Clearing the Backlog (Jan-Feb '23)

 Hey all

To get straight into it, new year, new armies! I decided that this year, I'll be placing my focus on two main forces. Neither of which, have much of an army in my collection (painted/built anyway). 

So, for the first few months of the year, I'll be building up a large Moria force. In the grey mountain, I have; two boxes of Moria Goblins (plastic), a box of MTO metal Goblins, two boxes of Moria Goblin Prowlers, a second Batswarm, a box of spiders, a Goblin Command box, a Cave Drake, Groblog, Ashrak and Druzhag. In short, plenty to work through.

Later in the year, the good force that I have selected (Lothlorien), will be getting some work done. Amongst the crowd to be done for that is; two (almost) full boxes of Galadhrim, Rumil, Orophin and Galadriel. So a lot less, but most quality over quantity in this case.

Itching to get underway with the 70~ Moria models, I cracked open the first box of Moria Goblins, metal models and command box. The first thing that I noticed was that the Captain didn't come with a shield. So I took one of the plastic ones and made a blue stuff mould, creating one for him with green stuff using it.

I decided to focus on particular wargear, so I began with the spearmen. This included one plastic one that had been sat in my collection, unpainted, for ~20yrs with a broken spear shaft. I fixed this by cutting the excess away and drilling a small hole into the hand, then another into the base of the spearhead. Then replacing the shaft with a small length of paperclip.

I then sorted out the rest,including the metal one (2nd from left at the front).

After those Goblins, I quickly polished off three excess Morannons for the Grand Prix in early Feb. These had been built years previously, and sat awaiting their painting. I had done weapon swaps on them all to give the poses variety.

I also needed an Orc Drummer for that event, so quickly did him too. He was another victim of the grey mountain, built and trapped, but now free.

With that event's army sorted, I got back to the Moria, and banged out the built shields, beginning with the metal models).

In preparation for my first GBHL 90pt event, I decided to finish the crew for my Mordor Catapult (which had been painted itself, years prior). I began by painting up the Troll.

After which, the orcs didn't take very long to polish off, and finally complete the set. Naturally, I then had a complete change of heart and took Thranduil's Halls with Grimbeorn instead. It was a masterful tactical decision, that achieved me the wooden spoon.

With that done, I prepared to continue the Moria effort, when I saw the BSiME theme for that Friday was Banners and Warhorns. I had a Rohan Hornblower sat in the built pile, who fit that bill, and so he ended up jumping the queue.

Feeling bad about prioritising so many other things, rather than what I said I would. I decided to push on with some heroes, choosing to do the Moria Command. I would usually make more effort on heroes to make them tidier and cleaner. However, I feel that Goblins would have leaders who are just as filthy as the troops themselves.

As I finished them, it was another BSiME night. And this time the man of the hour (so to speak) was Gothmog. I had already painted him up, but in the effort to set a new record, I blue stuff moulded a shield to attach to his models.

I used the original shield on his mounted model. And the green stuff press moulded one, came out with a few imperfections. I got around this, by using them on the foot model and painting it to look like damage to the shield. Because, I figured that once on foot and knocked from his mount, it would have suffered some damage and chips caused by deflecting the blows of his foes.

Most importantly, the efforts were successful (in a completely honest way) and a new record was set, for painters working on the same character in a stream.

The final batch for this post, was when I managed to smash out the 12 Goblin Prowlers, making one final push in the dying days of February. 

So in the first two months of 2023, I managed to paint a total of 47 models, worth 557pts. I most likely, won't have polished off the remaining Moria, but who knows. We'll see come the end of April.

One final note is that I have made this progress on the Hobby Bingo so far.