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 :)
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.
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.
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.
Over time I might add a sixth base of trolls to the army.
As i mentioned, I might re-base as I am not sure about the three to a base for these.
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.
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.
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!).
The Orc next to her is on a 40mm round base, to give an idea of her size.
