As a little change of pace I have clobbered together a "pilot" half-orc of Saruman, the inspiration whichof comes from that excellent bit in "Unfinished Tales", Part III, chapter 5: "The battle of the Fords of Isen". For those of you not familiar with it, Unfinished Tales is a posthumously released golem of a book, put together by Christopher Tolken from various in depth background material written by Prof. J.R.R. Tolken as extensions or explanations of The Silmarillon, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings.
This chapter details all the going-ons and strategies of Saruman the White during the War of the Ring. It is particularly good for those gaming with Rohan and Isengard, as it has a lot of information of the troop types the White Wizard deployed and how they were used.
One cadre of brutes, of particular interest to me and which is not part of the Peter Jackson interpretations, nor GW's, are the half-orc elite soldier which Saruman sent forth with the specific purpose to end the line of Eorl the Young, and thus topple the Eorlingas rein over Rohan. These soldiers are described in the following manner, in the section where Theodred, son of Theoden, defends the ford of Isen against the Isengard troops shortly before the Battle of the Hornburg:
As soon as the enemy had gained possession of the eastern end of the Fords there appeared a company of men or Orc-men (evidently dispatched for the purpose), ferocious, mail-clad, and armed with axes. They hastened to the eyot and assailed it from both sides. At the same time Grimbold on the west bank was attacked by Saruman's forces on that side of the Isen. As he looked eastward, dismayed by the sounds of battle and the hideous Orc-cries of victory, he saw the axe-men driving Théodred's men from the shores of the eyot towards the low knoll in its centre, and he heard Théodred's great voice cryingTo me, Eorlingas! At once Grimbold, taking a few men that stood near him, ran back to the eyot. So fierce was his onset from the rear of the attackers that Grimbold, a man of great strength and stature, clove his way through, till with two others he reached Théodred standing at bay on the knoll. Too late. As he came to his side Théodred fell, hewn down by a great Orc-man. Grimbold slew him and stood over the body of Théodred, thinking him dead; and there he would himself soon have died, but for the coming of Elfhelm.
Pretty exciting stuff. These axemen, large, determined and specially trained, sound to me like the viking shield breakers of yore and I would bet a fair amount that J.R.R.T, being a professor in Anglo-Saxon, had them in mind when he wrote this essay. Tactically, the twohanded, bearded haftaxe, or daneaxe, was exactly what they used to break up a shield wall.
So, inspired by all the plastic orc-conversions which seem to be going on at the moment, and for the purpose of creating such a unit for my Isengard horde I have purchased Victrix' excellent Anglo-Saxon Huscarl sprues...
I would say Victrix is well now for it's quality sprues. Nice dynamic poses, fine detail, very little flash.
Standing side by side, the Victrix lot is, if not taller still slightly larger than the GW Middle Earth scale. On the other hand these half orcs are supposed to be brutes so that works in my favour.
Beside longaxe and mailcoat, there are some clues to how these might be armed. In the the The Two Towers, chapter 1 "The departure of Boromir" we read:
They were armed with short broad-bladed swords, not with the curved scimitars usual with Orcs: and they had bows of yew, in length and shape like the bows of Men. Upon their shields they bore a strange device: a small white hand in the centre of a black field; on the front of their iron helms was set an S-rune, wrought of some white metal.
Obviously Saruman's top orcs hade better equipment and little vanity trade marks of the wizard, so it is reasonable to believe that his other storm troopers had something similar.
This is what I came up with:
The body and limbs are straightup Victrix Saxon Huscarl, the head is Oathmark goblin, except the helmet which is also Victrix. I think the tall helmet looks good on him, like a part of a guards unit. Also the shape makes it distinct from the Rohan, more rounded helm design. I don't know if it is noticeable, but I managed find a way to without too much hassle cut a *tiny* C (
Cirth ...
...for 'S' as in Saruman to glue on the helm's nose guard. The skin tones off orcs have been discussed at lenght, and I decided for this half-breed to go for sallow. I used the Foundry Mediterranean skin triad, mixed with yellow ochre and desert yellow, and added depth and five-o-clock shadow with dark brown and black washes.
I wanted something in their garb to make them stand out so I have given him a white tunic given as a mark of honor by Saruman. The chainmail, as is very common in plastic miniature, is note quite as fine and i scale as it should be. I think it look so good anyway. The shield buckle prevents painting the White Hand heraldry smack dab in the middle as per canon, but I think this off-center hand looks OK to.
All in all I am quite content with this first trial model. I may try to make the hands look bigger, they are a bit dainty. I would also like to add a short sword, which by the description in the quote above sounds like a roman short stabbing sword,
gladius.
And finally a couple of action photos to sex things up a bit, and to get a sense of size between the GW and Victrix product:
It is a rubbish shield on the rohirrim, I know. It is an experiment with a running boar shield motiv which did not turn out well. I shall replace it.
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April 23, 2011, 03:01:59 PM
