“The wolves of Isengard will return...”

Another group of miniatures ‘repossessed’ from my WFB armies, Wargs.

For the past dozen years or so, these five have been masquerading as Dire Wolves in my Vampire Counts army. Since the demise of WFB, they haven’t seen much action, so it was tom to bring them home.

In their former life, these Wargs were simply dark grey all over and then dry brushed with a light grey.

Rather than strip them, I worked up from that simple base, adding the brown on the hairier bits and going back to improve the detail on the mouth and face.

Obviously, there was also a base to do as well.

All in all it’s a job that didn’t take me long and I’m more than happy with the results. 

The only downside is that the models themselves have massive lines on one side where the joins are. I’ve tried to reduce this with green stuff, but they’re still very noticeable. However, it’s not so bad on models that, if things go well, won’t actually get on to the table.

As I’ve said before, cavalry in LotR need a separate dismounted model for the rider. However, in the case of Warg Riders, and one or two other cavalry types, there’s also a chance that the mount will stick around after the rider has gone.

Therefore, these five should be plenty cover for a box of six Warg Riders being dismounted. They can also operate independently if I decide to field an Angmar or Mordor army led by my Ringwraiths.

Unfortunately, Isengard cannot field Wargs on their own, and so I am going to need to get hold of some Warg Riders. I already have a dozen Orcs to use as dismounts that came in one of my eBay bundles, but for the Warg Riders, I shall be picking up a new box from Outpost in the not to distant future. At less than £15 for six cavalry models, I’d be hard pressed to find them cheaper elsewhere.

As ever, if you’re tempted to do the same, follow the link below:

Outpost Warg Riders £14.40

“The eagles are coming!”

Today I present Tolkein’s deus ex machina and definitely not a metaphor of divine grace swooping in to save souls from the fires of hell, the eagles of the Misty Mountains.

The smaller of the eagles is one of the survivors of the regrettable cull of my LotR collection and was drafted into my Wood Elf army for WFB, where it performed stirling service redirecting, march-blocking and generally annoying my opponents.

In fact, during 7th edition, eagles were so good at frustrating enemy movement and buying time and space to set up devastating flank attacks, that I thought I’d get another.

Although this one has the same pose as the original Gwahir model, it’s not the same size. However, for now I’ll be using this one as the King of the Eagles.

After WFB 8th edition made positional play, terrain and Wood Elves in general totally irrelevant, the Eagles went into hibernation until Kings of War allowed them to take to the skies again under the guise of a unit of Dracon Riders.

Again, they have done excellent work and have functioned effectively as part of my probably somewhat bent army.

However, my return to Middle-Earth has called them home. For the original eagle this has meant the fourth base of its existence and a heavier dry-brush to bring out more detail from the feathers.

‘Gwahir’ was given similar treatment but I’m not overly pleased with the white feathers. However this is mainly due t the fact that I’ve never been happy with them and have retouched them so much that some of the detail has been lost.

In game, the Misty Mountains is a separate army, but I’m not sure if I’ll expand it. Importantly, the eagles can ally with the Fellowship with no penalties, and so I am likely to experiment with putting an eagle or two with Aragon, Legolas and Gimli, justfor research purposes, obviously.

The eagles aren’t the only creatures of the wild that are being recalled to Middle-Earth from other games, however, the others are less than likely to be as noble as Gwahir’s clan.

“Death! Death take us all!”

Well, actually...no. Let’s not follow Eomer’s pls and all die. To this end, I’ve given the model of Eomer I painted last week a shield.

It seems a wise decision as Eomer is the most expensive model in the Rohan army list, therefore, giving him a bit more protection it a bit of a no brainer.

The shield itself is one I had left over from a long time ago when I did my Saga Vikings. Actually, I had a couple left over, which was fortunate as it allowed me to also give the same shield to the dismounted version of Eomer I’ve just painted.

I followed exactly the same painting process as for the mounted model, but this time it felta lot quicker. I bought the model off eBay and had lost the blade of its sword in the post (it was in the same bundle as the horses whose ankles had snapped).

However, I’m fortunate that the mounted version of Eomer is ten a penny on eBay (due to being an early freebie with the LotR Battle Games magazine) and every Rohan eBay bundle I’ve bought has had at least one mounted Eomer in. Therefore, a hand swap was easy to organise.

That’s it for now. I hit a bit of a painting rut this week because I’d come to the end of a large batch of models and not got anything else underway whilst I was I was doing them. I always find starting a batch from scratch a bit daunting and so it’s easier to get the batch moving whilst I’m finishing off other stuff.

However, Eomer and the 80’s BBC radio play of Lord of the Rings came to my rescue and gave me something to focus on whilst undercoating and base coating all manner of birds, beasts and baddies for the coming weeks.

I’ll forego my usual shameless plug as I believe the character models for Lord of the Rings at currently only available direct from Games Workshop, and are not actually badly priced for the Evil Empire. However, the second hand market should allow you to track down a foot Eomer for significantly less than you’d pay new, and you’ll have a job to not find a mounted Eomer or five going for a song.

Happy hunting!