Théoden's Army taking to the fields of the Pelennor once more

This week I'm off to a large Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game tournament. And because I still needed some more Rohirrim, I finished the seven Riders I had started a few weeks back. I also finished the fourth Ghazi and then went on to some more miniatures that I might want to use at the tournament

Pict 644: Théoden's Army

Pict 645: Bolg's Army

Pict 646: Riders of Rohan

Pict 647: Riders of Rohan

These Riders still had to get their washes done and then were missing the highlights and detailing. The washes went on fast enough and I managed to blast through the highlights by batchpainting them one colour at a time. The first pictures here show the armies I took to the tournament: Théoden, Éomer, Dernhelm and Déorwine with a bunch of riders on the good side and Bolg, Yazneg, Fimul and Narzug with even more Hunter Orcs.
I also magnetised all of the bases with neodymium magnets so that I was able to easily transport them to the tournament and in between games.

Pict 648: Ghazi Muttawi'ah

Pict 649: Ghazi Muttawi'ah

This last Ghazi was pretty much done last week, but I didn't have it in me to finish her in time for the post. On monday I only had to do the bright armour and the black parts as well as the base and the glow. Finally I also marked the arc where the miniature is looking. Usually I like my bases to be a solid colour but for gaming purposes this makes things a lot easier. Thankfully all of that went pretty fast so that I could focus on the Rorhirrim the rest of the week.

Pict 650: Éowyn (Fall of the Witchking)

Pict 651: Éowyn (Fall of the Witchking)

Speaking of Rohan, here is an other Éowyn I painted up quickly. I wanted to play Dernhelm but the model was not released in time to paint up for this weekend. Thankfully the organiseres were kind enough to allow me to use the normal Éowyn on horseback as Dernhelm but I then wanted to have the correct model on foot. This one is from the 'Fate of the Witch-king' Diorama and fit the bill perfectly.

Pict 652: Royal Guard (WIP)

Lastly here is a WIP of a Rohan Royal Guard on foot. I wanted to finish this one because I played Déorwine, Chief of the King's Knights - his model is also not yet released. I used a converted Háma on horseback as the mounted version but that wouldn't do for the one on foot. Obviously he is missing the highlights at the time of writing but I hope to have him finished in time.

Haqqislam Tutorial and Conversions

Since we had the fourth installment of our escalation league last week, I painted some more models I wanted to use with the added rules and extra points this round. And since every Haqqislam player out there seems to sing their praise, I decided on some Ghazi Muttawi'ah and added in a Bashi Bazouk and a Hafza for good measure.

Pict 637: Hafza, Bashi Bazouk, Ghazi Muttawi'ah

Pict 638: Bashi Bazouk, Ghazi Muttawi'ah

Pict 639: Bashi Bazouk, Ghazi Muttawi'ah

These four Muttawi'ah presented a bit of a challenge since I was not sure how to distibute the colours I decided on with my Haqqislam. I went with the dark grey as the main colour, but kept the boots brighter.

Pict 640: Hafza (Tutorial)

Pict 641: Hafza

Pict 642: Hafza

With the Hafza I did something new: I took quite a few pictures while painting to document how I went about the different steps. I only put in a few here, but I wrote up the tutorial on the site where I put my Haqqislam recipie.

Pict 643: Hassassin Lasiq, Odalisque (Conversions)

Since I had trouble painting, I converted some miniatures for Infinity. So here are a second Lasiq with Viral Rifle (looking forward to playing them in a Haris Team) and an Odalisque with a Contender that I looted from the Spec-Ops. The Lasiq's new hand is from the Dark Eldar Hellions kit but I'm not sure whether it's an acutal hand or a trophy.

Thinking about my problems with the Haqqislam miniatures now, a week later, I am pretty sure the problem is that I am a bit burned out on the Haqqislam colours. I still have the fourth Ghazi from the box pretty much done but I couldn't find the inspiration to finish her. I hope I can paint myself out of this corner with something really different. I will have to get my Riders of Rohan done next week so I hope they will rejuice my painting mojo.

The Owlbear Family, tiny Azra'il and more

This week I made headway with two more miniatures for my Haqqislam, the Objective Markers from last week and more Rohirrim for the Middle-earth SBG and even more. First up however is a new miniature for D&D.

Pict 629: Owlbear Family

Pictt 630: Owlbear (GF9)

Pict 631: Owlbear (GF9)

Right now I am also in the process of touching up older miniatures and giving them a protective coat. This week I got around to the Owlbears from two years ago. Now since I already had the fitting colours all mixed up, I got to painting another fierce Owlbear mommy to the little family. This particular miniature was part of GaleForceNine's Monster Paint Set and is comparativly large in comparison with the ones made by Darksword. Of course the details are way better with the metal miniatures but I really like the pose of this newer one.

Pict 632: Azra'il

Pict 633: Azra'il

These two figures do not really have a use right now - they are the outdated Azra'il models from about 2008. I really liked the look of them when I first got into the game and bought them now as legacy pieces when I had the chance. I might use them as proxies of some kind but sometimes it's great to simply paint some nice miniatures even if you don't have a use for them.

Pict 634: Sauron Objective Markes

Pict 635: The Three Hunters Objective Markers

And here are the objective markers that I started last week. I pretty much went ahead with my plan on the evil markers and I really like the result. I also wanted to use wetblending on the markers with the leafs of Lorien but the green didn't really lend itself to it. I did put in a lighter green but after putting in the other details and the wash over it not much remains to be seen of it. Still, they will serve their purpose.

Pict 636: Riders of Rohan (WIP)

Lastly here is a WIP of seven more Riders of Rohan that I need to round out my army for the tournament at the end of the month. For now the base colours are down (sloppily) and I hope to finish them quickly with only the washes and the highlights to go.