Men In Boxes

Painting up the Fighting Uruk-hai armed with pikes and fighting in phalanx formation. 1:72 Dark Alliance half-orcs.

Here are 1:72 orcs from various manufacturers such as Caesar Miniatures and Orion/Dark alliance. Some are even Hat Industrie. These were based before for Warmaster, 2 figures to a base but since shifting my attention to Hores of the Things, I've decided to rebase some for a generic orc army, a Tolkien orc army and maybe another orc army version -- an AD&D one perhaps -- all for Hordes of the Things/Fantasy Impetus/DBx

A tableful of 1/72 orcs I'm working on. These are orc models from Caesar Miniatures, Orion Models as well as Hat Industries Sea Peoples drafted for this army. I'm raising me a horde or two! I prefer Orion Models' orcs over Caesar's but the difference in design means I could develop different themed armies of orcs. The Hat Industries figures were from the biblical Sea Peoples box set but their ugliness make them perfect orc models too. Here's an older post I wrote about these models . As an aside, I can't seem to find any of the Caesar Miniatures fantasy line sets for sale. Does this mean that Caesar's pulled the plug on these figures?

Caesar Miniatures 1/72 Elves. Cueing up an Elf army for HotT.

Here are some elements of my HotT Dwarf army I managed to paint inbetween drawing projects and painting my not-space marines. They're made from Caesar Miniatures' 1/72 Dwarves. Most of the elements will be blades, with 4 figures mounted to a stand.   The Caesar Dwarves are kind of a mixed bag. Some were obviously inspired by the Dwarves in the LOTR films and some by Games Workshop's Trollslayers. I personally prefer the LOTR look but they seem to be lightly armored with most not having helms of any kind.    I also made hero elements with three figures for each. If I'm playing the army as Tolkien-inspired, I plan on using huge bears as a behemoth element. The figures are from the Dungeons and Dragons line, repainted and based 2 to a stand. And here's a Goliath as a behemoth or hero element for a more generic fantasy -- or a D&D campaign setting -- milieu. The repainted figure's from the Dungeons and Dragons line too. I'm planning to add t...

Finally, my HotT Orcs have a behemoth element. The element has 2 figures drafted from the Dungeons and Dragon miniatures line. The 30mmish prepainted Orc Savage from the Deathknell release looked suitable enough to be a 1/72 troll. These are more samples of my repurposed and rebased figures with the original prepainted minis repainted a trollish green and based for HotT as a behemoth element. In Norse mythology, trolls are said to dwell in isolated mountains, rocks, and caves, are larger than humans and notably ugly. Numerous tales about trolls are recorded, in which they are frequently described as being extremely old, very strong, but slow and dim-witted. They are sometimes described as man-eaters and as turning to stone upon contact with sunlight. In Tolkien's writings they are portrayed as evil, stupid, with crude habits, although still intelligent enough to communicate with a known language. Morgoth, created the first Trolls before the First Age. Strong and vicious, but...

I just received some new sets of 1/72 plastic orcs! These are labeled "Dark Alliance" and Orion. The sculpts are quite nice and more to my taste than the Caesar Miniature Orcs.  I'll be posting pix here soon. I've set aside the Warmaster army I'm working on to try making one for HotT. Here are some lists I found on the net for making a generic but still "Tolkien" in spirit Orc/goblin army: From Luke Ueda Sarson: 1 x Warband or Blades, 1 x Warband, 2 x Riders, 2 x Lurkers or 1 x Beasts, 1 x Behemoth or 2 x Beasts, 10 x Hordes From Dave Kuijt's Middle Earth DBA lists: 1x3Bd or 3/4Wb(Gen), 2x5Wb, 3x5Wb or 2Wa, 1x5Wb or 4Tr or 3Bw or 2Ps, 5x2Ps And 3 more from Dave Kuijt's post at Fanaticus: Uruk Raiding Party 1x Hero (Lurtz), 3x Wargs (Beasts, or Riders if you must), 1x Shooter, 1x Troll (or 2x Spear), 2x Blades Uruk Invasion of Rohan: 1x Hero (Lurtz) or Magician (Saruman), 2x Wargs (Beasts), 4x Spear, 1x Shooter, 3x Blades Uruk Invasio...

Here's another toy I plan to repurpose and rebase -- two mammoths I found at the animal toys section of my local department store. I picked up two of these megafauna and up close, they look pretty good with a very decent paint job. It seems I'll be saving some time painting and could pour the hobby time instead on developing a suitable howdah. The pictures show the toy with a 28mm GW LOTR Elvish spearman as well as two 1/72 Ancient Spanish from Hat Industrie. These guys could stand for Mumaks in my 1/72 Middle Earth project!

After much consideration, I've decided to use Miniart's Late Roman Infantry as the core models for my Mirkwood Elves. the figures are sculpted wearing a tunic over trousers, with some in scale or mail armor. A simple conversion with putty cloaks and hoods over the heads should do the trick in making them look more "woodsy." (Figure scan above is from PSR) I like the fact that the armor has a very "dark age" feel and that not all the figures wore any, perfect for depicting the lightly armed & mixed warriors of Mirkwood. Some of the figures are armed with the Dark Age Roman Spatha, a longer sword popular in this period, as well as a variety of spears and javelins. Each set has 8 archers (short bowmen -- perfect for Mirkwood since it was the Lorien elves who used longbows) in two poses which would again just require a putty cloak with a hood over the head. The set has a mixture of shields, both of medium size and of large, oblong ones. During the war agai...

Now that I have the figures to start building the army, I've made some lists to help in organizing the forces. Warmaster is my current favorite ruleset and I've been basing my 1/72 historicals using two infantry figures per one 40mm x 20mm base stand, with cavalry being mounted one each. Three infantry bases normally make a unit, with an additional stand if the unit is elite or veteran. A cavalry unit is composed of three figures with the models facing the 20mm side. As I've written earlier, I've read that Isengard actually had two armies -- one that went East and another that went West. So, I sat down and drew three variants of the Isengard army. The lists and points were taken from the Middle Earth Warmaster group at Yahoo Groups. I'm aiming for a base army of around 1500 points each. The first list is a generic army list for Isengard. The images can be clicked for a bigger version. The Army of East Isen is Uruk heavy, with a lot of wolfriders and Dunlending horse...