Battle Companies Community Challenge

 

'But it is told that he was a renegade, who came of the race of those that are named the Black Númenóreans.... And he entered the service of the Dark Tower when it first rose again, and because of his cunning he grew ever higher in the Lord's favour; and he learned great sorcery, and knew much of the mind of Sauron; and he was more cruel than any orc.'

A while ago I got asked by some Welsh man if I wanted to take part in some content creator painting challenge alongside other MESBG bloggers and YouTube creators. After first getting over the shock of being recognized as a content creator I tentatively asked what this would entail. "Don't worry, you'll only have to paint about half a dozen models and you'll have a couple of months to do it. Loads of time," was the reply. For context, my painting slowed to half a model painted in the 3 months prior to this conversation since the birth of my son. "Sure, why not" came my foolishly over eager response. Then I found out about the rules. Those rules were:

Each participant had to submit 2 colours to the organiser, Dewi (the aforementioned Welsh man).
We would then all be assigned a random colour combination from these submissions and a random Battle Company to build and paint before the deadline.

Easy, no problem. Unless I randomly drew either a company with models that I don't like (like Elves or Black Numenoreans) or colours that are hard to paint (like yellow). But what are the chances of that?

And then the draw happened...

@?$#@

Yellow and purple Minas Morgul.

Hitting not one, but two of the things I didn't want. Well at least it wasn't Elves.

The only yellow paint I own came from the 1st paint set I got when I started this hobby, now more than a decade ago. In this case my dog genuinely did eat my homework after I caught her chewing on the bottle several years ago.

After getting over the initial disgust I eventually got into chopping, glueing and painting my Battle Company, consisting of 2 Black Numenoreans, 6 Orcs and their faithful canine companion. And here they are in all their splendor.

Herumor leading the Company through the ruins of Middle Earth

"Shar? Shay-ah? Ba? Bac-eens? Bagg-eens?" queried Fuinur, trying to wrap his tongue around the strange syllables as he paced about the dimly lit room. "What is this supposed to mean?"

"How am I supposed to supposed to know?" Snapped back Herumor, angrily shooting forth a shower of sparks from an outstretched palm that briefly illuminated the small space. "If we knew that the the Master wouldn't be tasking us with finding out. That's all the whips and flaying knifes of the Tower could get out of the sniveling creature they captured. Not even the Black Hand himself could get anything else out of it."

"Maybe if they hadn't flogged it half to death they might have gotten something more to go on. I've seen those cutthroats at work, probably cut it's tongue out to get it to speak. And now we're to find information on what this wretch meant? What's so important about it anyway?"

"Some weapon for the war the Dark Lord is after." replied Herumor, summoning another shower of sparks as he peered at the rudimentary map laid out on the rough-hewen wooden table. "There were rumours of strange happenings surrounding the Lonely Mountain when the Dragon fell, that's where we'll start looking. See if we can't lure the Naugrim with a little something," he said as he pulled out a heavy gold ring set with a blue gem from a pouch he had on his belt and set it on the map. It sparkled in the dim light, seemingly with a glow of it's own.

Fuinur looked on in amazement, finally stopping his pacing to gaze in wonderment at the gem. "Is that..." He stammered, "How..."

"Indeed it is. One of the Seven. We're to tempt the Naugrim of the Lonely Mountain with it in exchange for information on this Shire Baggins," replied Herumor, stowing the Ring securely back in it's pouch. "We'll gather a squad of Orcs, lads we can trust, and head North. No more than half a dozen, secrecy is key."

Fuinur thought for a moment before a crude smile spread on the grizzled old warrior's face. "Lagduf and his lads were reliable enough in the Eastern Campaign and he owes me a favour after I saved his skin against those Dwarves in the Orocarni."

After studying the map for an extra few seconds Herumor finally stood from the table, rolled up  the map and stowed it beside the pouch on his belt "That's decided then. We leave at dusk tomorrow."

Herumor the Sorcerer, the leader of the company

Fuinur the Warrior, 2nd in Command

Lagduf, the leader of the Orc pack

Ufthak

Othrod

Belameg

Gorgol

Radbug

Beruth the hound (because why wouldn't I take a dog?)

So that's my Minas Morgul Battle Company ready to seek out information on Baggins and the Ring. 

When creating them I wanted everyone to be converted (with the exception of the dog) to really generate some individuality. With the Orcs this just involved a host of chopping and changing within the Mordor Orcs and Warg Riders kits, both of which are great for kitbashing like this. 

However, with the Black Numenoreans a little more imagination was required. As I mentioned above I really dislike the Games Workshop design for Black Numenoreans and don't feel that the aesthetic fits with my view of Middle Earth and that the scale and look fit better with Warhammer Fantasy or Age of Sigmar. 1st thing to change on them was the outlandish helmets that they sport and to reduce the excessively spiked pauldrons. It was while I was searching for inspiration on what I wanted these two models to look like that I came across the opening quotation of this article. This confirmed that Black Numenoreans could learn sorcery and so immediately I wanted my leader to take the Path of the Sorcerer and I settled on the hooded ominous figure summoning fireballs. This was created using a head from the plastic Eowyn model with a green stuffed hood and flame, as well as trimming down the wildly impractical sleeves. As for the 2nd Numenorean, I rummaged through my collection and found some Army of the Dead. Having seen some people paint these up as living men of Carn Dum in the past I felt that one of these heads could work to give an old veteran warrior vibe.

When it came to painting I knew I had to stick with Yellow and Purple as my main colours but I wanted the Black Numenoreans to still retain that dark, menacing colour scheme, so chose to use dark purple as the main colour on them. This was done by liberal use of purple washes over a grey base coat then highlighting back up with some yellowish object source lighting from the flame on Herumor and with greys and purples on Fuinur. Having chosen purple as the main colour on the Black Numenoreans that meant I had to feature yellow prominently on the Orcs, not normally an Orcish colour. In order to avoid it looking too bright and garish I started with a beige and layered up multiple washes of Agrax and Sepia with yellow highlights to give a dirty, grimy appearance more in keeping with Orcs. The armour and skin tones were again based on purple washes similar to the Numenoreans. 

And finally I decided to make a display board for the Company using an Osgiliath Ruins kit that's been waiting for some paint for many years. This was painted simply with numerous dry brushes of greys and browns over a grey prime and mounted onto an MDF base taken from a broken photo frame with sand glued down for ground texture.

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And so there is my attempt at this challenge, but be sure to check out all the other excellent contributions from these other brilliant content creators:

Dewi Evans - Guardians of Wiltshire

Steve Crowe - Top Table Gaming

Cameron Cochrane - PaintsOnA4Up

Dan Slobodian, Steve Thorley, Colm Browne, David Cooper and Dan Stuart - Drawn Combat

Sam Huddy, James Willson and CJ Millar - At Dawn, Look to the East

Dene Palmer - Dene Paints Things

Harry Parkhil - Battle Games in Middle Earth

Damian O'Byrne - Battle Streams in Middle Earth

Benjamin Bowles - Benji's Hobbies

Alex Temple - Battle Camper

Alistair King - GBHL Blog