One of my staple hobby events, and usually the event that kicks off my hobbying for the year is the Middle Earth Grand Tournament at Warhammer World. Two days of games, the Green Dragon pub quiz and of course free access to the exhibition, where you can see all of the models and the glorious displays the GW team have made to show them all off.
Unfortunately I wasn't able to make the event last year, and my hobby motivation did suffer as a result. This time, however, it was the opposite – my hobby mojo kicked in full force (and also partly motivated I would say by the distinct lack of hobbying I did last year).
My armies were fairly simple – an idea had been in my head for some time, and I decided to run with it for the GT. Now, I could have just gone through my collection and worked out exactly what I needed to build the armies, but that would have been too easy. Instead, my silly brain decided the best thing to do would be to create both armies completely from scratch!
The theme I decided on was the fall of Minas Ithil, so it would be the armies of Minas Morgul (basically a nod to the fate of the city), and Minas Tirith. However, I couldn't use any named heroes as that wouldn’t have fitted the theme. Fortunately, the new Armies of Lord of the Rings had an army list I could use – the Realms of Men, a list that allows you to field Kings of Men alongside warriors from Gondor, Rohan, Dale and Numenor.
The basic core of my armies came from the Mordor and Minas Tirith Battlehosts. The Minas Tirith force contains 6 knights, 24 warriors, Gandalf the White and Pippin – I set these last two aside for a future project. Mordor contains the Witch King, 24 Mordor Orcs and 6 warg riders – again, I set the wargs aside, but I haven’t decided what to do with them just yet – they may well join the army in the future.
With the core of the armies established, I set about adding to my forces. I needed a King of Men to lead my defenders of Minas Ithil, and I wanted him mounted to lead my knights. As GW doesn’t (currently) make a mounted version, I set about converting one. I started with the captain from the Minas Tirith Commanders set, cutting him in half at the waist – I then did the same with a spare Knight I had lying around, before swapping out the head with one from the Knights of Dol Amroth kit. I then added a lance and a shield, and my new Castellan of the city was done!
The rest of my army was pretty simple – I added the banner and hornblower from the Commanders set, and then added a few more knights, including one with a banner. I then added two captains, and my good army was ready for painting!
For Mordor, I wanted the Witch King to be accompanied by some fellow wraiths, so I added two on horseback, before adding another dozen orcs, a drummer, banner and finally added some spectres – these are very useful in a Minas Morgul army. Minas Ithil was ready to fall!
When painting the army, I used a fairly simple scheme for my Warriors of Minas Tirith – I started with a black basecoat, before spraying them with Leadbelcher, washing them with Nuln Oil, and then drybrushing the armour with Ironbreaker, and then edge highlighting with Stormhost Silver. I did the same for the weapons, but used Iron Hands Steel, which was slightly brighter, so that they'd stand out from the armour. For the cloth, I used Corvus Black, which has a slightly bluish hue, highlighting it with Dark Reaper and then Thunderhawk Blue. I then picked out the brown details, using dark brown as a base, and then alternating between a lighter brown for the weapons such as the bows and spears, but a more orangey-brown for the belts and straps. The end result was a great looking force, that painted up in a fairly short space of time.
The Knights, King and Commanders were all painted in the same way as the Warriors, with just a little bit more attention to ensure they stood out from the regular rank and file troops. For the horse, I stuck to a limited palette of blacks, greys and browns – looking at the films, you don't actually see many white horses. I then mounted my entire army on custom bases to represent the walls and streets of the city – the white bases really help the models stand out.
Orcs are a little trickier to paint in the sense that they have no uniform theme – painting them was mostly a case of applying various basecoats, washes and highlights, mixing up the colours so that no two orc sculpts look the same. It's surprising how different models can look just by painting the cloth and skin different colours. As with my good force, I spent some extra time on the banner and drummer to make them stand out a bit more.
For the Ringwraiths, I wanted to try something different, as I usually paint them using dark greys, working up to a light grey. Instead, I decided to use a cool blue tone, and actually ended up painting the robes in the same way I'd painted the cloth on my Warriors of Minas Tirith. Last up were my spectres – I painted these in the same way I had my existing elves and Numenoreans, before applying a green glaze over the whole model to give them an ethereal look – the end result turned out great!
Last but not least was the display board – I'd managed to find some 3D wall and gatehouse files, which Dewi from Guardians of Wiltshire kindly printed for me – always useful to have a friend with a 3D printer!. I then bought two Gondor Mansion kits, and experimented with how the kit can be put together – these kits really are a masterpiece of design, allowing you to create all sorts of different architectural designs – I settled on a large, square shaped design for the main building, and then used leftover pieces to create an L-shaped design to accompany it. Throughout the build process however, I saved various floor and archway pieces, allowing me to create the bridge that leads into the city – my plan was to have my orcs charging across it, flooding into the city. I added some foam parapets for the bridge, before incorporating it into the board.
As to the overall layout, I built up the landform with foam, before gluing down lots of bark pieces, and covering them and the area in front of the walls with modelling compound, which I then covered with a layer of scenics. Behind the walls, I used a textured roller in order to create a paved street pattern – this did cause some issues, as there were some areas where the roller left little to no impression – these however were fortunately covered up by additional details I added later. The main issue I had was trying to create the water effect for the river – I used textured sheeting to try and create the rippling water effect, but unfortunately in several areas the glue either dried opaque or, weirdly, didn’t dry at all. Ultimately however, I was very please with the overall look and feel of the board, and seeing it covered with all the models looked great – the Castellan leading his knights in a desperate charge to repel the invaders, whilst the Warriors try to defend the walls from the attacking orcs.
As for the event itself, the armies didn’t perform that well – I managed a single win with Minas Morgul, whilst the Realms of Men sadly lost all three games. Whilst my tactics were fairly solid, most of the time the luck was more with my opponents – a common trend was them getting the clutch 6 they needed to win fights. However, despite the results, all six games across the weekend were a huge amount of fun, and were all played in really good spirits!
So, to the model count for the year – having painted both my armies, plus an extra couple of orcs who got painted at the same time, my painting court for the year already stands at a whopping 84 models! I am super pleased with this progress, given I'd painted less models than that by September of last year – I'm really motivated to get through my other hobby projects for the year, but exactly what those are will have to wait for another time…
