Mithril Miniatures Evil Army: Part 7.

 Another quick update on my ongoing Mithril Miniatures Evil army. I say ongoing, but I have actually already finished painting the army. My main problem is having enough time for photography and then updating the blog. I have already moved onto painting some Chaos Dwarfs, and some 40k Praetorians, but their photographs will have to wait until the Mithril Miniatures have had their turn. I did really enjoy painting the army, and I am very pleased with how they turned out. 

Anyway, back to this blog update. This update concerns Mithril Miniatures boxset MB396 Shelob's Lair. Originally produced in 1997, this boxset was made to represent the confrontation by Frodo and Sam against Shelob, with Gollum lurking in the background. The set consists of Shelob, who is a multi-part kit, and a single miniature of Frodo, Sam, and Gollum respectively. I haven't painted the latter three yet as I wanted to focus on Shelob. I only acquired this boxset this year, in March, as a birthday present from my mother (who incidentally, doesn't really like spiders!). 

As mentioned, the Shelob miniature is multi-part, consisting of a body, an abdomen, eight legs, and two arms. She was surprisingly easy to assemble, the arms being a little fiddly but no real problem. The design of Shelob represents her spider-like form, but does have other elements also suggesting the fact that she is more a daughter of Ungoliant than a giant spider per se. This is suggested in such details as her more humanoid looking face, and her possessing arms (although ending in claws). One last thing to mention is the model is big, very big. The last photograph demonstrates how large she is. 

With painting I wanted make her both dark but with colour, so I opted for a gradation of red, with the brighter red on the legs joints and edges of the body to contrast the darker red parts. I also thought it would give her a spider look, without actually copying a particular spider colouration. In addition, I also wanted to keep the look simple and uncomplicated, and to preserve an stark evil feel. I'm very pleased with how she came out. 

Enjoy :) 

Shelob.

Top view showing the colouration on her legs.
 I positioned the legs to give the impression she was creeping along.

Her face and arms.
As I mentioned before, the sculpt suggests her true non spider ancestry from Ungoliant, which I think was a good choice. 

Legs and rocks. 

Rear view of her huge abdomen.

Scale comparison. 
I had to make a special custom base for her. In the foreground is a base Orc warriors on the standard 125mm by 50mm base. At the far side is one of Shelob's Giant Spider daughters from Mirkwood. Shelob is a big model, and her base is much bigger than a normal Midgard base, but it's an appropriate size for her.

My next  update will be something else from the Evil army, but I am not sure what. 

Mithril Miniatures Evil Army: Part 6.

It's time for the Trolls! These form the heavy hitting shock troops of the evil army. I have collected six bases of them, with three to a base, made up of a mixture of different Trolls from the Mithril Miniatures ranges. In the Midgard rules they will count as Heavy Infantry, with Big and Brutal traits.

Painting them was very straight forward. I recall reading somewhere that the Trolls of Middle Earth had a greenish tinge to their flesh (but not in the same hue as GW Trolls!) and so I went for a dark olive green look,. I also kept their clothing suitably drab, and their armour rusty. Again, like all of the Mithril Miniatures, they were fun to paint and looked good when painted due to the good sculpting and detailing. Like their Orc miniatures, Mithril Miniatures Trolls are very dynamically posed. I am pleased with how they have turned out.

Enjoy :)

The column of Trolls advances!

From left to right:
M416 Dol Guldur Troll attacking; M148 Olog-Hai Troll; M284 Cave Troll attacking.

M414 Dol Guldur Troll throwing rock; M295 Mordor Black Troll; and a converted M174 Troll of the Underdeep (he was missing his dagger in his right hand, and so I added a bits box blade in his left).

M148 Olog-Hai Troll; M23 Large Stone Troll; M48 Troll with Morning Star.

Another M148 Olog-Hai Troll; an unconverted M174 Troll of the Underdeep; M415 Dol Guldur Troll with stone axe.

MS471 Troll Drummer; MM443 MERP 'Dagorhir the Warlord'; M284 Cave Troll.
This base is designed to look a little like a command base.

M295 Mordor Black Troll; M148 Olog-Hai Troll; M49 Angmar Troll with cleaver.

The next update will probably be on some of the individually based character models and heroes which I have painted for the army. 

Mithril Miniatures Evil Army: Part 5.

 A slightly delayed blog update on my continuing Mithril Miniatures Evil army painting. Here are six bases of MZ675 Warg Captain with Wargs.

There's not too much say about these. They are nicely sculpted wolf miniatures, slightly smaller than Mithril Miniatures other Warg miniatures, especially the ones with the orcs riding on them. They come in a pack with three different sculpts, which for skirmishing or vignettes is fine, but a little limiting for multi based wargaming, especially with four to a base. To counteract this I mixed the ratio of sculpts to create little mini vignettes.

Again they were fun and quick to paint. I went for a Timber Wolf look as it has that classic wolf look.

Enjoy :)

All six bases.
I went for four to a base to use as Light Riders.

All six again.

As mentioned above I have made each of the bases into little vignettes. 
This one is 'Howling and circling' .

'Prowling wolves'.

'Stalking wolves'.

'Preparing to fight'.

'Calling to the army'.

'Howling together'.

Next update will be Mithril Miniatures Trolls. 

Mithril Miniatures Evil Army: Part 4.

 This is the second update concerning Mithril Miniatures Orc warriors. I have painted a further three groups of four bases of orc warriors, in the same manner as the others. They are still fun to paint, and at the end of this update are all the orcs I have completed painting so far.

Enjoy :)

The second batch of twelve bases.

Orc command.

Another orc command.

Warriors.

Warriors.

Warriors.

Warriors.

Warriors.

Top view of all the completed Orcs so far, all 24 bases.

Another view of the completed Orcs.

The next update will be Mithril Miniatures MZ675 Warg Captain with Wargs.

Mithril Miniatures Evil Army: Part 3.

 I have painted six Mithril Miniatures M103 Giant Spiders. These were initially released in 1989 and were meant to represent the giant spiders of Mirkwood.

They are mounted on the larger bases (125mm x 100mm) partly to represent monstrosities in the Midgard rules, and partly because they are quite large models. I enjoyed assembling them more than I thought as the legs are all separate to the one piece body section. My experience with gluing GW Tomb Scorpions lead me to dread assembling these, but they fitted together nicely, and allowed a lot of customisation of poses to give that extra creepy feel.

I painted them in the vague style of false widow spiders, but avoided a direct copy as I thought it would spoil their own style. I don't like False Widow spiders after being bitten twice by them over the last few years, the first time requiring antibiotics! So the colour choice was an purposeful extra creepy choice for me. Anyway, I am very happy with the way they have turned out, and I was happy that my positioning of the legs on or around the rocks seemed to have turned out nicely.

Enjoy :)

All six spiders.

All six spiders again. 

Skittering spider.

Scuttering spider.

Sneaking spider.

Crawling spider.

Creeping spider.

...and finally a lurking spider. 
(I though name them rather just type spider six times!).

Next update will be some more Orc warriors.

Mithril Miniatures Evil Army: Part 2,

Here are the first batch of painted Mithril Miniatures Orcs.

I have gone for dark look to give them that evil horde feel, and I thought that a rocky looking base would also help with that, suggesting the mountains around perhaps Mordor, the Misty Mountains, or the Lonely Mountain.

Painting over a black undercoat I painted the flesh tone Citadels Storm Vermin fur, whilst the clothing and equipment were kept to browns, black, grey, and occasional reds and greens. For the metals I chose to go for a rusty look using Citadels Typhus Corrosion, highlighted with a little silver to give the impression of chipping to the rust. Overall I wanted to maintain some of the dark depth from the black undercoat. I achieved this though mainly dry brushing and adding coloured paint more to suggest the upper colour over a dark overall feel, without getting bogged down in too much detailing.

I am very pleased with how they turned out. I like the dark look of them, and I think that the mixed earth brown  and grey bases give a more realistic feel to the rocky terrain.

Enjoy :)

The first three groups of four bases of Orcs in column, plus an Orc hero.

Battle lines. 

One of the groups of four.

Orc Command.

M333 Lugburz Great Uruk,

Next update will be more Orcs. I shall be continuing updating the blog on the Mithril Miniatures until they are completed, which may be by the end of April as I am speeding through the painting, and only occasionally being distracted by other things!

Mithril Miniatures Evil Army: Part 1.

This is a collection I have kept returning to, tinkering with, and adding to over the years, but now finally I have reached the stage where I am ready to finish it. I first starting collecting Mithril Miniatures in about 1995. I liked the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings books and was intrigued by the grey primed miniatures which looked quite different from the Citadel and Grenadier miniatures ones I had collected before. In fairness, I mainly liked the Orcs and Trolls, but wasn't taken with some of the other miniatures. So I largely collected the Orcs and Trolls on and off over the years, but could never settle on forming an army of them until this year when the Midgard rules were released. 

With the Midgard rules I feel I have a better way of basing them than having to have individually based blocks of 20 or 30 miniatures as per Warhammer or the Lord of the Rings Strategy Game. As many of the Orc miniatures are sculpted running it means that I can position them on the bigger bases in a way which reflects their more dynamic posing. It also means that fewer miniatures can go a lot further, although there are still several hundred Mithril Miniatures in this army.

A problem with Mithril Miniatures is that most of their ranges from over the years are now out of production, and they are not going to re-release any of them (I don't know why). This meant e-bay or private companies with some stock. Luckily though I already had most of what I required. One thing which I did find though when organising and basing them was that I had to alter the recommended number of miniatures on a base. To give the miniatures some room, and to make them look good, I had to reduce the number of Orcs to six per base, the Trolls to three per base, and skirmishers to three per base also. I have also only placed three wolf riders per base, but I might re-base these to four.

The following blog update is most of the Evil Army. I still have some Nazgul, and a few other odds and ends. Also, it has been a couple of weeks since I photographed the army and I have started painting them with some momentum. So there will be several painted miniatures on blog updates soon!

Enjoy :)

Orc Warriors.
There are nine groups of four bases (36 bases) each with six Orcs on. I have grouped the bases into fours, with one of the four a 'command' base with standards, etc. This doesn't matter for Midgard, but looks good, and also means I can still use them for other systems if needed. There is a good mix of various Mithril Miniatures Orcs here, with a few conversions/repairs and alternative weapon/shield additions.

Side view.

Orc archers.
These are largely made up of the M46 Orc Archer. I replaced the bows as those that weren't missing were either broken or I deemed too fragile.

More Orc Archers.
On the subject of fragile, these are the Orcs from the Orcs of Mordor boxset. Over the years many of the bows were bent or broken, a box of them being squashed about 15 years ago didn't help! So I replaced all the broken bows with brass rod and green stuff.

Skirmishing Orc archers.

Trolls.
Over time I might add a sixth base of trolls to the army.

Warg Riders.
As i mentioned, I might re-base as I am not sure about the three to a base for these. 

Two Orc Shamans, and an Orc Commander (centre).
The Orc Commander is the M93 Zalg miniature, but I could easily use him as Bolg or an Orc version of Gothmog at the Battle of Pelennor Fields, or any other Orc warlord.
The Shaman on the left is M452 Orc Animist, whilst the one on the right is M99 Karagat the High Priest. I am not sure if Karagat is an Orc, but he does look Orc-ish. the miniature comes with a naked and bound female sacrificial victim, which I didn't think would look right on the base.  

M333 Lugburz Great Uruk, M149 Half Troll, M164 Azog, MS504 Grishnakh.

Orc leaders from the MW336 Orcs of Mordor Warband box set.

MS552 Bolg's Standard Bearer, and an Orc from the M281 Strider fighting Orc Chief, Orc from the MM303 Great eagle attacking Orc (with an added shield), and a spare MM310 Mordor Orc Standard Bearer. 

M309 Orc Warband Leader, M334 Lugburz Captain with Whip, one of the M311 Mordor Orc Archers, M150 Uruk.

MZ675 Warg Captain with Wargs.
To the side are two M25 Large Wargs with I might use as Warg heroes, or re-base and mix in with the Warg Riders.

MS561 White Hand Orc Wolf Rider, and two of the Salute 2008 Orc Chieftain on Enormous Wolf. I have several other of these to add to the army

M103 Giant Spiders.
I love these, really creepy and crawly. I have actually already painted these up. The legs had to be stuck on individually, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be (gluing together GW's metal Tomb Scorpions was a lot worse!).

Shelob from the MB396 Shelob's Lair.
The Orc next to her is on a 40mm round base, to give an idea of her size.

M78 Razarac.

The next update will be some of the above miniatures painted. I have already started working my way through them over the last three weeks.