Last month, we encountered a group of wanderers heading towards the Throne of Skulls at Warhammer World and took a look at the armies they were readying for battle. Let’s catch up with some of our adventurers* to see how their hobby projects are getting on as the fateful date approaches!**
Lewis: So I have a few weeks left and, as ever, I’ve a handful of models finished and a kingdom full of models at various stages! The way I approach an army isn’t linear, as I will usually get bored repeating one process before moving onto the next. So, I like to have a variety of creative elements within the larger project to keep me motivated. This keeps me excited for the process and never feeling like any of it is a chore! If I’m not feeling like painting on a certain day, I will pivot to converting a model or adding to my display board, or even doing some bases, as I’ve been painting these separately and glueing the models on after they’ve been painted.
This time, I wanted to use some of the conversions I’ve done for the army. Both the Gondorian and Númenórean kings have been converted, with the foot versions being my favourite. I imagined this Númenórean king with the Palantír to be communicating with the Gondorian king in a time of need, whereas the mounted versions show them with their true fierce natures. It was particularly enjoyable, now that the trebuchet has a base, to be able to create a small narrative around that, so I converted some Lake-town Militia as some extra crew to go alongside the actual crew members who will be on the battlefield.
All in all, I’m just about on schedule and really enjoying the process. I’ve even had time to make myself a small display board! I wanted the board to be big enough to display the army, but also practical enough to carry it around at the event. I’ve used a deep picture frame for the board and the actual ruins on top are built onto a separate piece of MDF which allows me to remove them. This means that, during my games, I can drop the display down in the frame and use it as a dice tray! I do love functionality with these things, but we will see how this works at the event.
I’m very excited to use this army at the event and it will actually be the first time playing the list. I can’t wait!
Ash: I’ve started painting the bulk of the Warriors for the army already, which is understandably taking the bulk of the project time. However, Heroes are the heart of Middle-earth so I took a break to paint up some single models. I focused on a royal elite to start with: King Arvedui and mounted Argadir. It gave me time to put more effort into important parts of the army and break the overall project up into smaller painting sessions to fit around a busy life!
Once Argadir was painted, I decided to give him some mounted companions in the form of two Knights of Arnor. The models are fantastic and they give some much needed speed to my force. Horses also allow you to add some extra colour outside the main paint scheme, which is a nice break from batch painting.
Finally, I made a couple of objective markers for the army. The first is a Palantír, as Arnor has two of them before its fall, and the second is a plinth with a decorative heirloom helmet. Little side projects like this are perfect for Throne of Skulls as they add character to the army and break up the larger projects. On the day, I can switch objective markers out for them for some games. If there are no markers, then they work as thematic reminders for my army special rules, such as the Seeing Stones rule.
I’ve got an exciting game with Lewis to practise with my army before Throne of Skulls. I hope they don’t all die and come back as ghosts…
I’ve been asked a couple of times why I chose to do red instead of the traditional green. I chose red because I’ve set my Arnor in the Arthedain kingdom. For those who don’t know, Arnor gets split into three kingdoms: Arthedain, Cardolan, and Rhudaur. I wanted to show these different kingdoms in my collection with different colours. Arthedain felt like it should be red and cream; I thought Cardolan would look great in yellow and black; and Rhudaur, well, we know what happens there.*** So I’d like to add a King of Men and paint a warband from Cardolan in the yellow and black theme.
Good luck to Lewis and Ash, as well as Tom and Danny. And if you’re going to the Middle-earth™ Throne of Skulls event, good luck to you too! If you’ve been inspired by their work, you can pick up The Middle-earth™ Strategy Battle Game: The War of the Rohirrim™ – Battle of Edoras™ set to get started with two armies, including Heroes and Warriors, plus the full rulebook, scenery, and dice.
* This month we touched base with Lewis and Ash. Due to other commitments, Tom and Danny were otherwise occupied, but fear not, we’re hopeful they’ll have a full army ready for the actual weekend!
** This article will be published shortly before the Throne of Skulls weekend, but was actually written towards the start of November, so our hobbyists have plenty of time left to finish. They can still stick to the tradition of working the night before if they want, though!
*** Rhudaur very much falls and throws its lot in with the Witch-king, just in case you didn’t know!
