Morannon Orcs Completed

Yay, I finally finished painting some miniatures...

Morannon Orcs

Morannon Orcs are made up by GW for their Lord of the Rings game.  I'm not sure if in the actual books there is a huge difference between Orcs from the Morannon and Orcs from elsewhere, maybe they have something like a southern drawl when they speak.  In game terms Morannon Orcs have slightly better stats and armor to satisfy the power gamers, and are supposed to represent the bad ass orcs that broke through the garrison in Osgiliath and sieged Minas Tirith.

I painted these guys for use in upcoming LOTR scenarios from the Gondor at War supplement.  It took me awhile to paint these 36 miniatures but what can you do?  I'm glad their done though, as these 36 figures (or some portion of them) are used in many of the scenarios, so the heavy lifting is done to get those scenarios playable.

These are GW plastic miniatures, a little less than 2 boxes worth that I got for cheap from a guy selling them on TMP. 

Where is all the flock Stew?
I'll tell ya.  These guys will mostly be fighting inside Osgiliath and  Minas Tirith, on my stone mat that doesn't have any grass on it, so they don't need no flocking flock.

Tried to Paint like Kuribo, and failed, by varnish

I also painted up these two special Morannon Orc characters; in the game they have special abilities and act as leaders for the rest of the mush for brains Morannon Orcs.    These miniatures are from Forgeworld and are resin.  They're also very detailed and more than anything else... expensive. 
Because of these traits, I decided that I wanted to put some extra effort into these two miniatures and try to paint them, you know, well.   with highlights and stuff, even used a magnifier to see the details.  Hot stuff. 

The Two characters are:
 'Guritz', the guy in the middle with the attractive skull on top of helmet which is probably
in no way unbalancing to have an 8 pound dead weight on top of your head and a bad idea in real life...
'Gothmog's Enforcer' is the orc on the left.  I guess no one could think of a cool orc-y name, maybe Mr. Piggles?

The guy on the right is a red shirt orc.  A  nobody

I summoned my inner Kuribo and set about the task.  Kuribo is one of my online best blogger buddies who paints his LOTR figures and terrain REALLY well.  You can find his LOTR themed blog HERE.  Check it out why not?  When I think of well painted LOTR figures, I think of Kuribo.


I've said before on this blog that in my core I am a 'paint to play' gamer, and I don't especially enjoy painting for it's own sake.  However, I enjoyed putting in the extra time and effort on these miniatures.  Maybe just because it was change of pace and using different skills, or more appropriately, using all my meager painting skills.  In any case, I was quite pleased on how they came out which was a good enough reward.  Other LOTR leaders will likely get the same treatment. 

That is I enjoyed it because it was all going so smoothly until I varnished them, which for some reason went a little cloudly.  I tried my tried and true solution of putting on a second coat of varnish and it helped aaaaaa liiiitle, but overall these did not come out as good as they first looked.
oh well, what are you gonna do?  luckily for me these are bad guys who obviously don't have parents who love them so no one really cares. 

Side Topic: Miniature photography is Hard.
taking pics of miniatures so that one can actually see the paint job is hard to get right.  I have yet to master it.  So instead of super close ups you get regular pics.  Even the regular pics are trash. 

Good enuff.  

does the red make my butt look like it kill everyone in Minas Tirith? 

38 and Clear!

With  36 Orcs + 2 Orc leaders for the LOTR project complete, the hobbydesk is now clear to focus on something else.  And I really gotta try and get some games on the table before the year turns. 

Hope to see you again soon.