2018 - the year in review

Well, what a difference a year makes.... Okay, well, 3 months if I'm being honest. January to September were pretty quiet but since the Pelennor Fields boxset and the new rules were released I've found a re-invigorated love for the hobby.

Summary for the year:

Army of the Dead - painted a 700 point army including King of the Dead, 30 Warriors of the Dead and 6 Riders of the Dead (694 Points in total). It could use a Banner and an Aragorn, but is technically playable as-is.

Morannon Orcs - painted 36 Morannon Orcs and 6 Wild Wargs and purchased / build the rest of a 1000pt army. Finishing this will be top priority for 2019.

With a total of 79 models painted I have finally achieved my target of at least one model per month (if you average it out!).

Target for next year - consistently paint at least one model each month!

I'm keeping my target low as December has shown me that sometimes life gets in the way of hobby and things just don't work out. Having been on a roll in October and November I almost failed to finish a single model in December and only some last-minute New Years Eve painting has kept me on track. Still, it was a nice way to spend the day!

Summary for the year

Month	Bought	Painted
September	84	0
October	14	31
November	22	42
December	0	6
Total	120	79

I gave myself a pass for the September purchase of the Pelennor Fields boxset, so that's a win for painting more than I bought each month as well

2018 - December Update

A quieter month this month - work was manic, plus I managed to be ill for about 3 weeks with a combination of stomach bug and cold (which sucked, but was kind enough to clear for a couple of days over Christmas before coming back with a vengeance!)

I started the month fairly well and managed to build and prime most of the rest of the models for my Morannon force, including a few little conversions. The only unbuilt model is the Catapult & Crew.

Not a lot of painting done this month, but I did manage to finish 6 off my wild wargs today to avoid a complete wash-out. I've also painted the rest of the wargs and 'just' need to do their riders and tack.

6 Metal Warg Riders, to be played as Mounted Orc Trackers

1 converted Morannon Orc Captain (the old Gothmog Model with a head swap from a Siege Uruk-Hai that's been 'sculpted' a bit with a scalpel)

Gothmog Mounted

Banner Bearer & Drummer

6 Orc Trackers

Guritz & Gothmog's Enforcer (1 spare, but seemed a shame to leave him in the box!)

1 Mordor Troll, with interchangeable hands. Painted with primer as it got too cold to spray paint.

Painted - 6 Wild Wargs (dismounts)

Bought - None

Gifted - Shelob, Sam & Frodo

Wild Wargs

My sneaky finish with 3 and a half hours left in December - 6 Wild Wargs, based over the course of the day as I was determined to get something finished this month!

I picked a very simple scheme for the Wargs which is almost entirely drybrushing / washing. The main areas of the wargs were very quick to paint and the only areas which took time to paint were the mouths and teeth, which were fiddly as they're not very well moulded. Once I decided on the paint scheme I reckon these were about 10 minutes a piece to paint.

There was quite a lot of prep work on these though - the metal warg riders had legs to attach and gap-fill and the plastic dismounts have some very obvious lines in their fur and a peculiar lack of detail on the rear of their backs. I probably spent about 20 minutes per warg green-stuffing but I think it was time well spent as it makes them look a lot better than they do out of the box. Thankfully fur is fairly simple to sculpt, and very forgiving of mistakes!

There aren't actually any Wild Wargs in my Mordor Army list, but these six will serve as dismounts for the Mounted Orc Trackers. I've also painted the six mounted wargs, but not their riders, so they'll hopefully be finished in January.

Wargs

• Basecoat - Abaddon Black

Fur

• Heavy Drybrush - Dryad Bark
• Medium Drybrush - Mournfang Brown
• Light Drybrush - Balor Brown (top half of warg only)

Mouth

• Tounge - Memphiston Red, wash Agrax Earthshade
• Teeth - Celestra Grey, wash Agrax Earthshade, highlight Ulthuran Grey
• Mouth - Bugmans Glow, wash Agrax Earthshade

Flesh

• Face - Stormvermin Fur, wash Nuln Oil, drybrush Stormvermin Fur
• Legs - Drybrush Strormvermin

Bases (as per Morannon Orcs, but with added slate chippings)

• Stirland Mud
• Drybrush Tyrant Skull
• Add Tufts (Warpainter Scrub Grass small / standard tufts)
• Paint Base Rims Steel Legion Drab
• Paint Rocks Mechanicus Standard Grey, drybrush Administratrum Grey, drybrush Celestra Grey

2018 - November Update

It's been a good month this month - having completed the Army of the Dead last month I decided to keep working through the Pelennor Field boxset and paint up the Morannon Orcs so that there were some Evil models to match against them.

I stuck with a very by-the-book theme for the Morannons but it worked nicely and let me paint them up quite quickly too.

Buoyed by my success I decided to develop it into a full 1000pt army of Mordor - with a bit of help from the GBHL I've decided on the following:

Gothmog on Warg
14 Morannon orcs (7 shield, 7 shield/spear)
1 Morannon orc w/ Banner

Guritz on Foot
12 Morannon orcs (6 shield, 6 spear/shield)

Morannon Orc Captain on Warg
10 Morannon orcs (5 shield, 5 spear/shield)
1 Mordor Troll
Orc Drummer

1 Mordor Orc Catapult with Troll

Orc Captain on Warg
6 orc trackers on Warg

So I did some shopping and picked up the remaining models I needed for my force (Gothmog, Guritz, 6 Orc trackers and the Orc Catapault. I've also built and primed all the remaining models for the force from my collection.

I also painted up 6 Riders of the Dead to reinforce the Army of the Dead from last month.

Painted - 42 Models: 36 Morannon Orcs & 6 Riders of the Dead

Bought - 22 Models:  Gothmog Ft & Mtd, Erestor, 6 Riders of the Dead, Mordor Orc Catapault (5 models), 6 Orc Trackers, Guritz & Gothmog's Enforcer

Reinforcements Have Arrived

My Army of the Dead needed some faster units so I've added a small detachment of cavalry to assist them - 6 Riders of the Dead now all painted up and ready for battle.

Note to self: repaint the base rims!

Morannon Orcs

 I painted up the 36 Morannon Orcs from the Pelennor Boxset with the aim of working on my accuracy and speed painting skills - originally I was aiming to spend about 5 minutes per model but I missed that target and spent about 12 minutes each for a total of  just over 7 hours. That's still considerably faster than anything else I've painted to date so I'm pretty pleased with my experiment. I could have saved about an hour by priming with Silver Spray but didn't have any.

I went with a fairly simple scheme and painted the entire army was one large batch, applying each colour to every model in turn. I've always painted in small batches before (maybe 6-8 models) so doing 36 in one go was rather different, but I actually really liked it as I could see the progress being made and everything got finished at the same time.

Broadly, the timings per model worked out at as follows:

• 2 mins to base silver, wash & drybrush
• 2 mins to base red & wash
• 2 mins to base grey, wash & highlight
• 2 mins to base faces, wash & highlight
• 1 min to paint, wash & highlight hair & fur
• 2 mins to paint & highlight straps (fiddly!)
• 1 min to paint & highlight wood areas

The Paint Scheme for future reference was as follows:

• Prime with Abaddon Black Spray

Armour

• Basecoat with Ironbreaker
• Wash with Reikland Fleshshade

Red Cloth

• Basecoat with Memphiston Red (2 coats needed)
• Wash with Druchi Violet

Grey Cloth

• Basecoat with Skavenblight Dinge
• Wash with Nuln Oil
• Highlight with Stormvermin Fur

Skin - Variant 1

• Basecoat with Baneblade Brown
• Wash with Agrax Earthshade
• Highlight with Baneblade Brown

Skin - Variant 2

• Basecoat with Doombull Brown
• Wash with Agrax Earthshade
• Highlight with Skrag Brown

Skin - Variant 3

• Basecoat with Catellan Green
• Wash with Agrax Earthshade
• Hightlight with Elysian Green

Hair

• Basecoat with Eshin Grey
• Wash with Nuln Oil
• Highlight with Dawnstone

Fur

• Basecoat with Mournfang Brown
• Wash with Agrax Earthshade

Wood

• Basecoat with Dryad Bark
• Highlight with Steel Legion Drab

Straps

• Basecoat with Dryad Bark
• Highlight with Gorthor Brown

Basing

• Apply coat of Stirland Mud
• Drybrush Tyrant Skull
• Add Tufts (Warpainter Scrub Grass small / standard tufts)
• Paint Base Rims Steel Legion Drab

2018 - October Update

This month I painted more models that I have in the last 2 years (not a great feat admittedly!). I'm amazed how much the re-launch of the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game has rekindled my interest in my hobby and it's been wonderful to have something to relax with in the evenings after work.

On the painting side I finished  the 20 Army of the Dead from the Pelennor Fields Boxset, plus the 10 I had lurking in storage, and the King of the Dead.

Even better, I spent a few evenings knocking together a display board for them and entered the Armies on Parade competition at GW Winchester. I quite rightly failed to place with my rather last-minute entry but I was so pleased to have produced something tangible (and at least one fine person decided to give me one of their votes so I even got a shiny pin for my cabinet!)

I also put together some scatter terrain so that I we can fight over something more interesting than piles of rocks

Total achievements:

Painted: 31 Models: 30 Army of the Dead + 1 King of the Dead

Bought: 14 Models:  6 Knights of Dol Amroth, 4 Morannon Orc Commanders, Betrayer Ft & Mounted and  Suladan Ft & Mounted (and a sneaky set of measures)

Scatter Terrain

I started this terrain before Armies on Parade but had to shelve it to make the display board so finished up a bit later than originally planned.

All credit for this goes to Mel the Terrain Tutor, whose excellent tutorials gave me the know-how to do this:

• I used the corrugated cardboard and polyfiller method of making bases from the Let's Make - Cheap & Easy Terrain Bases video

• And then used the decorating tips from Let's Make - Cheap & Easy Scenic CD Scatter Terrain Bases to add trees, bushes and flock scatter to them.

I'm very pleased with the results, and it's also held up well to being chucked in a cupboard for storage! In total there are 16 pieces of terrain, with the smallest about 2" in diameter and the largest about 12"x6"

Medium Ruin

Small Ruin

Medium Tree Stand

Medium Ruin

Stone wall

Small Ruin

Large Hillock

Rocky ground

Small tree stand

Small ruin

Small tree stand (spring green flock = not great!)

Small Ruin

Small terrain piece

Larger corner piece

Small ruin

Largest ruin

For future reference, the materials used are as follows:

• Bases: Corrugated cardboard packaging + Wickes Polyfiller
• Worked well, more time consuming than expected but would definitely use again
• Ruins: Games Workshop LOTR Ruins (discontinued)
• I'd accumulated a lot of these and am very pleased how they turned out. Ruins of Osgiliath would be the closest current equivalent
• Flock: Javis scenic scatter Rough Pasture (#JS19) & Spring Green (#71). The rough pasture was good, but the Spring Green is much too bright for my liking. I also used some Battlefields Grass Green (excellent) and some older lighter flock (which I would guess was from GW)
• Hedges: Javis Hedge Foliage Light Green (#JHF1) & Mid Green (#JHF2)
• Trees: Ebay 20x 7cm Green Trees, 20 x 9cm Green Trees & 10x 11cm / 9cm Bendable Trees. In terms of realism, only the 11cm trees are anywhere near the right scale, but if you ignore that fact they look pretty good for what I paid for them

Sort of believable with a foot model...

Definitely not believable with a mounted model!

Armies on Parade 2018

In one of my crazier plans I decided that having started painting my Army of the Dead on the 6th October it would be totally possible to get them ready for Armies on Parade on the 13th. It turns out it definitely was possible, but I had to cut a lot of corners putting the board together so whilst it made it to the event it's unlikely to ever be used again. Still, I was very pleased I put the effort in as it gave me a real boost to have something to take to the store as tangible proof that I was actually enjoying my hobby again.

The board was constructed on a 2x2 sheet of MDF that I had in storage (as you do) with a 1x1 removable back corner piece designed to be removed and stored in my display cabinet after the event. I knew that the board as a whole was unlikely to be kept so I thought it would be nice to keep a piece as a display for my Army and I'm pleased to say this worked very well. The board was roughed out with cheap polystyrene hacked into shape with a craft knife and then covered in polyfiller. Because I only had 2 evenings to build this beast I gave it a couple of hours to start drying and then used PVA to fix down some rocks / bigger scatter and then covered the whole thing in a good layer of brown & black poster paints mixed with pva and kiln dried sand to give it some texture then left it overnight to dry.

The next day it was mostly dry so I painted the rocks grey before I went to work and then gave the whole thing a good drybrushing with a light brown paint for the soil / light grey for the rocks when I got home. After dinner I applied liberal amounts of static grass (Army Painter Steppe Grass) and chiselled out some space at the front to add a nice quote from the Lord of the Rings books to give it some context.

I forgot to take a picture of the final piece (and damaged it a bit getting it home) so this is the best picture I have of the finished product


When I got home I carefully removed the back-left segment and installed this in my display cabinet where it will now reside permanently.

Painting the Army of the Dead

These guys were a pleasure to paint as they require absolutely no detail work at all!

Painting Recipe is as follows for future reference:

• Prime with Skull White (Corax White) Spray
• Basecoat with Corax White (just filling in anywhere the spray missed)
• Wash with Hexwraith Flame and apply patches of Coelia Greenshade to break it up
• Drybrush with Ulthuran Grey

Basing

• Stirland Mud
• Drybrush with Tyrant Skull
• Add Grass Tufts (Serious Play 6mm Mini Tufts / 4mm Tufts in 'Winter')

2018 - September Update

After years of hobby stagnation I'm finally digging out my paints again and getting back into Middle Earth in a big way. I decided to take the plunge and pick up the new Pelennor Fields box-set.

Holidays prevented me from doing much painting this month, but I have built all of the Army of the Dead and the Morannon Orcs and we even managed to squeeze in our first ever game across the dining table (wherein my Riders of Rohan were soundly prevented from carrying warning to Minas Tirith by some surprisingly resilient Morannon Orcs).

I did half-paint 12 warriors of Minas Tirith + Cirion, but I didn't' finish them so I don't think they count!

I also took inventory of my model stash and determined that I have approximately 1,300 models / 30,000 points worth of Armies in my collection. I'm giving myself a pass this month, but in the future my aim is to paint more models than I buy - gotta start chipping away at that backlog!

Summary:
Bought: 84 models
Painted: None.

2017 - the year in review

Wow, another year has been and gone and despite setting a very low bar (1 model per month) I still managed to miss it.

I did, however, actually base the Fellowship so that's something at least!

I also half-painted an Eagle

 And did a bit more on the Mumak

And vaguely attempted some test models for the desert Haradrim I want to paint