Kings of War - Kingdoms of Men 7 - Foot Guard

I've completed the 500 points of Kingdoms of Men, but of course, I wasn't going to stop there.

I like the Oathmark humans set, so I decided to see what other unit entries I can make. I'd like to have a Foot Guard unit to give the army an elite(ish) unit. With De 5+ I want them to look better armoured, and they should all have swords (I know any hand weapon will do, but if they all have swords I think it looks more professional). I've already used the cloaked torso to make a hero, painting the plates as steel and the rivets as bronze. I can do the same for a guard unit, though maybe keep the whole lot steel.

The sprue has the cloaked torso and an uncloaked torso wearing the armour. When I looked closely, there is another torso wearing a coat, but with the same type of armour just visible. 

I also choose a lot of the 'leader' full helmed heads, saving the cavalry plumed helm for the leader. For variety I included a few helmeted heads.

These are some of my favourite poses.  The Oathmark Humans are a very useful set.

I'm still using Speedpaints, and the process was straightforward. I think I got the zenithal prime better this time, mostly by being a bit more patient when airbrushing.

Some of the minis have skin painted using Dark Wood, this gives an acceptable Northern African look, I was inspired by Dana Howl's video on skin tones.

As this is an elite unit, I gave them a bit fancier colour scheme. I used the blue and yellow colours on the coats, where worn, otherwise painting the 'skirt' yellow and the sleeves blue. Each mini got a red collar (and cloak where present). To give a bit more variety I mixed red and red in various ratios.

The shields got a red trident as a nod to the Ukranian flag, and there is a red trident on the flag.

This is another unit that I'm pleased with.  The Kingdoms of Men don't have much in the way of elites, but these are the closest to elite infantry.  I like the 'fancier' dress, with the yellow and blue being more obvious.  When I get around to painting some more ordinary infantry I'll go back to the blue coats and yellow stockings, and I'll make more of an effort to keep particular torsos for certain units.

I now have 750 points for this army, and I hope to get in a game with Bodvoc soon.  I think the next unit will be some more cavalry.

*EDIT*

The shields were given a quick coat of matt varnish to seal in the Speedpaints before I painted on the tridents.  These were a thinned black trident shape with red painted over it once dry.

The minis as a whole were given a light drybrush of Vallejo Model Color Pale Sand before varnishing to emphasise the highlights.  I've not done this step before, but i thought that being a Guard unit they warranted a bit of extra effort.

Lamps and AoS - Random Bits of News

I've recently found a couple of things for hobbyists to spend their money on;

Lidl are currently selling these daylight lamps for the reasonable price of £10, give or take a penny or two. I used to have a daylight lamp years ago until it broke, so I'm looking forward to using this new one. As I get older and my eyesight gets worse, I think I'll find it even more valuable for painting. 

If you want one you'd better hurry, they won't be available for long, and I suspect it's UK only.

The daylight lamp with obligatory 'for scale' minis

Now something of for less use to me. Hachette have launched another Games Workshop partwork for the Age of Sigmar game, Warhammer Stormbringer. It's not a game I play, but I might find something  of use.  This time they are covering a few different 'races'. For the Forces of Order are lots of the usual Sigmarines, plus Dwarves and what look like Tree-folk (dryads?) to my untrained eye.  The Forces of Destruction are mostly Orcs, but with some Night Goblins and a huge Giant.  There are also a few bits of terrain.  Everything is plastic, and from what I've seen, very nicely detailed.  The Sigmarines are much nicer than the earlier ones; they seem to have moved away from the Space Marines in Fantasy look that I felt the first lot had.  The Orcs are suitable big and fierce.  It all looks to be digitally sculpted, so there is a lot of detail.  

Now while I have no interest in collecting the set, I might get an occasional sprue of orcs and goblins.  Issue 2, which I believe is at a reduced price, is out soon, and includes ten orcs.  A nice start to a Dragon Rampant force?*

If you want to know more about what is in future issues, check out the updates on 

Fauxhammer (periodically updated to stay current).

* When the first of these AoS partworks was released I collected some of the Undead with the intention of using them in Dragon Rampant.  They are still in a box somewhere.

Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game Haradrim Battle Company

Yet another project.

Why Anotner Battle Company?

As part of my grand clear-cut, I've started looking at my Battle Games in Middle Earth collection. At one time I was collecting with the intention of playing The War of the Ring, so I amassed a lot for just about every army. I never really got on with WotR, and now if I want to play big battles I use Fantastic Battles. I do still like the Strategy Battle Game, especially Battle Companies, and my son, who is helping me sort the stuff out, suggested we run a campaign. This gives us a target of painting up a small collection and selling off the rest, (though I may keep a few more minis to play some of the story scenarios).

I've played Battle companies campaigns before, (you can see it twice on this blog, here and here) but I've always used a Mordor company.  My very first Battle company was when I was teaching in Sheffield, and the school games club played a lot of the Strategy Battle Game.  It seemed appropriate that, as a teacher, I played the evil side, and it's stuck ever since.  But with all the stuff we are sorting out I thought it was time for a change.

Why Harad?

I chose Harad, partly because I've never painted any before.  I have a reasonable collection of the plastic infantry, and somewhere a box of the cavalry. I've even got some metal command, but, alas, no Oliphant.  Checking the lists, there aren't that many other minis required. Some 'Serpent Guard' and a sort of eunuch guard, which are still available from GW, albeit in resin*.  Also, my son is collecting the Fiefdoms of Gondor, so we can imagine many skirmishes around the Battle of Pelenor Fields or raids into the Feifdoms by an ambitious Haradrim captain.

Recruiting the Warband

The starting Haradrim warband is four warriors with spears and four warriors with bows. Pretty achievable from my collection. A lot of my Haradrim warriors have already been assembled and undercoated, so time for a test mini methinks.  But what colours to use?

What Colours for Harad?

Tolkien gives a few descriptions of the Haradrim;

"'More Men going to Mordor,' he [Gollum] said in a low voice. 'Dark faces. We have not seen Men like these before... They are fierce. They have black eyes, and long black hair, and gold rings in their ears... lots of beautiful gold. And some have red paint on their cheeks, and red cloaks and their flags are red, and the tips of their spears; and they have round shields, yellow and black with big spikes. Not nice; very cruel wicked Men they look. Almost as bad as Orcs, and much bigger. Sméagol thinks they have come out of the South beyond the Great River's end..."

"For a moment he caught a glimpse of swarthy men in red running down the slope some way off with green-clad warriors leaping after them... a man fell, crashing through the slender trees, nearly on top of them. He came to rest in the fern a few feet away, face downward, green arrow-feathers sticking from his neck below a golden collar. His scarlet robes were tattered, his corslet of overlapping brazen plates was rent and hewn, his black plaits of hair braided with gold were drenched with blood. His brown hand still clutched the hilt of a broken sword."

...the main force of the Haradrim and there their horsemen were gathered about the standard of their chieftain. And he looked out, and in the growing light he saw the banner of the king [Théoden], and that it was far ahead of the battle with few men about it. Then he was filled with a red wrath and shouted aloud, and displaying his standard, black serpent upon scarlet, he came against the white horse and the green with great press of men; and the drawing of the scimitars of the Southrons was like a glitter of stars."

From this we can see that the film/game version differ quite a bit from Tolkien's vision.  The minis all have turbans, and are armed with either spears or bows; no plaited hair or scimitars or shields.

I'd like to keep my LotR stuff as true to the books as possible. The movies provide some reference, and clearly influence the minis. (I try and avoid the extra bits made up just for the game), but until I get round to kit-bashing something I think matches the description, I'm stuck with the movie/game version.  I can make sure that they wear red, and where they have cloaks these will be red.  Any armour will be bronze/brass colour.  I'd also like to reference their, supposed, desert origin (Tolkien suggested in an interview that south of  Harad - which just means 'South' - was  Africa, the hot countries, so the general assumption that Harad was vaguely North Africa isn't too far out).  As a side note, Gollum's comment about them being much bigger than orcs definitely tells us that most minis of Middle Earth orcs are far too big.

Testing the Colour Scheme

To try this out I painted up a Haradrim archer.  My choices were a dark red for the jacket, bronze for the armour, white for the trousers and shirt.  The various cloth bindings were dark grey, and I used a lighter red and purple for the smaller detail cloths, such as round the waist.

For reference, the dark red/brown was a base coat of Vallejo Game Color Dark Fleshtone layerd up with VGC Gory Red.  The white trousers and shirt were basecoated VGC Khaki and layered up with VGC Bonewhite and VGC Offwhite (I gave the turban an extra highlight of pure white).  The armour was basecoated VGC Tinny Tin, then layered up with VGC Brazen Brass and Glorious Gold.  

I should point out that all my Haradrim were bought in various lots on eBay, in many cases already assembled and undercoated black.  I didn't check to see if they needed any mould line removal, which obviously they do.  I'll try and get the remaining minis cleaned up before painting.

I do like the paint scheme I chose.  I'll alter it a bit going forward as I see the Haradrim as not wearing a uniform, but what ever is practical.  I've already got the rest of the starting warband prepared.  I'll get on with them soon, and I suppose I should think about any reinforcements and advancements.

*The Serpent Guard are actually currently available in metal as part of GWs rolling program of reissuing classic models.

Ral Partha Wizard and North Star Hero

I've just finished another one of my old minis. This chap is a rather splendid Ral Partha wizard, one of a small eBay purchase simply labelled 'Pre-slotta wizards'.  Now while I enjoyed painting him simply for the pleasure of painting a nice old mini, I did have another reason; I wanted a wizard to expand my Kingdoms of Men Ambush force. I chose to paint his robes in yellow and his cloak in blue to match the rest of the army. Originally I used Speedpaints, mostly so as to match the colours with the rest of the army, but the deep folds in the cloth didn't look quite right, the yellow especially. In the end I gave him a quick coat of matt varnish, then proceeded in a more traditional manner, layering up from a dark basecoat.

Mayster, battle wizard extraordinaire (hopefully)

As with most of these older minis, he was a joy to paint.  The original owner didn't do too good a job of cleaning off the mould lines. I thought I'd got them, but I missed one down his left  chest.  I thought it was part of his beard, I painted it as beard to hide the mistake.  The flowing robes look great, and I spent some time deciding what was what.  I did have plans to paint in decorative bands, but in the end common sense prevailed.

I also recently finished another character mini for the army, one of North Star's metal champions that accompany the Oathmark plastics. I have most of the infantry versions, though strangely not the wizard (hence recruiting the Ral Partha wizard above). As with the wizard, I started out using Speedpaints, intending just to add extra highlights as I did with the hero here. Unfortunately, when I varnished her the varnish frosted.  I put it down to it being cold and/or damp, but when I had the same result with the Spear Phalanx I realised the dregs of the can were the problem.  She got a bit more layering as a result, and I think I'll rely on layering rather than Speedpaint for characters in the future.

Anichka; Human general

As with the earlier hero, I gave her a purple cloak, otherwise she has pretty much the same colour scheme as the rank and file.  There's nothing particularly fancy about the mini, but its a good one and does the job nicely.  I'm actually using her as a general.

Rebel Fleet Troopers for Fistful of Lead/Galactic Heroes

 My next mini project is another Star Wars crew for Galactic Heroes.  This time I've gone straight for the original trilogy and a crew of the Rebel Fleet Troopers as seen most famously in the battle in the corridors of the 'Tantive IV' trying to defend Princess Leia.

Internet image from Star Wars a New Hope.

The minis have actually taken rather a long time for such a simple colour scheme. I've been busy on other things, amongst which was finally getting my garage set up with a work space for terrain building and other messy hobby stuff. The other reason was my repainting them part way through as I didn't like the colours I originally picked. 

The minis are pretty standard for the WotC.  There was quite a bit of flash, and some awkward fill between the arms of a couple of the troopers.   I deliberately chose a slightly different colour scheme for the uniforms, khaki trousers and light blue grey shirts.  There are lots of images online, and the colours range from grey shirts and trousers, as per the photo above, or white or blue shirts and black or khaki trousers. The mini with the blaster pistol had a different colour scheme anyway, and I wanted them all to match.

Painting wise, the trousers were all basecoated VGC Khaki, washed with a 50:50 mix of Army Painter Strong and Soft tone washes, and highlighted with Vallejo Game Colour Bonewhite.

The shirts were basecoated with a mix of VGC Steelgrey and VGC Wolf Grey, washed with watered down VGC Sombre Grey and highlighted with a drybrush of VGC Wolf Grey.

The jackets and boots were basecoated with a mix of VEO Heavy Charcoal and VGC Black, washed with VGC Black wash and drybrushed with a mix of Charcoal and VGC Cold Grey.

The helmets had the various lines painted VGC Wold Grey then the 'plates' were painted white, the visor black.

A few extra details were added, such as the holsters and belts in VMC Mahogany and silver for buckles and parts of the blasters.  

After varnishing the helmets were given a coat of Vallejo Silk Varnish and the visor was given a gloss varnish coat.  The matt varnish came out much more matt than usual, I don't know why.  It seems to have obscured some of the highlights.

Another mini project I'm pleased with.  They should make a good crew for Galactic Heroes.  I hope they last longer than they did at the beginning of 'A New Hope' or indeed the end of 'Rogue One'.  There are some nice additional minis I'll look out for, such as the officer in khaki uniform and sleeved jacket who gets aggressively 'questioned' by Darth Vader in the film, but these will do for now.

If you're interested, my first paint job had darker blue shirts from a basecoat of VGC Sombre Grey and the trousers were more brown. The original WotC painting had khaki trousers and the blue shirts seem common in the Star Wars: Legion community.

I've got at least a crew's worth of Hoth troopers as well, and I'm trying to get enough of the Rebel Commandoes, as seen on Endor, to make a crew of those too.