1980's Citadel Lord of the Rings (Part 1?)

After finishing the Bretonnian army I did'nt want to jump into the next project straight away. After the last blog post of Trolls,which included the 1980's Lord of the Rings Troll, and whilst looking through old miniatures, I realised that I have a fair number of the old 1980's Citadel Lord of the Rings range, including the Fellowship.

Now many of the Orcs, Elves, and Dwarves later ended up in the Warhammer Fantasy ranges as the style of them was not very different from the Warhammer ranges of the time. I don't think Citadel really intended the range to be a stand alone range, and perhaps thought/expected gamers to use miniatures from their other ranges to complement and bulk out any Lord of the Rings Forces. I always thought, but have no evidence to back this up, that this might be one of the reasons they lost the licence to Mithril, because they were not taking the range seriously enough in it's own right and not making it distinctive enough from Warhammer. Of course, the truth is probably different!

Here are links to the ranges and the alternative miniatures produced for the range:

http://www.solegends.com/citlotr/index.htm

and

http://www.collecting-citadel-miniatures.com/wiki/index.php/Lord_of_the_Rings_-_Alternatives

 Anyway,  I decided to make a start and opted to do the forces of Evil first, hence the 'Part 1' in the title. 'Part 2 will be the Elves etc if I decide carry on with the whole idea, or just stop with the forces of Evil and concetrate on the Warhammer Armies project again. The idea is to assemble them as a mixed raiding war-party, and if using just the Orcs, a force similar to the one that kidnapped Merry and Pippin.
 I do have both a Mithril Mordor Orc Army and a Grenadier Orc Army, both in need of paint stripping. I can use them both alternatives to the current Citadel Lord of the Rings miniatures range, which while is ok, I am not too keen on as I was not a great fan of the films. However, I thought this would be a fun aside and a different take on a Lord of the Rings Orcs that probably is'nt done anymore.
 None of you will be suprised to know I have collected some of the Moria Goblins though !  LOL.

  I seperated the Orcs out, except for the Snagga 'Goblins' (for the moment), as well as other Evil stuff. I then painted up a few of Orcs using the art on the back card from the blister packs:

(BTW, the blister photo is from Google , I don't own the picture nor the Uruk-Hai inside :(  )

I know that the Orcs flesh colour is not the colour described in the Lord of the Rings, but I think it is appropriate for the spirit and aim of this project.

Here are a few photographs of the Orcs painted so far, and the rest of the Orcs I have currently located:

 A couple of hours worth of Orcs and repainted Troll.

The Orc flesh was painted with Vallejo paints; English uniform base coat, highlighted with Khaki, and then Khaki and white mix highlights.

 Orc of the Red Eye. 

I will paint the Red Eye symbol on the shield later once I have settled on a Red Eye design and practiced it.

 Another Mordor Orc. 

 Orc of the White Hand with scimitar and bow.

 Another Orc of the White Hand, ready to do the bidding of Saruman.

 Half-Orc of Saruman, in need of basing. 

He is painted with a Khaki base coat, highlighted with Khaki and white mix. I wanted to go for the 'sallow' flesh tone described in the Lord of the Rings.

 The re-painted ME 52 Olog-Hai Troll. 

I was'nt happy with the old Green colour, so went for a grey-green look.

 Splat!

 The rest of the Orcs of the Red Eye, in a variety of conditions. 

I had to remove about seven Orcs from the completed 3rd Edtion Orc Army, so I will have to paint up replacements.

'Sort of' Lord of the Rings Orcs.

 These Orcs are not included in the range, nor listed as alternatives, but they do have the Red Eye of Suaron on their belt buckle. I don't know whether this was a detail included just for fun by the sculptors, or whether they were meant to be include at a later date. There are other similar posed Orcs from the time, without the buckle. 

I have included them for the time being.

 Close up of the belt buckle.

 Back to the range proper. 

ME 44 Uruk-Hai.

One of the alternate Uruk-Hai models from 1988, just before Citadel lost the licence. These are very rare and go for stupid money on e-bay. They did not end up being added to the larger Citadel range, which is a shame as they are quite nice miniatures, even if not very Lord of the Rings looking.

I'll add him to the forces of Saruman as Mordor has quite enough Uruk-Hai already!

 The other two ME 43  Half Orcs of Saruman, I painted about 25 years ago.

 Random selection of ME 42 Orcs of the White Hand and the alternates. I plan to paint these up exactly the same as the Red Eye Orcs, but make sure they have symbols of the White Hand on thier shields. The spearmen at the back have hand shaped belt buckles.

 ME45 Dunlendings: Hill men.

 I bought these in the 1980's with no idea what they were at the time as I had'nt read the book! I have started to repaint them. They are very big for what I asssumed were normal human types in the Lord of the Rings, and I mounted them 25mm bases for that reason.  They seem an odd design for Hill men, but I like them.

 WIP Saruman with Palantir.

On the other side of Evil, I do have Sauron on his Throne, and a version of him on foot with his Palantir, but not sure where they are at the moment!

 Serveral ME71 Corsairs of Umbar, not sure what colour to re-paint them, maybe red.

 Nazgul, and a Southron. 

I have never understood why he is waving his arm about like that.

The Balrog from the BME-3 Encounter at Khazad-Dum. 

I have re-undercoated him and I am sure it will not take long to repaint.

He won't be in the war-party though!

 A better photograph of the wings. It is a very lovely model, which I have had sitting in pieces for years in a bag waiting to be repaired and repainted.

 BME-2 Nazgul on Winged Beast.

MERP: The Middle Earth Roleplaying Game. 

I was bought this by my uncle in 1984 when I was about 10 years old. It was this, along with watching Ralph Bakshi's animated Lord of the Rings film that got me interested in Orcs, although it was sometime before I got around to reading the Lord of the Rings, and a couple of years before I started collecting miniatures.