I’ve got precious little painted in the past week, thanks to an unfortunate work schedule as well as a number of other obligations. The next few weeks don’t look like they’re going to be much better: in fact, I think I’m going to have to declare the weekend of May 15 – May 17 “Fuck you, this is my free weekend!” Weekend.

I did wrap up a rank of Haradrim archers and a Haradrim Banner, however. I still have to paint the design on the standard, but that will wait.

I also went ahead and converted up some hornblowers. They don’t make musician models for the Harad troops, but they’re certainly an option in War of the Ring (and, as of White Dwarf, 352, Skirmish of the Ring… where they’ll be tremendously useful for my Far Harad).

The conversions were pretty minor: just an arm and a hand swap. I used horns from the WHFB Wood Elves, with the expectation that they’d be suitably feral. They look really good, I think.

28mm elf hands, as it turns out, are just a tiny bit small for 25mm man hands. So, they’re darn close enough. I also ordered some Beastman horns, to see how they’d look. Those hands are much too large, which is unfortunate. Still: all of this is a much better approach than the once GW Fair Oaks suggested: by the $25 Rohan command kit, cut off the arm off of one of them, use it, and you know, just forget about the rest.

I also made a banner bearer for my Mahud Warriors. I went around and around on approaches, and finally settled on just using the rack thing that comes with the Mahud Chieftain/King model. Although I think the racks look awesome on those models, I need something to represent a banner, and I can’t think of anything that’s quite as appropriate.

There was a suggestion that folks should rattle off what they’re working with and where they are with it for War of the Ring. It’s not a bad one, but a forum thread feels like an odd place for that sort of thing… where as a blog (or as mentioned in the thread, a wiki) is the perfect place.

Painted:
17 Haradrim Warriors (Spears x12, Bows x4, Banner x1)

Assembled:
Suladan the Serpent Lord (Foot & Mounted)
Dalamyr, Lord of Umbar
Mahud King (Foot & Mounted)
Haradrim Chieftain
Corsair Captain
Corsair Bosun
4 Half Trolls (Normal x2, Two Handed Weapons x2)
12 Mahud Warriors (Normal x9, Blowpipes x3)
24 Corsair of Umbar(Shields x8, Spear x8, Bow x8)

Partially Assembled:
5 Mahud Raiders

Unopened:
12 Mahud Warriors (Normal x6, Blowpipe x6)

On Order:
24 Haradrim Warriors (Spears x12, Bows x12)
24 Corsair of Umbar (Shields x8, Spear x8, Bow x8)
Haradrim Raiders x6 (Normal x3, Bow x2, Banner x1)
4 Half Trolls (Normal x2, Two Handed Weapons x2)
Mordor/Isengard Troll
Hasharin

What all of that mess will eventually get me (in terms of War of the Ring) is:
– Suladan
– Dalamyr
– 51 Haradrim Warriors (~6 Companies)
– 24 Spears
– 24 Bows
– 1 Banner
– 1 Chieftan
– 1 Hasharin
– 6 Haradrim Raiders (6 Companies)
– 3 Spears
– 2 Bows
– 1 Banner
– 50 Corsairs of Umbar (~6 Companies)
– 16 Shields
– 16 Spears
– 16 Bows
– 1 Captain
– 1 Bosun
– 25 Mahud Warriors (~3 Companies)
– 15 Normal
– 9 Blowpipes
– 1 Chieftain
– 6 Mahud Raiders (3 Companies)
– 5 Raiders
– 1 Chieftain
– 8 Half Trolls
– Troll (Mordor, Isengard or Cave)

I’ve got some work cut out for me to converting up musicians and standard bearers on the Mahud, as well as a musician for the Haradrim. I don’t plan on buying any more models past this until I get the chance to play the game a bit more.

I’ve done a lot of thinking about how to run a more balanced force while maintaining my Harad theme; it’ll involve a lot of conversion, I think, and flat out model subsitution (for ghostly troops and seige weapon crew). It’ll make getting spun up on the game a lot harder, but I think it’ll ultimately really pay off.

Didn’t bother taking any pictures for this past week’s work: very little is picture worthy.

I finished a third (and final, until I pick up another box of them tomorrow) rank of Haradrim spearmen, got about halfway through a first rank of Haradrim archers, assembled six more Mahud warriors (though I’ve got another 12 still waiting in blisters) and did most of the assembly of five Mahud Raiders.

I should be getting an order of more stuff for * of the Rings in the next couple of days. This is good, because once it’s assembled, I’ll be able to start taking clumsy stabs at low-level games of War of the Ring. It’s unfortunate, however, because right now I’d much rather be painting stuff than feeling like I have to grind through assembling a bunch of stuff. At least by next week I should be able to play respectable games of Skirmish of the Rings fully painted.

This weekend was the IFL Winter 2009 Fantasy Escalation League Tournament. I’ll skip over the details; the short version was, it was a pretty good time with two very enjoyable games and one that was somewhat less so. I’m done with Fantasy for the next while.

In the meantime, I’ve finished my first company of Haradrim Warriors for Lord of the Rings/War of the Ring. I’m dissatisfied with their faces (especially the eyes), but faces are hard enough to do at 28mm. Drop things down to 25mm and it’s even harder.

Now that I’ve got a feel for painting them, the rest of the plastics should paint up very quickly. I expect I can knock out four in a bit more than a day. The metal figures are significantly more detailed, however, so they’re likely to be a lot more work.