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i want to start an army of dale, can anyone think where i could start looking for suitable models??
my initial idea is to use men of arnor and file down the things round their helmets...

Also beornings any ideas anyone??

werewolves from the angmar army list??

stone giant??

and also great eagles the GW ones are awful....and so is the dragon

I take it Army of Dale as in where men and dwarves fought the easterling army? If it is then the dwarfs are easiest, you have lots to choose from, not all from GW. The armies of men are a bit more of a personal taste really. Empire men might work, as might Bretonnian Bowmen. Depends what you're looking for.

Rangers of Gondor models. Just use the ones with bare heads. They were a pretty rustic community from my impressions.
Also, good call on men of Arnor. The heroes would work great, especially Arathorn.
Maybe Osgiliath Veterans.
Maybe get hold of some Numenorean warriors, clip off the wings on the helmet. They have the tunic over the armor, so look a bit less armored.
I would go with a rough and ready look myself, so a hodgepodge of stuff may work.

beornings would be just shaggyheaded men. maybe some of the Wildmen models would work.
Otherwise, Chaos Marauders with symbols shaved off.

Werewolves, dunno. Do they have Cavalry, Monster, or Infantry stats? Look at Reaper miniatures, might be lucky there.

Stone Giant= WHFB Giant, or possibly can get away with an Ogre due to scale differences.

Rohan infantry might look ok?

I took Numenoreans and clipped the wings off, then sculpted torses around their helmets. A bit of work on their shields & tunics, to remove the tree, and they became cheap Men of Arnor.

Something similar should work to make them Men of Dale. Clip the wings off the helmets and smooth down the remaining rough spots. Perhaps change the shape of the helmet top with green stuff. Replace the White Tree with the Lonely Mountain. Maybe give them round shields from Rohirrim, instead of the big shields of Numenor/Arnor. You'd have an acceptable guard for King Brand. A little green-stuff work on some Rohirrim, and a different paint scheme, ought to fill out the bulk of the army.

Rules-wise, I'd probably use the rules of Warriors of Rohan. Arnor warriors' courage is too low, and Gondor warriors' defense is too high.

I'd stay away from WHFB figures, they mostly don't scale well with the LotR line, and in my opinion they are both too historical and too Warhammery to fit well in Middle Earth.

We've been looking for options for other armies, particularly Dunlendings. It is just too expensive to build an all-metal army for WotR. We've looked at a lot of the new plastic historicals, especially the vikings, Germans, and Saxons. The main problem is, again, they don't scale well with most WotR figures, which are true 25mm. Although the vikings and the Saxon Fyrd might do for Beornings.

For a Stone Giant, I am using one of the old GW Albion giants. For werewolves, we are thinking about using the West Wind Productions Weird War II Werewolves- a bit of greenstuff fur over the trousers, and they'd be good to go.
Great Eagle- check out Gamezone miniatures. Also, Coolminiornot has a really nice limited edition elf riding a great eagle- and it looks as though the elf is easily left off.

You know what I'd like to know, is what do the "Wardens of Carrock" look like?

Well, I would take a look at the Saxons Fyrd and Carls line, from war games factory they are cheap, the right size (I beleive) and look passibly similiar to what a Man of Dale could look like. Other wise I would use Rangers of Middle Earth mixed with Warriors of Rohan.

The Wargames Factory models are 28mm. So will look a bit bigger than the average man from LotR.

Granted the plastic Rangers and Army of the Dead are a bit big, but most of the metals are on scale.

BAN wrote:i want to start an army of dale, can anyone think where i could start looking for suitable models??
my initial idea is to use men of arnor and file down the things round their helmets...

Also beornings any ideas anyone??

werewolves from the angmar army list??

stone giant??

and also great eagles the GW ones are awful....and so is the dragon

Rohan descend from those who dwell in dale, so rohan models should fit the closest if you are a curmudgeon for tolkien history.

Werewolves are more difficult, but the best models I have found are the werewolves for the secrets of the third reich game. A few of them will require a bit of modification because of the remnants of clothing which arent exactly period, but they are indeed quite good.

Stone Giant has a pretty decent proxy that can be found at Majestic Bear: http://fateofmiddleearth.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=409&view=previous&sid=ee837480428911f9cd9518a440f5ce51

I agree about the great eagles for Lotr. I dont think the GW is bad, it just lacks any sort of character. Good wargaming model but has no inspiration. For good great eagles miniatures, check out Reaper giant eagle, and the giant eagles from gamezone miniatures: http://www.gamezoneminiatures.de/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=eagle&x=0&y=0

Dragons are easy. I spent $5 on a todd mcFarlane dragon at the local comic shop and kicks the ass of any more premium dragon on the current market. Modified the base to better suit WotR:
The pics are stupid huge, sorry. I am going to throw links to them otherwise it would be almost 12 megs of bandwidth horked to show them here.
http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e69/colorcrayons/WotR%20League/DSCN0359.jpg
http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e69/colorcrayons/WotR%20League/DSCN0358.jpg
http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e69/colorcrayons/WotR%20League/DSCN0357.jpg


Hope that helps.

skrulnik wrote:The Wargames Factory models are 28mm. So will look a bit bigger than the average man from LotR.

Granted the plastic Rangers and Army of the Dead are a bit big, but most of the metals are on scale.

loving those models may get some just to check out the scale, mixed in nicely it should look more than ok


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cheers for the input guys, its been really helpful....pics on the way in a few months LOL

Beornings, what are these, i'm familiar with Beorn the bear amn who lives to the north wes of mirkwood and fought in th ebattle of 5 armies but i've never come across that term.

Beornings are Beorn's children and grandchildren, and other youngsters related to Beorn who can morph into a bear.