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~