enough, already!

One of the down sides to doing armies or larger skirmish factions rather than the individual figures of a small scale skirmish game is that you find yourself painting very similar stuff for an extended period of time.  Its not quite as bad as when painting a larger wargame army, such as the ancient greek (spartan) army I painted last year which comprised of 200 figures and most of them were hoplites, but now that I am plotting my progress on this blog it can lead to some similar posts!  This is something that I am going to have to keep in mind during the remainder of this middle earth madness!
This post sees the last of my riders of Rohan for a while, at least non character models which is all I have left for these.  As I suspected being back at school has slowed down my painting progress and although I have managed to complete 6 more models, some of the work was completed while I was still on holiday, leaving only a few bits to do to finish off.
On a happy note, my order of new paints and models came through yesterday, so as well as having more figures to paint, I also have some more static grass with which to finish the bases.
So here are the first 3 riders, again grouped by shield colours.  I am still not convinced by the horses being balanced on one leg as this does lead to the occasionally droopy pose but these are not too bad.

 I have tried to vary the colours of the horses as much as possible while still retaining the benefits of group painting.

 The final group of riders, again grouped by shield colours.

 A group shot of the final six riders.

 And all 15 mounted warriors of Rohan.  I am not sure whether I will paint more.  Part of me thinks that this is not enough for the games I have in mind but until I actually start playing with them, 15 is more than enough!

My target for the remainder of the week is to finish the basing of all of the figures that have been painted over the last two weeks.  After that, hopefully a few more figures - probably Uruk Hai but possibly moria goblins or even the wargs I received in my parcel!

reinforcements for Rohan!

I have almost completed the figures I have for the Riders of Rohan.  This week has seen me beavering away at the remainder and all I have left is a few riders and a couple of characters but I have to confess to being a little 'Rohaned out'!  Probably a good thing that they are almost done. :)
This week I have completed 6 more riders and 8 foot warriors.  The bases are still grassless but at least my order has been dispatched and I am expecting it early this week - fingers crossed!
These first 3 riders have different horse colours but the same shield colour - white design on a red shield.  I have to confess that I am always concerned at the strength of a horse model that only has one point of contact on the base and that seems to be common in these riders.

 The second three have red shields with yellow designs,again with a variety of horse colours.

 All six together.

 The foot warriors are a mixture of bow and melee armed weapons.  Nice and easy to paint.

 Again grouped by shield colour combination.  Geen shield, yellow design.

 Green shield, white design.

 I think that en mass, they will look quite varied and irregular.

 A group shot of the foot warriors.

 And a shot of this weeks output!

 So this is how far I have got with Rohan - it is coming along well, and with the addition of the few bits I have underway, it should be quite a usable faction.

 Eowyn is still in command and that is something I need to address at some point with the addition of more character models.

So now I come to the notion of when do I stop a faction and move on to others?  It is certainly large enough to use in a skirmish game against the Uruk Hai I have but not big enough for the impressive cavalry charge I have in my minds eye!!  In the games workshop version of Middle Earth there are many other factions that I would like to collect and so I am wondering now whether it is time to move on and begin something else.  I am expecting some reinforcements for my Uruk Hai any day now (same order as the static grass!) and after that I am moving on to a different bad guy faction so maybe I need to think about the addition of some elves or dwarves.  I am not doing Gondor for a while as the thought of all that silver and black leaves me a bit cold - however from very young I loved the swan knights of dol amroth and my most loved D and D character who, over several years gaming in my teens, I took all the way to 18th+ level was called Imrahil!  Maybe I will end up doing the provinces before the main city!  Ahh well, we shall just have to wait and see.  It will probably be just as much a surprise to me as it will to you which way I go next.
Anyway, enough ramblings from me -  I have to get ready for school tomorrow.  I expect that my painting output is about to nosedive!!!!!

Orthanc and Rohan

I mentioned last post that I also been busy painting the rank and file forces so that I could try and fit a game in with the figures to try and keep the momentum of the project going.  One of the joys of being off work is that I have had a little more time to paint and so have made good headway.  I have always thought that the success of this project would depend on how much I enjoyed painting the plastic sets available for the bulk of the forces as, in the past, I have not painted plastics well or consistently.  This time, however, things appear to be different!.
I have plastic figures from a few factions ready to paint but have chosen to start with a few from Rohan and Orthanc.
Below are the results.  These three riders of Rohan were a bit fiddly to paint but I am pleased with the way they have turned out.

The horses were all painted the same colour as I have a few more on the painting table and batch painting the horses will give me a mixture of colours with the minimum of fuss.

I also found time to paint some dismounted riders, armed with a mixture of bows and melee weapons.
Again, I have to say that they were a joy to paint and I am now getting the beginnings of a usable Rohan force

I have tried to give some variety of colour of tunics and shields while keeping a common green cloak

The figures were bought second hand and already built and this has lead to some of the shields being already glued on at the wrong angle.  Nothing too upsetting though.

Rohan so far, lead by Eowyn.

I also found time to paint some Uruk Hai.
The main arm of this force is the pike armed heavy foot.

They were quite easy to paint once I had worked out how to do the armour in a way I liked.  I used gunmetal followed by strong tone brown ink to give it a rustier/dirtier look.  It didn't look quite the way I was expecting but I was happy with how they turned out.

I painted 10 pike.  I have found a couple more and these will be done as soon as I get to them, which will hopefully be soon.

I also painted a few sword armed heavies as well.  These also have shields and so I thought that I would try and paint the white hand design.  I turned out to be a lot harder than it looked!!

I ended up with 10 of these as well.  I think I mentioned in a previous post that I have run out of static grass and am awaiting fresh supplies which is why the bases are not quite finished.

I obviously needed a hero to lead the fighting Uruk Hai and who better than Lurtz.  He is a metal figure, like many of the character models.  Again, nice and easy to paint and I was pleased with the end result.

The Uruk Hai all together.  I have already ordered a few extra bits for this force.  I have another captain to paint and am waiting on some trackers (lighter armoured foot) and wargs (to mix in with my already painted warg riders)

Now, technically, a cave troll is not part of the 'official' Uruk Hai list but he is now.  This is the plastic model from the 'mines of moria' box set.  Unpainted, he looked a little bland and was unsure as to whether even paint him as there are much nicer armoured trolls available.  However, I don't have any of them and I and him so I put some paint on him.   I am glad I did as he is quite serviceable and a heavy hitting addition to the Uruks.

Here he is about to squash a Rohan royal guard and Aragorn.  No loss really as I have more Aragorns than I really need. :)

I did have a game with them the other night.
I played Uruk Hai and Kelly played Rohan defending a village.  It was a fun game and I ended up winning when his moral collapsed when Eowyn died charging an Uruk.  It was a close run thing though!
Most of the Uruk Hai steamrollered into town....

Flanked by warg riders and the troll

The defenders can be seen lining the hedge rows.

However, working through some newly kitbashed skirmish rules, I forgot to take any more photos.  I will take more next time we play.  The rules turned out to be fun and quick play, allowing for my growing megalomania with middle earth to manifest in ever growing armies!!!!!

a productive few weeks!!!

I am still very much focused on my lord of the rings project an d am happily painting away. I started out painting character models because I have to confess I get a thrill from painting the characters from the book and film.  However, I soon realised that if the project was to have any legs then I would have to paint rank and file as well so as to get it into some sort of playable state as soon as possible.  I was hoping that playing with them would add a bit of extra drive to the over all project.
On to the figures -
You cant have a lord of the rings collection without having some hobbits.  These are from the fellowship of the ring box set.
Merry or pippin - not sure which one.

 samwise gamgee ready to pull his boss's nuts out of the fire.

 The other one.....

 Frodo's sword, sting, is glowing blue!!  There must be goblins about......

 A group shot of the diminutive foursome.  Frodo hiding behind sam, for a change........

 Elendil the Tall.  He will probably just get used as a different hero unless I want to do battles from the last alliance.  He is quite a nice figure.

 

 Boromir.  I never minded the character in the book but I really didn't like Sean Bean playing him - not one of my favourite actors (sorry Sean if you read this :) )

 His brother Faramir.  For a major character in the film this is quite a nondescript sculpt.  I like it but it's not readily recognizable as him.

 Denethor, Steward of Gondor.  A dark figure, all black grey and silver.

  A happy family shot....  It will not turn out well for two of these!

 Eowyn, Shield maiden of Rohan.    A nice figure but the trim on the armour needed a steady hand...

 Galadriel.  I much prefer the newer version of her from the hobbit film.  This one is a bit dull...

 Was it just me, or did galadriel speak a bit like 'mystic  meg' in the lord of the rings films?

That's the character figures I have painted over the last few days but I have also been busy painting forces of Orthanc and Rohan.  More of those next update....