Fomorians, Ushabti and Wolfen

My Other Fantasy Army Factions (Prepped and/or Undercoated)

There are not so many figures in each of these factions, so I will run through what I have prepped and undercoated so far for each of the three armies; Fomorians, Ushabti, Wolfen.

As mentioned previously these will appear as allies to the other LotR factions when used in my own universe battles. I like the idea of some strangeness appearing on the tabletop upon occasion to spice things up a bit.

Metal:

29 Fomorian warriors
2 Ushabti
14 Wolfen warriors

It would be nice to spring these forces onto an unsuspecting opponent and see their reaction. Without knowing points values and so on, the opponent would be likely very wary of attacking these warriors and monsters, which to me seems so much more realistic than the opponent seeing them and saying: "Oh yeah, they are worth twenty points, my three warriors can take one of those down easily".

I like the idea of the unknown on the tabletop - it makes for a more fun game. Obviously I would not set a very unbalanced/overpowered force against an opponent as that would not be fair; just inject an element of doubt and surprise.

Wolfen

The final set of non-LotR miniatures I have assembled over the last few days is my pack of Rackham's Confrontation Wolfen. Over the years, at trade shows, I have been lucky enough to pick these up very cheaply in deals. Ordinarily these would have cost a fortune, but my collection came in at maybe a third their retail price. All of them are the metal versions before Rackham made the bad mistake of moving to some kind of bendy plastic that nobody liked and therefore did not buy.

First up are a couple of Wolfen Warriors and a Wolfen Repentant of some kind that I have not been able to find in their catalogues. I had previously undercoated these figures but there were many spots I missed, so I re-sprayed them for better coverage.

Next up are a couple of Wolfen Hunters and a Wolfen Vestal. Again, these were partially undercoated, so I tried to complete the coverage with the spray can.

Two more Wolfen Hunters and a Wolfen with a pretty powerful looking crossbow. I imagine the stats for that crossbow will be the same as a ground mounted human ballista judging by the size of it. The two Hunters were partially undercoated, so just needed a touch up, but the crossbow armed warrior had yet to see a lick of paint and needed a bit of prep work done. Unfortunately, it was at this point my spraycan gave up the ghost and ran out on me. I will have to grab a new one when I can to complete these miniatures and the ones in the following photos.

Next up are a few elite/hero types: In the background are Onyx the Prowler and another Repentant type, whilst in the foreground is a Wolfen Predator with Great Blade.These all required a quick clean up and then sticking onto their new 50mm round lipped bases.

Finally, a couple of leader/hero types: Varghar and Ophyr the Guardian.Again, these just needed a bit of prep before sticking onto their 50mm round bases.

As can be seen from the photographs, I mounted all of the figures on 50mm round lipped bases as they are too big to fit on any others I have in my bits box. This works well for some rules I want to try working on regards knock-downs when combatants win/lose a fight.

These are some of my favourite ever miniatures. I really like the dynamism created with each of these figures - each one looks like they are in the middle of actually doing something rather than being upright and marionette-like. It was such a shame when Rackham went the way of the dodo as they had so many fantastic miniatures factions, great artwork to inspire, and a fully rendered background for the world in which their peoples moved.

If I am able to track down any more of these on the cheap, I will certainly pick them up. It seems (even from the small collection I have) that there are more out there than the catalogues I have viewed suggest.


I may not have a full update for the next few days as I am out of the spray paint I use for undercoating miniatures. I always tend to use Games Workshop's Chaos Black (for most figures) and Rhinox Hide (for rangers, scouts, orcs, horses and other figures that will consist of a mostly brown paintjob) to undercoat as both colours are tried and trusted for me. I have tried other manufacturers' paints but they are either too thick (too much pigment that tends to clog detail) or don't cover as well as I like them to. I know GW stuff is expensive but I am going to stick with what I know on this.

Anyway, I am hoping to gather up the pennies in the next few days and get down to my local GW store to buy another couple of cans. I can't do this tomorrow as my car is in for a service all day and Thursday I need to wait in for a delivery; I hope the delivery company gives me one of those "windows" so I can plan the rest of my day around it and get to my local GW (a good 5 mile/30 minute drive away - its a very busy road between the village where I currently live and the local town).

Fomorians

The weather has been much brighter and warmer today, so I was able to get into the garden and begin undercoating a few miniatures previously featured, as well as prepping some more of those still on my work bench. Today's miniatures come from the Celtos range by i-Kore Miniatures. They have since been marketed by a variety of other companies, so I am not sure where to get them from now. I managed to buy these at a trade show many moons ago from Brigade Games. I thought I had bought the whole collection, but there are a few more leader types to get and some sirens (female Fomorians, which I probably won't get as they don't really fit in with the male versions imho - they would make a good female only faction though for another game).

I have broken my Fomorian collection down into four types and photographed each faction separately.

Fomorians with Spears...

There are nine of these in the range and I managed to get them all. The barbed spears/harpoons look great for a sea-based bunch of raiders. I was going to paint the weapons as sharpened bone to fit in with the sea raiders theme.

Fomorians with Swords...

Again, there are nine miniatures in this part of the range. In true i-Kore style, the weapons are over-sized. I am not too keen on over-sized weapons, even if it is in a fantasy setting. I was going to paint the swords as some kind of sharpened cuttle fish bone; light weight and easy to wield, especially underwater, but when they come up against steel weapons, pretty ineffectual. Hence why Fomorians usually only raid isolated fishing villages - no trained soldiers using steel weaponry should be in the immediate vicinity.

Fomorians with Great Swords...

There were six miniatures in this part of the range, but I only have five of the variants. I have a double of the second from left - looking at the catalogue, he is very similar looking to the other variant, so an easy mix up to make for the manufacturer when packing. I will try to pick up the last variant at a later date.

Fomorian Command...

This set contains a variety of Fomorians in suitably heroic poses. The first one is a Fomorian blowing into a huge shell-like instrument, and the others are all armed and dangerous. There are a few more named characters in the range which I might get, as well as some beastmen and reavers that complement them but, again, I may or may not get those.

Even though I looked everywhere, I couldn't find the shields that should have come with these miniatures. That said, what good would a shield do underwater? It would be very unwieldy. Perhaps these figures will be shieldless to befit their oceanic origins? I looked in the catalogue and saw that shields are available separately in packs of 12, so maybe those poses that look like they are holding shields will get one? Maybe they realise that even farmers can fight back with farming implements and makeshift weaponry and therefore some kind of extra protection is necessary; so they carry shields onto dry land for warding off errant pitchfork blows whilst raiding but don't use them in the water?

I am not sure how to go about painting these fellas yet. Do I do them a drab green/blue or grey/brown to match their oceanic environment or should I maybe push them to brighter colours as befits a more tropical sea? Perhaps the further up the greasy pole these chaps travel, the brighter their markings?

Ushabti

This is the first of a few posts that are not really, but kind of almost are, Lord of the Rings hobby related. There will be more LotR posts soon, but these are kind of linked in by the fact that in one of my imaginary worlds, these will be allies for factions that I will use Lord of the Rings figures for.

First up are a couple of Games Workshop's Ushabti (apologies for the dull photo - light conditions are terrible at home due to the overcast/rainy weather we are currently experiencing)...

I did have three of these (out of the four available in metal - jackal, crocodile, asp and vulture) but cannot seem to find the third one (the asp headed version). I managed to build and clean them up today whilst waiting for a small break in the weather that never came which would have allowed me to get out into the garden to undercoat more Games Workshop LotR minis. I also got a few more miniatures that I will feature over the next few days out of their bags/blisters in readiness for preparation tomorrow and the rest of the week.

A brief look at the GW site shows that they released more Ushabti subsequent to these metal minatures in resin, but they do not have the same style, and therefore aesthetic I want. I will probably try to hunt down the fourth metal one on eBay (the Vulture headed one) and see if I can find the asp headed one here at home. I have a few boxes of figures I have not gone through just yet, so probably lots more lovely surprises to come.

I am not at all sure how to paint these yet. Do I go for the blue, white and gold Egyptian look, or for the red and gold look of the Easterlings? Also, do I paint them as beings made of bone or jet black like the statues found in Egyptian tombs? Lots to ponder over the coming weeks.

As mentioned in a previous post, these beasts will be the result of an Easterling (or whatever I decide to call that faction) War Priest summoning. To make things fair, their points values will have to be calculated when creating an army otherwise adding a few of these to an even sided fight will certainly tip the balance in the Easterling player's favour. When I get to statting these up, I will publish them on here for all to use.

Along with these Ushabti, I found some EBob unofficial LotR miniatures (much better than the Unreleased Miniatures mentioned in a previous post on Rohan elites), i-Kore Fomorians, and I pulled together my collection of Rackham's Confrontation Wolfen. All of these will make nice additions to my future games.

Erkenbrand's Redshields

After much deliberation over last weekend, I decided what to do with the resin shields I had made; one set will be for Erkenbrand's Redshields, another for Grimbold's Helmingas and the final set for Elfhelm's cadre. I don't think I currently have enough figures in the plastic and lead pile to make up all three of these units though, so one set of the shields, for Elfhelm's eored, will remain in the plastic pile for a while longer.

I had enough Warriors of Rohan figures for Grimbold (see yesterday's post on Grimbold's Helmingas) and for the mounted contingent for Erkenbrand's Redshields but I am not sure about where to get those I want to use for Elfhelm. Perhaps I can just use other figures that Eomer, Theodred and Theoden use in their units for now until I can afford to buy a couple more boxes of Rohan stuff? But, if I do re-use the standard eored miniatures for Theoden etc. they won't be differentiated by a unit encompassing shield design when used as part of Elfhelm's unit. I will see when I finally get them all out onto the workbench at the final prep phase.

Anyway, enough chatter, onto Erkenbrand's mob. As I have now run out of Rohan miniatures to use for the elite squads, Erkenbrand's unit will only be represented by a mounted contingent at the moment. I have tried to do a little bit of conversion work by swapping a few weapon hands around and giving the unit a set of my custom made shields so they all match and there is some coherence in the unit.

You can see the two minor conversions in the second column of riders from the left - I swapped the axe and spear hands around. They all have the resin shields I had specifically designed for the purpose of designating individual units.

I think that is all of my Lord of the Rings miniatures de-sprued/unboxed and based in readiness for undercoating. So now I just need to wait for the weather to improve a little before hitting the garden for a few sessions with the spray cans. I have some old cans in my paints box, so I hope they will still do the trick.

It will be at this stage that I will create some spreadsheets to list what I have so far and their associated points values. I will also take the opportunity to perhaps begin working on some Saga and Dragon Rampant armies just to see how things measure up.

If I can get a good few sessions with the spraycans in the garden, then I am hoping the next phase will only take a week or two to complete. After the undercoating and statistics taking I will get onto ordering the units into some semblance of a painting queue and get stuck into them with the brushes. I have a few already painted (maybe 10% of them), so may look at finishing some of those units first if there are any gaps. Plastic figures will be block painted and "dipped" but I may have a go at proper shading/washing with elites and heroes. I will have to see how my eyes hold up to the task ahead as they are still deteriorating quite rapidly.

Grimbold's Helmingas

This unit of Rohan foot soldiers have been treated to a set of the shields I had made by a professional sculptor. I was going to go for a converted all hand-weapon and/or spear armed unit (this may still happen as I still have a few boxes of Rohan figures to prep in my plastic pile) but to get through this phase of the LotR preparation project I just added shields to those that have the lugs for them. I will be using the riders mentioned from my plastic pile above and the remaining foot figures for Erkenbrand's Redshields along with another of the shield sets from the sculptor.

Grimbold was quite a renowned captain of Rohan, occasionally serving as a Marshal when needs or situation dictated. He rode with Theodred and preserved his almost-dead body from being captured by Saruman's uruk-hai at the First Battle of the Isen. During the Second Battle of the Isen he formed a shield wall to enable others to escape in an orderly manner. I imagine the foot version of Grimbold released by Games Workshop was to represent this situation even though most of the time he would have ridden to war. I guess this is also where I got my idea of a unit of foot under his command.

Grimbold's unit will consist of Grimbold, a banner bearer, a horn blower (from the War of the Ring sets) and a dozen foot Warriors of Rohan. I don't think there is much difference stats wise between these troops and normal Warriors of Rohan (an extra point of Fight maybe? I can't remember. That said, do they even appear in the latest version of the Middle Earth : Strategy Battle Games rules that I do not yet own - I only have The One Ring rulebook and an earlier Return of the King book). They will make for a bit of variety on the tabletop when I paint them slightly differently to the normal Warriors and Riders of Rohan though.

This small unit would make an ideal addition to an army used in any of the other tabletop gaming rulesets I will be looking at playing. I am wondering whether to further differentiate these chaps from the standard Eorlingas with brown capes as opposed to the usual drab green? Likewise, I may do something similar for Erkenbrand's Redshields; other than red shield backgrounds, perhaps red capes or clothing too? I have stuck to film canon with my painting so far, but I want to make each of these armies my own. So, a few minor conversions and slightly differing paint jobs should suffice to differentiate certain elite units and so forth.

Rohan's Elite Warriors

I think Rohan is my second largest force, after Gondor, number of figures wise. Although, saying that, Isengard (if the orcs and wargs are included) may be pushing for that title too. It will be interesting to do a count up once everything is out of its blister/box and onto the work table.

Anyway, here is the original view of the army from two years ago. I think that there have been a few additions to this faction since then whilst I was trying to round out the army to what I originally wanted. I have now reined that in and will get by with what I have here and perhaps one or two small purchases to complete any unit that is a figure or two short...

Rohan Royal Guard and other Elites...

The majority of the blisters shown in the first photo contained Royal Guard on foot and mounted Sons of Eorl. I also bought some unofficial miniatures to double up as foot versions of the Sons of Eorl - they are not the best sculpts in the world, but we will see how they look when painted up fully.

With the Royal Guard I decided to create them as a unit of spearmen. In the blisters you get three subtly different warrior sculpts and six right arms: three with spears and three with swords. I now have a dozen sword arms for my bits box which may come in handy in the future. I will use these troops as King Theoden's personal retinue, but some may double-up for extra duties to guard Theodred (when he was alive) when out hunting down orcs of the White Hand. I double-checked my mounted Royal Guard numbers and found that I only have 10 standard poses, so I will need to grab a couple more to make a full-sized unit. I do, however, have two Royal Guard with longer spears that are presumably meant as banner bearers - I will use them as such to show off Theoden's might.

This brings us onto some other elite warriors. As shown above, I have half-a-dozen Sons of Eorl. Unfortunately, when I ordered them Games Workshop would just send a random assortment - hence why I got five of one pose and only one of the other - at the time I would have preferred three of each, but this could work in my favour as an unnamed captain type and five troops? I wondered what to use these for and decided that these hardened warriors would be the right-hand men of each of the Marshals of the Riddermark; so, Theodred and Eomer can be accompanied by them, and perhaps Elfhelm and Erkenbrand?

Heroes of the Riddermark...

In addition to the elite warriors there were a couple of hero sculpts that needed prepping. Most have already been made up, but Gamling was still in his blister. I now have a couple of Gamling mounted with Standard minis, a couple of him on foot with sword and now on foot with the Rohan Royal Standard. I will probably try to either paint the duplicates differently or try to convert them to get some more unique poses/characters. I would like to get a mounted Gamling without the flag and also a mounted Hama to at least round out the film heroes.

Looking at my collection and names gathered from the books (from memory I might add, so I have undoubtedly missed some - please let me know if you can think of any more War of the Ring era (and a few years either side) heroes from the books/films) I think I can represent the following characters...

• Theoden (foot and mounted - couple of poses of each)
• Theodred (foot and mounted)
• Eomer (foot and mounted - couple of poses of each)
• Eowyn (foot and mounted - a few foot pose variants)
• Gamling (foot and mounted with standard, and foot with sword only)
• Hama (foot only)
• Erkenbrand (foot and mounted)
• Grimbold (foot only)

Here are some I would like to represent...

• Elfhelm - a marshall of the Riddermark - perhaps a converted spare Eomer mini?
• Dunhere - lord of Harrowdale - some kind of conversion or maybe a third party miniature?
• Guthlaf - Theoden's flag bearer - I already have Gamling for that but as Peter Jackson played fast and loose with the characters (for understandable film continuity reasons) I will have to see what I can do here - convert a Gamling mini or maybe a Royal Guard bannerman?

I have plenty of miniatures in this part of my collection to make up a great set of armies for the three main rules sets (Strategy Battle Game, Dragon Rampant and Saga) I would like to play. Many are actually painted too, so this may happen sooner than anticipated. Carrying on from the above dialogue, I was hoping to portray as many characters from the film and books as possible. Some thinking and rejigging will be required, but I think I can manage with most of the figures I already possess. I will do a final reckoning when this particular faction ends up on the workbench for a points tally and to see if I need to fill any gaps.

Legions of Rhun III

Today turned out to be rather more intersting than I originally anticipated. I started out working on my plastic box set of Kataphracts and then did a side-step onto a quick conversion of one of my eBay bought halberd armed Easterling warriors.

First up is the command for the Kataphracts. I decided to only create a drummer and banner bearer this time as, when I eventually get a second box set, I will create a suitable captain for them. Hopefully I will have read the rules by then to see if a halberd armed one will be allowed.

Next up are four Kataphracts. I did these all armed with falchions.

I really enjoyed putting these together. As mentioned in a previous post, the Easterlings really are one of my favourite factions cultural looks wise. They have interesting armour and weapon choices and make for a force to be reckoned with that even Gondor would find hard to defeat.

My final piece of work today was just something I did on a whim. I had already cut the second banner in the box set from the sprue for some unknown reason and decided to try to use it. I snipped the arm off of one of my eBay purchased halberdiers, trimmed the flag staff down a little and this is what I came up with. Simple conversion, but I think it is extremely effective.

Now to look for a  foot figure or two that can be converted into a drummer, captain and perhaps a warpriest or dragon warrior?

Gondor Scouts

The weekend sees a bit of a slow down for my hobby as that is when the kids are away and I get more time for myself to do social things. Therefore, hobby time at the workbench drops but hobby time at friends' houses increases a little (and other parts of my social life too). The D&D stuff I played quite a bit until last year and still touch on from time to time (this Saturday just gone for example I played as a 4th level ranger in a 5e dungeon campaign that takes place sporadically - I have now played him on two separate occasions, and hopefully a few more times in the coming months) being a prime example.

Anyway, back to my daily output for Lord of the Rings. Today saw me hit another smallish faction that I have been itching to complete for some time - the old style metal Knights of Minas Tirith. When I first got these I attempted to put them onto the horses supplied in the box, but the legs on them broke rather rapidly (most poses only have one point of contact with the base so this makes them very susceptible to breaking what with the extra weight of a metal miniature upon them) and would never glue up again properly. So, I decided to look around for alternative mounts that were more solid and able to cope with the weight - welcome onboard the Warlord Games Pike and Shotte horses. I may have mentioned this solution previously but, if not, I have to thank joe5mc over at The Renaissance Troll for his suggestion. I got the horses glued up over the weekend and completed the riders this morning.

Here are a few pictures of the dozen Knights of Minas Tirith I have made up using the above method. Looking at them though, and the pictures on Joe's blog, these do look more like a scouting patrol than full blown heavy impact knights. So, these metal ones will become a scouting force whereas my plastic versions (along with the Swan Knights of Dol Amroth) will become the hard-hitters...

Again, like the Dol Amroth knights, they have lances sticking out all over the place, so will be difficult to store. Hopefully those couple of trays of pick and pluck will do the trick.

To lead these fellas into battle, and to carry on kind of fulfilling his scouting/rangeing role, I have Faramir in armour along with a banner bearer...

I did have these all lined up in formation on a shelf earlier today (whilst the horses dried I plonked on the riders to see what they would look like) facing a dragon miniature that I got from a magazine many years ago. It looked brilliant on the shelf and I wish I had photographed it. Perhaps I will do so when they are all painted and I have some decent scenery set up. I could just see the story opening up in my head - a brave knight with his bannerman and a dozen stout warriors hired to hunt down the culprit that was stealing cattle and farmers - when they meet it they are surprised at its size and baulk at tackling such a foe. Then the knight remembers his vows, girds his loins and charges the beast beside its lair, only to discover that it is a mother with young to feed - the dilemma!


I think this could make a fabulous Dragon Rampant scenario - I may play with it and stat things up once these are painted and ready for action - maybe this could be my first scenario? Whimsy aside, I think these will make for another great unit for each of my three fantasy tabletop games.

Dol Amroth for Gondor!

As mentioned yesterday, I decided to take a break from the Easterlings and move onto other factions whilst I worried away over what to do with the kataphracts. I decided to go for a quick win by making up a couple of boxes of Knights of Dol Amroth and their leader Prince Imrahil.

However, as per all my quick wins these took a lot longer than I thought they would. Again, I cut the minis off the sprues and did my usual filling the horse halves with Plasticene (didn't bother photographing that stage as I have presented it so many times before). I then added the riders in readiness for undercoating. I decided to go for a very uniform look and tried to get them as identical as possible to make them look like a faceless, remorseless killing machine...

Unfortunately, even though these models are really nice, they are going to be an absolute bitch to try to store - the lances stick out at all angles and are extremely long. They will look fantasic on the battlefield but storing them in my existing boxes will be a nightmare - I do have a couple of pick and pluck foam trays from Kaiser Rushforth (most of my storage boxes are made by KR along with several really Useful boxes for my paints, scenery and tools etc.) that I haven't previously used, so hopefully they will do the trick.

Next up is a suitable leader for the Swan Knights - Prince Imrahil. I think GW used to do a captain, horn blower and banner bearer too, but I was never too keen on their massively tall helmets - just not practical for the battlefield. Prince Imrahil though has his helmet removed so it does not look so goofy. I like the way that you get a foot and mounted version in the blister too...

Again, the mounted mini has a lance that sticks out at a weird angle, so he too will be difficult to house in my storage boxes.

Once painted, I think that these fellas will look awesome and stand out amongst their more sombrely hued Gondor knights brethren. I am so looking forward to getting a unit or two of these out on the tabletop and trying them in a variety of games (Dragon Rampant, Saga and SBG). It will be interesting what stats, traits and skills others have given them.


I have noticed that these photos are becoming a little samey - grey figures on a plain green background. It is just that the area I have put aside for my hobby time is quite limited and I am using what is readily to hand at the moment. Once I have completed this making and basing phase, I am hoping to be able to show off complete factions and units in a better way, and I can hopefully mix things up a bit so that the photos are a little more exciting. I may try to go back to my DSLR camera and try to set up a light box for better shots too.

Legions of Rhun II

I spent nearly two hours on these Kataphracts - there was a lot more to them than I anticpated. The plastic horses were almost there and just needed their two halves glueing together and then basing, but the metal ones were extremely fiddly and needed a lot of patience.

As mentioned in the post yesterday, I still have a lot of procrastinating to do on the plastic warriors that will sit upon the plastic mounts. Should I make a command unit out of them and use any spares to try to create some foot versions or do I just go for six mounted warrior types? I think this is where I add another box set to the wanted list. Anyway, with regards the horses, there are three left and right halves to make up quite a few variants. I tried to make mine all different. Here are the completed horses in all their glory...

Next up were the metal Kataphracts - I already have one box set made up and semi-painted but I also had another box set to build as well as a couple of eBay purchases to make the unit up to a round dozen.

As mentioned above, some of these were extremely fiddly to build; some of the front legs are separate and are quite a bother to get to fit in between body and base. Glue went everywhere, fingers got stuck together, but I think I eventually got there with them. I just hope they don't start to fall apart when I get around to painting them.

The picture above shows the box set of Kataphracts - you get five metal ones in a box but six plastic ones. They are all nice and shiny and ready for an undercoat. There are a few gaps that will need to be green-stuffed to smooth them out, but I will get around to that when I get to actually work on this faction in earnest.

The next picture shows the two eBay purchases. These took a lot of cleaning as the previous owner had just stuck blobs of greenstuff in to stick the legs on. These were a bit of a mess and I had to remove the legs and then scrape them clean to enable me to start again. Luckily the previous owner did not mix the putty very well so it came off relatively easily.

As mentioned in a previous post, I may see how easy it is to convert one or two of these metal figures into command types - I really want a captain armed with a halberd and shield that fights from horseback. I think it would make for a nice conversion even if not legal gaming wise (still haven't checked yet as my rules are boxed up in the garage).

Again, due to numbers, these figures can go a long way towards creating decent sized units for Saga and Dragon Rampant. I am so looking forward to slowly building up these forces in order to maybe first play Battle Companies (rumour has it that there is an updated version due out sometime soon), then move onto some small (500 points?) SBG skirmishes, then perhaps Saga skirmishes and then onto full blown SBG and Dragon Rampant armies.


I think that will be it for the Easterlings for a few days whilst I think my way through what I want to do with the plastic box set riders. When I had finished the modelling for today, I went through what I have left to do in the LotR lead and plastic piles (there are still many, many hundreds of non-LotR minis that need some tlc). I have:

• some Gondor and Dol Amroth cavalry
• loads of Rohan stuff (dozens more of these to still get through)
• the Fellowship
• a few one-off dwarf heroes (I may use these doubles as RPG figures)
• Shelob
• some cave trolls
• and the remainder of the Easterlings.

Most of these should get completed by the end of next week, so I hope the weather improves just a little more so that I can get into the garden and begin undercoating them all.

Legions of Rhun

This faction seems to have spawned a life of its own. What started as just a single box of 20 Easterling Warriors has burgeoned into quite a force to be reckoned with. EBay was my friend for this faction as almost everything bar the initial purchase was from there.

Here is the original photo from two years ago detailing what I had in my faction at that time...

First up are a bunch of metal Easterling warriors armed with halberds and swords. These round out my inital small force of metal minis that can be used as dismounted versions of Kataphracts or just on their own as is. I may even use them as Black Dragon elites as they look slightly different to the plastic Easterling warriors, but I need to find out more about that particular troop type just in case they are too different to be used (I only know them by name at the moment). I will have to think about paint jobs and so forth to differentiate them, but then again the slightly different look and feel to the plastic miniatures may do that anyway.

The next bunch are a set of command figures: a captain, a dismounted Dragon Knight, a banner bearer and a warpriest. I managed to get hold of these in metal before they went to Finecast. There are several other elite/command figures that I missed but I am not a great fan of resin miniatures so will most likely not buy them going forward as I have more than enough to be getting on with. The leader of my little legion will be Khamul - the Ringwraith, supported by any one of the captains or, indeed, the Dragon Knight.

The final part of this army that needed to be prepped was the mounted contingent - plastic and metal kataphracts. I really like these miniatures - they have been firm favourites of mine for a long time. I already have some metal kataphracts prepped and part painted to add them to, and together they make up a couple of decent sized mounted contingents to rub up against my Rohan and Gondor cavalry.

Unfortunately, time ran away with me today and this is as far as I could get with the mounted miniatures. The usual cut off the sprues and filled with Plasticene shot follows...

The plastic horses should be finished tomorrow and I should also hopefully get to work on the metal kataphracts. Hopefully I can also get the plastic riders completed too but there are a lot of decisions to be made as to how I want them to look. There is a drummer and a banner bearer as well as heads and a cape to make up a leader.

I will also look and see how the spare parts (there are lots of them) can go towards creating some decent foot conversions - maybe a drummer, banner bearer and captain in plastic? Also, I may look at converting a metal kataphract into a captain bearing a halberd (if that is possible - I need to check the rules). Also a foot captain (I have three of this particular miniature) can be armed with a spare shield as I have a couple of plastic ones in my bits box to be used. As I said, lots to think about so this force may be a little while longer completing than originally envisaged.


Like with my other factions with several sprues worth of foot troops, these will make for a reasonable sized Dragon Rampant and/or Saga force. It is great that I will be able to use so many of my Lord of the Rings miniatures for alternative wargames, as well as the Adventures in Middle Earth role playing game I picked up a few years back.

Moria Goblins

Lots of goblins, both plastic and metal, in this faction but also some hard-hitting cave trolls. However, due to the nature of the trolls (large multi-part metal kits) I will probably get onto them last as they will require some extra work, such as pinning, to complete them. This is a view of what the original army looked like a couple of years ago all neatly laid out on my gaming mat...

Luckily, all of the plastic goblins had already been processed, so I only needed to prep the metal kits. First up are the elites - goblin prowlers...

Seems like there are only three variants of these miniatures but there are four figures in each blister sold. These will just be thrown in the mix with the other metal goblin warriors and probably used as some form of captains or whatever in Battle Companies as I don't have enough for a full unit of them and probably won't bother making one up unless I get lucky on eBay or GW decided to re-release them in metal at a reasonable price.

Next we have a couple of captains and Gollum - wasn't sure where else to put Gollum, so thought as he spent many years skulking within the Misty Mountains this would be the best place to present him...

To wind their fellow warriors up into a Fury, I also have a goblin drum and drummer set. I like the idea of this miniature to represent those "Drums. Drums in the deep"...

The drummers need some extra warriors, in addition to all of the plastic ones I have, in order to overwhelm any intruders into Moria, so here are a couple of blisters worth of goblin warriors armed either with bows or spears or wicked knives with shields...

And finally, what was, I think, envisioned as the original Goblin King before The Hobbit movies presented their own version. Durburz is GW's own version of the ruler of Goblin Town...

I actually prefer this version to the official one from The Hobbit collection - seems more plausible to me, but that's not to say I dislike the movie version. I have a stack of Goblin Town miniatures from the original The Hobbit starter set stored away somewhere safely. I will most likely get them out once my Lord of the Rings collection has been completed and add them into the mix as extra cannon fodder. Obviously, the more goblins in ones army the better?


As I have quite a few Moria denizens to put on the tabletop, many of them can double-up for use in Dragon Rampant and Saga armies. Again, I will probably have to trawl the internet for specific army lists but I am sure some bright spark out there has already produced some amazing work on them already.

Middle Earth Magic and Mysteries II

The weekend allowed me to take a breather, put loads of the miniatures into their stortage cases away from harm, and to get out and purchase some more superglue to let me continue with my quest this week. I managed to finish off those pesky one-offs that I probably won't have any use for and a few wizards and a mounted Aragorn as Strider.

Here's the stock Free Peoples piccie again - all are now de-blistered (except the Fellowship and Shelob box sets), glued up and, with this post, blogged...

What was left from the previous round of work last Friday were a few one-offs that I may not ever use Gan-buri-gan and Frodo and Arwen on horseback...

However, the mounted Strider from the Warg Attack set will make a very useful addition to my rangers faction for Gondor...

The final few are Gandalf on foot in both his White and Grey guises as well as a Gollum miniature. I have decided to put Gollum into the Moria faction, so he should appear in tomorrow's post...

Seeing both of these on the workbench alongside the Gandalf the White on Shadowfax made me pine after the long oop Gandalf the Grey on horseback - a superb figure that I am going to add to my wish list. This would then allow me to have Gandalf in both of his forms as a foot or mounted miniature. Just need to somehow get hold of a mounted Radagast (did he ever ride a horse?) to round things out. Actually, what about the Blue Wizards? I wonder what miniatures I could use as substitutes for them? Again, would I need them on foot and mounted? Perhaps a trawl of the internet for any (semi-) official pictures of these two "eastern" wizards could lead me to a miniature or two to represent them?

As these figures do not make up any factions by themselves, I will most likely only use them for SBG. I am not sure how they would fit into Battle Companies as generic mages - are there even any rules for this kind of thing either officially or unofficially? I guess the wizards could make up single-based units for Dragon Rampant and perhaps Saga has some (un)official rules for magic wielding units?

The Fighting Uruk Hai

Following along the same theme as yesterday's post about the Dunlendings, here are a few more of Saruman's hard-hitting forces - the Fighting Uruk Hai. This is a photo of the force before I completed all of the preparation. Some had been done before I got onto this second round of work, so I will only be showing the ones I have worked on today.

The Dunlendings were completed yesterday; the warg riders have already been prepped; for the orcs see below for a few more details. So, that just leaves the Uruk Hai for this part of the Isengard army.

First up are the Uruk Hai Scouts. I forgot that the box set I had contained 24 of the plastic warriors so that brought a smile to my face as I had more than I thought. The blister contained 3 metal Uruk Hai scouts, so along with a few Uruk Hai heroes (2 poses of Lurtz - with bow and cleaver/shield - and one of Ugluk (I think?)) that brings my total to 30 scouts.

As I had already made up loads of the plastic Uruk Hai warriors, it was now down to me to prep their command. For this small part of the force I found that I had a blister of crossbow armed uruks and a command blister that included a captain and banner bearer.

Finally, they needed a charismatic and powerful leader; enter Saruman. I had already prepped Saruman and Grima on foot, so this time it was the turn of Saruman on horseback. I also have a copy of Saruman in his guise as Sharky from when he terrorised the hobbit folk whilst Scouring the Shire.

As can be seen from the photos of many of these multi-part metal miniatures there are lots of areas where a spot of green stuff will come in handy to fill a few gaps. This will be done when I get round to the final preparation and undercoating of each faction before painting.


I have lots of orc miniatures that I was going to originally use as part of a Mordor force alongside my Easterlings and Haradrim, but now I think I will concentrate on them just being Isengard lackeys. So, unless any miniatures are obviously meant to depict Mordor troops, all my orcs etc. will be Isengarders. Obviously they can double up as either, so if I decide to create a Mordor force in the future then the orcs and maybe the warg riders can perform in either role as per their whim. This does leave me with the dilemma of banner and shield sigils - the White Hand or "<" of Saruman/Curunir or should it be the Eye of Mordor?


Whilst looking over my largest evil force I noticed that there would be more than enough figures to make up either Dragon Rampant or Saga forces. Again I will have to check the numbers and whether anyone has already made up what I am looking for on the internet. Obviously there will also be enough here to give Rohan a run for its money either as full on SBG army or at the smaller Battle Companies scale.