Tutorial: Goblin Town Bases - Step by Step

Many people asked how I made the Goblin Town bases of my EfGT Goblins. So here's some step by step tutorial. Actually it's just some few basic components that are used:

- Sand (Obviously...^^ You don't need to buy any overpriced hobby retailers. Just go outside and grab some at every opportunity... The more different sources you have, the more you can vary...)

- Balsa wood (Wooden coffee stirrers would work as well, but are slightly to thick for my tastes.)

- Twine (Mine is black, but colour doesn't matter. You'll paint it anyway...)

- Wood glue / super glue

- Efa Plast light (It's an air hardening modelling clay. Any other brand would work as well. You don't have to buy anything superfine or expensive here. It's just to give the bases some structure.)

- Little stones to resemble Misty Mountain rocks (I use some of Rusus' casts (link is in German), because they can easily be cut into any shape needed, but again, anything you can find outside would work as well...)

- Bases (Yeah, sure...^^ I use washers from the hardware store, since I love the little extra weight they give your miniatures and them being a little bit more subtle than the GW-slottas, but again, that's just personal taste.)

I start buy cutting the balsa wood into fine stripes. Don't be too accurate here. Goblin Town is Orc-made. They are not known for their craftsmanship. Just make sure you get the sizes right. If all your planks have the calibre of a tree trunk it just won't look right.

Tie those planks up. Most of the time I only wrap the planks once or twice and use super glue for fixing. Again, you don't have to be too precise here. Safety is not an issue in Goblin Town... They don't believe in handrails... As you can see, the results look quite random. You don't need to recreate actual walkways. It wouldn't work on 25mm bases anyway. It's just to give some rough "Goblin Town"-impression.

Next, I apply small chunks of the Efa Plast to the bases and press the woodwork and the little rocks into it. Use the modelling clay to blend those items with the rest of the base. It will help to make the whole base look more naturally. For the same reason, I don't use the wooden planks on all the bases. Unless you are absolutely certain you will just play the Goblin Town scenarios, they would look misplaced on any other battlefield.

For this type of scenic base you need to remove the plastic base tabs of the miniatures. Make sure you glue them on before you apply the sand. Rough surfaces are tricky...

Building phase is done. I recommend HvM's painting tutorial for the colours, but you don't have to stick to them too slavishly. Goblin Town is huge and there is not only one kind of "Official Misty Mountain Rock TM colour". Slight colour variations help to make your base look more natural. For detailing the base, there are various opportunities I use some few MiniNatur tufts in drab colours or some occasional BUSCH mushrooms... Anything that would grow in or around Goblin Town. Don't overdo it, it's not the Shire, it's just to give the rocky underground some extra detail... If you're into skulls and skeletons you could as well do some press moulds of the debris on the Goblin Town scenery parts. They work pretty well on bases.

Let's hunt some dwarf... I hope this article will be helpful for some of you. Please let me know if you have any questions!

Fin

Watchful Peace

When Ebob released his new Norman warriors, I immediately had to think of John Howe's famous painting  "Watchful Peace". In my opinion this might be the best depiction of the proud descendants of the Sea Kings around. Unfortunately Weta didn't stay too close to his design.

Although I like the catchy style of Weta's design for the warriors of Minas Tirith, it never felt consistent to the books. Plate armour is never mentioned in the books (with the exception of vambraces) and it always comes to my mind again, when I see GW's tin-can Gondorians of the 3rd age...  In this respect, Ebob's Norman infantry is much closer to the books and in terms of gameplay, the hauberks should suffice as heavy armour as well.

In order to make the Normans fit for warriors of Gondor or even as Citadel Guard, I  had to convert them a bit first... Their chainmail armour and the "high helmets" are already perfect, the Kite shields came in handy as well, when I tried to give them their signature heraldry, but they still lacked helmet wings and some black cloaks. Without further ado, I added those, using some Green Stuff. I tried to avoid too much uniformity here, since I wanted to conserve some of the Dark-Ages-feeling. This is something I consider very important about recreating Middle-earth. There's a multitude of influences that gave distinction to Tolkien's Middle-earth, but the Hastings-period has undoubtely been the most important one for the description of the Kingdoms of Men. (This might be the reason why so many people praise Weta's depiction of the Rohirrim so high.)

Although they only replace GW's Numenorians in my Last Alliance at the moment, I plan to extend my Ebob collection to some larger 3rd Age Gondor warband for SAGA. Ebob has already posted some WIP pics of Norman cavalry that will follow at some point and I really hope for some archers and axemen as well. The cavalry should make some perfect mounted messengers (those with the red arrow...) or Swan Knights of Dol Amroth. Ebob even has some fitting helmets for those in his components section, which I might try.

Unboxing: Warriors of Dale

I have finally managed to get some of the newly released Warriors of Dale. GW has been stingy with these. It seems as if most independent retailers as well as GW stores have only got some few copies... I don't think I'll ever understand this company...

 

This box has been a controversial issue in the forums since it contains not the standard number of 12 models but only 10 (for which we don't even have a ruleset in the official books). Many hobbyists have detected some hidden price increase here but actually I don't see how the two additional models should have been forced into this frame. There are 4 warriors with spear, 3 warriors with sword and 3 archers in the box. 7 of them have the option for a shield. The frame is loaded with miniature parts. Especially the cloaks are quite bulky, similar to those of the new Elven cavalry, and take a lot of space. Nevertheless they add a great touch to those models and give them a very dynamic appearance. I really like Weta's Eastern European design and it has been perfectly caught in these models.

Im pretty sure the models will look gorgeous as an addition to an Erebor army, although I would prefer to field some warband of these on their own. I really could imagine these in some scenarios, defending a trade caravan against some Easterlings or patroling Rhovanion for marauding orc bands. I hope they extend the Men of Dale as a playable army some day... Otherwise it will mean a lot of conversion work for me... At least some characters would be nice...

As I already mentioned, the Warriors of Dale have no entry in the rulebooks so far. It's a shame that GW seems to have planned the Hobbit releases in such a sloppy and insufficient way, especially since it degrades the value of the hardcover rulebook... Why should I prefer the hardcover rulebook to the cheap one in the EfGT box set if it not even contains all the new profiles? Not very smart... 

On the other hand, I like GW's solution to this shortcoming. They simply relased the rules with the miniatures. The cardboard stat card that comes with the box contains the profiles of the Warriors of Dale in 6 languages. There's not much on it but some crappy text about their background (which I can't bring into context with the books at all...) and the profiles for warriors and a captain. Actually that is all I needed. I didn't expect some fancy artwork or some new special rules. All I wanted was some regular, well balanced troops and it's a real pleasure that the rules reflect that. Unluckily they don't seem to have the options for horns or flags. I'm curious if this is only because someone in Nottingham has been sloppy again, or if they really are intended to get no flags at all. Since they are guardsmen, I really would have loved some alarm horns or bells sound off...

 

Fin

Tutorial: Stripping Paint from Miniatures

Stripping paint from metal miniatures is easy... Nearly every dissolver out there works for this purpose to a greater or lesser extent, but as soon as people try to strip paint from plastik miniatures, people start thinking, since mostof these dissolvers will not only disintegrate the paint but probably the whole miniature...

My preferred agent for cases like this is Sterillium, a German germicide which you can get at most pharmacies. Actually this stuff is quite pricey and since my bottle was nearly empty I searched for a cheaper solution...

... which lead me to 99,9% propan-2-ol/ isopropanol/ isopropyl alcohol. In fact, this is the active ingredient in Sterillium. You can get this stuff in most pharmacies as well and it's much cheaper (ca. 2,50€/l). You might even get better prices online if you buy it in 5l jerrycans, although I doubt that you will ever need that much.

Test object to propan-2-ol was this Balrog, whom life hasn't been good to... He had a nasty cover of paint an glue.

Once soused with some propan-2-ol, the paint started to rub off immediately. 

Please note: It will not come off completely on its own! Best way to strip the miniature is to use an old toothbrush to get rid of the paint.

After a reaction time of 5 minutes I started brushing the paint off. As you can see the agent works pretty quickly. A longer reaction time would be helpful, but I had to speed things up a bit since I was a bit in a hurry.

Although the propan-2-ol looked quite nasty at this stage and had dissolved most of the paint, I put another miniature in to check if the agent still works once used.

Please note: You can see that I'm working with my bare hands. You should not do that! The propan-2-ol does not only dissolve the paint but will effectively degrease your skin as well. Wearing gloves is highly recommended. If it comes to working with chemicals, alsways have Breaking Bad in mind: Lab security comes first!

Test object 2 was stripped clean after some few minutes. Propan-2-ol can be reused several times. If you're discontent with the colour you might filtrate it through a coffee filter, but this will only remove the larger bits of paint. The changed colour will stay.

Final results: After 30 minutes of work the Balrog was completely clean. Only some of the metal-glue can still be seen at some parts. Maybe a longer reaction time would have helped here but I doubt that. This stuff is really nasty and needs to be removed mechanically.

Fin

WIP: Ebob Normans?

Some weeks ago I got a delivery of the brand new Ebob Normans. These miniatures have absolutely stunning detail which I'm still fascinated of. Although I never cared much about Normans, who are kind of the Vanilla Marines of the Dark Ages, I couldn't wait to see how they would fit in with my other Middle-earth models. As usual, Ebob' scale is pretty close to GW's true 28mm scale. They will mix pretty well with the rest of my collection!

You ask what the hell I would need Normans for, if I want to depict Middle-earth? Well, I'll give you a clue:

Any suggestions yet?

Fin

Showroom: Fin's High Elves

Some recent shots of my finally based High Elves warband, ready to hunt down some Orc.

Fin