No pics this week, as I’ve painted next to nothing. I’ve made a great deal of progress on five Corsairs of Umbar (well, 4 Corsairs and a Corsair Captain), but that’s it, and they’re not quite done.

I have assembled a number of minis, though. I finished off assembling my second box of Corsairs (one more box to go), Gothmog (with the tiniest bit of conversion: a turban),four half-trolls, twelve Wargs and a Mumak.

The Wargs were something I agonized over.

Since I’ll be pulling them into my list anyway, I needed to compare the Mordor Warg Riders to the Misty Mountains Wargs (Isengard Warg Riders didn’t need a look, since they’re the same as Mordor Warg Riders… but they’re Rare). The Warg Riders are unquestionably better than the riderless Wargs: they’ve got 4-5 more unit options, come with Skilled Riders and throwing weapons, and can be upgraded to have shields or bows… but I’m working with a theme, here! The Wargs are perfectly hyena-ish, which is why I looked at them in the first place… but those goblins don’t fit at all, and on closer inspection looked pretty resistant to minor conversion to bring them in line.

Ultimately, I decided against the riders. I’m leaving them off. In game terms, I’m losing out on 2 attacks (throwing weapons) per company and a bunch of command options I’m extremely unlikely to take… but the army will look that much nicer and more cohesive as a result. Besides, given that we’ve got people using WHFB elves and dwarves in the league, I don’t mind just saying, “These are counts-as Warg Riders, not just Wargs. Their angry barks are their throwing weapons.” Or something.

The Mumak is pretty crazy. It went together relatively easy, but there were a number of gaps and uneven spots that needed green stuff to make things work. For a $65 ($75 as of today) model, this is a little disappointing. Also, the howdah was a huge pain to put together.

I was surprised to find that the Mumak is, ah, anatomically correct. It’s a little disconcerting. It’s also the size of a person. Madness.

At this point, all I’ve got left to assemble for War of the Ring are:

• 16 Corsairs
• 1 Giant Scorpion (Shelob)

I’ve also got a heap of Mahud that need attention, but since they appear to be so terrible in the game, I’m likely just going to leave them in the blister until I figure out what to do with them. The ones I’ve already assembled, I plan to use to leaven out Half-Troll units. It’s a shame, really.

I also need to pick up a second Nazgul at some point extremely soon.

Thanks to the long weekend, I got a lot done. War of the Ring is going to be a slow slog, I think, but from this point out I think I’m going to start painting minis for it a company at a time, as opposed to half a company at a time. That might make the undertaking a little more tedious, but it should speed it up a bit. We’ll see.

I’ve finished a number of Epic Heroes: Dalamyr, a Nazgul and Suladan (the older model, who’s likely to stand in as Amdur at some point down the line).

I also finished a second company of Haradrim Archers. This puts me at four companies of Haradrim, total, so I thought I’d celebrate by taking pictures of them (plus a piece of test terrain):

I’ve also started painting some Corsairs of Umbar, just to do something a little different. I’m not going to need them for several weeks (whereas I’m using Haradrim in the league right now, but they’ll go in eventually).

Progress was slow this week; I’m not sure I can put my finger on exactly why. The Escalation League starts this week, though… so even though I know I’ll never be fully painted, I really need to step it up.

I’ve currently got a couple of figures (the last four Haradrim archers from my first box of Haradrim warriors, a Haradrim hornblower, a hasharin, Dalamyr, and Suladan / “Amdur”) that are all nearly done:

My goal is to have all eight of these suckers done and ready for varnish tonight. They’re close enough that I don’t really have any excuse.

One problem I’ve run into with painting these guys is applying the GW Badab Black wash over P3 Thamar Black. Look closely at the recesses of these cloaks:

They’re brighter than the highlights!

I think my pot of Badab Black wash has gone funky, or it’s a reaction to the heat and humidity. These are not the first models I’ve done this to, but the behavior is only very recent. It’s very odd.

The goal for tonight, as I’ve said, is to finish up the 8 partially painted models. The goal for this week is to assemble the last of the models I have: another 24 Haradrim Warriors, 24 Corsairs of Umbar, and four Half-Trolls. (I’ve also got lots in the way of Mahud, but they can wait a bit longer, I think.) Although I won’t need those models in the first week of the league, I’ll need them in the second.

Games Day Baltimore was, of course, this past weekend. That’ll get its own post, though.

Progress was slower than I’d have liked but (if I’m honest with myself) better than it has been over the past couple of weeks.

The biggest development wasn’t even painting-related: I finally figured out how I’m going to store and transport my War of the Rings minis.

For the past year and a half, I’ve been gluing washers to the bases of my minis and then setting them in plastic drawers that have business card magnets stuck to them. This has worked great: it both costs wildly less than other options and, more importantly, takes up a fraction of the space. It doesn’t protect my minis quite as well as, say, the Sabol Army Transport stuff, but as long as I don’t fall down the stairs carrying them, it’s good enough.

The problem is: the washers I use won’t fit in the War of the Ring movement trays. They just don’t. So, for the past month, I’ve been agonizing over how to fix this: buy expensive and large padded cases (like GW’s or more Sabol trays) because the movement trays are neat, or eat the cost of the movement trays I’ve bought so far, store the minis the way I store my 40K minis, and cut my own movement trays out of plasticard.

Jay found a third way, one I inexplicably hadn’t considered: different washers that will fit in the movement trays.

So, I bought 200 1/8″ x 1″ Fender Washers (they’re 8/$1 at Home Depot and 30/$3 at Lowes), and glued them on almost all of my assembled War of the Ring minis.

I also finished my Haradrim Troll in time to take it to Games Day (though I made the mistake of looking at Dave Taylor‘s blog the morning of it and decided it couldn’t be up to snuff for even placing in the Golden Daemon.

I need to take some more pictures of it: it looks even better in the context of the rest of my Haradrim.

Feedback time:

I’ve finished my Haradrim Troll. I’m happy with it, but I feel like something’s missing.

Specifically, on the left side of its head. I feel like I should have added a flap, for symmetry, but that ship has sailed (I would have had to do it before doing the top, which is well and truly cured by now). I’d debating sculpting a big earring or something.

What do people think?