Middle Earth in 40mm

[Alan Mercer]

I am re-starting a little (or no so little) project to try and create some forces to game Middle Earth in my chosen scale of 40mm. My favourite era is the early to mid third age and the division and demise of the North Kingdoms, so a mere 1900 years or so!!. Because the lore is fairly undeveloped for this period, it is open to more imagination than if I was to go for the War of the Ring.

Clearly, the availability of 40mm figures for this is a bit of an issue. So here is my plan.

Starting in completely the wrong place, I have already chosen the figures for Gondor. I always saw Gondor as a pseudo Byzantium. First issue. There are no 40mm Byzantine figures. What can I get? Well, Fighting 15s sell the old Flashing Blade Romano-British range. They more or less fit the bill - they are in mail (no plate armour thank you very much!). The poses are a bit static and uninspiring, but with some chopping about - head and arm adjustments, they work. I've started to make up a unit as shown in the photo. Any breastplates can be painted as leather. I need some banners - I have some ideas which I will take up with a flag manufacturer as I want some consistency and my flag painting is, well, crap. 

There are no mounted figures either - I bought one of the old Graven Images England Invaded figures (Kia) which looked like a good match, but it's just a tad too small. So I'll need to work up a more ambitious conversion of a foot figure into something mounted.

The North (Arnor etc). I suppose in theory they might be similar to Gondor, but I am veering towards a more feudal/early medieval look, so the Triguard feudals will probably be my source. I had already started this a while ago, but need to rethink the basing.

Angmar. For the moment I have bulk bought and started to repaint some combat hex Orcs and Goblins. On the plus side, they are slightly under 40mm, so about right for orcs, which are supposed to be smaller than men, and they can be picked up pretty cheap on ebay (if you wait for the right deal). On the negative side, they are based on the films so there is far too much plate on show - but painted as leather it sort of works. They are made of fairly soft bendy plastic, so spears need to be replaced and they are a real pig to convert. I have had some orcs made for me and this is a work in progress to be revealed at a later date.

Trolls - no idea at the moment. Wargs and wolf riders, no idea either.

Evil men. I've gone for Sash and Saber Saxons. I will probably find some different heads to make them less historical looking - a work in progress.

Elves. No idea - the combat hex ones are based on the movies, too small and just don't do it for me. I will most likely have to get something made I suppose. Definitely no banded armour - mail and Norman-ish helms, but tall - more like 43mm.

Any other suggestions welcome. This will be a long running saga of frustration and much swearing.
 

[Hobgoblin]

What a great idea! That first unit looks terrific.

Have you had a look at Reaper Bones for orcs and trolls? The pinheaded Reaper orcs are very big (just under 40mm tall with legs bent) and might make pretty good uruks. You can easily scale them up by replacing the heads. The Bones material loves superglue, and if you used (say) GW orc heads as a basis, you could get quite decent-looking orcs at a larger scale:



You might be able to use some older plastic GW orcs (and even modern space orks) in their own right. The goofiness is a bit of a problem, but they're flat-faced, bow-legged, big-handed and long-armed, and you could make subtle adjustments to iron out the silliness. The plastic ones from the old Warhammer boxed set (with archers and 'dual wielders') are often to be had cheaply on eBay, and the archers in particular could be recast as Tolkien's orcs.

The GW orcs/orks are about the same size as the Reaper Bones ones (slightly smaller but with much bigger heads). If you gave the Bones ones GW heads (or heads of similar size), they'd work well together. It's surprising how much Middle Earth orcish DNA still lingers even in GW's space orks.

I recently used some GW orc heads to convert 1/32 Gauls into 28mm (or 1/72) hill giants. Even at 1/32, the orc heads are disproportionately large.

If you reckon that a small orc must be Hobbit-sized and an uruk roughly dwarf-sized (we know that Gimli finds the Uruk-hai easier to fight than the Dunlendings because of their size, and that Saruman's half-orcs are actually man-sized), outsized 28mm orcs should have quite a lot to offer.

There are also lots of sizeable and cheap Reaper Bones ogres, trolls and giants that would still be pretty hefty at 40mm, so would make decent Tolkien trolls.

[Hobgoblin]

Also, you could perhaps consider Reaper Bones bugbears for large orcs (they're around 40mm tall - not to the eye - so not quite man-high!):



And some of the old Grenadier orcs available from Forlorn Hope Games (on eBay) are absolutely massive (at 28mm scale):

[Hobgoblin]

One more (sorry!): you could get some suitable smaller orcs from Lancer Miniatures. They only scrape in around 30mm tall, but that's to the shoulder. They're very chunky in 28mm scale and again have huge heads. With a different paint job, this guy might work well as the small tracker that Frodo and Sam meet in Mordor:

]

Lancer's got a huge range with scimitars, spears and bows, and they're only £1.50 a pop. It's a shame they have tusks rather than fangs, but they'd be a pretty decent starting point.

[Alan Mercer]

Thanks, there's some good suggestions there, which I'll look into. Here's a comparison photo of some of my options.

L to R Fighting 15s, Triguard, Combat hex orc (one of the tallest, a wip and converted to an archer), Sash and Saber (wip being tarted up a bit).

[Little Odo]

Great start to the project. I am really interested in seeing how this will pan out and which figures you will end up using.

[jambo1]

Cracking project and a great start. Really looking forward to seeing where this takes you.

[Alan Mercer]

A base of repainted Combat Hex orcs. Although they are based on the films, they work quite well. Shame about the soft bendy plastic - the 2 orcs at the rear are conversions from sword/spear and shield to bows, and the plastic makes this quite a chore as it shreds a bit when drilled or cut.

I’ve painted all of the plate armour as leather.

[AKULA]

Excellent work Alan - I can really appreciate the enjoyment (and at times frustration) that starting a project, where there isn’t an existing off the shelf range, can bring.

You will end up with something very unique.

 

[Bloggard]

great stuff.

fab project.

Looking forward to seeing more.

[James Morris]

This is a crazy project - I love it! 

Regarding 40mm orcs - have you considered getting some 28mm stl files and printing a different size?  The Knucklebones orcs might work for this, perhaps?

[Alan Mercer]

Thanks James, nice idea. I don't have a 3d printer though, I don't really have the right set up for one at home, nor do I know anyone who has one.

I like the look of the massed Knucklebones spear orcs and there's some leader potential figures too. Printed up to about 35-37mm would be perfect. If they had separate arms and heads so I could personalise them more that would be great. I don't know how easy that is in the digital sculpting world.

Something else to think about, though I'd need a lot. I don't know what the demand would be for 40mm scale orcs - probably just me!!

[James Morris]

Hi Alan, I understand your reservations but think that contacting a 3d printing service might open a whole world of possibilities for this project. You’ll often find that people designing stl files are often willing to customise them as well, especially with the numbers you may be talking. Thinking about wolves, Cold War Miniatures have recently produced an excellent wolf set that can be printed in different sizes (I would have gone with this for my Warg riders had it been available 6 months earlier).  Have a look: https://www.cold-war.co.uk/product-page/wolves-digital

Seems like Sally 4th offer a printing service:
https://wargamesbuildings.co.uk/epages/950003459.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/950003459/Categories/3D_Printing_Service