Hey all
I haven't been posting my two monthly paint updates this year as I have been working mostly on the Seven Stones project that James and I would use this year. That project was to be based around the Kinstrife and our forces would be those of Castamir and his sons.
Background
For those who aren’t familiar, the Kinstrife was a civil war in Gondor, detailed in the appendices of ‘Return of the King’.
To give a brief summary, the Kings of Gondor were of strong Numenorian blood. And so when King Valacar wed a woman of the Northern provinces, it was seen as the Numenorian blood being weakened by ‘that of lesser men’. They had a son, Eldacar, and as Valacar grew old, unrest began to be incited by those who didn’t approve of the ‘half breed’ as they called him, nor the idea of him ruling over them. The Southern provinces were the loudest in their disapproval and the loudest amongst them was a distant relative of Valacar, Castamir, the Lord of Ships.
When Valacar died, the rebellion began in full force and Osgilaith was besieged. Eldacar was driven into exile in the North and his son Ornendil was captured and executed by Castamir, who then crowned himself King. He went on to reign in a vicious and cruel way for ten years until Eldacar returned with an army comprised of men from the North, Rhovanion and Ithilien. The armies of both claimants met at the Battle of the Crossings of Erui, where Eldacar slew Castamir in single combat, ending his rebellion and reclaiming the throne.
Castamir’s sons fled after the battle and ended up in the city of Umbar, where their descendants would become the Corsairs.
Our plans
James and I had a brainstorming session about how we could go about making this army come to life. I’ll be going through my half of the army with a few references to James’ half here and there.
The first thing we noted, was that Castamir’s forces hailed from the Southern provinces and we could use a little imagination for how to create these men. We decided that James could have the tyrannical king and he suggested that since he was the leader of the Gondorian navy and his sons became the Corsairs, it would make sense for him to use that faction as his army.
I then had a think, and quickly came to the decision that my forces could be hailing from the land of Harondor, close to the borders of Harad and so could use that army for myself.
Next up, we had to think about what else we would use besides Castamir. Tolkien only mentions his sons, but doesn’t specify how many or any names, giving us some creative freedom.
I suggested that James have one, the eldest and the heir. And I would have two sons for myself. I suggested that James use the Knight of Umbar as Castamir as the harbinger and terror effects could be fear of the tyrant and then we simply don’t use the magic. James liked the idea, but in the end opted to make some further adjustments in a custom profile that will be in his post. He also chose a hero for his eldest son.
Meanwhile, I decided that one profile that I would love to use, would be Raza. The idea to have one son, who is a lunatic in combat and can be recklessly impetuous. I also made one small amendment to his rule, in that I decided it would not involve me choosing a hero before the battle to be his target, but rather if one of his family fell, the killer would become the target. If that killer was a warrior or random chance, instead he targets the enemy leader. I then had to choose a name for this character, and since James had used the ending ‘-amir’, I followed suit and going off the idea of tyrant, went for Tyramir.
For a second son, I didn’t want to use too many points and have no army, so I chose a Haradrim Chieftain mounted. Since he didn’t have any fancy rules, I decided that his ‘fluff’ could be that he’s more of a politician than a fighter. For some reason, I had taken to referring to him as Camembert for several months, until eventually adapting it into Camemir.
For my final hero, James was keen for us to use Hasharin, so I suggested that perhaps Castamir wouldn't have been above endorsing the creation of a group of killers and saboteurs in his rise to power. So we each got a Hasharin, and then to round out the group, I added a pair of Watchers of Karna. I then came up with the idea of naming the group Castamir's Scythe (hacking down any sprouting resistance) and we gave them all birds of prey names (The Raven, The Osprey, The Hawk and The Falcon).
With the heroes chosen, the rest of the army list just needed to be written.
My List
FORCE LEADER Tyramir, General of the South (Raza, Fang of the Serpent)
Swordsmen of Belfalas (Abrakhan Merchant Guard) x2
Warriors of Harondor (Harad warriors) x7 w/ 2x Bow and 3x Spear
Camemir, Governor of Pelargir (Harad Chieftain) w/ Horse
Errand-Riders of Harondor (Harad Raiders) x2 w/ War Spear
Warriors of Harondor (Harad warriors) x7 w/ 2x Bow, 3x Spear and 1x Banner
The Osprey (Hasharin)
The Hawk and the Falcon (Watchers of Karna) x2
Making the Army
Warriors of Harondor
Having decided that I wanted to use Harad warriors as my troops statline, and knowing that they are of Gondorian origin, I wanted to blend those looks. To give a lightly armoured troop look with overlying Gondor appearance. The whole army was going to be on bases made by Matt Davies of GenerationShift in case any readers like the look of them.
I also had decided that I wanted to make our troops have a mix of basic swordsmen so needed to convert a handful of them in too.
For all the troops, the idea that I settled on was to blue stuff mould a Minas Tirith breastplate and helmet. I would behead Harad warriors and then cut away their chests. I'd then glue on the replacing Gondorian gear and green stuff some sashes around the shoulders and waist to cover the rough edges of the breastplate (similar to the rivendell elf warriors).
For the spears, I blue stuff moulded Minas Tirith spear heads, for swordsmen their swords and their bows...wait for it....their bows. I ended up setting up a little production line, where each day after work and dinner, I'd unpack the previous day's mould and refill until I'd met the quota.
Concept 'art' below, if you want to contact me for digital design purposes, I suggest you don't.
For the banner, I chose a model who was in a decent pose to hold a banner and exchanged his spear for a long piece of paperclip, adding the banner itself with paper. I also gave him a sword in his right hand to keep him armed and ready to defend himself.
Once he was built, I then had to consider what the banner design should be. Initial thought was a white tree, with a black background on a yellow field.
Over time though, we changed that up a lot, deciding that Castamir would focus on his power (navy) so we should make the main sigil be ships. Eventually becoming three ships with a few waves above the Crown of Elendil on a blue background (blue felt more alike to our overall army tone). I also trimmed some of the bottom off and painted it to look scorched as if it had been damaged in the fighting.
Next up, were the swordsmen, these were an easier conversion just involving gluing a green stuffed hand with sword in place of a spear. I did then play with the head positions to make them all a little more dynamic and unique.
For the army's colours, I knew that if James was going for dark blue as his primary colour, I wanted something different that fits into that. So I ended up choosing a personal favourite, Incubi Darkness (a dark turquoise shade) to use as the colour for the coats of the army, underneath that for the trousers, I opted to go for Zandri Dust (a pale yellow) to contrast heavily with it. The undershirt was done in Corvus Black to mix nicely with the turquoise. The last of the main colours was simply Rakarth flesh for any that had cloaks.
For leg and arm wrappings, I went for Steel Legion Drab (a pale brown). For the various leathers, I used a mix of browns; armour on the neck- Catachan Flesh, the boots/gloves/shoulder pads/vambraces- Dryad Bark, and for belts and other leather straps- Rhinox Hide.
The sashes were a base layer of Mechanicus Standard Grey, with a highlight of Dawnstone. The skin was Ratskin Flesh with Kislev Flesh over the top. The sword handles were Balthasar Gold with Golden Griffon over it, its grip, inside the palms, was Mournfang Brown with Doombull Brown over it. And finally, the metals were all layered in order of Warplock Bronze, Leadbelcher and Ironbreaker.
I did two washes; Agrax Earthshade to the sword handle, leathers, trousers and skin. Nuln Oil to all else but the sword blade.
Everything had a quick highlight with its final colour over the top once again, and the armour had a small tough of Runefang Steel on its most raised edges.
Then for the spearman, it was actually a bit more involved of a conversion, as I had to drill holes into the hands to be able to slide the paper clips through (I wanted to make sure the hands lined up and this seemed easier than trying to measure just right). I’d then carve a small hole into the bottom of the green stuff spearhead and file the tip of the shaft into a point (to give a better and more secure fit than flat to flat) and fit them together.
In one of those moments where you just go where life takes you, I realised that this guy, who at first I thought could be standing guard with his hand in his belt, actually appears to be having a piss. And so decided with James to pose him in a doorway relieving himself on the display.
And finally, for the warriors, we had the bowmen. Most of the work for them was already done, as they had quivers on them etc., but since they were men of Gondor, I wanted them to have longbows. (I later was able to donate the Harad bows to my hunter orcs, so always save the spare bits people). And since Seven Stones is all about the detail, I decided to have w go at stringing the bows too. Getting some thread and doing what was one of the fiddliest bits of the whole project.
The bases of the army were done in a recipe that James came up with, which worked really well for Osgiliath.
Mechanicus Standard Grey-> Eshin Grey->(Drybrush) Dawnstone->(Very Light Drybrush) Karak Stone
I also made profile cards for all of our models, their photos were taken in front of a little display James had made with spare ruins pieces. I'll include each at the bottom of their section.
Errand-Riders of Harondor
The Errand-Riders got their name as we felt to justify their low numbers, we should make them primarily message carriers.
I wanted the Errand-Riders to have a slightly different appearance to the foot soldiers. So looking through the GW site locked onto the Royal Guard of Rohan. I decided that I could take a similar approach to the foot soldiers with the breastplate, helmet and sashes. I would remove the shields and cover the rough arm left behind with their cloaks slung over them. I also smoothed over the scale mail down their legs and decorated shin pads to make them into leather.
I had an issue as I was painting these guys, as the paint handle tipped over and broke the ankle of a horse. For the first time ever, and partly due to the weight of the rider, I went for a pinning fix on this joint, a little concerned by how narrow the join is.
I drilled a hole just wide enough into each side for a paperclip length (only ~2mm long) and managed to fit them together and make an almost unnoticeable repair.
Swordsmen of Belfalas
These guys were intended to be part of the small force Belfalas sent to aid Castamir, as we put in our fluff that the majority of their strength was dedicated to keeping the men of Dol Amroth busy. We felt that the Prince wouldn't turn his back on the rightful king.
These guys were very difficult to cut as the metal was very thick on the robes. Thankfully, they already have Gondorian breastplates on so I just needed to mould some sashes, attach some helmets and mould capes. The swords involved a little editing, so I trimmed some of the spikes and leather off the broad end, just to change them up a bit and lightly bent the guards into a more crescent and Gondorian fashion.
I also made a small change to the helmets, adding a little green stuff to the face, and poking some holes around the mouth, to give them a full faceguard.
These guys ended up being my favourite warriors and reminded me a little of the Stormcloaks from Skyrim.
The Hawk and the Falcon
The Hawk and the Falcon, as I stated above, were to round out the assassin group 'Castamir's Scythe', so I wanted them to look like heroes, even if they aren't really. I also wanted them to look like thugs that would terrorise their local population.
One easy thought was that they can wield knives in place of swords, as that won't cause confusion for our opponent's while fitting their character nicely and helping them stand out in the crowd. The second idea was to go into the movie cliche 'the main characters don't wear helmets'.
I blue stuff moulded the bald head of the Clansmen as this would be the most bland starting point. And moulded hair for them both, one I gave sideswept hair with a thick, beard. The other a parted mop and moustache.
I used two pairs of spearheads as the knives, trimming one pair down to small curved blades and leaving the other very similar to how they start, using the wider end of the spears as their guards.
I painted them up the same as the warriors, logic being that they'd dump their rags and take everything they could get their hands on for free at the cost of their employer, and gave the Hawk Corvus Black based hair and the Falcon Catachan Flesh based.
The Osprey
The Osprey was my Hasharin and the right hand man to the Raven. And I wanted him to have a really great assassin look.
I realised looking at the pack of Fiefdom heroes, that I could pull off a triple whammy. I instantly had some great ideas for Duinhir to be the Osprey, I had a good feeling for what i could do with Angbor, and guess who needed a spare Forlong to mount up in the future?
Since I was using the Hasharin profile, I could get rid of the spear and put a sword in place of it, but since it wasn't in a very natural pose, I wanted to put it facing downwards, resting its point on a stone. Since the sword is drawn, I would remove the hilt from the scabbard and also the bow from his back along with the quiver of arrows. Then change his infamous hand over for a spare from the pile of bits and make a small dagger out of green stuff for his dual wielding. Similar to the other models, I would add a breastplate and sashes, and for the final touch, would be to make a small mask to hide his identity and complete his transformation into a trained killer.
For his colours, I wanted to make him stand out as separate to the army, as we know a mercenary is loyal to his gold and not much else. So I went for a minorly unique colour scheme for him. Using the Incubi Darkness again for his shirt, but changed his cloak to a nice bright purple colour using Naggaroth Night with Phoenician Purple over the top.
Camemir, Governor of Pelargir
Camemir, I felt should have rather an ornate appearance, as he's a politician and not a real fighter. So I wanted to style him more off appearance than practicality. Using the third Royal Guard models as his base and doing a very similar approach to the Errand-Riders. I also gave him the spare plastic Eomer heads that I had, as I'll be doing him with his helmet, when I get to him.
I painted him in a different style, again going off the pomp and glamour thing, giving him a cream coat and bright blue cloak to wear over the top, also painting the tree on his chest in gold, partly to highlight him and partly because the tree from the mould hadn't come out too well on his mounted model.
Tyramir, General of the South
Tyramir was to be my force's leader and we opted to make him use the Raza profile. His name came from throwing together 'tyrant' with the '-amir' suffix meaning 'Prince/Leader' (in Islamic culture and assumedly the same in Middle Earth, considering those who get the names) appropriately making his name 'Tyrannical Prince'. He had one alteration detailed in his rules on his profile card. The reason being that I wanted him to be the army's hot head, ready to explode, if someone he cares about was to fall.
This guy ended up being my favourite model in the army as I went for a really dynamic pose to illustrate his fearsome nature. Using the Angbor model and needing to change his sword to a spear, one obvious change was to point the spear downwards. And then I was hit by inspiration, 'why would he carry his spear like that?', unless he's finishing someone off. My initial thought was to have a dead warrior beneath him, spear embedded in his chest. But as I was buying the bases from GenerationShift, I saw that the Heroic Bases had raised platforms...
I could make his pose be the kill strike at the end of a duel. *Cue more phone based artwork*
I went digging into my bits box and found several different Minas Tirith warriors, all with pieces missing, that I could blend together to make one man. The only thing I had to do was swap put a hand for a Harad spear arm, which was fine, and replace the spear head with another Minas Tirith one.
For Tyramir, I took away his sword, drilled a couple of holes through the hands for the spear shaft, ended up having to replace the lower hand as the drill annihilated it. And then added Duinhir's spear head to the shaft. Before checking it against the victim on the base, clipping the tip of the spear away and pinning him to the base, gluing the spear tip near the victim's neck. I used a little green stuff to reinforce the joint between spear shaft and blade, making it into a ribbon. One last touch after the sashes was to create a cape for him. Everyone needs a cape.
After these pics were taken, I went back and added some hair as he looked a little too alike to Angbor still.
When it came to painting, I did him in a similar style to Camemir, deciding that the politician would feel it's only fitting for the Royal Family to be above their inferiors. I also gave him red hair, to give a bit of a Scottish highlander look to him.
And finally, I had to paint the victim. Since he was one of Eldacar's loyalists, I checked with James on a colour scheme, as we may want to use it in the future. I decided to go classic Minas Tirith with a few little changes; Steel Legion Drab trousers, Deathworld Forest shirt and Waaagh! Flesh shield. We felt that since Eldacar had Arnorian blood, it was a good way to separate the two forces without being too alike to classic Minas Tirith. I gave James the recipe to use for casualties on his display, that we could scatter around Tyramir.
And with that, my force was built and painted!
Dice
One thing we knew we both really wanted to do, as it's a lovely memento for the event, is have custom dice. We both decided quickly that it should be a ship on the dice and it made sense for the dice colour to be blue.
I went to my go to site for custom dice and they conveniently had a blue that gave a very good water effect. I also went on google and found a ship symbol that was very similar to the corsair ships and, after a little editing, had a perfect symbol.
Putting them together worked a dream. We intended to give one to each of our opponent and to Damian and Tom, who were running the event, leaving us we three each afterwards.
If you run a corsair army and wanted to get yourself some of these, save the symbol pic above and go to https://www.counterattackbases.co.uk/custom-dice
You will want the marble blue colour and note that they only accept a minimum order of 15.
Objectives
Barrels
I found a set of scatter terrain/objective markers on eBay, that I could use as a base to build off of for my own.
To start with three easy ones, I began with the barrels. I decided that to give this some Gondorian appearance, I could simply take some of the malformed Minas Tirith helms that I had moulded, and recycle them to be laying on top of or beside the barrels, as pictured below. I would cut out as much of the head as I felt I could without destroying the helmet, then paint the inside black.
Chest
For the chest, again I wanted to make it seem more fitting. So having a browse through the bits that I had accumulated, I realised that I would soon have a crown of Elendil going spare. So it seemed that would be a good thing to place beside the chest as a looted Numenorian artefact.
Crate
The crate immediately leapt out at me as perfect for weapon storage. So I could make up some more spears in the same way as for the warriors and a couple of swords, with green stuffed handles and pommels.
In the end, all three had come out really nicely. I laid one sword across the crate instead of in it, partly to give a more natural feel and mostly because it looked a pain if I needed to repaint over any glue fume stains.
Sacks of Gold
This was the easiest one, as they came as sacks of wheat. Easily repainted to just be sacks of looted gold.
Banner of Castamir
For the banner, I would take a length of paperclip and glue a spearhead to the end. I would attach a strip of paper to it and paint the design on, before adding some small ripples into it by gently bending the paper to give the effect of it flapping in the wind.
The design, pictured below, was intended to be dark blue with a white ship and a white crown on it, adding more pieces as I went along.
In the end, I also added a star beside the flagpole, as it seemed empty there, and made the left-most part of the banner a dark turquoise, to match the main colour of my contingent. I also added some light shading to the designs, to stop them just being a flat white/grey colour. I finally added a gold trim along the outer rim.
Body of Ornendil
For this one, it explains where the spare crown of Elendil came from. You may remember in the fluff at the beginning I mentioned that Castamir executed Eldacar's son, Ornendil. Well since James was converting his Castamir to be holding the head of Ornendil, I thought it'd look great to tie that in with an objective marker for his victim.
Luckily for me, I had a spare dead Elendil, and not only does that mean he is on the floor and dead with no converting, but he is also in suitably regal armour for a member of the Royal Family. All I had to do was remove the crown and then his head too. I went for green as the main colour for the army, due to the connections by family to Arnor.
The Lost Palantir of Osgiliath
Now normally six objectives is enough and covers us for all scenarios. But Seven Stones has one last game, one that involves seven objectives!
For the final objective, I wanted to make the sunken Palantir that was lost when Osgiliath was besieged and the Dome of Stars was destroyed, rumoured to have fallen into the River Anduin.
Our initial idea was for James to leave a small hole in the river of the display board he was building. Then I could slot it inside doing a pillar of resin with the Palantir inside. Over time, we felt this would be difficult to achieve without meeting up, and also, with my partner turning out to be allergic to resin when she attempted making keyrings, I felt it'd be best not to do any near her.
So James mentioned the idea of making a snowglobe Palantir instead to have alongside the board, and make something else as the objective. When a lightbulb moment happened, and I thought of doing a snowglobe objective marker. Browsing the local Hobbycraft, I found watertight paint pots, I green stuffed the inside of the lid to make a riverbed, painted it up to look muddy, stuck a couple of tufts of grass on it to look like reeds and James sent over a solid black marble that I put inside.
The final touch was waiting until a week prior to the event, as I didn't want to risk the water inside evaporating. I filled it up to near the brim and added a touch of Agrax Earthshade and Runefang Steel, to give it a murky and sparkly look and it came out just as I had hoped.
Fancy Dress
I knew instantly that since James was intending to go as our lead assassin, the Raven, I would go as Castamir. Browsing amazon, I found a longsleeve chainmail shirt, a Minas Tirith shirt to wear as a surcoat over the top and a bright turquoise cape to match the heroes of my side of the force. Luckily for me, James had modeled Castamir to have a bald head and a thick beard. One half of that required no effort at all and I simply didn't shave from New Year onwards, the other I went with the blade the night before. But there was just one more thing needed...
A crown and I knew off the bat that the best thing for a pretender King would involve something like this.
So on the same trip to Hobbycraft mentioned earlier, I got a pack of Gold and Silver cardboard. I also printed off the Burger King emblem and got to work, making the crowns design a little closer to that of Numenor's. (The glitter stamps were the other half's suggestion and I took that as her well wishes for our wars to come).
I think it suits me.
James, meanwhile, had his outfit already sorted and had made it match the Raven's look.
And so, on the day of Seven Stones, the King and his Raven set out to war!
The Finished Display
It was epic...
James' work behind the scenes blew me away! He had nailed everything, including all the little ideas that I'd been throwing in in true backseat driver fashion. We had the sunken Palantir beside the rubble of the Dome of Stars, Castamir executing Ornendil upon the bridge, Arostamir standing guard to his dad beside it, Tyramir finishing off the last of the resistance, Camemir arriving with news and further submissions from foes, our guy on toilet break (behind the archers on the right), and the Scythe perched on the balcony over the river.
A very proud hobby moment.
How did it go?
We didn't perform badly in the tournament itself, the Tournament Report itself, will follow this in the near future.
In terms of the hobbying, the awards were given out; Best Display board went to Calum Rutter and Ashley Fisher for their Isengard food court, forever answering how uruks know what a menu is?, including several food stands such as 'McDunlands', 'Wargamama' and 'IFC' presumably Isengard Fried Crebain as well as multiple conversions of Dunlendings cooking pizzas, Uruks roasting meat on a spit and multiple little subtle details (I only noticed the poster saying 'BARRED (with a picture of Bard when watching the Entmoot Short on Youtube)).
The Most Honourable team award was picked up by Anthony and Jack Lines, who we didn't have the pleasure of playing, but must have been the loveliest of opponents to win the most sporting award at Seven Stones.
The Most Heroic Act was given to Tom Smith, not for actions on the table, or even at the event itself. But instead in a tattoo parlour, where he got a full back tattoo dedicated to the event! I can't compete with that, give the man his award! It was also on full display all weekend as he wandered around dressed similarly to Tarzan, to be a Woses man.
That just left the big award, the one we had gunned for with all engines on full this year. The more Damian said, the more convinced I became that another team had done it better, Tom's tattoo, the Davies brothers' army of Avengers, Larry chasing tennis balls all weekend...
It took what felt like an eternity to realise that Damian and Tom were looking at us and we'd heard our names. It was an overwhelming feeling of relief and euphoria to have achieved what we'd dedicated months of work into.
And no, we hadn't picked up on Damian's earlier subtle hints about how we weren't wearing our costumes...
Thank yous
I feel that there's a few people I should thank in their support for all of this.
One obvious pair is Tom and Damian for running, what is simply, the best event on the GBHL calendar. I don't know of any other event where the competition to do the best hobbying and be the most unique is more intense than the performance for the rankings!
Second to my other half Carrie, who tolerated my endless waffle about an imaginary civil war, hours of messmaking as I piled up plastic shavings around me and language when I dropped vital small pieces incessantly.
Lastly, to my doubles partner James, who has suffered my awful dice rolls sinking us for 6~yrs now and paired with me nonetheless. I could see this result meant so much to him and was happy to be able to help him achieve this huge bucket list item.
That's all folks, I'll be back to the usual paint blogs for the rest of the year now!
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