A Testament to the movies, the books, and to biology

I am aware I did a post like this earlier, but I have a much better way of going about it that I will show pictures of eventually. I recently got a job coach to influence my employer selections' decision about interviewing me so that at least one of them offers me the job, So I'll be saving up for the equipment I need to run my show, The Sane Madman's Troll Science, and more relevant to this topic I shall be saving up for more Citadel miniatures.

I compared the two yellow metal colors from Citadel, Sycorax Bronze and Gehenna's Gold, and then watched the Easterling scenes again, and Sycorax Bronze was the better testament to films 2 and 3 with regards to Easterling armor coloring. This essentially means I have to repaint all I have now, paint up the new guys, and give a crevis-filler. Seraphim Sepia does this perfectly due to its thinner consistency, but I already have its same-color ancestor, Gryphonne Sepia, so that's all set.

The clothing I decided to paint Xereus Purple with Carroburg Crimson wash (yeah, isn't that weird? Crevis-filling, thinner acrylics in the GW hobby are called washes, of course now they're called shades and glazes, Carroburg Crimson being a shade). I will also do differentiation approaches like painting in the edge-hugging runes on their headscarves with Sycorax Bronze.

The leather will be painted Mechanicus Standard Grey, because I painted models with it and it came out dark grey and not the medium grey seen in the color Dawnstone. The wash here will be the Nuln Oil color (renamed from Badab Black).

Runefang Steel is the color I shall use for the blades and the arrowheads, because the Easterlings in the Return of the King film stormed into the Great Gates area of Minas Tirith (after the Trolls stormed in) relying on Strategy, Tactics, and Steel-headed weapons. I am using Nuln Oil on these things as well.

The Wooden parts that my humans hold their equipment by, however, will get Seraphim Sepia wash after a paint-on of Mournfang Brown.

The nonmetal pieces of the shield will be coated with Caliban Green, while the feathers on the backs of the arrows will receive a White Scar coating (yeah, "White Scar" is an actual Citadel acrylic color).

Now, we come to the slits in their helmets. I decided to base-coat these with Skrag Brown on every first 3 models, Zamesi Desert on every 4th and 5th model, and Kislev Flesh on every 6th model. Then, I'm going to paint in T-bars that encompass the entire vertical piece of the slit and the bottom edge of the horizontal part with Abaddon Black. Then I'm going to give them dark eyes like in the book, but like in real-life human biology, my Easterlings will also be mostly brown-eyed. This means that I'll have a brown eyed to not-brown eyed ratio of 3:1. It also means I will use White Scar for the outer parts of the eyes, added with Rhinox Hide, Mechanicus Standard Grey, Caliban Green, and Kantor Blue for the inner parts of the eyes.

Horses are where my coloring technique gets a lot simpler because I only have to research color patterns of horses, which doesn't require as much background. I shall give 75% of my ordinary cavalrymen a Bay Horse color pattern that puts Abaddon Black hair & hooves on a Rhinox Hide skinned horse. The rest of them will get Chestnut horses, who will have Skrag Brown skin with Ushbati Bone hair & hooves. Then, we talk about hero-horses. Dragon Knights will get Dun horses, which will be represented by painting the skin Zamesi Desert and the hair & hooves Abaddon Black. War Priests will get Grey Horses, who will be represented with Dawnstone skin and Mechanicus Standard Grey hair & hooves. Captains will get Buckskin horses, represented by coating the skin with Ratskin Flesh while coating the hooves and hair with Mechanicus Standard Grey. Generals like Khamul the Easterling (Ringwraith) and Amdur, Lord of Blades (Human) will get the rarest colored of all horses: Black Horse for Khamul (represented by coating the entire animal Abaddon Black), and White Horse for Amdur (represented by coating the entire animal White Scar)

Now how am I going to represent both the Chariots and the Wains? Simple. I am going to take four-horse Persian Chariots from Zvezda, stick Easterling archer & axeman models into them, stick them onto Screaming Bell Bases, and apply the Khandish Charioteer rules to these models. As for the "Chariots of Chieftains", I shall make Easterling King and Captain models that use the Khandish King and Chieftain rules, stick them into Warhammer High Elf Chariots, convert the Chariots to be short enough to fit onto 60mm round closed bases, and apply the Khandish Chariot mount rules to both these two-horse mega-beasts and the four-horse giga-beasts.

I mentioned Easterling Axemen which means I am obligated to explain how I hope to achieve them: I am going to take open-chested Easterling Swordsman models and up to 50% of the Easterling archer models, remove their weapons, repose their arms using a hacksaw and some Duco Cement modelling glue, attach 1-inch toothpick pieces to their hands, use clay to make halberd-heads, and apply the Khandish Warrior rules to them.

Then, we talk about the Easterling Horseback archers. These guys will be Easterling Kataphrakts mounted onto unarmored horses from the Empire Pistolers kit, reposed and assembled as archers rather than as shield-people, and they'll use the Khandish Horseman rules.

Finally, the Dragon Guard infantry and Dragon Pioneer cavalry, otherwise known as the Black Dragons. I will differentiate these guys from the rest of the army. The Dragon Guard will be Easterling Warrior upper halves glued to High Elf Phoenix Guard Lower halves, with plain black sashimonos (small rectangular back-banners) glued to their backs. Then the Dragon Pioneers will be Easterling Kataphrakt upper halves (with the shields) glued to High Elf Dragon Prince lower halves, again with the black sashimonos glued to their backs.

Now, my new basing plan for my models. I decided only Generals and Commanders (collectively called Heroes) should be on round bases. As for regular guys, I feel they belong on quadrilateral bases. So, all of my infantry will go on 20mm square bases, and all of my cavalry will go on Closed Cavalry bases. Then, I will use the Warhammer modular trays to organize them into infantry quads of 12 Easterling Warrior swordsmen, 12 Easterling Warrior pikemen, 12 Easterling Warrior bowmen, 12 Easterling Axemen, and 12 Dragon Guard; and cavalry quads of 6 Easterling Kataphrakts, 5 Dragon Pioneers, and 5 Easterling Horseback archers.

Capes for the hero-figures I decided should be coated with Evil Sunz Scarlet, the Citadel Paint of cherry-red coloration. Some of them have or will have makeshift capes made of red-colored Duck Brand duct tape. This brings me to the banners. I was (and am) never a fan of Games Workshop's Shining Sun banner design, it was untrue to the source material and also too much inspired by real world Sinic Culture, so I'm blotting out the plastic and resin sun-shine flags with this Red duct tape and I'm painting the Anaconda design from film 2 onto it. Sycorax Bronze and Abaddon Black shall be used to paint on the bronze outlining of the triangle and to paint the five-curved bronze serpent with black eye, black belly, and black tongue. When this dries, I'll use a thin-tipped black sharpie to put on the scale outlines.

I am going to still decorate my models' bases as I did after reading GW's now-gone basing article, but that'll be the only mutual trait.

See how different that was? Thanks for reading and for clicking the links.

~KP~

A Change of Order

Guess what people. I decided to completely change my army's colors to match the Easterling scenes of the movies (Two Towers's "The Black Gate is Closed" and Return of the King's "Breaking of the Great Gates"), the Variag of Khand description by Tolkien (Pelennor Fields chapter, "Troll-men and Variags and Orcs who hated the sun"), the genetic physiques description Tolkien gave to the Easterlings ("swarthy-skinned, dark of hair and eye"). I also decided to incorporate elements from reality like horses having only the genetic coloration they have in real life and humans being predominantly brown-eyed (come to think of it, humans are predominantly dark-haired, but it varies between brown hair and black hair, so I'd better hurry up and paint some of my Variags' facial hairs Rhinox Hide [dark brown] and leave some Abaddon Black).

Essentially what I did is give both groups Gehenna's Gold for their Lamellar armor and Runefang Steel (bright silver) for the blades & arrowheads. Then I used Skrag Brown (light brown) for the Skin, and I dotted in White Scar for the eyes, putting in inner-dots, most of them Rhinox Hide, but a few Caliban Greens (dark green), Kantor Blues (dark blue), and Stormvermin Furs (dark gray). But that's where the mutual colors end.

For the Easterlings, I did Mournfang Brown (medium brown) wood, Caliban Green shield pattern, Xereus Purple clothes, Stormvermin Fur leathers, White Scar arrow-feathers, Gehenna's Gold headscarf pattern for shielding units, Evil Sunz Scarlet headscarves with no pattern to them for archery units, and because they wore bandanas over their faces in the movies, and because they were black bandanas, I painted in Abaddon Black Ts to represent those. I even used Evil Sunz Scarlet for the horse-tail shaped decorations and the saddles. Their banner is an Abaddon Black bellied Gehennas Gold snake on a Gehennas Gold outlined Evil Sunz Scarlet triangle, just like the movie.

For the Variags, it was tough for me to pick colors do to the only thing Tolkien says to describe them being that they hated the sun. I imagine that means they would where the palest colors they could without being dull. To that extent, I did Tau Light Ochre for wood, Flash Glitz Yellow for cloth, Moot Green for leathers, arrow-feathers, and horse-tail-shaped horse-decorations, Lothern Blue for saddles, and Abaddon Black for facial hairs (although at least half need to instead have Rhinox Hide facial hairs). Due to their hatred of the sun and the opposite of the sun being the moon, their banner is an Administratum Grey-cratered White Scar render of the moon upon a Lothern Blue rectangle.

When I post the photos in my next post, they will show you not only what any of this looks like but also what I did with the horses.

I wanted to organize my army into infantry units of 12, cavalry units of 6, and Chariot units of 1. I also wanted to incorporate not only Amdur, Lord of Blades; some Easterling War Priests, and some Dragon Knights as well as a Variag King; but also my favorite Generals of Darkness form the movies: Sauron and the Witch-King, who I will paint as they looked in the movies. And also this Nazgul guy who looks extremely battle-efficient called the Dark Marshal

So that's what you can expect my army to grow to, along with a few more Easterling Warriors, a few more Easterling Kataphrakts, a few more Variag Warriors, and another Variag Horseman.

Btw the Variags at GW and the plastic infantry are actually irrationally priced, so I will start to buy the old 20-packs from legit resellers for the Easterlngs and then for the Variags I will use War Games Factory Samurai minis with masking tape as cloaks to keep the fabric on the outside and I will convert the spears into war-axes (one-handed) and battle-axes (two-handed), using putty & PVA glue for the blades.

Kay, bye now!

~KP~

Painting the Cohorts

Hello again. Sorry for the delay, I got caught up with other things. But here is my info on how I painted my Cohort. Yes, folks, you now get to know what it looks like.

I painted my Easterlings to look exactly as they did in the amazing movies from Peter Jackson. This meant applying Shining Gold (which is now Gehenna's Gold) to the armor and Mithril Silver (which is now Runefang Steel) to the blades & arrow heads. What I did with the fabric is I painted all of it Scab Red (now Khorne Red), and I painted all leather items (from quivers to shield-patches) with Charadon Granite (now Stormvermin Fur) to make it darker than Grey but also lighter than Black (like in the movies). With the wood I chose Bestial Brown (which is now Mournfang Brown), and I painted the feathers with Blood Red (now Evil Suns Scarlet)

The New banner design I painted up with Blood Red and Sunburst Yellow (which is now Flash Glitz Yellow), and the metal Crescent on top I did with Shining Gold. The drummers I painted to have Bestial Brown mallets I gave my horses an enormous range of skin colors as well as Hoof-and-hair colors. I gave them such color schemes as Skull White (White Scar) skin with Chaos Black (Abaddon Black) hair, hooves, and spots; Dark Flesh (Doombull Brown) skin with Skull White hooves, hair, and spots; Codex Grey (Dawnstone) skin with Charadon Granite hooves, hair, and spots; all of the reverses; and even pure Codex Grey, pure Chaos Black, pure Bestial Brown, pure Skull White, pure Bubonic Brown (Zamesi Desert), and pure Fortress Grey (Administratum Grey), all with Dark Flesh hooves & hair.

This topic on horses brings me to my Variags. I decided that only the guys who were going to give Banner bonuses in War of the Ring mode needed banners. So, as you can see with these cavalrymen, I hacked off the banners with a hobby hacksaw (the next box [each box has 5 pewter cavalrymen] I will pick one to leave the banner on). I still need to bring over the three cavalry axemen from my former half-time house. But in the mean time, I will describe my color scheme and why I did painting this way. J.R.R. Tolkien describes the Variags as guys "who hated the sun". I swear that's all he says about what they look like. To reflect that, I decided to paint my Variags of Khand to have yellow armor via Sunburst Yellow (Flash Glitz Yellow), Skull White (White Scar) cloaks, and for some reason Scorched Brown feathers, wood & leather that I intend to re-paint with Blazing Orange (Troll Slayer Orange) leather, Macharius Solar Orange (Jokaero Orange) arrow-feathers, and Vomit Brown (Tau Light Ochre) wood. I painted their hands and faces completely Bleached Bone (Ushbati Bone), to represent gloves & to represent those masks that cover one's entire head except for the eyes and mouth.

Infantry version - colors shown here have changed since the taking of this photo.

As you can tell by all of these models, I have a special basing technique. That basing technique is explained below.

What I did to make the base was I basically took Citadel PVA glue and I brushed it over the top of each base and I dipped it top-first into Citadel modelling sand and when it dried I painted it with watered-down Bestial brown (but I ran out and had to use Calthan Brown and then Dark Flesh). When that dried, I applied Bubonic Brown as a thick highlight. When that dried, I applied a thin highlight of Bleached Bone. Once all of the paint was in place, I scattered some light dabs of PVA glue and applied Citadel Dead Grass to he scatter-spots. Then, I painted the rim Graveyard Earth.

That is all I have to discuss for now, next post will be about Easterling Charioteers I built from scratch and the post after that will be about what I did to include the unprofiled Eastern Kingdoms units: Keiseimu, Ravager of Ithilien; Easterling King; Queen Beruthiel; Dragon Guard (not to be confused with Dragon Knight or Black Dragon); and Easterling Siege Bow. Actually, there's going to be a  post in between those two about my inclusion of the profiled units Amdur, Lord of Blades; Easterling War Priest; and Easterling Dragon Knights.

Thank you for your time :-)

Beginning an Empire of Rhûn

I began Games Workshop's Lord of the Rings hobby with a box of 20 plastic Easterlings and a copy of the A Shadow in the East sourcebook. Since then, I have been a dedicated person to building an enormous army cohort, for the Men of the East. I have smiled as the Easterling army grew so enormously from then to now. In 2005, they were just swordsmen, archers, pikemen, kataphrakts, captains, and a Ringwraith named Khamûl, who is second among the Nazgûl and the only one of those nine that Tolkien actually named. Tolkien also gave the Easterlings chariots, but GW decided to give a group Tolkien wrote the least about of anything in his world, The Variags of Khand, the chariots. This meant I had to use the Khandish chariot rules whenever I wanted to included chariots (like I can't use chariot scythes). Then, in 2007, Legions of Middle-earth added a King unit, a Guard unit, and a Ballista unit to this faction. In 2009, a whole new mode called War of the Ring added a Drummer unit, a Shaman unit called the War Priests, a faction exclusive unit called the Dragon Knights, two named human Heroes called Amdûr, Lord of Blades and Queen Berúthiel; and the two Blue Wizards going by the names Nárandir and Súlrandir. Then came the Fallen Realms Sourcebook and four other Skirmish mode rewrite books, which translated the first four War of the Ring additions I mentioned above into Skirmish mode format, and also gave Warrior-level infantry and cavalry the option of becoming "Black Dragons", units with a +1 bonus to fight and courage, and who cost 2 extra points each.

I had also assembled an army of Minas Tirith and an army of Dale, a kingdom of Men just south of Gimli's home of the Lonely Mountain, starting each of these also with a couple boxes each of infantry and cavalry, so I had three factions of Humans that I could have started. It was a tough choice and I was even considering a Haradrim army as a fourth route, and was also thinking Dwarves. But then I re-watched the Easterling scenes from The Two Towers and from The Return of the King, and looked at the craftiness of each human army's uniform, and realized this "Warhosts" book I owned contained a Gondor article, and a Rohan article and Dwarves article (close enough, in my eyes, to Men of Dale) but nothing even that close to Men of Rhûn. Then my eyes fell on the phalanxes, Kataphrakts, and Charioteers offered by the Rhûn faction; and I decided: Easterlings it is.

Tomorrow I show some images while also discussing how I paint such an army.