Another month done, I can’t believe we’re already through November, how the year has flown by…. But even as the days get shorter, our diligent hobbyists keep working. While this month’s article is a shorter one, I think you’ll be impressed by the work completed nonetheless!
Kevin C.
On to my third act for the year… my Rohirrim, which I have had sitting on my shelf for about a year. They aren’t the worst offender in my queue; I still haven’t finished my pre-Primaris Deathwatch, which have sat unfinished since 2016. Even still, with the new edition of Lord of the Rings coming down the pike, and all of my Necromunda buddies having played it and enjoyed it, I figured I should get in on the action. And I refuse to play with unpainted miniatures, so…
Riders of Rohan
My main source for instruction on painting the Riders was the Duncan Rhodes tutorial. He does a great job with setting the stage for one method of painting the Rohan riders, that I then used to experiment with in variations in later iterations. For most of the elements on the rider, he uses a base, wash, rebase, highlight method, and I replicated that method.
For the cloak and the shield edges, I used Castellan Green, Agrax Earthshade, Castellan Green, and highlight of Loren Green.
The red cloth underneath was Khorne Red, Agrax Earthshade, Khorne Red, and Wazdakka Red.
The trousers, sleeves, and helmet were Doombull Brown, Agrax Earthshade (noting a pattern here?), Doombull Brown, and Skrag Brown. The contrast between these last two coats was a bit too stark, but seeing as how the bits were small, I think I was able to get away with it.
At this point, I should note that, since most everything was a wash of Agrax Earthshade, I obviously started with a base on everything, washed almost everything (except the face and hair) and then brought them back up to base color, and then did the edge highlight. The rebasing and highlight got rid of much of the shine from the wash, but if you don’t rebase your models after the wash, you will definitely need to Matte Varnish them, or else they will have a weird shine to them, like so.
The white emblem on the shields, I went with a consistent Rakarth Flesh, Agrax Earthshade, Rakarth Flesh, and highlight of Pallid Wych Flesh. This proved pretty difficult near the end, as there is not a truly defined edge to the emblem, so many of the later emblems became sloppy.
Finally, the skin (what little can be seen) was Bugman’s Glow, Reikland Fleshshade, Cadian Fleshtone, and Kislev Fleshtone. The hair was Zandri Dust, Seraphim Sepia, then Ushabti Bone. While I usually try to do multiple fleshtones and hair colors with other miniatures, I felt that there was enough variation in the miniatures that I kept them all blond and pale-skinned. Rohan is not necessarily known for being a diverse cosmopolitan place.
The horses I based in Mournfang Brown, and then washed in Agrax Earthshade. I then brought up the highlights from Mournfang, to 50/50 Mournfang and Skrag Brown, and finally an edge highlight of Skrag Brown. While Duncan does a wash for the mane and tail, I decided to use a Contrast of Wyldwood, to get a darker, richer contrast (no pun intended) across the mount.
The socks on the hooves were an interesting project, and one I’ve never done. I started with a 50/50 mix of Skrag Brown and Rakarth Flesh, then a highlight of Rakarth Flesh, and finally an “edge” highlight (mostly at the ankle) of Pallid Wych Flesh. I think the socks turned out great, and I replicated them across the entire set.
At this point, I should note that these were much harder to paint than I’ve done for a while, as unlike most of the 40K/Fantasy stuff I’ve been painting recently, these are true scale. I’ve painted true scale before, namely Infinity, but I find that I often have to give up on painting detail on the faces. Thankfully, most the of the faces here are taken up by either helmet or beard, but it is something that annoys me.
More Riders of Rohan
Now that I had my first set of 12 finished, I continued on to my next set of 24. Absolutely no variation in the posture of the miniatures, so I had to settle on varying something else. So I chose different horse colors…
For many of these recipes, I used the painting tutorial that I found here:
I didn’t do black or white horses, for separate reasons. I plan to keep white horses for my heroes – Theoden, Eowyn, Hama, and Haleth. And I don’t like doing black horses as they tend to look too dark and monochromatic on the field. So, for the basic riders, I went with dark brown, tan, grey, and spotted.
I also didn’t want painted horses (much to my wife’s chagrin, as she owns a painted horse), namely because that screams Mustang to me, which is an American breed. Rohan, being based on Anglo-Saxon England, didn’t seem like a natural fit for painted horses.
The paint recipes, while they ended up working, didn’t work quite as well as Duncan Rhodes’ methods. Some of the color transitions, especially with the lighter colored horses, were too stark for my tastes. Still, they diversified the colors of the army, so I’m pleased with how they turned out.
Final Result
Well, I’ve been told by Austin that 36 Riders of Rohan is more than a Rohan player will ever need. For a Bretonnian player, 36 cavalry seems a bit small, but I will take his word for that.
Not quite Pelennor Fields level of cavalry (I’d need 5,964 more horses for that, apparently), but this will get me through a few games.
Next month, I plan to paint my Warriors of Rohan (dismounted) and the heroes I have currently, Theoden, Eowyn, and Merry. Finally, the boxed set should arrive in the middle of the month, so it is possible that I can get those miniatures assembled and painted before the end of the year is out, thus completing THREE armies in one year.
Jerry S.
Kevin’s progress this month a tough act to follow wow! I’m incredibly impressed by his conviction and ability to finish the projects he starts!
On my side, I had a pretty prolific month myself! Even with a week away due to the Thanksgiving holiday, I was still able to finish almost 50 models!
In the true wargaming tradition, Instead of finishing either of the 3 projects I’m currently working on (Solar Auxilia, Tomb Kings, or Arnor/Angmar for Middle Earth SPG) I started a brand new one at the end of September. As I hinted at last month, that new project was a reinforced platoon of American GI’s in winter clothing from Warlord Games for their brand new Bolt Action 3.0!
A little background on that, I grew up watching old war movies with my dad, The Great Escape, Von Ryan’s Express, A Bridge Too Far, the list goes on and on. I always loved these movies, the overexaggerated good guys and bad guys, corny action scenes, these movies hold a very special place in my heart.
I’ve always had my eye on Bolt Action, the game really pulls on those Hollywood WW2 themes from the old movies and the models are all overexaggerated and cartoony, just the way I like them. I’ve actually started 3 Bolt Action armies over the years, picking up Germans, Soviets, and Americans in the past, picking them up and then putting them down and selling them one by one. This time was different though, the new ruleset provided a great jumping off point and the absolutely awesome American Winter Infantry kit that came out in September was the perfect opportunity to jump into the game once more!
And Jump in I did! I picked up the new Battle of the Bulge starter set, a Sherman tank, another 30 infantrymen, and a whole plethora of support weapons. This gave me a sold 70 infantry as well as 2 vehicles to support them
This month, I managed paint the 30 infantry I had assembled in October, as well as a few of the weapons team I picked up. While I haven’t finished the basing on all of the models (darn you Amazon and your slow snow deliveries) I was able to lock down exactly how I wanted to base these guys. A sparse snow covering with some foliage and grass poking out of the snow. This gave the bases the look of a snow covered forest floor, perfect for any battlefield in the Winter of 1944/45 or for the snow-covered alpine peaks of Italy.
With this batch done, I got cracking on assembling the second wave of infantry, their heavier support weapons and then the much needed vehicle support!
Returning to the Old World
Switching back to one of the projects that y’all have seen quite a bit of this year, I dusted off my Old World army of 2024 and finished the last 10 Skeletons from the Tomb Kings Battalion I bought to begin the year!
I still love painting these Skeletons, even after finishing over 100 total this year so far! This last block of 10 is the last group of Skeleton Warriors/Archers I need for the 2000 Point Tomb King army I’ve been working on this year and as you can see below, the completed Skeletons look a formidable sight on the battlefield.
Now that the basic infantry is done, I can finally start the fun stuff. I’ve got a whole group of Stalkers, Scorpions, and Ushabti to get painted up and ready to defend the lands of Khemri! I guess I should even paint up one of those “Tomb Kings” that everybody has been talking about…Even the undead need a leader after all.
Before we move onto the last batch of models I worked on this week, I couldn’t let you leave before showing you the fearsome Necrosphinx I finished constructing this month.
News from the Kingdom of Arnor
Some of you readers may know this already but I got my start in wargaming way back in the early naughts with the release of the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battlegame. This game has always been my bread and butter, and while I took a break for a a year or so, the announcement of the new edition has brought me fully back.
I’ve been working on a middle earth gaming board the past few months, and an nice Arnor army to battle on it as you’ll see in the past few articles. I was able to continue this progress this month with a force of 6 Arnor Knights and a captain to lead them.
I wasn’t able to finish these brave defenders of Arnor this month but I imagine I’ll finish these in the first week of this month. Ready in time for the new Edition on 12/14!
Speaking of both next month and the new edition, I’ve got some huge plans for next year to go along with the new edition! I don’t have much in the way of details quite yet but I hope to share some more information next month!
HowdyHammer 