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.

Rohan Update

It's been a little time since I last updated this, so I figured I do a progress update for the Rohirrim. Whilst not the only thing I've been working on (due to my concurrent Mordor army), progress has been slow. I vastly prefer the building and converting side of things over painting, but I do like to see the finished things assembled and painted. 

(The Army List for the above can be found in this post)

First thing I did were the King's Huntsman and the Outriders. This allowed me to practice my rusty skills a little, and I experimented with injected some extra red into the colour scheme. I knew I wanted the helmet tassels to be red, so it would help to tie to the scheme together to have some more. A red tint to the leathers seemed a good idea. The Huntsman lacks this red, though I may go back and redo the underclothes to be red rather than green to tie him to his unit.

For the cloaks I went back to one of my favourite ways to paint a weathered green, which I got from my first ever copy of White Dwarf (Issue 291). A Tale of Good and Evil documented the simultaneous building of Gondor and Mordor forces by a couple of writers, and the scheme was used for the Rangers of Ithilien. Using the then new Catachan Green paint (now renamed to Castellan Green), with highlight using mixes of Graveyard Earth (Steel Legion Drab) and Bleached Bone (Ushabti Bone). I've used the scheme multiple times for Rangers and Rohirrim, so bringing it back for Rohan's scouts made sense.

Next up was the four Riders. I wanted to clearly separate them colour-wise from the Outriders, to ensure the latter stood out, so here I tried an idea I'd seen on another blog. Instead of painting green, paint grey and stain green. After a big of experimentation, I went for a light grey, stained it with Agrax Earthshade, then with Biel-tan Green. This did tend to be a touch light and a bit too clean for me, so I did end up bringing the Castellan Green back as a drybrush. When I do Riders again, I will likely look at using a darker grey base. as currently I'm using a fairly light Administratum Grey. I do want to test a grey-brown like Steel Legion Drab instead however.

So Theoden and the Royal Guard are all that's left to go. I'll be looking to use a more royal green for the Guard's cloaks, though there should likely be some weathering done using Castellan Green to subtly tie them to other two cloak types. 

To make the Royal Guard a little bit more special, I've also converted two of the horses. For MESBG, there are only two official horse poses for your rank and file troops. They come in two halves that can be swapped, so that's technically four poses, but for an all-Cavalry army as Rohan tends to be, despite the hero horses, you will end up with a tonne of similarly posed horses before long. To help alleviate this, I chopped and swapped the heads of the two basic horses. It required a touch of green-stuff, but it helps diversify the force a little more than simply painting will.

The Future!

So naturally I've already started thinking about future expansions. The easiest addition will be another three Outriders, maxing out the Huntman's Warband. I painted a fourth archer alongside the other three, so grabbing a pack of the official metal models will be the simplest addition.

The astute amongst you will notice I've mentioned Deorwine's shield a few times, as the basis for those held by my Royal Guard, so I will be adding him in too as a third warband. This will almost definitely require more Royal Guard, but I like them a lot as a unit, so that's not a bother.

Finally, I recently picked up this particular Royal Guard model, whose long spear lends itself far too well to holding a banner. Theoden has been riding too long without being heralded, so he'll get that in the expansion to help those charges hit home.

Hopefully won't take too long. Of course, I still need to finish up Mordor too!