Silmarillion Elves: Thingol of Doriath with his Banner Bearer and Bodyguards

I've managed to finish the first unit in my Dragon Rampant 'book accurate' Doriath army. Here is Thingol with his banner bearer and his bodyguards. They are a reduced model unit - on the table, each bodyguard is worth one strength point and the command base is worth three.

The guards are all Victrix Anglo-Danes with Republican Roman Montefortino helmet heads, the tops of which have been replaced by the 'headless' nasal helms from the Anglo-Dane box. Thingol is the Oathmark free metal hero that came with the first Oathmark Elf boxed set deals. He has a GW Galadhrim Court head and a plastic cloak from the bits box. The banner bearer is an Anglo-Dane with a GW Galadhrim hero head. The banner was hand drawn.

I'm pleased with these - the 'three layers on a black undercoat' approach was hard to do after nearly 10 years not doing it, but thanks to a brilliant new lamp I was able to do a decent enough job although extreme close-ups aren't the best idea!

I'll be back to painting Wars of the Roses for a week or two now, but I'll be painting Mablung of the Heavy Hand and his Thanes next from this army...

First Silmarillion Elf Model

Here is a test paint job for the forces of Doriath that I converted and prepared about two years ago originally for Dragon Rampant. Lost mojo and real life kinda got in the way, but I figured now was the time to have a go at splashing some colour on them...

I've tried to go for a 'book-accurate' look rather than the look from the Peter Jackson movies. Nothing wrong with the latter (I actually really like the look, but it's a million miles away from the Dark Ages feel that Tolkien intended.)

This is a Victrix Anglo-Dane Huscarl. The head is the bottom part of a Victrix Repubican Roman Montefortino helmet with the top being one of the 'headless' nasal helms from the Huscarl box set. The crest and the Elf's hair have been created with Green-stuff. The stars on the shield are WW2 US Army decals.

I chose to paint this model in layers over a black undercoat - first time in years I've tried that. To be fair, I'm nothing like the painter I was when I used to use this technique all the time, but it's worked out ok and I'll stick with it for this army.

This Elf is one of Thingol's bodyguards - the gold-embroidered grey tunic, blue-grey cloak and gold-decorated weapons and white-crested helmet indicate his status. Lesser warriors will sport no gold helmets or weapons and will have different coloured tunic trim.

I'm happy with the colour scheme. I've gone for greys and greyish blues and greens as the main colour theme as grey is mentioned a lot in the books and I guess would do for most Elf houses (as Doriath didn't really do a lot in battle in the Silmarillion). I dunno if stars are appropriate for the shields (I'm sure there are stars on Thingol's heraldic symbol so I guess it's ok -I'm not that much of a stickler for full 'accuracy' anyway).

I hope you like him and hopefully I'll keep up some progress - As you know, I'm painting these in between doing units for a Wars of the Roses army for a summer campaign at the club, so progress won't be speedy.

First Unit of Bowmen for the club Wars of the Roses Campaign

I'm really hitting my stride on this army now and have managed to get my first unit of longbow men painted. They are Expert Archers under the rules, although I can't help but feel the Lion Rampant definition of these doesn't quite fit with the Wars of the Roses. The archery duel definitely didn't win battles in he way it was instrumental in some 100 Years War battles and I wonder whether the 'Expert' trait would be best adding +1 to their attack skills, as some articles I have read recently suggest that the bowmen would be piling in to the melee with hammers, mallets, daggers etc with as much ferocity as the bellmen and men-at-arms... Still, I'm no expert on this period so maybe I'm wrong on that...Anyway, more Perry plastics painted as per the rest of the army with the usual hand drawn and hand painted banner.

Probably gonna do the light cavalry next. I've not painted horses for ages so this could be interesting! 

Billmen for the club Wars Of The Roses Campaign

 Greetings from the plague house! Despite feeling grotty this week stuck at home with the boy and our mutual cases of Covid, I've been productive. This is the unit of Retinue Billmen for Sir Bernard De Liasmith's Wars of the Roses retinue. These were painted in the same style as the hand gunners on the previous post. They are a bit rough and ready up close, but they look decent at tabletop distance. 

I now have 14pts painted up - 16pts to go for my battle retinue plus a further 10 for the complete force. I still haven't finally decided on the composition of the extra 10pts...

Anyway, either a unit of Longbow or the Light Horse next. I haven't quite decided yet.

Handgunners for the club's Wars of the Roses campaign

 Well, Covid has kicked our arses here at Geetarhero Towers, with the boy being on day 6 and still testing positive and me being on day 3 and feeling like utter crap - proper 'man-flu' symptoms. 

Still, thanks to a new Netflix subscription, we are binge watching Cobra-Kai and I am still being quite productive on the modelling and painting front. I've completed 6 hand gunners for Sir Bernard De Liasmith's retinue (Bidowers under the Lion Rampant rules) which, when added to the foot Men-at-Arms on the previous post gives me 8 out of the 30 points I need for my battle retinue (I still haven't finally decided what the extra 10 points are going to be for the full 40pt retinue I have to submit...

I was gonna do these in my usual dip and highlight style, but my can of dip has gone off and truth to tell I didn't wanna waste two days waiting for dip to dry, so completed the painting of these 6 chaps in quick time given that I was triple highlighting on a white undercoat, using brown ink wash to conceal any errors in the deepest recesses. The painting is certainly neat enough at table-top distance. 

Once again, these are Perry plastics. 

I've built my billmen, cavalry and one unit of archers too, so I think I'm gonna build the second unit of bow then start painting the billmen in between the sneezing and coughing fits. Thank God for the vaccine - how sick might I have been if I'd not had that??!!