LotR Orc Update

Yesterday I started working on my Middle-Earth generic orc army that I can use for either Mordor, Isengard, or any other generic orc army of my choosing. I was waiting until I was able to get to a local gaming store to pick up a few more paints and some plastic glue, which I did at the weekend, to get started.

Today I spent a bit of time looking at the Games Workshop plastic orc variants. I have approximately 50 orc warriors on foot (some sprues from the Battle Games in Middle Earth collection and an eBay second hand purchase - all from many years ago). The poses and a couple of armaments swaps allow for 14 different variants if glued up in a particular way without any need for cutting any figures up. The first set I will paint (well, actually finish off from last year's Orctober) in the coming weeks, but I have also sorted out another set of the same 14 poses that I have done weapon swaps for - hence the requirement for the plastic glue.

Some of the swaps were quite easy - literally cut off the hand and weapon of the warrior and glue it to another warrior. Some were a little more tricky than others as there was not a lot of adhesion area for the glue to work. Anyway, here they all are...

Simple hand/weapon swaps

Spear ends swapped/replaced with alternate heads

Weapon swaps and some added shields

Bow swaps

Most of these were simple swaps of existing orc parts, but some were from other non-GW kits. The first picture above is just purely hand/weapon swaps between these four figures. The second picture had the spear ends swapped but I also used an alternative spear shaft and head from one of my historical sets for one of the conversions. In the third picture, I did a bit more work on the figures - some hand/weapon swaps, but also the addition of some shields. The figure at the end still needs a shield adding, but the ones I used for the other figures won't fit, so I need to source a suitable shield from elsewhere. Finally, in the fourth picture I replaced the bow hands for the archers. The archers are almost impossible (for my limited skill set anyway) to convert in any other way, but I may have some success with arm and head swaps for some of the others.

This has prompted me to purchase that Warlord Games plastic Orc Warband box set to use as alternative poses and for further conversions of the rest of my Games Workshop orc warriors. This box will give an extra 24 warriors - hopefully enough to make up several Midgard bases worth of orcs. Speaking of which, I will also get to work on those movement trays over the coming weeks.