Clearing the Backlog, Part 16 – The Road to Throne of Skulls, Part 2

Welcome to Part 2 of The Road to Throne of Skulls! 

If you've not read Part 1 yet, I'd recommend checking that out first, as I explain what army I'm taking and why. Part 1 can be found here: https://eastangliasbg.blogspot.com/2023/12/?m=1

Now that you're all caught up, we can carry on with the dwarves. Next up was Dori, who turned out to be pretty easy to paint, thanks to his limited colour palette. This did mean I had to spend a little extra time on the details so that he wouldn't be just a blob of colour, but the results were worth it.

Next up was his brother, Nori. One thing I appreciated a lot whilst painting the dwarves was just how unique they were, from their different hair and beard styles to their clothing and weaponry. Nori was also a pretty straightforward model to paint, but again I tried to focus on little details to make sure the model stands out.

Next up was the last of these brothers, Ori. Ori was a slightly trickier model because of his colour palette – I couldn’t quite tell if the cloth was supposed to be red, brown or purple. In the end, I went with a mix of light brown and red, adding increasing amounts of khaki for each highlight. I was very pleased with how Ori came out – now I just had to hope I could get some automatic wounds with his slingshot!

Next up was Bifur – he was also a challenge due to the various different shades on his clothing – I painted the trim sections first, before picking out the sections in between – much easier than doing it the other way around! With a bit of patience to make sure I didn’t go over any areas I'd already painted, Bifur was done!

Three dwarves to go – next on the list was Fili! I painted up the cloth areas by using progressively lighter shades of grey, before picking out the fur with khaki colours. Lastly was his beard – I used bone colours, before applying a yellow wash and some highlights. After picking out the metal areas, Fili was done!

Two to go – onto Kili! Kili was a challenge in that I needed to make his coat look different to the tunic he wears underneath – I therefore used different basecoats before applying highlights, which helped provide an overall look, but also make them subtly different. Kili's also unique due to the blue hood he wears, which provides a nice contrast with the rest of the model. A short while later, he was done!

And at last, we come to the leader of the Company, Thorin Oakenshield. I did a slight conversion, taking the Oakenshield from the alternative set of arms that comes in the boxed set and gluing it to the side of the model, in an attempt to make it look like he was carrying it. I painted him in pretty much the same way as I did with the Young Thorin Oakenshield in my Army of Thror, adding extra details such as picking out the grey strands of hair he's acquired over the years since. With Thorin finished, my army was complete!

So, with the dwarves done, I could move onto the display board. Throne of Skulls sees hobbyists some truly amazing display boards, and the bar seems to be set higher and higher every year. My plan was to have the dwarves fighting their way out of Goblin Town, so I built up the board to look like a rockface, before gluing several sections of the Goblin Town scenery kit in place (and rather conveniently ticking the "Paint a Scenery Kit" box off of the Hobby Bingo!). 

I did however want to take things to that extra level, and the films played into my hands perfectly here – whilst the dwarves are escaping above, Bilbo is having his game of riddles with Gollum in his cave…

I built up a frame for the cave using foamboard, before gluing various pieces of tree bark in place to give the walls a rocky texture, before coating everything in filler – I also managed to find this cool looking rock and pool piece on eBay – it would be perfect for Gollum's little island!

To complete the theme, I also got my hands on the Riddles in the Dark set from GW, and incorporated Gollum, the rock and the little boat into the board, making it the perfect setting to place Bilbo in between games. 

Lastly, I cut some holes in the ceiling of the cave to allow for some lighting, and set about painting everything. I sprayed everything with grey, before applying a wash with thinned-down brown paint, before drybushing various different shades of grey, with a final khaki highlight. The pool was painted with a dark blue contrast paint, before being covered with water effects – I then added Gollum's most recent Goblin victim and the boat – the cave was complete!

As for the walkways, I painted these in the same way as the bases for the Company – I was really pleased with how these came out. The only thing left were some Goblins for the Dwarves to be fighting their way through – I painted these before snipping them off their bases and gluing them in place (obviously taking care to make sure there was room for the dwarves! I tried to recreate the pale skintones they have in the film, before using yellow and orange washed on their pustules. The end result looked great, so much so that I'm thinking about repainting my existing Goblin Town army to match!

And so, here it is – my completed Throne of Skulls army and display board for 2023!

This whole project has been a labour of love from the very beginning – from planning out the board, to painting the dwarves and goblins, watching as the cave and walkways came together – it has to be one of my best hobby projects, and it also helped out massively with my model count – by the time I'd painted the last goblin, I was up to 200 models for the year! What was even better was the event organisers liked it so much, I received my first ever nomination for favourite army at Throne of Skulls!

I was absolutely thrilled to receive a nomination, particularly given that the standard of hobbying on display was phenomenal – I found myself in the company of some truly magnificent armies and display boards. I can only hope I repeat my heroics at next year's Throne of Skulls!