Sunday 27 September 2015

Isengard - War of the Ring in 1/72 scale

Its been a busy time and almost a month since my last post.

Isengard in 1/72 scale
 
So "what have I been up to you lazy slob", I hear you ask?

Well, my beautiful wife and I decided to swap some rooms around and I found myself moving my "Man Cave" to a new room. So been a busy time packing everything and transferring it all to a new room. Good news is that I am getting a custom 6x4m table built for my new Man Cave! So got to be happy about that!

I have been able to do some limited painting during the move as well and I have finally finished a few companies for my 1/72 scale War of the Ring project. So here are a few pictures of the beginnings of my Isengard army. Most of these mini's are from Dark Alliance.

Uruk-hai Phalanx
 
Core infantry units at 1/72 scale fit nicely with two mini's to a stand. They also give the appearance of a more closely packed troops, which looks great on the battle field. 

Uruk General

The Uruk Captain / General figure comes with the Berserkers and looks great.

Uruk-hai Berserkers

The Berserkers are also really nice minis. Being a specialist unit, I have mounted them one figure to a base (like I will the missile troops). Given that they are swinging large two-handed swords, having them spaced out one to a base suits them. Several of the models come complete with arrows imbedded in them and in dying, or dead poses. It was an easy thing to cut the arrows off them and stand the model upright. These dead'ens fit right in with the other more alive Berserkers. The arrows were put to good use on the General model as you will see below.

Brutus, the Isengard Troll

The Isengard Troll (named Brutus) towers over the other models and is a Games Workshop figure. Even with the scale difference (1/72 vs. 28mm) the troll looks to be the right height and capable of felling an entire company with one swing of its sword.

Isengard Phalanx

For the Isengard flag, I found a suitable image via Google Images and scaled it to make a flag for one of the pikes held by the Uruk-hai. This base then easily identifies the Command Company for any Formation of Uruk Phalanx.

Brutus up close and personal

Brutus running away. A bit of pumice and driftwood adorning his base

El Capitan highlighted with the flash

You can see the arrows cut from the Berserkers attached to the base of the General to add extra character.

The General again

Berserker company

The Berserkers just need the white hand painted on their bodies to be finished off. Something I forgot to do before taking these photos.

Final shot of the General

Still lots more to do, but this is a long project.

I'm currently working on a new 10mm army and furiously painting away whilst the desire carries me onward. I'll show off some of them in a future post, but no spoilers for now.

So there you go! Haven't fallen of the face of the Earth. Just been a tad busy.

Till next time...

Tuesday 1 September 2015

Army of the Dead - Ghostly Riders in 1/72


Well, a new month and officially the first of Spring (we'll according to the calendar... the orbit of the Earth and its tilt really saw spring start Downunder a little while ago... just having a whinge....anyway, I digress, back to this blog post....).

So being the time of renewal, I thought I would post some images of my recently completed dead things. Namely, my War of the Ring Gondor Army of the Dead Riders / Angmar Ghostly Riders. These could also work well for Warhammer as Vampire Counts Skeletal Steeds in 1/72 scale...hmmm have to think about that one a little more!


To paint them, I followed the same process as for the infantry in the post here.


Being 1/72 scale the miniatures work nicely on the standard eight base infantry tray.


This has the added benefit of making the cavalry more easier to move than on the standard two miniature cavalry base, and also makes the cavalry seem more menacing as they are packed together more tightly on the eight base movement tray.


My only reservation about putting Cavalry on the eight base movement tray, rather than the standard two base tray, is that I may need to adjust the WotR stats by 4 times to reflect the eight bases on the tray.


However, this may work out well in the long run. Given that a standard WotR Company of cavalry is only two bases to a movement tray, this means that the eight bases movement tray will equal a total of four companies. So bottom line, I get a total of four companies of cavalry to a movement tray, rather than just one company.

Still have to give this idea a run on the battlefield. So more to paint and a future game and battle report to try this all out. So keep watching this space!