Elessar2590: 3D Printing The Lord of the Rings

The Dead Men of Dunharrow

Jun 14 2024

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I was never really a big fan of the Army of the Dead until I saw this picture by Angus McBride. I loved the image of mostly human looking ghosts with physical clothing and weapons but ghostly flesh, going a little bit further than the art but using it as a reference point. Now I just needed to wait...

Thankfully everyone's favourite Australian not-MESBG 3d Designers Medbury Miniatures released these perfect minis

Along with a King and some Cavalry with a Banner and some guys holding a weird sigil thing, everything I need to make an army.

I had two goals. Make them recognisable as Army of the Dead on sight for tournament and general gaming purposes to never confuse my opponent. Two make them look old.

I decided not to do a tartan for them but to do some very rough plaid of overlapping colours to give a kind of mountain man vibe. I wanted to make them different to the Clansmen of Lamedon which you can also see on this project.

I used a brilliant GW technical paint called Nihilakh Oxide to "rust" the bronze and used it over white for the flesh and hands to give it a ghostly effect.

Paint the bronze and give it the Nihilakh Oxide. Then paint the clothing and wash it with black wash before a drybrush highlight and plaid. Then paint the ghostly bits white and finish it with another Nihilakh Oxide wash.

I went with the ghostly banner because I think it's a nice centrepiece for the army and the King just has a purple cloak without plaid but I gave it a lot more of a Ghostly effect.

The Display Board for the Tournament Tomorrow. This is a 500 Point Army (six hand weapon and shield minis are dismounts). The Black Stone of Erech on a matching base to the rest of the army. I normally just re-use the same display board but I felt this army needed a unique one.

The First Digital Conversion

Oct 29 2023

Tutoring 2

Skill 2

Idea 2

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I’m going to an event next month and want to take something silly, I also want to use the minis for War of the Ring. The plan is to take an army of Citadel Guard but I didn’t have two of the characters that I needed. Beregond was easy enough, I am using the Medbury proxy Citadel Guard and the character works for Beregond but I still needed an Irolas.

Here's what the Official GW Citadel Guard look like. The main features are the cloaks and yellow trim tunic.

The Medbury Sculpts that I am using. It comes with a variety of helmets but I'm giving them all the one in the middle, a basic helmet with some cool feathers on each side.

Beregond is straightforward, this Captain mini works great.

Now this is the problem, I need Irolas for the list's theme but I can't fund a mini that works so I had to convert one.

Here is the convsersion I made. THe body is one of the Citadel Guard with the spear removed, the arm holding the helmet is from one of the Archers and the helmet is just a helmet with the face removed. The head is from a Wargames Atlantic Pict. I wanted to keep the pose and stance as close as possible and make the model recognisable at a distance. I think those are all important things when using a mini as a proxy.

This mini took maybe 20 minutes to paint, not including drying time. Black Undercoat, grey drybrush, paint the metal, paint the face and hair with Skeleton Bone then contrast face and soft tone wash for the hair.

I was a bit worried about the helmet but I think it turned out pretty good.

I haven't decided how to base my Gondor stuff yet. Part of me really wants to do a Osgiliath/Minas Tirith ruins base but the other part of me doesn't want that harsh contrast between black mini and white base.

Gondor Elites

Oct 28 2022

Tutoring 1

Skill 3

Idea 3

1 Comment

I have a core for a War of the Ring Gondor army but I need some elites which I can now just print myself. Everything is from Medbury Miniatures

Alternative Denethor

Unfortunately White Resin makes bad pictures

On the Left is a Fountain Court Guard with a head from a 10mm Fantasy Miniature. The Right is a counts as Citadel Guard.

Standard Pre Wash picture. Going with the normal Black scheme.

The Citadel Guard make up Denethor's unit and the Fountain Court Guard will get Shields and be a nice roadblock.

The Tournament

Oct 23 2022

Tutoring 4

Skill 5

Idea 5

2 Comments

In three weeks I printed and painted a 600 Point MESBG Force (minus 1) so the only reasonable thing to do was take them to a tournament. With the permission of the TO of course.

600 Point List

Imrahil Prince of Dol Amroth – (No Horse or Lance, I was told by multiple people this was insane and it was but the truly insane thing is that it completely worked).

13 Clansmen of Dol Amroth

Angbor the Fearless

13 Clansmen of Lamedon

Forlong the Fat (comes with a free Warhorn)

13 Clansmen of Lamedon

Fight 4, Defence 4, Courage 5+1 on base troops with a 12 Inch Banner, rerolling 1’s and fearless meant I was running a glass canon, luckily this glass canon was kilted.

These aren’t my pictures so their quality is your problem and not mine.

First game was against the Witch King, a group of Morannon Orcs with a sprinkling of Morgul Knights and most terrifying of all a Catapult with Troll.

Luckily for me I rolled an unnatural amount of naturl 6's, thanks to the Banner effect. Also the game was a Clash by Moonlight which meant his catapult only hit on a 6. I rushed forward, broke the line while about half his army was sitting at the back of the board firing a catapult. I couldn't get in contact with the Witch King and only kept Imrahil alive thanks to his troll rolling a 5 to win a fight after Imrahil was transfixed in the last roll of the game. Major win to me.

These aren't pictures of my game but I did fight against the Dwarves in this picture. Burly Khazard Guard are some of the best troops in the game and it turns out D4 against S4 with a free +1 to wound means Clansmen disappear very fast.

The Kings Champion and Durin did slaughter a lot but Four Dwarf Rangers did a huge amount of damage with their bows and throwing axes, I sent a detachment of six Clansmen to deal with them in after a few turns I had done zero damage and taken 4-5 losses. Those little Dwarf Rangers are tough.

Game Two was the Classic "Objective in the Middle" game and I managed to mitigate it down to only a Minor Loss. At this point I'm still ahead.

Game Three was against a Mordor Army of Morannon Orcs and Black Numenorians. The Terror meant nothing to me but the Fight 4 became a real pain.

The Game was tag the five objectives. My Left pushed hard and with some well placed heroic combats I managed to completely collapse his flank.

Imrahil went on a rampage to sneak through the enemy lines and charge the Nazgul. Angborn took on Gothmog, killed his War and tied him up keeping his heroic action countering nonsense away from Imrahil. Forlong Focused on heroic Combats with 3-4 Clansmen to swarm the flank and not let my opponent counter my moves.

In the last turn I managed to take the last objective and it all came down to a single combat, a combat was being fought where both models were touching the tie breaker objective and whoever won the fight would win the game, it all came down to the last roll. I won, a minor win to me.

I had a great day, a friend I convinced to come along with me at the last minute placed 3rd, I have no idea where I ended up but it felt like a top half finish which is fine by me. What I was very happy about and very surprised about was winning Runner Up Players Choice (It's basically for Painting, in Australia we stopped having Sportsmanship Scores a long time ago). Not bad for two weeks worth of work.

Clansmen of Lamedon

Oct 23 2022

Tutoring 4

Skill 5

Idea 5

No Comments

I Have Actually Finished a Project for Once!

I've wanted an army of Clansmen of Lamedon for many, many years now. It was these Medbury Miniatures sculpts that convinced me to buy a 3D Printer.

The Original GW Sculpts. $55 for 3 although you get 3 Axemen as well which are nice for later but right now I just want the Clansmen

In less than a Month I printed, painted, based and attended a tournament with an army that was completely 3D Printed except for a single miniature.

The miniatures came out without any failures to speak of and sharper than I expected. I wanted 6 Bases of Clansmen for WOTR which means I need 48 miniatures.

I didn't take any pictures during the process, all up it was all finished in about two weeks in time for a Tournament here in Brisbane.

600 Point Tournament with one simple, personal rule, nothing but Clansmen of Lamedon. First off Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth with 13 Clansmen of Lamedon.

Forlong the Fat with 13 Clansmen of Lamedon. The three major Feifdom's characters all fantastic bonuses so they were an auto include. I threw on some tartan stripes on Forlong just to tie him in. Forlong was also from Medbury Miniatures.

Finally Angbor the Fearless with 13 Clansmen of Lamedon. Imrahil is an insane 12 Inch Banner which ties in nicely with the 'roll a 6 and you don't take the 2H Weapon Penalties', Forlong lets you re-roll 1's to wound and Angbor makes you fearless.