Jumping around, it was time to get back to some GW Lotr wargs. After finishing my spider army, I decided to crank out another easy to build army for the game. That would be an army or Wargs. While looking at the GW site, I noticed the they had their first generation plastic Wargs marked for only eighteen dollars a box. This was almost half what the new ones cost, so I pulled the cord and ordered a stack of boxes.
Looking at the list in the army book, I noticed there was a single Chieftain model available to use as a hero for the units. Frankly, the model was a bit to pricy for my blood and I did not like the dead Rohan model being on the base (more of a possible mismatch look, than anything else). So, I went into my fantasy collection to look for some large wolves that I bought from during a Mierce Miniatures fifty percent off sale. I found them and thought they looked very much like the GW figure (except for the dead body), a couple even were on rocks!
Once the GW order arrived, I started building the models that evening while watching TV. I noticed that the models only came in two actual poses, which explained why they were now trying to get ride of them… Well, a little fiddling and I was able to cross glue the various halves and give myself four poses. I then glued them to the 40mm round bases in different angles and sides to give more variation. Standing back, they looked quite random, so I was happy with that. I then used some thick glue to try to fill in various gaps (some filled better than others…).
Next would be the Chieftains. These were resin models, so I glued them together with super glue. The largest one was climbing a rock, so he would be my general. Another was standing on some ground rocks. I decided to go into my terrain box and pull out a piece of bark and add rock sections to the other models, so make the hero’s stand out that much more from the rank and file troops. The gaps on these models were actually quite bad, so I tried to fill them with gloss, to varying degrees of success (like the troops).
Once the everything was dry, I took them outside for a good spray painting of testers Camo brown. Another evening, I hit them all with some GW Agrax Earth Shade and let that sit. The next weekend, I hit all the models with a dark brown, then medium brown and finally a tan dry brush. Looking at the photos online, they seems to go lighter as they went higher, so I did the same thing. This is were I noticed that some of the gaps did not fill in as well as I would like. However, I was too far down the path and would have to live with it…. Next I went back and hit all the faces with a black wash to darken them like the ones online. Next I painted all the visible tongues red. I then hit all the claws with some tan. I used GW contrast black on all the eyes and ears. I finished by painting the teeth and claw tips white.
Next was basing. I went with the Vallejo dark mud pumice and applied that to the bases. Once that dried, I highlighted them all with two levels of earth and tan dry brushing. Even though the colors are different, this blended in with the figures a little more than I wanted. However, this is what I chose for the spiders and these needed to match. However, they were not done yet. The final colors would be the flocking. Before that, I repainted the base sides to make them uniform with some dark brown. Next, I applied Scenic Express mixed foliage dark green to the bases with white glue. I then added spiky bush tufts to add some flavor, with some dark green tufts to finish up the flora. Finally, I painted the rocks gray, followed by a black wash and then dry brushed them up with light grey highlights. I finished with a Testors Dull Coat spray. With that, more forces of evil for my future LotR gaming fun!
- Manteuffel
Nicely done.