That time of year is upon us again, as hobbyists frantically try to get armies painted, display boards built, costumes made (for those who are either really dedicated, mad or a little bit of both…) and push the standard of hobbying ever higher. Yes folks, Throne of Skulls season is here!
For those not familiar, Throne of Skulls is hosted at Warhammer World in Nottingham, and is easily one of the best tournaments on the hobby calendar. Each player takes a 1,000 point army, and the focus is more on the way you play the game, rather than your actual results – whilst points are awarded for winning games, points are also awarded for sportsmanship and hobbying, with players getting to vote on their favourite games and favourite armies.
The level of hobbying on display is also of epic proportions, as the attendees produce fantastic conversions, outstanding army painting and display boards that take your breath away. I may sound like I'm fantasising a little bit, but I'd like to think anyone who has been to a Throne of Skulls event would agree with me. It is a fantastic event, which is why tickets are so highly sought after!
However, before diving headfirst into Throne of Skulls preparations, I needed to finish my Easterlings. The centrepiece of the army was The Dragon Emperor, atop his royal palanquin. This was without a doubt one of the most laborious paint jobs I've ever had to do, because of all the various different sub-assemblies he had to be painted in – the Dragon Emperor and the palanquin bearers were all painted separately, and the palanquin had to be painted in several separate pieces, before I glued the whole thing together. However, I was really pleased with the end result – I'd used the same techniques on the Dragon Emperor as I had on my other Easterlings, so the whole army ties together nicely, and he really does stand out on the tabletop.
The last two models for my army were the War Drakes of Rhun – these are also very unique compared to the rest of the Easterling range, and have proved very popular since they've come out (or, at least, I assume so as they're currently out of stock). They were a bit of a challenge as they paint up completely differently to the rest of my army. I still painted the armour in the same way, but used different shades of green for the scales – I'm not planning on getting any more drakes for the moment, but if I do, it will be fun to try out different colour schemes for each of them – good luck to anyone planning a full army of them! With the drakes painted, I based them to match the army and my Easterlings were ready to go to war!
In between work on the Easterlings, there were also a couple of Battle Streams in Middle Earth evenings, which were themed around Tom Bombadil – a perfect excuse to get him and Goldberry out of my backlog and painted! They were quite fun to paint as they are also completely unique models compared to what would normally go in an army – they're also not in the films, which means there's not really a visual reference for them. Fortunately, we still have Tolkien's words, so I used the descriptions from Fellowship of the Ring (Tom having a blue coat, brown hat and yellow boots, and Goldberry being dressed in green), and I had two more models completed!
As to models painted for the year, with Tom and Goldberry done, my count is now up to 136 models! I'm very pleased with progress so far, and hopefully my efforts for Throne of Skulls will help me get close to 200 models for the year.
So, to Throne of Skulls itself! For this year's event, I decided to build on an existing army rather than start an entirely new one, my reasoning being that it would save time only having to paint a few additional models, rather than a whole army.
My starting point was the Realms of Men army I took to the Grand Tournament, which was 700 points of Minas Tirith - 24 warriors, 10 knights, a King of Men, 2 captains, a banner and a war horn - a nice solid base from which to start.
My next task was expanding the army, and after perusing a few different Gondor army lists, I settled on Atop the Walls – the core of my Realms of Men list came from the Minas Tirith Battlehost, which meant I had Gandalf the White and Pippin ready to be added to the army. Gandalf also conveys a courage bonus in the list, meaning I could ditch the war horn and save myself some points there. I also decided I wanted a few Citadel Guard in the list, and the best hero to lead them for me was Iorlas. As to other heroes, I was a bit undecided – captains would be useful, but had proved a bit ineffective at the GT. Fortunately, in the midst of my list planning, Armies of Middle Earth was released, and it had two heroes I was more than happy to add to the list – Hurin the Tall, Warden of the Keys, and Beregond, Guard of the Citadel. Beregond has had a bit of a glow-up in the new edition, so I'm looking forward to seeing how he performs. Last but not least, you can't have Atop the Walls without trebuchets, so I added two! My list for Throne of Skulls was complete!
So, at the time of writing this blog, it is Friday, 3 October 2025. Throne of Skulls takes place the weekend of 28 / 29 November, giving me just a little over 8 weeks to build and paint the army, and prepare my display board, which of course has to be the walls of Minas Tirith (after all, you can't have "Atop the Walls" without a wall…). And I am happy to say that progress on the army is well under way!
I'm aiming to be back with my next blog post at the end of the month to showcase the finished army, which hopefully leaves me the whole of November to work on the display board, which will then be the subject of a further blog post – fingers crossed everything goes to plan!
