Bit more work on the Sindar and their captain. Added some long hair on both and smoothed out the bases on the axemen.
I know it's a kinda 'Warhammer' or 'Movie' thing, but I do think long hair adds a more 'Elven' feel to these chaps... It also disguises the neck joins on some of them, which were a little clumsy looking. Gonna undercoat them tomorrow and start getting some paint on them. Still not sure on the colour scheme. I don't particularly want a typical Wood Elf green scheme but I want to avoid them looking too 'High Elf' either. I'm thinking a pale greyish blue cloak, with pale grey tunics (with contrasting cuff and hem trim) and leggings in greyish greens, various browns, etc...
Search This Blog
Saturday 25 January 2020
Friday 24 January 2020
More Axe-Wielding Sindar Elf Kitbashing
Managed to do 5 more axe-armed Sindar Elves using Victrix Anglo Dane Huscarl bodies and helmet tips and Republican Roman heads. Cloaks are mix of Victrix and Fireforge and feather helmet plumes come from the Oathmark Elves set.
This will be a unit of Elite Foot for Dragon Rampant. I hope to get some paint on them over the next week or two.
This will be a unit of Elite Foot for Dragon Rampant. I hope to get some paint on them over the next week or two.
Labels:
Conversion,
Elves,
Fantasy,
Silmarillion,
Wood Elves
Wednesday 22 January 2020
Elf Captain Conversion
Ok, so you may remember the drawing I posted a few weeks ago? Well, I created a figure to match it as closely as possible. He'll be a captain in my Sindar army. On looking at the photos and the model again, I think I may add some long hair to smooth out the join between the GW Galadhrim head and the metal Oathmark body. I am very pleased with the shoulder armour and long tunic I sculpted with Greenstuff. My friend Grahame at Peterborough War-games Club gave me a huge bag of plastic cloaks in which this particular one was lurking.
The base model is the metal Oathmark Elf captain that was given away with the initial North Star preorders for the Elf infantry set. The shield is from the Victrix Anglo-Dane Huscarl set.
Labels:
Conversion,
Elves,
Fantasy,
Silmarillion,
Wood Elves
Monday 20 January 2020
Plastic Sindar Kitbashing
While I'm not abandoning my GW movie Elves yet (lots more to paint!) I have been doing a bit of historical kitbashing to give me some more 'book-like' Elves. This was prompted in part by my discovery of the artwork of Tom Loback; in particular his Battle of Brethil picture, which pits axe-armed Sindar and a bunch of men against an Orc legion.
I thought I'd do some Doriath Sindar as everyone seems to have this Noldor fixation going... I know Thingol's lot didn't do a lot of fighting in the actual books, but someone oughta do something with him and his troops - he can get some action in in our wargaming world anyway!
I've put this guy together from a Victrix Anglo-Dane Huscarl (body and top of helmet), Republican Roman (head) and a cloak from (I think) a Fireforge knight set (I was given a bag of about 20 cloaks by a friend last night), plus an Oathmark feather plume. I'm REALLY pleased with this and will be adopting this approach with more Anglo-Dane Huscarl figures and with the Victrix Normans when they come out in the summer.I love the way the helmet has cheek pieces and a Dark Age look to it. I've attached the Loback pic as well just so you can see what I mean by the inspiration it gave me.
Saturday 11 January 2020
Silmarillion Gaming Day in Nottingham
Headed up to Nottingham today to join a merry throng of chaps to play a couple of Silmarillion games using two 'work in progress' rule sets. Both games were set during the Fifth Battle of Beleriand, Nirnaeth Arnoediad - 'Unnumbered Tears'. Both scenarios were originally in Miniature Wargames magazine written by Graham Green, rule writer, figure painter/converter/sculptor extraordinaire. Graham ran the Last Stand of Hurin and the Men of Dorlomin using his figures (well, plus my trolls) and his rules, which was basically the last act off the battle. James Morris ran Gwindor's Charge, the opening part of the action. In the real battle, the Elves and men took a complete pasting. Would we repeat 'history' today?
My first game was Hurin's Last Stand. I took the evil force along with a chap called Matt. We took on Tom WD who commanded the Men plus a couple of units of Elves. The scenario was basically that the Elves of Gondolin were retreating from the lost battle and Hurin, his brother Huor and their warriors were to hold off the Orcs to allow their escape. A couple of Elf units were on hand to lend ranged support. The evil army had the option to recycle units to represent the unending stream of troops available. We basically had to control the two fords over the river and as as secondary objective, we had to capture Hurin for Morgoth. If we could get Huor too, so much the better! Everything else had to die!
In the event, Tom threw some shocking dice and the valiant men of Dorlomin died helplessly and very fast, but the Elf archers eventually slowed us down enough so that we couldn't control both fords by the end of turn 8.
Great game and Graham's rules worked pretty well. they are very different to what I'm used to, but I quite enjoyed this, the second time I'd played with them. I only took a handful of pics of this small-scale game. The men in these pics are Graham's conversions of Oathmark humans with greenstuff cloaks, replaced heads and mail armour sculpted from greenstuff over the models' original armour.
My first game was Hurin's Last Stand. I took the evil force along with a chap called Matt. We took on Tom WD who commanded the Men plus a couple of units of Elves. The scenario was basically that the Elves of Gondolin were retreating from the lost battle and Hurin, his brother Huor and their warriors were to hold off the Orcs to allow their escape. A couple of Elf units were on hand to lend ranged support. The evil army had the option to recycle units to represent the unending stream of troops available. We basically had to control the two fords over the river and as as secondary objective, we had to capture Hurin for Morgoth. If we could get Huor too, so much the better! Everything else had to die!
In the event, Tom threw some shocking dice and the valiant men of Dorlomin died helplessly and very fast, but the Elf archers eventually slowed us down enough so that we couldn't control both fords by the end of turn 8.
Great game and Graham's rules worked pretty well. they are very different to what I'm used to, but I quite enjoyed this, the second time I'd played with them. I only took a handful of pics of this small-scale game. The men in these pics are Graham's conversions of Oathmark humans with greenstuff cloaks, replaced heads and mail armour sculpted from greenstuff over the models' original armour.
After a hearty pub lunch, it was on to the second battle. This was Gwindor's Charge with James Morris' home-brewed rules. The Orcs had been tasked with drawing king Fingon's Elf/Men army out from their position in the wooded hills in order to facilitate their destruction by Morgoth's reserve forces. To do this, they had dragged Elf captives in front of the Elves and decapitated them. Unfortunately, the brother of one of the captives was in the Elf line at this point. Enraged by the murder of his brother, he led a colossal attack with his cavalry, followed by most of the Elves and men. Determined to exact revenge, he headed straight for the Orc leader who had murdered his brother. That was the Elf objective - kill the murdering Orc and get as many units off the table through the Orc lines as possible before one side or other ran out of 'reputation', which is how James' rules determine victory. The Orcs had to stop them! Once again, I fought on the side of evil. A handful of my Orcs were in the horde (we had SO many Orcs that mine, other than heroes and a few archers, weren't needed) but my Elves were in the opposing army.
In the end, we held the Elf charge, with only King Fingon's cavalry unit looking certain to exit the table before the game ended with us losing our last reputation token. We'd certainly held the Elf onslaught (which is more than what happened in the 'real' battle) so we claimed it as a minor Elf victory - tens of thousands of Orcs and evil men would soon be arriving to reinforce our line and overwhelm the hated Noldor and their allies!
Here are the opposing battle lines at the start of the game...
Gwindor's charge...
...which is eventually held with the destruction of his personal retinue and much of his heavy cavalry.
Here are some more pictures from the battle, including my Elves in the alliance battle line.
Fantastic day! Really enjoyed both games. We're planning another later in the year and our collections may make an appearance at wargame shows during the year!
Labels:
Elves,
Evil Army (Orcs Troll etc),
Gaming Day,
Silmarillion
Friday 10 January 2020
WANTED! 28mm Plastic ancient/medieval cloaks
Can any of you lovely lot help?
I'm planning a quite exciting 28mm plastic kit bash project and need cloaks. Ideally those from Victrix or Fireforge's ancients/dark ages/medieval kits. They'll be going onto Victrix bodies, which gives you an idea of the specific scale I'm using.
If you have any spare unused examples, and if you are happy to help, pop a reply on here and we'll negotiate prices, postage costs etc. Cheers!
I'm planning a quite exciting 28mm plastic kit bash project and need cloaks. Ideally those from Victrix or Fireforge's ancients/dark ages/medieval kits. They'll be going onto Victrix bodies, which gives you an idea of the specific scale I'm using.
If you have any spare unused examples, and if you are happy to help, pop a reply on here and we'll negotiate prices, postage costs etc. Cheers!
Thursday 9 January 2020
More for Morgoth!
The forges of Angband have been busy since Christmas in preparation for a Middle Earth gaming event in Nottingham on Saturday. I painted a second unit of pike-armed Orcs and two units of Orc archers plus an Orc hero. The pike-armed Orcs were tidied up having been bought from EBAY part-painted as per most of my Orc forces. One Uruk-hai scout archer in one of the units was the same. The Mordor Orc archer models and the hero were painted from scratch. I now have 8 combat Orc units - 2 with pike, 2 with spear and the rest with sword, 3 Orc archer units, a unit of trolls, 3 Orc heroes, a Werewolf hero and a firedrake. I have two units of wolf riders in the painting queue. Quite a decent force! Here are pics of the recent additions.
Labels:
Evil Army (Orcs Troll etc),
Painting,
Silmarillion
Wednesday 1 January 2020
Happy New Year!
Well, I have no idea if anyone is actually reading this stuff any more... But I'm gonna keep posting anyway.
2019 has been an interesting year! I finally managed to move out of the family home in June - a full 13 months after my separation from my wife. Got myself a nice little place round the corner. It's not quite feeling 100% like home yet, but I'm almost there. I've managed to sort my mental health out too. Again, I'm not 'cured' but I'm about 400% better than I was in 2018, so I guess that's great progress. That also meant I managed to do some hobby stuff in 2019 as my poor mental state had pretty much curtailed any and all that in 2018 and to be honest for much of the preceding .two years.
I've posted more in December 2019 than in the entire of 2018. I've also done more posts in total in 2019 than in the last two years. I've managed to fully paint 26 Elves and to part-paint or fully paint 42 Orcs and 3 trolls. Quite some going especially since that lot has pretty much been done since October!! More in three months than in the last several years!
I have another 21 Orcs and 24 Elves in the painting queue, intending to complete those by March 2020 ready for my Davale Miniatures Bloody Elves Kickstarter to arrive. When that lot (about another 30 Elves) is done that will give me two good Middle Earth forces, although I do need cavalry for both. Warg riders are being assembled as we speak and I'm mulling over options for Elves.
Mike (Trouble at t' Mill) and I are also planning to pick up our Dux Brit campaign again this year so watch out for that.
I'll leave you with this. Tonight, my son, who is 11, decided he wanted us to do some drawing. He has a cousin (16 years old) who is a demon artist and who really inspired him when they met recently and as I'll do anything to get my lad off tech, I agreed. He sat down to copy Azog from the Hobbit films and Chewbacca from Star Wars while I sat down to draw out my vision of what a First Age Silmarillion Noldor Elf would actually look like. I kinda based it on what I read in The Silmarillion, the Victor Ambrus pictures from the old Tolkien Bestiary by David Day, a bit from the LoTR movies (I do like the Elf armour/clothing in those and The Hobbit films - not at all 'right', but good anyway) and a bit from what I know of Dark Ages armour. I hadn't drawn properly in years, especially not a humanoid figure that wasn't a caricature, but actually, it turned out pretty well. If only I could afford to commission a really great sculptor to do a small range like this...
Anyway, I'll leave you with the drawing and wish you all a very happy, healthy and hobby-filled 2020
2019 has been an interesting year! I finally managed to move out of the family home in June - a full 13 months after my separation from my wife. Got myself a nice little place round the corner. It's not quite feeling 100% like home yet, but I'm almost there. I've managed to sort my mental health out too. Again, I'm not 'cured' but I'm about 400% better than I was in 2018, so I guess that's great progress. That also meant I managed to do some hobby stuff in 2019 as my poor mental state had pretty much curtailed any and all that in 2018 and to be honest for much of the preceding .two years.
I've posted more in December 2019 than in the entire of 2018. I've also done more posts in total in 2019 than in the last two years. I've managed to fully paint 26 Elves and to part-paint or fully paint 42 Orcs and 3 trolls. Quite some going especially since that lot has pretty much been done since October!! More in three months than in the last several years!
I have another 21 Orcs and 24 Elves in the painting queue, intending to complete those by March 2020 ready for my Davale Miniatures Bloody Elves Kickstarter to arrive. When that lot (about another 30 Elves) is done that will give me two good Middle Earth forces, although I do need cavalry for both. Warg riders are being assembled as we speak and I'm mulling over options for Elves.
Mike (Trouble at t' Mill) and I are also planning to pick up our Dux Brit campaign again this year so watch out for that.
I'll leave you with this. Tonight, my son, who is 11, decided he wanted us to do some drawing. He has a cousin (16 years old) who is a demon artist and who really inspired him when they met recently and as I'll do anything to get my lad off tech, I agreed. He sat down to copy Azog from the Hobbit films and Chewbacca from Star Wars while I sat down to draw out my vision of what a First Age Silmarillion Noldor Elf would actually look like. I kinda based it on what I read in The Silmarillion, the Victor Ambrus pictures from the old Tolkien Bestiary by David Day, a bit from the LoTR movies (I do like the Elf armour/clothing in those and The Hobbit films - not at all 'right', but good anyway) and a bit from what I know of Dark Ages armour. I hadn't drawn properly in years, especially not a humanoid figure that wasn't a caricature, but actually, it turned out pretty well. If only I could afford to commission a really great sculptor to do a small range like this...
Anyway, I'll leave you with the drawing and wish you all a very happy, healthy and hobby-filled 2020
Labels:
Admin,
Elves,
Review Of The Year,
Silmarillion
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)