The everything miniatures wargaming thread

[Jacob]

What system are you planning for your LotR skirmishes? GW?

[The Brain]

Yeah, I use GW as a framework for my painting. It seems like a nice system. I try to paint enough minis for the relevant Battle Companies (Dwarves, Rangers of the North, etc), for their starting size.

[The Brain]

I looked around a bit to try to find good models for Black Numenoreans. I wanted them to

• look badass
• not look high fantasy
• be well-armored, but not plate armor
• if possible, look "Southern" and/or "Gondorian", whatever that means

I eventually settled on using some Fireforge Varangian Guard as a base. I had a box of 12 so poaching 2 wouldn't be a problem. These held 2-handed axes (or spears), so some conversion was in order. Hands (not arms!), swords, and scabbards are Victrix Vikings, and the shields are Victrix Anglo-Saxons, this "blend" of round shield and classic Norman shield looks the right amount of exotic to me. I'm quite pleased, I think the models tick the boxes. My plan is, if I paint them, to have my Byzantines (mostly V&V Minis) count as Gondorians, so the Black Numenoreans looking somewhat Byzantine makes perfect sense. And since their faces are hidden your mind will fill in whatever appearance you feel is appropriate. I don't think bushy Viking beards would contradict anything in Tolkien, but they may not be everyone's idea of Black Numenoreans.

[The Brain]

I looked around a bit to try to find good models for Uruk-Hai. They should be bigger and more upright than the orcs, and style compatible. There are many big orcs around, but they tend to have the GW look. Eventually I settled on Hobgoblins from Lucid Eye. They work fine as LOTR Uruks I think, even if I wish more of them had helmets. Speaking of helmets, the leader's helmet had a hoplite style crest which I removed, both because I didn't feel it stylewise (even if I have no reason to believe that Tolkien would have had any objections) and because the helmet was very busy with both crest and horns.

For the Uruk skin I used a much darker shade of the orc skin, highlighted with the orc skin color. It may be hard to see in the pics but their black clothes and their skin are not the same color.

I also include a size comparison with the orcs.

[CountDeMoney]

Which ones are going to get the Red Eye, and which ones are going to get the White Hand?

[The Brain]

Which ones are going to get the Red Eye, and which ones are going to get the White Hand?

Well, the orcs would have had the Red Eye on their shields if my freehand skills weren't so limited. But at least they have red paint, which suggests the Eye. But they will count as other orcs (Moria, Gundabad, etc) as required. The Uruks do double duty from the start, they may be White Hand or Mordor depending om my whim, therefore they don't get any symbols. Also they have no helmets (yes the leader has a helmet) to put an S rune on, and their shields with bosses aren't great for painting eyes or hands on.

[The Brain]

I planned to paint three Oathmark wolfriders, rider of metal with plastic wolf, but when I checked them one of them came with a wolf made of two left sides, charging poses. The two remaining wolves were in the same walking pose. I changed my plans to only paint one wolf rider, instead of fielding a GW warg rider Battle Company the wolf rider can join a few different Battle Companies as a lone figure. Since the wolf was in a walking pose I made a saddle out of greenstuff to give my rider a more upright and relaxed posture. I wanted him to look like a long range scout, so I also gave him a greenstuff sack and a water/grog bottle from the Wargames Atlantic Goblin Warband sprue.

The wolf is kind of cartoony and could use some more detail. But good enough for a single figure I think.

[The Brain]

I wanted to make a Mûmak. I started by looking at 28mm war elephants on the market. There are some, but they didn't really strike me as mûmak enough. But I noticed that Victrix had a plastic set, African War Elephant. I like Victrix, and with plastic figures conversions would be easy. So I got the set (you get two elephants, each can fit a crew of 2 plus mahout, and there are options for Roman, Successor, or Numidian crew). Now I just needed a Mûmak, since the (North) African elephants were quite small, and I also needed to decide how to make the whole a believable crewed Mûmak model.

I re-read a bit about them in the books, and they are bigger than modern elephants. So going to a bigger scale than 28mm/1:56 whatever would make sense.

I struck gold while checking online toy stores. I found a cheap (but high quality) 1:35 scale pre-painted extinct elephant, Palaeoloxodon Antiquus, from EouFauna. It had the size, was a nice sculpt, had a nice paintjob, had a good pose with the right amount of action, and it didn't look like a modern African or Indian elephant. I honestly think that it would be hard to make a better 28mm Mûmak if you tried! Remember, toy stores are your friends. If you can find a children's toy that does the job it's often a third to a fifth of the price of "tabletop" stuff.

The howdah was built from Renedra plastic cavalry bases I had at home. Two lumps of greenstuff made up the padding that it sat on, which were shaped by test positioning the howdah on the elephant.

I had to give the mahout a greenstuff bag to sit on to make him fit the bigger elephant. The javelin men are Numidian heads on Numidian bodies, and the spearman and banner bearer are Numidian helmeted heads on Successor bodies. I think the history-based look works fine for Tolkien stuff. The banner bearer's right arm is from the Victrix Normans. The banner was made from scratch from paper and PVA glue. The spearman won't reach a man on the ground, but might reach a rider, and he can repel boarders and fight other Mûmak crews. In my mind, when the princes of Harad fight among themselves, they consider it noble to fight each other from the backs of Mûmakil (giving a distinct advantage to the guy with the biggest and baddest Mûmak).

The shields are from Gripping Beast Arab sets.

The fabric thing (what are those called?) was made by googling persian rugs, picking a design that looked OK and had the right proportions (it had to be much longer than wide) and printing it. To shape it I PVA glued it to some other paper and draped it over the elephant to dry. To keep the print from smudging I sprayed it with GW matt varnish. I then picked out some details in gold to make it pop more and look less like a piece of printed paper. The gold thread tassels are from the Victrix elephant kit.

I might bling the model some more if I find suitable stuff and feel like it. A challenge is that since the elephant is prepainted I don't want to attach something and paint it in situ, for fear of getting paint on the elephant.

The GW 170x105mm base would have been perfect, but my FLGS was out so I cut a base from 1.5mm pasticard.

It was a very fun project! IMHO it shows that even with simple techniques and limited artistic skill you can make a unique model that has a very real presence on the table. When I first assembled the finished thing I actually went "wow!".

[Jacob]

That's awesome!

I love conversion and scratch building projects like that. Well done

[Threviel]

Nice!

[The Brain]

Thanks guys!

[PDH]

Way cool.

[The Brain]

None more black. These are Nazgûl from Mithril. I've always loved the Mithril range, I think its less-is-more style fits Tolkien very well. It's also cool that they've kept the LOTR license for so many decades. It's not really a range for tabletop gaming, at least not beyond the RPG scope, since they don't have a great number of different orcs etc. If you wanted to field larger numbers you'd have to accept a lot of identical figures.

Painting a great black is beyond my skill, but I'm pleased with how these came out. In total I've used four different shades of black on these figures.

The model on foot included a sculpted base with some flagstones, so I decided to make his a stone base for simplicity. The horseman's base is supposed to show that he's on a road and talking to someone standing beside it.

[The Brain]

Giant spider with victims. The spider is Reaper, the victims Alien Lab.

[grumbler]

Can I come over to your house to play?