Arnor shield-designs

Sketched up a few different types of Arnorian designs. Following, at first, this site and the interesting designs and interpretations, I finally settled with something "official" - green and white and six stars. This in contrast to one well known example: White star on black background. Nevertheless, here they are:

Some minor work on the bases left. And they are all missing movement trays, which will be fixed... sometime. Time to go to bed, however, so I think I'll pause episode 68 of World's End Radio and brush the old stubs. Oh, one final little thing: I am well aware of the horses funny eyes, they are right on the priority list of things to do with these buggers!

Good night! And welcome autumn to our sweet banlieu (and welcome 250% increase in robberies)!

Painted Arnor Knights

Based on the Perry Miniatures' Mounted Men at Arms. As always there are a thousand little things left to tidy up, and as always I'll settle for almost-done. To me, it feels like: I paint something up to an acceptable standard - for me, I am not an good painter but still learning and I'll get to the "okay painter"-status eventually - in a certain amount of time, let say 10 hours. In 10 hours the result is acceptable. But to get it good I would need another 10 hours! Not one, not two... but almost the same time as it took to get the whole project ready for battle/good enough. I guess I am too much of a pragmatic/practical kind of person to take that extra time. Especially when there isn't that much enjoyment to get out of it... for me at least. Blah-blah-blah, here they are:

As always fellow hobbyists, I wish you a calm and simple weekend in harmony, preferably with tuc-crackers and bluecheese and some jam on top of that little pile of cheese.

Look at that little face, how can one not relate to the knight that looks like he'd rather stay home and play games!

 ALMOST FORGOT: Welcome to the sidebar Scyld and Seax!

       And on a little self-absorbed note: I never wanted to use the sidebar for personal presentation, so now there's a little page on the top of this blog dedicated to this young whippersnapper (whatever a "whippersnapper" is, I assume it is not something gay).

Mounted Men at Arms -> Knights of Arnor

Before going any deeper into this evening's subjects, I would just like to tell you about the current projects that are worked on in the Llama-habitat:

1) Angmar army. Awaiting sunlight for photography-session. Some movement trays are left to fix as well.
2) Cave Drake. This is the final steps for my Misty Mountains-army. There are a few things left to do with the large formations of Goblins, but this is definitely nearing completion.
3) Ship two pair of wings to mr Flower of Battle.
4) Get rid of a bunch of WHFB movement trays (used for our pre-WotR game we developed).
5) Get rid of a bunch of WHFB- and 40K-bits to some nice person contributing on some respected forum.
6) Work on the Valar-project, which would be separate from the SBG and WotR, more like a boardgame. The models would still be compatible with WotR...
7) Buy blue-cheese and crackers for Friday.
8) Destroy/evict my neighbours.

The eight point is likely something that my neighbours have planned for my part, so a mutual balance of terror is harmonizing my behavior.

So, back to Arnor:

I knew there was a way to crowbar these great models into War of the Ring/LotR: Strategy Battle Game! How good aren't these? Almost no mouldlines (admittedly, mr FoB and I shared an order just a few days after they were released so the moulds was almost in mint condition, I would assume).
   There is a soon-to-be hornblower in the back rank, a captain and a banner bearer. One of the riders got a broken lance... which is on purpose. They will look weathered. Not necessarily veterans, just weathered.

That is all, I wish you all a nice weekend dear readers. Your input and comments are always appreciated and it makes me happy to see how many takes the time to stop by! Remember, give me a link in the comment-section below if you've got a blog/homepage with LotR WotR or SBG or just general Lord of the Rings-content. See ya!

Arnor

As Angmar is nearing completion (still waiting for a day with sunlight for picture-taking) and other bits and pieces of the hobby have either been finished or put aside (also awaiting the camera), I am now contemplating Arnor. In WotR, Arnor is a part of Gondor - which is okay, I guess, but not really great IMO - and Forgotten Kingdoms is an ally-only list with the parts of the light side that didn't fit in anywhere special or that should be available for most goodguy-armies.
    Since my little project of making nice little army-lists with stats and specials (plus some minor tweaking of said stats and some rules) have gotten along quite alright, an idea has formed dedans mas cervaux: To reconfigure Forgotten Kingdoms into a normal army, called Arnor:

- Warriors of Arnor Regiment/Warband/whatever
- Royal Guard of Arnor, with accompanying specials and heroes.
- Messengers/Riders/Knights/Enforcers of Arnor. Knights, basically - and I knew the Perrys' Mounted Men at Arms would come to use - they will fit in reeeaaal nice with the Arnorian warriors after some just slight modifications.
- I will also lazily crowbar in Carrock (Beorns) and something else of the "fantastic" department of Forgotten Kingdoms. I guess the Hobbit Militia will have a place here too.

The remaining parts, Wizards and Great Eagles, will be integrated in corresponding (or at least somewhat suiting) armies. Like Great Eagles or Ents in Mirkwood. And Ghan-Buri-Ghan will just have to go fuck himself. Or his butt-ugly "warriors". Or I'll stuff him in Rohan. Yes, I'll put him and his "special friends" in Rohan as a legendary formation.

We can also find Dunedain and Rangers of Arnor in the Gondorian army list, so I think the finished list will be meaty enough. The Twins (Elladan and Elrohir, IIRC) are apparently a part of Forgotten Kingdoms/Arnor but personally... hmm... we'll see...
      The painting of these Warriors of Arnor is the style I will go with. This image is likely also from GW.

Continued Ramblings
Below: Found the image of an Angmar army on GW:s homepage - a homepage that has gotten better. A bit more content. Personally, I am not sure if they're there yet, so to say, but they'll get the hang of it one day. The White Dwarf really looked different, a bit more friendly - which was what they were aiming for, one can only assume.

 It looks like the army that is inside the WotR-rulebook.
     There is still some things to do with my Angmar army and especially the Shades (x2) which aren't even begun with yet. Can you say that: " ... aren't even begun with yet?"

Ja, ja... next up: CAVE DRAKE! Wooohoooo!

No LotR in this month's WD

I got it today and flicked it through, found no pages of LotR. Though I did noticehow fat the issue was and that there was some kit-bashing going on there. It looked very different from the last WD:s I bought (around a year ago or so).

However, on the last page, there's a tantalizing image of a bearded man smoking a pipe, that in WD-tradition should mean something awesome for us LotR SBG-fans (WotR-fans). Awesome, I tell you!

LATE EDIT: Forgeworld did a so called primarch for 40K. Angron, I believe he is called - I think his name have been mentioned in 40K radio sometimes.This is likely huge for 40K-players out there, just wanted to put it out there. I guess one could compare it to GW making some sort of avatar-forms of Valar... maybe not, but it sure got me thinking... if one were to avoid Yavanna and similar gods, like Jeff - God of Biscuits, it could look real kewl.

Angmar Army

Angmar army failure. There is very little coherence within the different elements of this army. To bind it all together I will do three things:

DIY-pictures of Angmar army.

1) The Ghouls and Fallen (Mantic zombies) have the right tone of dark earth on their trays and bases - all trays and bases will get this treatment, which is in fact already started, they just miss a dark wash and then all trays and bases should look coherent.
2) Add another two formations of Ghouls and Fallen that will make up the backbone of the army. I have some rules and points figured out already.
3) After the addition of two shades, the etherals will be needing some work to look more "the same" - as it stands now it looks to feastly with all the blue and green, especially when the Ghouls and Fallen turned out quite "sharp" in their respective colours.

(4) ... there will be some work done on the paint on both Sûlavhar (work name) and the Plague Cart. I would really like to crowbar in some more barrels to tie it together with the whole plaguge thing. And this is where Celgor Darkhand (and his atrocious paint-scheme) comes in. Only he doesn't come in, he just stands there, looking homesculpted. He's got a gravestone behind him and this could very well prove to be the help I need to tie this thing together.

Perhaps I shall go the green-tinted direction to tie it all together. As it stands now, it seems like a bunch of strange undead creatures without any relation. A shade or two, painted greenish, will help it I think.

Concluded, this is an army that wasn't really thought through thoroughly, though. Heh...

EDIT: I would also like to welcome Pablo el Marques to the sidebar - his stuff is in Spanish, but we're all intelligent people, we who like Tolkien and Lord of the Rings, aren't we? I think we can manage, and if not, high time to learn a new language, n'est pas/inte sant?

High Elf Chariot, 96% done

I just have to paint the banner and tidy up around twenty or so obviously flawed areas which I attentionalized via ocular inspection of these images:

As you can see, the rim of the base has been painted and the armour on the Elves have been tidied up somewhat. I can honestly say that gold and bronze are the colours that "challenge" me the most. "Challenge" as in: I have no idea what I'm doing. This is wrong, because I have been listening to podcasts, been reading forums and learnt a tip or two (yes, I have heard about the importance of the base colour below the gold - like light brown being a good basecoat before painting gold etc) so I should be better. Still, it looks not-so-good which made me go the easy, leftist way, settling with: There's something wrong with my paint-pots.

Work on Rivendell and Angmar

As I have been swamped with work and social obligations, I have yet not finished Angmar, nor have I managed to get the Rivendell army together for a group shot.

I have decided to make my Edheldu into a legal, counts-as army with the rules of Lorien and Mirkwood warriors and so split the Elven Realms into two and make separate army lists for them. This is nice fluff- and theme-wise and I think it will be more interesting to have two separate elf forces as well as making it simpler and more easy to get an overview. The Rivendell part will be expanded with a chariot (since I just built one) and a catapult.
    The paint-scheme on the Wood Elves above are perfect for Rivendell and the next project after these:

- Finish sculpting and painting of Celgor.
- Finish Angmar-project. Not much left: Three companies of Fallen and two companies of Ghouls with gray-black skin. They should be "lookin pimpin'", as they say.
- Group-shot of Rivendell.

Angmar is nearly finished though and at this moment I am not only blogging but also sculpting on a rather uninspired Celgor Darkhand. My first illustrations, blueprints - call them whatever - were just that: Simple, ragged and undead-ish. The end result became too simple and ragged, I will try to rectify this by making the base interesting, and try really hard to differentiate the paint-scheme from a generic Ringwraith's black palette. I can't bring myself giving him a staff since it should be really only for Maiar - which BTW is the reason why Beruthiel never got one, even though originally planned so.

 

The end for this Saturday.

High Elf Chariot (90% done)

Just an image today, I don't have time for more...

... except for a little comment on the banner: It will take a whole lot of time to get something that looks nice on that shape.

Progress on High Elf chariot

The High Elf chariot has gotten some paint on its gracile body. Picture will follow within the hours. A minor news-item: The Perry Brothers have made a 40 mm canon (with crew) in resin. It shall be highly interesting to see whether they continue this resin-route on any of their other lines.
    I await majestically on further information in this matter.

Court of Fallen Kings

As I am floundering and poundering where to place the High Elf banner on the chariot, I am also fixing and doning with the Barrow-Wights. The GW LotR Barrow-Wights are such good sculpts. Admittedly, there was a minor surprise as to their size - rather large models, these are, in fact... And now I am talking/writing like Yoda, improvement on this exectued will be.

Regardless of llama-esque brain-faults, here they are:

I shouldn't have placed the official/original Wights in the front when taking into account these images are meant to show off the progress on the sculpting and conversion, but there you have it, captain Hindsight strikes again.

Rivendell Chariot

Continuing work on the Rivendell Chariot. High Elf crew, naturally. I managed to press it all in on a 64mm base, which I am thankful to my readers and fellow bloggers for suggesting.

So, what do I now need your help with? For starters, the banner. Where to place it - I do not want Japanese like banners that the WHFB chariot came with, and I am not keen on the idea of placing the type of pike-banner that is shown on the leftmost part of the images in the same way (which is in the extreme back of the chariot). The only option would be one of the crew holding it... But that's only how I see it, so if you have an idea, let me know.

Celgor Darkhand

Celgor Darkhand is a character which was brought to my geeky attention a while ago while flipping through some old Middle-Earth roleplaying publications. He is a man of plague and darkness and will fit perfectly into Angmar. He will be the leader for the army that is currently on the table (besides the High Elf chariot)

The images above come from said publication and show two different artists' [tolkningar] of Celgor.
    Angmar army below. It is still in a sad shape:

And I would also like to welcome this blog to the sidebar. I am slowly but steadily learning the different functions of the blog and will try to make it more alive as it goes - this of course includes more links to nice LotR-blogs. I also added DMT's blog a while ago. Only blogs that are updated regularly shall be kept in this list, purging will presumably have to happen sooner or later as the list builds. I hope I will not have to remove myself, at least not in the nearest few years.

I have crammed the High Elf chariot onto a 64mm base, thanks to el Zorro and mr FoB for pushing me in that direction. The chariot seems a bit forced, size-wise, but it will probably look okay when its done. Picture will follow.