually paint them... /ahem

As for Goblins, I've gotten some more done recently. These three are the top end of the Moria Goblin Army I've painted up for LotR SBG and KoW (and WotR if I ever actually play it). Durbûrz, the Goblin King of Moria will lead the forces until Golfimbal on Foot and Mounted are finished, and no doubt sometimes even then.



I experimented a little using some Seraphim Sepia wash on his armour to try and give it a "gold" feel, as befits a king. It didn't exactly work for gold, but I didn't want a shiny, nice, bright gold anyway. Still, it looks decent anyway on him, and different enough from the standard muddy-steel look. The rock he's perched on was also the impetus that led to adding bits of slate onto all of the "leader" models in the Goblin army, including all of those Captains I finished recently.



These two were a nice surprise. I thought I had some shamans, somewhere but couldn't for the life of me find them. I gave up and grudgingly resolved to buy some at some stage, and then lucked out and found these guys, along with a bunch of unpainted Gundabad Blackshields. Since I've got two of the same sculpts here, I added some colour to distinguish the two by glazing their armour plates with Army Painter red and green washes. These, as with the sepia washed armour on the King kept the palette within the one chosen for the army while giving both models a bit of individuality.



I still need to buy Drûzhag, The Beastcaller and possibly the Moria Goblin Commanders set for the alternate Shaman model and the Drummers. Aside from those, the Blackshields and the more exciting and exotic models like Trolls, Wargs and the like, it'll just be the 11 sprues of plastic Moria Goblins and I'm done. 132 models. Bleugh. I see some dead-eyed batch painting in my future.

The last (currently) painted "proper" model from my Moria army - aside from extra models that will be roped in like my GW Orc & Goblin War Machines, and other monsters from Reaper Bones and such. The first Moria Troll from GW's Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring range. I painted this guy using GW's studio model a general guide, and somewhat followed their scheme and style of blending between the flesh tones and the blackened skin, as well as the flesh between the cracks. Since I followed their scheme it's most likely a fair bit brighter than the actual movie CGI model, but hey.



I added a couple of resin "orc" skulls and a femur from some blister I bought in the mid-90's, along with a Moria Goblin Shield. I'll need to push-mould some replacements!



Aside from obvious uses in LotR games, he's going to act as a Troll Bruiser (hero) to start with. Later on when I've got the other Moria Cave trolls painted, he'll simply become one of a unit, and eventually Buhrdur, the Hill Troll Chieftain will take over the Bruiser role in the army.



The model was painted as a Christmas gift for Marouda back in sometime ..around 2003-5. He's pretty much lived on shelves ever since. I'll get some WIP Moria army shots up soon. Hopefully this weekend.

Looking great!

Love the cave troll! I've got two of those sitting on my painting table waiting for a paint job, but I was hesitant about that blended flesh.

TBH your thread is super inspiring and making me start to work on LOTR figs again, Azazelx.

(in fact I am building a Morannon force right now and plan on finishing painting up my Isengard army in the next few weeks)

Thanks guys!

mdauben - The blended flesh was less difficult than it looks, but I'd recommend having a bit of a play with some cheaper models to get used to the techniques. I did this guy much later than the Moria Troll, and the techniques and idea were based on the Moria troll. The benefit of course is that this guy is a Bones model and costs about 5 bucks. And thanks to your post prompting my memory, I think this guy will also get some action alongside the Moria goblins now.


https://azazelx.wordpress.com/2013/09/07/golem-and-troll-aka-77168-bones-battleguard-golem-77004-bones-cave-troll/

Actually, Doug - a lot of this is actually your fault since you helping me get those first two army lists drawn up so I could get into KoW is what directly led into the Gondor and Moria stuff getting kicked into gear.

 Azazelx wrote:
Actually, Doug - a lot of this is actually your fault since you helping me get those first two army lists drawn up so I could get into KoW is what directly led into the Gondor and Moria stuff getting kicked into gear.

Feedback loop! I'm gonna finish my Isengard army. IIRC I had finished painting about 200 warriors, characters/banners/shamans/trolls/etc, crossbowmen, and berserkers and have pikemen, scouts, and wargs left. Should be fun! Hopefully after I post pics that will inspire you to paint through another army...

Heh, your Bolt Action stuff already did that. I've bought a whole lot of stuff, that's just stalled out due to the same "WTF do I do for a decent starting list?" issue that had me stumped in KoW.

Cave troll looks beautiful.

MB

Thank you!

 Azazelx wrote:
Heh, your Bolt Action stuff already did that. I've bought a whole lot of stuff, that's just stalled out due to the same "WTF do I do for a decent starting list?" issue that had me stumped in KoW.

dude, I run Bolt Action events around here (ran a tournament on this past Saturday and another one at Guns of August this upcoming Saturday), plus monthly events... so send me details if you need Bolt Action army composition help!

Today we have something that's somewhat recent and still available. I just finished these a couple of days ago, varnished them yesterday and finished the static grass this morning.
Six Black Númenórean Warriors from Citadel's Lord of the Rings range. I don't recall when these were released exactly, but the slotta says 07 so it would have been either 2007 or 2008 most likely. These models are exceptions to the "no starting anything new" rule I've got in place, as the "stuff I can paint 90% of at work" rules overrides the former rule. As I've noted before, a limited palette and a simple job to do (usually highlighting black cloth or painting bone) works well for me at work, and keeps me interested in the hobby when I'd otherwise be tired and (more) burnt out.



I wanted to paint these in a slightly more interesting (to me) manner than the usual, which is essentially dirtied-up steel with black robes, but still retain the proper feel of these Morgul troops. I've seen some really nice looking Morgul Knights (these guys on horses, basically) painted with deep sea green robes, but I wanted to maintain stronger visual ties through their palette being in tune with both the Ringwraiths and also (and more importantly) The Mouth of Sauron figure.



I kept the dark robes, highlighted via blending rather than drybrushing which I've used in the past for similar models. Sadly the highlighting seems to be a bit washed out in these pictures, but something I absolutely wanted to avoid was over-highlighting the robes to light grey or white, which seems to be a common solution for many painted - because the robes are black. I used my usual black palette, of blends between Army Painter Black and VMC - Black Grey and Basalt Grey. Basalt Grey is plenty light enough for these guys.



For the metal areas, I tried a new technique. First I painted the armour and shields with Vallejo Chainmail undercoat with a little bit of VMA Bright Brass mixed in. Two glazes of Citadel Seaphim Sepia Shade, and then an edge highlight of VMA Gold. Sword blades were done with Army Painter Plate Mail, washed with AP Dark Tone, and then edge highlighted with Plate Mail again.

Faces were done with VMC Sand, shaded with a paint wash of Fire Dragon Crimson, which is a very old Citadel paint that's actually a purple shade and then touched up with sand. A bit of black around their mouths and teeth picked out with VGC Elfic Flesh. Leather on the sword handles and shield straps were done with AP Chaotic Red (which is more of a deep red-brown) and washed with AP Strongtone. Done!

The reason I've documented exactly how I painted them here is because I've found that I have literally a dozen more of these guys, as well as a single pair of Castellans of Dol Guldur, who may well get the same paint scheme, given how similar they are in look and feel, and to add more variety to the scant three poses that the Black Númenóreans have.



As you can see, I attempted some minor conversion with these initial six when I got them years ago. I clipped some shoulder spikes from one of the models, and turned one of those spikes into a "rear" headspike on one of the other models. Without going into Chaos Warrior-style spikiness, I'm not sure how I can easily add any differentiation to the dozen others I have of these three sculpts. I'm not willing to go so far as to resculpt parts, and these models aren't exactly conducive to headswaps, so there's probably not a lot going to happen here.

The eventual Army of Mordor will find a home both in the various LotR games, as well as Kings of War. Plenty more to paint before I worry too much about that, though... Perhaps these guys will find their way onto the table alongside Marouda's Undead army as Allied troops.

I had this trio of figures sitting around for a few years, doing nothing. I always found them pretty uninspiring, so really had no plans to do much with them or buy more. I'm not entirely sure why I bought them - probably just collecting the different LotR figures before GW went super-ridiculous with embargoes to AU and such a few years ago. You know how it goes. At some point in the last year or so, I decided that since there were only three of them, and their outfits as seen in the films were basically a mixture of dirty rags, I should paint them quickly and get them done.

So it turns out that painting figures which you don't especially like in an uninspiring colour scheme does nothing for getting them done, so they languished with a few base colours for a year or so. Until recent, when I tried again. That attempt was a failure as well.

So. Thoroughly uninspired, I turned to Google image search to find some inspiration to paint these little suckers and get them off my painting desk. As luck would have it, I found some images from FunkyBrush's painting blog, (posted on Lead-Adventure) with his Dunlanders converted and painted as Celts. This led to some further poking around, and the images on Bennett Blalock-Doane's blog cinched the deal.



I didn't convert the weapons or add shields as FB did, as I tend to like to keep my "first" one of any given figure untouched, unless I purchased it for that purpose, or it's otherwise an irredeemable/seriously flawed sculpt. So these guys are Wildmen of Dunland, and when I have a bunch of my Warlord Games Celts painted up, they will also be Wildmen. Sometimes. Except in games where they're all used as Celts, including the Wildmen. Who knows what the future of the table holds? Kings of War games with Saruman leading his Uruk-Hai army alongside his Celt allies led by Boudicca? Why not? Now I'm aware that painting them as pseudo-Celts is unlikely to be "historically accurate" when it comes to LotR, but the Wildmen are a people I have so very little interest in, that anything that got these painted and out of my way works nicely for me.



I repainted this guy as a ginger, as opposed to the dirty unkempt grey/white beard that he originally had when I was trying to be more movie-accurate to Jackson's films. When I threw that out and decided to go Celt, I almost painted the top guy as blonde, until I remembered the comments about Rohirrim as "straw-heads" in the (books? films?), so I toned it down to brown. Of course, that just applies to these three, and my actual (eventual) Celts will have plenty of blonde and bleached hair amongst them! There is a fourth sculpt that I don't have. I'm not going to chase it, but if I happen to see it for a reasonable/cheap price someday, I'm sure I'll pick it up.



The Celtic theme was a real inspiration. Adding a woven tartan pattern to these guys was a real godsend, as it allowed me to have some fun on them and do something I like with freehand. So ultimately, after pretty much hating these hard-to-paint models for the longest time, they finished up as a trio that I'm really quite happy with and got done in about a day. I like it when that happens. Gotta love the internet for inspiration!

Good stuff as usual, Az!

Oh they look pretty cool, the tartan is very well done seems fitting for them actually.

Thanks guys. I was glad that finishing these models turned them around for me.

Every time I start slowing down painting my LOTR stuff, I check out your thread and get re-inspired.

Some more really good work! Those black Numenoreans are really great looking, and I love the plaid work you did on those Wildmen of Dunland! I was going to do something similar on the kilts of my Clansmen of Lamedon, but now I'm tempted to do my Wildmen the same way.

Thanks guys. I'll be giving my Clansmen some sort of plaid as well, though it'll be much more uniform than the Wildmen. Now here's some more Citadel Black Númenórean Warriors!



These guys are queue-jumpers, via the "stuff I can paint at work" clause - as opposed to stuff I've been working on for ages. That's pretty much it for these ones. I mean, there's not a lot interesting that you can write about more of the same three sculpts you've shown before, all painted more or less identically. These are all new, though. None of the first batch are shown in the mob above. I'll make the lot of them more interesting soon, but for now. this bunch is done!

I'm working on a dozen-ish Mordor Uruk-Hai now. Though they're my current "paint at work" project, so they may be a few weeks before they're done...

As a group they look even better I really do enjoy the colours you have chosen for them.

 Wolf wrote:
As a group they look even better I really do enjoy the colours you have chosen for them.

I agree about the colors. There's a lot of black-and-steel color schemes in the evil forces. This black-and-gold scheme helps them stand out a bit as elite troops.

I really do like those Black Numenoreans. Great job! I may steal the paint scheme myself, in fact...

Thanks for the compliments, guys. I agree on the scheme - I almost did them in black and steel, but wanted to do something a bit different, so went with the dirty brass/gold instead. I saw some other nice schemes with sea green robes and red robes, but wanted to keep them more closely linked to the other Mordor and Black Númenórean-ish stuff I have (including the Ringwraiths and Mouth of Sauron).

Now the new stuff - Black Númenórean Standard Bearers!

Standard Bearers, you ask? Yeah. GW Never made any, but that's not important. They only produced three sculpts of Black Númenórean Warriors, and that was it. As fate would have it, I had two Warriors of the same sculpt who both had their swords broken off. I really wasn't sure what to do with them for awhile. Repairing those swords was right out since drilling into sword blades is a fool's errand. Make a polearm? Drop an axe in there? Bin both and just replace the models entirely? Ah, maybe it'd work to try and put a standard in there?

So I did. It worked.



Originally, I'd hoped to freehand an inscription into the flag, but it was just too small and ragged to do so. I spent a couple of hours working out an appropriate inscription, translating it into a bastardised mixture of Adûnaic and Black Speech (to stand in for Black Adûnaic, and because the available vocabulary of both are very limited) and even worked out how to write them in Adunaroth, thanks to another speculative page online. Then it was too big for the bloody banner, and so I just painted in the Eye of Sauron instead. Blah. Yes, the angle of the drapery and skulls look a little odd. at first. That is until you realise that he's in the midst of thrusting that banner skywards at an angle, and that's why it's all trailing behind at such an angle. You see? Reasons!



But what to add? What to use? Whatever it was, it needed to be spiky and unpleasant. After rejecting the Dark Elven banners that I had, I settled on these two, from the GW Chaos Marauders sprue. Both looked spiky and evil enough to pass for the fallen men of Númenór - and fit in well enough with the GW models. Sure, the skulls are a little big, but they must be from non-humans. Olog-Hai or something, right?



In the end, I managed to turn two junk models into what will become the centrepieces of their unit(s). As with the Wildmen, Golgfag's Ogres and quite a few other models from the last year or so, models I disliked for whatever reason have become models I'm really pleased with - which is always especially satisfying! I'll get some full unit shots of these guys and their cohorts up soon. First I have to finalise their leaders, and GW Mail order sent me the wrong blister, so I need to get that sorted out first. GWAU's customer service is really hard to get hold of these days for some reason - I've been trying to get the guy on the phone for three weeks and only succeeded once, just before he went home on a Friday night over a week ago...

These figures were found in their half-finished state - and finished off about a month ago. They were pretty much the last things I finished before stopping/changing over to the December project. Two of them had broken pikes, but I was unfortunately only able to find one. I re-glued it with plastic cement, and as you can see, the repair is a little rough. The other guy is pretty much sitting out for an indeterminate time until I can either find his pike or care enough to drill it out and replace it with wire. Not anytime soon, then!



No matter - later on when there are many more, the broken-pike guys will just blend into the masses. I'll probably do 15 in the next batch of these for a total of 24, so I can set up either 2 regiments - or more likely - a horde of Pikemen for KoW. Not sure which rules to use for them yet. I'm thinking that their not-Chaos-Warriors list might be more appropriate for filmic LotR Uruks, though the pikes are going to be an issue. I'll figure it out later, I guess. Might have to be a customised unit profile, though I prefer to avoid those.

I am using just Kingdoms of Men for my Isengard Uruk Hai - using the heavy pike phalanx and foot guard as Uruk Pike and Uruk Warriors I think represent the "slightly better than humans" that Uruks are, and since visually there's less models on a 100x80 base (I'm also just keeping my guys on 25mm rounds), then it looks thematically appropriate with 12 Uruks versus other regiments with 15-20 guys in the same footprint.

Funnily enough, today, after months of deliberation, I finally did a second black wash on the metals of my 45 painted uruks. Essentially it's boltgun metal, mithril silver highlights and 2 badab black washes. I like it and I think I'll like it more when I see them on the battlefield because the metals look closer to the movie's although not as black.

That's the rub with stuff in the movie vs stuff on the table. You can end up with a very and shapeless dark black/brown force with very little to distinguish anything. Looks much more realistic/accurate, but also kinda bland and boring from a painting perspective.