Tree? I am no tree! I am a Twig

Some of my girlfriend's favourite characters from The Lord of the Rings are Treebeard and the Ents, alongside Merry and Pippin. To this end, last year I bought her the plastic Treebeard model, and this year we're going a step beyond and attending a doubles tournament where she can finally let loose with a Fangorn list.

She's beaten me once in a test game where her Ents hurled the Grey Company like confetti so I'll be more than happy to have her on my side. 

With 400pts for each player, Treebeard alone won't be enough, and in my usual fashion I didn't want to just field two of the official Ent model or one of the named Ents as an unnamed one (let alone take the hit to my wallet). Followers of my Instagram will have seen the progress updates, but instead, I picked up some fallen sticks from a local park, dried them out in the oven and set about with the superglue towards building a vaguely humanoid shape.

The is simply twigs, and I used bark that chipped off to cover joins and bulk out certain sections.

A spare Treebeard hand worked for one limb, but for other I found grape stems worked really well when grouped together properly.

The only non-natural components besides the plastic hand is then the face, which I didn't fancy trying to whittle or piece together, and elected instead for a bit of greenstuffing work.

And so, the final result. He stands a touch taller than Treebeard, so I think it's fitting to be an Oak Ent with the extra bulk taking the form of an extra wound.

I'm really happy with how this came out, and hopefully it will look even better once we getting the painting and flocking done (that's down to my girlfriend).

Next time, I'll be going from the perhaps epitome of life in the form of tree shepherds, to something much more undead. Until then, check out my Instagram and I'll catch you next time.

Shieldmaidens of Rohan

After a much tinkering and procrastination, I finally finished the three Shieldmaidens of Rohan that I started back in June. Each one has a foot and mounted version so I've averaged a model a month, which is quite the poor show. In either case, here they are:

I've gone quite simple with this, and kitted them out in three wargear options available for Riders of Rohan (even though it's technically only two, it just depends on which weapon they are holding). This is simply because that is what they will represent on the tabletop, and it is a great way to add variety to my force of Riders as it grows. I really try my hardest to avoid duplicating models where possible.

The base of each shieldmaiden is one of the female Mirkwood Ranger minis. I wanted them to be "authentically female" rather than just giving a normal warrior slightly longer hair or something. Without going third party, the GW range has limited female options, most of which are hero options (Eowyn, Arwen and Galadriel). The Rangers however offer a good mix of options that are relatively easy to "Rohan-ify" and come in plastic, which is much easier to work with than alternatives.

Most of the rest of the components then come from existing Warriors or Riders of Rohan, although I did take some hands and weapons from 3D printed Rohan scouts (I believe they are Medbury). This was because they have smaller scaled hand sizes that better matched the Ranger's own. The Rohan models hands seem almost twice as large.

So, why Shieldmaidens? They don't exactly exist in the lore and Eowyn is the big exception to the rule. I have three reasons:

1) They add variety to my army.
2) They represent my girlfriend and two daughters.
3) They represent the real-life female jockeys that made up the cast of Riders in the Jackson films.
4) It's a bit of fanfiction that I accept is lore-innacurate.

With the upcoming "War of the Rohirrim" (WotR) film (two days away at the time of writing), the fairly recent culmination of Rings of Power's second season and also the recent announcement of the Hunt for Gollum... duology? Trilogy? (Tolkien help us), the conversation around Middle Earth canonicity is huge right now. I generally fall on the side of "stick to the canon" but not without wiggle room for a good adapation. For example, the Jackson trilogy? Good adapation. Rings of Power? Bad adaptation. WotR? Remains to be seen.

WotR is ostensibly the story of Helm Hammerhand, one of the greatest kings of Rohan and reads as almost mythological. It's the story of a man driven to wrath when his country comes under threat from both outside and in. What we are getting in the upcoming film instead seems to be the story of Hera Hammerhand. Whilst this character exists in lore (unlike RoP Isildur's sister. Where's Anarion gone Amazon?), she is little more than an unnamed plot device. Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing, Tolkien's writings on Helm is a mere two pages, and addresses a period of several years. There is scope to build a story around Hera or her brothers there, however the film I want to see is about Helm and the war between Rohan and Dunland during the Long Winter. So long as we get that faithfully, even if Hera is the main character, I will be happy with the film... assuming it is well-written of course.

We know why we are getting this story as well. Ostensibly the producers wanted a female-led film. One set in Rohan, with parallels to Eowyn is an easy selling point. Middle Earth's stories are limited to Eowyn, Luthien and Haleth for good female-led options, and two of those are Simarillion-era stories, and not well-known to the average Lord of the Rings fan. That last one also being the name of Hama's son in the Jackson trilogy also throws people off.

I'd originally written a long rant extolling the virtues of good adaptions and trashing Rings of Power, even bringing up various video games (some good and fun, but very lore-innacurate) and The Hobbit films (bloated a messy with some good sections), but it's a discussions that's been done to death.

It's easy to say there is no perfect adaptation of Tolkien's works. Jackon's films are perhaps mostly highly ranked (excepting The Hobbit trilogy), but even it has gaps and changes. Tom Bombadil and The Scouring of the Shire are big ones many people point out, but I personally miss Aragorn and Eomer's banter at Helm's Deep, The Passing of the Grey Company, and Theoden slaying the Serpent King.

So, how am I resolving my shieldmaidens into the lore of Middle Earth? They will simply exist in my army as women who picked up thier husband's gear in their stead, be they away figthing, hunting or just dead. Rohan is a country with a long history of war, and there is many a time where the women of Rohan may have had to take up arms to defend hearth and kin. They just may not have ridden as official members of an Eored. I don't think this detracts from Eowyn's story, and I think it is lore-friendly enough.

Until next time.

Orctober 2023

I have no idea what its origins are, but October has become known as Orctober in hobby circles, so for MESBG it naturally gives me chance to finally got some of Sauron's finest assembled at painted. This started with a little bit of inspiration when I picked up a box of bits leftover from one of Etsy's 3D printers. This had some bodies designed for some Far Harad camel rider proxies, and the tribal stylings looked ideal for some Orc Trackers.

I already had a set of Hobbit-era Wargs. Whilst I like the LOTR Hyena-Wolf things, the plastic models we have for them are really lacking, so I vastly prefer these. I sourced parts from a mixture of Morannons, the Warg Riders sprue, Riders of Rohan and a random Haradrim archer I had lying around.The smallest bit of green stuff to fill a couple of holes and the results speak for themselves I think:

 And painted.

The rest of the warband I had technically started a couple of years ago, but got distracted before I could finish them. The Morannons were base coated, and Kardush I'd finished converting from yet another Morannon and plenty of Green Stuff. I'm quite proud of him in particular, close enough to the original model that there's no confusion who he's supposed to be.

 My Kardush versus the original model, I'm no GW painter, but I am a casual hobbyist.

I gave the Morannons the standard colour scheme, and they'll work well for the rank and file (especially when I get the rest done, probably next October now).

 

 

And there we have the full warband. It's been nice to actually complete a monthly challenge for once. My hobby time is very ad-hoc even when I have the inspiration and desire to do it, but I found sitting down at least a couple of nights a week, even if just for an hour, has done wonders for actually finishing this. It did come down to the wire though, and I was sat applying the grass tufts at 11:30pm on the 31st after taking the kids trick-or-treating.

The other thing was that it was nice to not have to paint green for once! A short lived break before I return to Rohan and the Helmingas.