Sukhe's Armies of Middle Earth

[Dilettante Gamer]

 

I absolutely love, love, LOVE your Haradrim - the banners and shields most especially but your model choices, Mumakil conversions too!

The painted drum heads for the win!

Damn. Just, damn...

[Vermis]

Until you have a scary number of them...

Couldn't put it more appropriately.

Really inspiring stuff. This thread needs to be stickied or archived somehow. Any chance of a LotR compendium thread...?

[sukhe_bator]

I'm hoping to create a composite architectural style that I can use for Middle Earth and Westeros...
In particular vernacular architecture I can use as interesting terrain pieces, again conforming to my standard storage restriction - a copier paper box 8" x 9" x 11"
Ruined barn
Inspired by the descriptions in the Two Towers (book) of the destruction wrought on the fields and farms of the Pelennor (not the barren expanse depicted in the films), I tried my hand at a ruined barn... this is the w.i.p. result, which will have charred and blacked timbers etc... rubble and suitable vantage points to place troops on the upper level. Devising the internal framework is hard and I've been studying references on medieval architectural construction and timber framing methods to lend it added realism...

[sukhe_bator]

The Bridge at Osgiliath
Described in Tolkien's writings in terms reminiscent of the old London bridge, and fortified bridges  like Pont Valentre at Cahors... lovely though this would be I decided this was far too ambitious a project to undertake. For one thing I needed a realistic approachway from the tabletop to the centre spans that wasn't too steep for models. Taking visual clues from the PJ film and references to medieval bridges like the one
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6c/Cahors_Pont_Valentre_2.jpg/1200px-Cahors_Pont_Valentre_2.jpg
The result is a scaled down version with a large carriageway width befitting a main thoroughfare through a once populous city (and suitable for transporting siege engines). The last bridge was deliberately broken by Gondor when the East bank of the city was lost to Mordor, so I made a study of stone bridges deliberately destroyed (most of them in England due to the civil war) to get a sense of what they'd most look like... this example from St Ives (Cambs).
http://www.stives-town.info/album/images/st_ives_bridge.jpg
This was the initial starting point, with removable sections...


I decided early on to replace the buttress/breakwaters with proper angled refuges and show battle damage from bombardments from either side...
The centre spans seen here complete

And broken

Some suitably ornate touches to the approachways

An associated project was to model the 'Rammas Echor' the Hadrian's wall-like defensive circuit built around the Pelennor fields to protect the populous farmlands. This called for a main gatehouse, but I also wanted to add a fortified section to the bridge, so thanks to the modular nature of the bridge I engineered a junction between the two so I could use the same gatehouse in two different scenarios...

A sabot base with a talus effected a junction

The end result awaiting some final touches

[LordOdo]

Like earlier said in your Westeros thread, this amazing () bridge would also look the parts as the Twins! It's nice to see so many crossovers between LoTR and ASOIAF/GoT... (and you having a great thread in both of these settings!)

[Mason]

 

What a stunning collection.
 

Must stop looking now......

[MattW]

 

What do you use to cut the foam so accurately?? I'd love to see a how-to if you have pic through the construction.

[sukhe_bator]

What do you use to cut the foam so accurately?? I'd love to see a how-to if you have pic through the construction.

This pic of w.i.p. on my 'Sahyun' castle project shows my working. I habitually use a sharp scalpel blade 10A and a craft knife with an extendable blade (the ones with the snap off disposable blades) sometimes extended up to 50mm. With thick sections I often cut into it all the way around where I've marked and then and snap them off. Often foam will tear out neatly if cut 2/3 or 3/4 of the way through like the embrasures between merlons. Inaccuracies and curves can be smoothed using fine sandpaper. You can see the merlons on the left have not been finished off while the ones on the right have... A lot of the 'broken' stonework on the bridge was achieved by making a cut and then tearing out chunks...

A trick with windows in thick panels is to cut a slot to reduce the thickness behind where you want the window to go. This can then be cut out and a filler panel glued in place afterwards.

[sukhe_bator]

The Rammas Echor
This was by far my most ambitious project so far. It grew out of a desire to recreate the various engagements that made up the War of the Ring, and the fact that the Rammas did not feature in the PJ films irked me no end. I envisaged it as a medieval version of Hadrian's wall, somewhat delapidated but still serviceable, with different styles of towers, modular wall lengths, separate steps to rear and a slight overall curvature.
This was going to be the set piece for another Armies of Arcana demo game that ultimately fell through. In the end I built 12 feet of fortification including breached walls, towers, the main gate, stone road/causeway and mural towers...

The left hand side...

The right hand side

The causeway approach

Breach sections complete

And as rubble, with additional rubble bases front and back to show the breach debris zone...

As w.i.p. showing the polysterene foam core clad in panels of styrofoam

Artillery tower and mural tower

The main gatehouse, at this stage still unfinished (in three main sections which fits into 3 copier boxes)

With a formidable entrance

And a military road to the rear

And terminating in a lighthouse/tower for 'the Harlond'.

And as w.i.p. showing the somewhat haphazard evolution of the tower

Further work on this stalled once it became clear the demo game was not going to happen, and I've used portions since, and plan to revisit parts of it for my take on Helm's Deep... but that's another story

[Sunjester]

This all looks so amazing. I love the Haradrim and that bridge is fantastic!

looking at my own LOTR stuff I feel quite inadequate! I can't even let you inspire me as we have major building work going on and most of my wargaming (all of the painting/modelling stuff) has had to be packed away.

Then, whilst I'm writing, you post that awesome Rammas Echor post. Speechless. 

[sukhe_bator]

If it makes you feel any better, the vast majority of this is now squirreled away in my loft...

[Hammers]

Lord almighty, that's ambitious....

[Hitman]

You are one seriously talented dude. Absolutely stunning work. Thanks for sharing.
Regards,
Hitman
 

[sukhe_bator]

So if there's anyone out there in the UK who wants to stage a mega Middle Earth or fantasy based bash at Salute 2017?.....

[Sunjester]

Sounds a great idea, but I'm afraid wild wargs and Grond's beasts couldn't drag me to Salute.

What rules would you use?

We are thinking of staging a mega Dragon Rampant game at our club sometime using the mass of LOTR stuff a couple of us are hording. 12-14 players each with 30-40 point warbands.