Middle Earth SBG (The Dead of Dunharrow - part 2)

Wow - almost a month since my last blog post.

That could be a record.

I have not been idle! Here are some more dead chappies for my Dunharrow army:

More Dead of Dunharrow stuff:
More Middle Earth SBG Stuff:

Middle Earth SBG (Ruins of Osgiliath - part 2)

Hey, hey, hey, sports fans.

Here is the second batch of buildings I have painted towards my little Osgiliath project.

I'm aiming for something that is flexible, changeable and easy so I'm sticking to using off-the-shelf GW models. I've swapped a few bits around here and there just to keep things interesting.

Building#5

Building#5 - Alternate view

Building#6

Building#6 - Alternate view

Building#7

Building#7 - Alternate view

Building#8

Building#8 - Alternate view

More Middle Earth SBG stuff:
More Osgiliath stuff:

Middle Earth SBG (The Dead of Dunharrow - part 1)

I've focused quite heavily on bad guys up until now. Aside from The Fellowship I really haven't painted any goodies at all for Middle Earth.

Well, that changed recently when I decided to (excuse the pun) flesh out the Dead of Dunharrow force that came with the Pelennor fields set.

So, before the "War in Gondor" book that came out with the new King and Heralds models, I trawled ebay and (excude the next pun) added some meat on the bones of the army for not a lot of cash.

So, here are my King (original metal model) and some of his mates:

More Dead of Dunharrow stuff:
More Middle Earth SBG Stuff:

Middle Earth SBG (Ruins of Osgiliath - part 1)

As you may well have noticed I've been on a bit of a "Middle Earth Mission" recently.

Well, I'm still on it. Five separate armies on the go (The Fellowship, Moria, Isengard, Mordor (and friends!) and The Dead of Dunharrow).

I needed a break from painting "people" so I've decided to do some scenery pieces too.

The easiest way to start was to pick up some of the GW ruins which can be bought quite cheaply off eBay so that's exactly what I did. I decided to have a go at building something that could be used as either "random ruins" or - deployed in quantity - Osgiliath (I'm still searching for something that could represent the infamous bridge - stay tuned).

Anyway, here are the first few items:

Building 1: view#1

Building 2: view#2

Building 2: view#1

Building 2: view#2

Building 3: view#1

Building 3: view#2

Building 4: view#1 

Building 4: view#2

More Middle-Earth stuff:
More Osgiliath stuff:

Middle Earth SBG (The Fellowship of The Ring)

I have been a lazy person recently.

Not that I haven't been painting and building my metaphorical a*se off - I have. A lot actually. A very large whole big lot.

No - what I've been remiss on is photographing and blogging.

So here's a bit of a catch-up on one project - The Fellowship of the Ring.

I've previously displayed my Boromir, Sam and Gandalf. All well and good. More recently I've completed the rest of the group. So here they are:

The nine walkers

Pippin

Sam

Frodo

Boromir

Merry

Gimli

Aragorn

Gandalf

Legolas

More Middle Earth stuff:

Middle Earth SBG (Moria Goblins - part 8)

Hi all - here are the remainder of my DIY Goblin Captains. As I mentioned in my previous post, I have an issue with the ME: SBG Hero tax which means you are obliged to fork out bundles of cash for no-mark captains which are currently only sold in resin from Forge World.

I'm pleased to note, though, that since I wrote that I've seen a couple of releases from GW for plastic heroes so maybe things are going to change a little soon.

Anyway, in the meantime, here are my remaining Goblin Captains. All are conversions from standard Goblin plastic line troops.

This is my completed Groblog. See below for earlier stages

Groblog - Green-stuff crown and cape. The pillar he's standing on is just a few lengths of sprue

Another angle

Goblin Captain - all I've done here is build up the base a bit

The finished product

The Beastcaller - now I can use my Wargs!

The skull is a bit clumsy, but I'm no sculptor

Skull doesn't look too bad painted

Last but not least - just another built-up base

And this is how he looks painted

More Moria stuff:

More Middle Earth stuff:

Middle Earth SBG (Wild Wargs)

No end yet in sight to Middle Earth painting! Still enjoying it though.

This time it's a pack of Wild Wargs which can either run with my Moria Goblins (if I include the Beastcaller) or with an Angmar army.

Looking at the photo and with the benefit of hindsight, I wish I'd taken time to tidy up the mould lines a bit. I genuinely just didn't even realise how visible they were until I saw the pics.

More Moria stuff:
More Angmar stuff:
More Middle Earth stuff:

Middle Earth SBG (Mordor Orcs - part 2)

You can never have too many Orcs, am I right? 

So, here are another batch to add to the Middle Earth baddies I'm working up. 

I'm nearer the end than the beginning on the rank and file now. I'm starting to get itchy to start other projects and it's taking some considerable self-control not to say "I'll come back to these in a while" and wander off.

More Middle Earth stuff:
More Isengard stuff:
More Angmar stuff:
More Barad Dur stuff:
More Mordor stuff:

Middle Earth SBG (Moria Goblins - part 7)

One beef I have with the ME:SBG is the "Hero levy". Each warband (some armies excepted) *must* be led by a hero. The seniority of the hero controls how many models the warband can contain.

When you're looking at an army like these goblins which (based on points cost AND also the way they were portrayed in the fictions, especially the movie) are a classic "Horde army" then you need a lot of heroes. Typically one per 12-or 15- models. So, for 100 goblins you're looking at 6 - 9 hero models, minimum.

And, of course, the heroes are only available from Forge World and therefore will cost (financially) as much as the unit they are leading.

I can't be doing with that.

So I managed to pick one model up from eBay (Durburz) and built the rest from spare plastic goblins.

I think it worked OK.

Durburz

Captain #1 - before

Captain #1 - after

Captain #2 - before

Captain #2 - after

Captain #3 - before

Captain #3 - after

I have a few more Captains to finish and will publish them in a following post.

More Moria stuff:
More Middle Earth stuff:

Middle Earth SBG (Warg Riders - part 2)

More goodies for my baddies! A second batch of Orc War Riders to strengthen the forces of Evil readying to rampage across Middle Earth (at some point in the future, whenever I can get a game together).

The school summer holiday period is coming up. Not that I'm still at school, but I do have kids. School holidays are a great time for modelling productivity for me, because instead of running around, washing breakfast, ironing kids and making uniforms, I can get my paints out!

So I'm looking forward to a few weeks of serious productivity!

More Middle Earth stuff:
More Angmar stuff:
More Barad Dur stuff:

More Mordor stuff: