Orctober - 10mm Lord of the Rings Mordor Army

While the varnish on the F'yar Guard orcs was drying, I started on another group of orcs.  A long while back Bodvoc (or Merlin as he was known back then) and I started work on an adaptation of GWs War of the Ring for 10mm minis.  For various reasons* it didn't get much further than the planning stage and the painting of a few strips to test colour schemes.   Since then Bodvoc has introduced me to Fantastic Battles, which he is sure would work well for Middle Earth battles.  Looking at it I tend to agree as it uses a menu of traits applied to a limited selection of unit types, ideal for personalising troop types and with a points cost already calculated.  

So now I'm back on with the LotR big battles, just with a different rule set.

Fantastic Battles uses a company system of basing.  It doesn't really matter how many minis are in a company as long as the bases are all the same size.  Base width is important as it is used as the standard for measurement of movement, shooting etc.  Since we were already set up for 40mm wide  by 20mm deep companies for War of the Ring, we just switched to 40mm square bases.  

Bodvoc has already got a couple of armies done by rebasing minis from his collection (you can see his elves and his barbarians part way down this post).  I am copying his basing, going for around 12 minis in three ranks for most infantry, 6 to 8 for skirmishers and archers, 5 cavalry and 3 light cavalry (and trolls).  I am going to try and base my orcs in a more random irregular pattern though.  I don't think they would have the discipline required for properly dressed ranks.

I already have some of the Copplestone Castings Orcs that I painted as tests for colour schemes here. I also have various strips bought off eBay that are undercoated and have the weapons and armour painted.  Since it's Orctober, its time to get some more done.

Current progress on the Mordor army

The painting is pretty much the same as the test orcs I did back in 2020, though I've tones down the rather bright yellow by highlighting with a 50/50 mix of khaki and bonewhite.

This is going to be a much longer project than the F'yar guard.  Apart from orcs there are also wargs, trolls and a couple of ringwraiths.  I'd like to get them all done and based in one lot though, and I'm happy to lump them all in for Orctober.

You can see how the army progresses here, and see it completed here.

*Mostly, we couldn't quite get the profiles to reflect how we saw the various troop types in Middle Earth fighting and where we altered things we had problems with points costs.  War of the Ring is very much a game version of Middle Earth based on another game version (the Strategy Battle Game) based on a film version based on the books, so it often reflected a different view of Middle Earth than the one we wanted to play.

We realised we were virtually building the lists up from scratch, with no idea how balanced they were when we were also working on the rules.

Ultimately it seemed easier to start from the beginning with a new game.