Painting Lord Of The RIngs Undead

So my painting exploits. limited as they are, have settled upon my Lord of the Rings models. I've got some base colours down on the Uruk-Hai and even pulled apart the Mordor Troll to turn him into an Isengard Troll instead, but that's for another post.

As an aside from all that brown paint, I decided to have a go at the Army of Undead… or at least the first ten models. They were sprayed with GW … White spray (which is actually light grey, and a pig to use at it leave bobbles on your models if the temperature is not optimum) then I touched up the undercoat with Administratum Grey (above). Then came the cool bit.

I saw a blog post somewhere a while ago (though I cannot remember where or find it for love nor money) a neat trick about using the GW technical paint Nihilakh Oxide for undead, so I thought I'd give it a go. It's quite a thin, runny paint so I put some on the palette then lathered the model in it to see what happened. Oh yes, these guys were swimming in it (quite literally when I knocked over the stupid paint pot!)

After leaving it for a while to dry I got to survey the results.

I really like where this is going. The colour in the photo is a little off as it's still quite green like the previous image, but looks good.

I suspect I should have painted the models white before applying the Technical paint as this would have made the high areas, and overall colour brighter. Having said that I'm happy to leave that for the King of the Undead to make him stand out more.

I MAY go back in with some thin white highlights along edges, but this would open the door to shading and another layer of the oxide…

I'm happy for this to be a quick win – Hurrah, I painted something!!

There are still another ten of these guys not yet built but I'll probably go back to my Uruk-Hai until I can order the King of the Dead to lead them. I also managed to acquire Saruman to lead my Uruks, as well as Lurtz and a couple of the Uruk Captains, but I'm in no hurry. I'm happy to have something I can post about!

October Construction

Having acquired both the Lord of the Rings starter set and the Star Wars Legion box set within the last month, there was only ever going to be one outcome – construction!!

Not being able to decide which to build first I decided to build both at the same time. And the outcome is as expected…lots of grey models. Of course this was all further complicated by the fact that I purchased an additional box of Uruk-Hai Scouts for LOTR and Imperial Scouts for Legion.

However, this has proved to be a very relaxing past time over the last month (which was needed) and will shortly involve actual brushes and paint. I currently have two basecoated units of Stormtroopers (waiting for a light grey wash), half a unit of undercoated Uruk-Hai Scouts (due a brown basecoat) and a unit of undercoated Army of the Dead.

The rest of the models consist of the remaining Uruk-Hai Scouts, a Mordor Troll, two units of Morannon Orcs, a unit of Rohan troops, then Imperial Scouts, Darth Vader and Scout Bikes.

I hope to post some images of the painted units as they progress, but which will happen first I cannot say.

Star Wars Legion – Getting Started

As soon as this game was announced there was an inevitability that it would appear in our house at some point – a 40k-esque wargame but with Star Wars characters – I'm just amazed that I held out so long.

I was at the Tabletop Gaming Live show at Alexandria Palace a couple of weeks ago on my birthday, and saw it being offered for a ridiculous £55. At that point the restraint melted, almost buckling completely as I threw in the Boba Fett expansion as well, and I came home a happy man – happy birthday to me. I'd seen the videos, read the blogs, but now I would finally get to see what was in the box.

The first thing to greet you when you lift the lid is Vader's mug staring at you. This is the rulebook and I have to say I've struggled with it a little. It doesn't seem as clear as the Imperial Assault rules were – maybe because it's a different game, maybe because I'm a year older and my mind is going, but I had to resort to third party YouTube videos to get the drift.

Removing the rulebook and token sheet reveals… lots of plastic bags!

This felt like a bit of a let down. The outer box itself is stunning and maybe I was expecting to have an unboxing experience like the recent GW releases, which in turn is trying to emulate what Apple does with their products. This felt very bargain basement cheap in comparison – all your bits in ziplock bags and chucked into a box to take home. It did not match the quality of the outer box, or indeed the Imperial Assault experience.

Then I was hit with another blow. Six years ago I wrote a blog post about unboxing a Warmachine Cryx starter set. My main criticism was the material used to produce the models – a sort of plastic resin – which didn't really work with plastic glue (my adhesive of choice) and meant working with excessive amounts of superglue.

Guess what – yup, same material here. The issue I have is how are models without tabs supposed to stay on a base when they're simply superglued in place – it's a disaster waiting to happen. It would mean that I have to pin virtually every model to it's base.

On the upside, the models are that little bit bigger than Imperial Assault which means we lesser mortals have a fighting chance of picking out the amazing details.

The stormtroopers are almost all 2-piece models and go together relatively easily. There are a set number of poses and I thought it was an opportunity missed not to have these a little more posable – my two units are going to look identical without the intervention of some fancy painting.

The big winner for me though has to be the Boba Fett additional model. He came in a host of pieces, which was quite radical compared to the models in the main box, but went together very nicely. I wasn't sure of the pose when I first saw it, but once the model was together it was a winner.

In fact, I don't even feel the need to add the clear plastic flying base – I'm just going to pin him on his base. I'm really looking forward to painting this guy!!

Given that Mr Awdry has now joined the ranks of Legion owners, we can look forward to a game or two next year I think. I have firmly decided to base my models for a snowy Hoth environment, and will (try to) build a few bits of terrain to match. I will also need a new snowy gaming mat (shame!).

I think had this been any IP other than Star Wars then this box set might have found a home in the back of the gaming cupboard never to be seen again. However, once the models were built (the bit I normally enjoy but didn't this time) I am looking forward to getting some paint on them.