Over the Edge of the Wild: Knights of Gondor

"Pippin looked at him: tall and proud and noble, as all the men that he had yet seen in that land; and with a glitter in his eye as he thought of the battle."

Pippin and Beregond by Denis Gordeev

A couple of months ago I introduced my next next army project, the Knights of Gondor. Unfortunately, certain family matters (hopefully now behind us) threw some obstacles in the way of properly getting stuck in, hence the unfortunate delay in any updates. But finally some progress has been made. Hoorah!

And I started painting my cavalry army, not by painting horses, but by painting infantry. Huh?

To date the vast majority of my painting has been focused on infantry. It seems odd to start an all cavalry army by painting more infantry but in the game I'd need them in the unfortunate event that my glorious knights get dismounted and I didn't like the idea of essentially 'finishing' an army only to have to continue painting because I left all the dismounts until the end.

On the Knights and Warriors of Minas Tirith the predominant feature of the models is the heavy armour they are wearing and so that is where I place most of my efforts with painting. In my experience focusing on one or key aspects of the model is a more time efficient way of painting, rather than lavishing the same level of detail on every tiny feature of a model (as Red in Shawshank Redemption reminds us 'I mean, seriously, how often do you really look at a mans shoes?')

Now there's a lot of debate about the type of armour that Gondorians should wear. The clearest description of a Gondorian soldier's armour that I could find in the books was:

'they were surprised to see knights in bright mail and tall guards in silver and black standing there.' Return of the King

Detail from Siege of Gondor by Alan Lee

This states that they were clad in 'bright mail' with no mention of plate armour being found in the text with the sole except of Imrahil's 'bright-burnished vambrace.' This generally fit in with an early medieval level of development that is seen elsewhere in Middle Earth. Peter Jackson, however, opted instet to clad the soldiers of Minas Tirith in heavy plate armour comprising a breast plate, pauldrons and lames, very much in the style of the later 16th century. The advantage of this is that it provides a very clear distinction on screen between the Gondorians and the Rohirrim, who may otherwise have appeared too similar.

German armour from the 2nd half of the 16th century. Just change the helmet and put a tree on the front and it's a near perfect match for the men of Minas Tirith.

In the end, it was that ease of recognition that led me to opt for the Jackson-esque plate armour over the bright mail clad knights from the books because at the end of the day, these are for gaming and it's important for both players to be able recognize them from several feet away. (Also the Gondorian plate armour looks pretty cool).

When it came to painting the armour I chose to go with the same simple NMM I had used on my Khazad Dum dwarves last year. This was done with a base coat of Administratum Grey, followed by an Agrax Earthshade wash. Then highlighted with Administratum Grey, Celestra Grey and White Scar on progressively smaller areas and always trying to pick out the surfaces that would catch the light. On these Warriors of Minas Tirith I typically went lightest with the highlights on the helmet and the tree on the breast plate to make those areas stand out more clearly.