Some Scattered Characters

 All right, so in my last post I mentioned that I'd painted up several other Middle Earth figures besides the Nine Riders. I also said I'd make a post about them in the next few days. Now, several weeks later I am making that post. Late as usual I guess.

First off we have what on the webstore GW have dubbed an "Uruk-hai Scout Command". In reality these figures come from three different sets, none of which are in production at the moment. The captain with the cleaver headed bardiche was originally a standalone, while the shaman was part of the original Uruk-hai command set and the other two were commanders for a special War of the Ring unit called Mauhur's Marauders. The history of the models aside, I quite like them. The captain and banner bearer are my favourites out of the four for certain. 

Next up we have the sons of Elrond: Elladan and Elrohir. No, I don't remember which is which. Looking it up it seems that Elladan is on the left and Elrohir on the right. While it's perfectly thematic for the brothers dress and look more-or-less the same, it does get very confusing, especially when it comes to trying to match their on-foot versions with their mounted versions. In fact, looking now at a reference it seems that I have actually gotten their on-foot versions round the wrong way! So uh, first it's Elladan mounted with Elrohir on foot, then Elrohir mounted with Elladan on foot. Good grief. Perhaps I should have given them different coloured cloaks or something.

Last of all we have the prince of Dol Amroth, Imrahil himself. One of the great heroes of the Battles of the Pelennor and the Morannon, who is sadly left out of just about every adaptation. I've actually gone and done the reverse of what I probably should of, and experimented with painting the leader of the knights of Dol Amroth before painting any of the rank and file. But he was just sitting there on my desk, so what else could I do?

Anyhow, that's the last of what I've got completed at the moment. I have been working on my Rohirrim, but that project is progressing slowly. Being on holiday from uni seems to have led me to spend less time painting rather than more. Ah well, I'll get through them in the end, I always do it seems.

Until then, Merry Christmas to you all!

God bless!

The Nine are Abroad

I've always been a fan of GW's 'character wraiths', where each of the nine Nazgûl are modeled as a distinct character. I've also been frustrated many times at only having five Ringwraiths (the ones that came with the old Weathertop set). I could never justify purchasing the set of nine, only to get rid of five of them. On top of that I would still lack mounted versions, as generic black riders are no longer sold and are a great frustration to track down second-hand.

 

It seemed sensible enough then, that I should acquire the foot and mounted sets for the character wraiths, which are available to buy new. I was reticent for a while, since six out of the eighteen models were finecast (shudders), but in the end I found myself possessed by a whim and grabbed 'em. And while the finecast resin was a massive pain to work with, I did have a lot of fun painting up these models. It was really fun working to give each wraith a unique look, although I think I have had more than enough of painting black for the foreseeable future.

The Witch King of Angmar

As one of the dreaded finecast models, I was rather worried when it came to this guy. Thankfully he seems to have turned out pretty well outside of his sword, which is a little bendy (somehow I didn't notice until after he'd been painted!).

The Dwimmerlaik

The Tainted

I ended up leaving this guy till last because I thought the glowing effect on the robes would be hard to do. As it turned out all it took was some careful dry-brushing and high-lighting. I'd probably say that he was one of my favourites to paint.

The Dark Marshal

The Shadow Lord

The Undying

Khamûl the Easterling

Sadly, this is probably the worst victim of finecast among the set. His sword might look crooked now, but it's not even half as bad as it was before! I did the best I could, but it's such a thin and fragile piece that I was scared to apply too much pressure for fear of breaking it. What an infernal material to make models out of!

I decided against painting his armour golden/brazen, as I felt this separated him a bit too much from the other Ringwraiths for my liking.

The Knight of Umbar

The Betrayer

Overall, I'm quite happy with how they turned out, though I wish they had all been metal. I certainly intend to try and avoid buying any more finecast models in future, but given that some rather iconic/important models have been done in that material (uruk-hai berserkers, guards of the fountain court, minas tirith commanders, etc.) I may not have much choice in the long run.

Having enjoyed the Ringwraith project so much, I've ordered a number of Rohirrim to round out that part of my collection (short of a couple of characters who were all out of stock on the Australian webstore. Really loving that international sales policy GW...). Outside that and the Ringwraiths, I've painted/finished painting a number of other more miscellaneous Middle-Earth models, so I'll have to get together another post on them in the next few days. See you all then.

Cheers!

British Line Infantry

At the very beginning of this project I had considerably more British infantry than French. Over the past two years I've added a great deal of infantry to my French army and very little to my British one. In part this was because I found it difficult to lay hands on the particular British infantry set that I've been after (HaT's Peninsular War Infantry). These two battalions actually represent the first real additions I've made to my British infantry forces so far.

The figures themselves are Italeri's British Infantry 1815 (Set 6095). Very good figures, though the uniforms presented are a bit of an odd bunch. Odd that is, in the sense that they are meant to be very particular. Apparently there are three specific regiments from Waterloo represented in the set. But I'm much too lazy to go around trying to match regiments (serious respect to those who do though), so I just painted the facings as I fancied. As for quality the miniatures are very good, modern sculpts with strong detail and good poses.

This will be the last bit of Napoleonic work I do for a little while. My focus these past few days has been shifted over to my 28mm collections, specifically my Middle-Earth models. Hopefully I'll have a few posts about that in the future.

Cheers!

French Infanterie de Ligne Regiments

When I first started on this project I'm not sure I fully understood just how much infantry would actually be needed. Once I sat down and read up on the structure of brigades through to divisions through to corps and armies it came home to me pretty quickly though. A Napoleonic army (even when fighting at a smaller scale like that of a division) has a lot of men in it. I suppose this is why some people don't like working in the period or else use very abstracted formations that cut down on the number of figures used, particularly in the big scales. It is a lot of cross belts to paint after all.

 

But, I want to play 'in the grand manner', as they say. This means I need lots and lots of battalions if I want to play at the level of one or more divisions per side. Today I have some more of those much needed battalions for my French army.

The fusiliers for this first regiment come from HaT's French Line Fusiliers (Set 8041). This set is a decent enough one, but is a bit on the old side and I think it shows. Some of the detailing is warped and there was more flash than I would have liked. These were still very serviceable figures though, so that overall I would say that I'm happy with them.

I mentioned in the post on French Chasseurs that I had set aside the rest of the Zvezda figures for line battalions. Well, here they are. As I mentioned in that post the figures are excellent. Although, there may have been some miscalculation on my part, as they seem a little tall compared to the fusiliers I matched them to. A bit awkward given that the voltigeurs were supposed to be chosen from the smaller men, but oh well.

The second regiment have their fusiliers drawn from Italeri's older French Infantry set (Set 6002). An issue for some with this set is that I gather it is not very historically accurate, mixing together parts of uniforms that don't belong to the same period. This results in models that don't technically belong to any period of the Napoleonic Wars. This is actually fine for me, since I'm not strictly committed to any one period, other than 'beyond 1806', and aside from that issue these are very good models.

The grenadiers are also Hat, but much more recent (Set 8166). Very solid figures, and since the set comes with command figures I'm planning on doing a battalion of combined grenadiers sometime in the nebulous future. They also have a noticeably different sculpting style from the fusiliers in these regiments, but in this case I think it works well, as it makes them seem large and imposing, as grenadiers should.

Lastly we have this fellow. He'll be acting as the commander for the brigade these two regiments will form together. The figure is by Waterloo 1815 from their Mounted Line Officers set (Set 028).

With this added to my previous French infantry I have two brigades, each one containing six battalions. That's certainly a solid start, and I must confess to being just a little bit pleased with myself. It hasn't been quick, but this most recent phase of the Napoleonic project is finally winding down. There'll be a bit more, then after that I'll probably be taking a break to work on some 28mm stuff.

Cheers!