Meanwhile in Rohan 9: The Muster of the Shieldwomen

Good evening friends:

As readers of this blog will know, the world of JRR Tolkien is an abiding gaming interest of mine, and the Rohirrim are by far my favourite army of that mythology.   Some years back I purchased several sets of Dark Ages women warriors from Bad Squiddo Games, thinking they would do nicely to augment my Rohan figures (who are, not surprisingly, all male).  It makes sense that in the existential threat that a raid on a village or fortress would pose, there would be women who would take up arms and even know how to use them (the subplot with Eowyn in LOTR and the novelty of her bearing arms betrays Tolkien as being a product of his generation, I think).

Anyway, Annie at Bad Squiddo does a nice range of female warriors that seemed suitable and I am using this pandemic time to finish old lots of figures from the lead mountain, so here are the ten I purchased some years back.

 

These two figures are lovely sculpts from Alan Marsh.  The banner is from a set of Saxon flags from Little Big Men Studios.

 

The remainder of these figures no longer appear on the Bad Squiddo website.  They are sculpts by Phil Hynes, who doesn’t appear to work for Annie any more - at least, his name doesn’t appear on her site.  The shields are done freehand, a lot of inspiration from my friend James, and I’m happy with these two in particular, even if the eyes on the one on the right are lopsided!

Anyway they are good sculpts, some better than others in terms of quality.   I enjoyed the fact that they aren’t all young supple warriors - these two are grannies that are just not having any Uruk-Hai crap, and as I creep towards my sixties, I’m ok with that.

 

 

There are tons of new Dark Ages sculpts in Annie’s shop that would be suitable for Rohirrim (including riders!) since my last visit there, as well as lots of interesting scatter terrain, so I am sure I shall be a returning customer.

Thanks for looking, and blessings to your brushes!

MP+

Meanwhile in Rohan 8

This post will be much less interesting than the last one, as there are 100% no scantily dressed figures.   I got a bit of flack for posting the elf maiden photos on the Wargaming in Middle Earth Facebook page and rapidly deleted the post.  I never thought I was creepy, but apparently some did, so lesson learned.

So to today’s duller content.   Here are 12 Walkers of Rohan, bog-standard Rohirrim foot fighters, fresh off the Games Workshop sprue.

No mods of any sort.  The only concession to originality was to give a few of them grey cloaks vice the usual green cloaks.  I also made some attempt to change up the colours on the shields by using some blues and reds for variety.

Archers.  Can’t have enough of these chaps, especially for a siege game.  I have plans.

Fellow in the foreground is a bit of an oldster.  My white hair is almost as long as his in these lockdown days.

The most creative thing in this post is this Gripping Beast lead figure, of Alfred the Great, repurposed as a Lord of Rohan.  The shield transfer is from Little Big Men Studios.  

 

 Blessings to you brushes!

MP+

Orcs, Mostly

Hello friends:

I hope this finds you well and happily busy, as I’ve been lately.  Busy and productive enough to break out my light box to capture some finished work.

Today it’s mostly beastly orcs to swell the armies of Mordor.   Here is the command pack of some Vendel orcs.  My friend James and I went in on a joint purchase of some Vendel figures when they were still in business.   I love their chunkiness, the fact that they’re lead and not the spin-cast resin that GW now uses, and that they have their own identify, independent of figures based on the Jackson LOTR films, though I have more than enough of those minis as well.

Command group.   The fellow on the left looks mean enough to be a senior NCO, probably what passes for an RSM in an orcish host.  Sadly all the weapons the Vendel figures had were spears, for the most part, so I gave him a pointy mace thing from the Oathmark Goblin box to go with his eye of Sauron shield device. The fellow in the centre looked like he needed a banner, so I gave him one from the Little Big Men Saxon/Viking set, cut and mounted on aluminum foil and embellished with a skull from the same Oathmark pack.

 

Another Vendel figure from the same set, with another Little Big Man flag.  I made a total hash of this flag, and had to work desperately to save it.   I figured the dragon looked suitably orcish, though perhaps too fine a design for crude orc hands.

Seeing as I was doing orcs, I thought I would also do a test-paint of these figures from a box of Oathmark goblins purchased recently.  They look a little stunted and hunched over, compared to the confident upright Vendel poses, but they do look suitably menacing.  I’m reasonably pleased with them but I don’t like the shiny final look of the Army Painter Strong Tone washes that I bought recently.

A quite nasty bunch to add some character to my orc hosts.

I have a raft of figures that I started and then abandoned when Kay entered the final stage of her illness some years ago, and I now have the energy to start finishing them.  Here is a Gripping Beast Alfred the Great lead figure, painted to be a Lord of Rohan.  The LBM shield transfer is quite appropriate for that purpose.

 

 Finally, from the same raft of figures, four Sash and Sabre ACW casualty figures, to mark units in trouble or perhaps just for Matthew Brady to paint.  Thinking out loud here, I wonder if anyone makes a Civil War era photographer miniature?   

Thanks for looking.   Blessings to your brushes!

MP