Fenrir's Middle Earth Labour of Love

[Fenrir]

Hello, folks!

Recently I started a project I've been wanting to do for ages- a Middle Earth collection! The vague sort of look I'm going for is the 'Dark Ages' style of the excellent One Ring RPG from Cubicle 7, rather than the movie version (though there will be a few GW minis in there somewhere!)...

I've kicked off with the Battle of Five Armies- those interested can read about my progress on my Blog here (there are three posts so far, this link is to part 1):

https://lead-mountaineer.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/the-gathering-of-clouds-part-1.html

Beyond this I have plans for Arnor/Angmar, Mirkwood/Dol-Guldur and Rohan/Isengard...   

[Fenrir]

Good Lord, I wasn't expecting that picture to actually appear (I've been struggling with adding pictures to my posts since that whole Photobucket thing). Wish I'd attached one that was actually in focus, now!.. 

[Ethelred the Almost Ready]

Great looking table and miniatures.
What rules are you going to use?

[LeadAsbestos]

They look great! All the new Oathmark minis have made me reconsider my aversion to both plastics AND to Middle Earth projects, and you are not helping me to resist!

[nic-e]

REally lovely. I always like seeing a more paired down style when people play in middle earth.

[jambo1]

Very nice, really great start to your project!!

[Captain Blood]

Great stuff. This accords with how I see Middle Earth too (much less baroque and fantastical looking than the Jackson movies - much as I loved them) 

[guitarheroandy]

Brilliant! An approach very similar to mine (see my converting Elves thread) although I am using GW movie Orcs because they fit Tolkien's description AND I had loads of them! Although I am tempted to add some Oathmark Goblins into the mix too. Do show us more as you get them done!

[Daeothar]

Very inspirational indeed!

I've been wanting to do exactly such a project for many years and I've actually gathered some miniatures for it along the way already.

I'm hoping to do the fellowship of the Ring first, with some goblins/orcs to oppose them.Mine will be a mix of Oathmark Goblins, Wargames Factory Orcs, Dark Age miniatures and maybe even some Roman parts!

You're showing us here that the Oathmark products are perfect for the purpose of creating Middle Earth warbands and armies. Your painting is nice, and complements the miniatures well.

By the way; I really like your Gandalf miniature

[Severian]

Great stuff indeed. I was particularly impressed by your Laketown men, and the Oathmark goblins, but it's all good. 

As for Beorn-in-bear-form: I think he needs to be a bit bigger than a standard bear in any case, and maybe bigger still when properly angry - "he seemed to have grown almost to giant-size in his wrath". So maybe you could use your bigger version for that transformation (if you want to take it as more than a figure of speech) - there ought to be some way to represent this in DR, I think.

All these Middle Earth projects are giving me ideas...

[Argonor]

Looking forward to see more of this project! 

[nic-e]

I quite like the bear as is. I think the toy one might be a little TOO big. I wonder if the reaper wearbear , standing bear of direbear might be good choices for more human/magical bears?

[Loop]

I always imagined Beorn as a very large man, like the biggest rugby forward you’ve ever seen but not a neccessarily a fantastically large bear.

I don’t know how to add images but if you google “Nick Bibby bear” you can see his life size sculpture of a Kodiak bear standing on it’s hind legs; Now that says Beorn to me.

n.b.
Yes that’s the same Nick Bibby who sculpted all those dragons for GW back in the day. His sculptures are no longer miniature but they are fantastic (still does dragons too).

[Fenrir]

Thanks very much for the kind words and encouragement, folks- I really appreciate it! 

@Ethelred the Almost Ready: After much deliberation, I have decided to go with Dragon Rampant with a couple of (very minor) tweaks for extra Tolkien flavour!

@Daeothar: Thanks again- I must say that the 'Movie' Gandalf is my preferred look, but then it is based on that famous John Howe painting which to me will always be the definitive Grey Pilgrim...  By the way, be sure to share your Fellowship stuff with us when you get around to it!

@Severian: That is a great suggestion! Perhaps he could get bigger once reduced to half Strength Points- instead of getting weaker he just gets angrier! Something to tinker with...

UPDATE: I now have Thorin's Company undercoated and ready to go while I wait for my Oathmark Elves to show up- although they are armoured for battle, I'm thinking of using each Dwarf's 'hood' colour somewhere on each figure (as described in the An Unexpected Party chapter of the book)- so Balin will have some red, Dwalin dark green, and so-on...

[Fenrir]

...And since I appear to have cracked the photo thing, here are a couple more lifted from my Blog!