Vendel Dwarves - gratuitous pics

Come and Take them!

Vendel Dwarves / Dwerrows in all their glory. Altho they are not as naturalistic and dynamic as the Perry sculpts for GW, they mix up well in formation and will look good on a uni-base like my other Dark Ages figs. Obviously, these will be heavy infantry!

I was feeling a bit of regret at tearing them off their individual bases, but seeing them now I do think they will look a lot better on one base, just like my other 25mm figs. There are more than enough for a dense base, even leaving off the King, his standard and a couple of the fanciest fellows to be heroes.

The King and his Standard Bearer. The green with red highlights is not for Christmas - they are naturally sympathetic colors from the color wheel, a piece of insight I learned perusing various Citadel sites, like 'Eavy Metal. Much as I dislike the company and their games, they did have a lot of great artistry in both sculpts and paint jobs. Shame their business model has made them out to be jerks, erhm, sorry, "wankers".

Above shields are a mix of 15mm Greek shield transfers and Micron Pen hand work.

Cultural Note: "It may be observed that in this book [LoTR] as in The Hobbit the form dwarves is used, although the dictionaries tell us that the plural of dwarf is dwarfs. It should be dwarrows (or dwerrows), if singular and plural had each gone its own way down the years, as have man and men, or goose and geese."  J.R.R.Tolkein
I'm ready to call them Dwerrows, at some point when it won't throw everyone off.


images from: http://marbles.frothersunite.com/Dwarf_Army_showcase.html

I think my work is pretty comparable to that above!

The above shields are almost entirely brush for the beige and green, brown or red Micron pens for the finer work. The inspiration for the patters is mainly from Saxon and Tolkein Dwarf illustrations, e.g. their columns and other architectural details.


King of the Hill is important...especially if you're short, and well, own a hill or two.


GW LOTR Dwarf rangers fight amidst the ruins of manling civilization.


Closeup - the hair is especially well done, I believe these are Perry sculpts.

I do look forward to painting more of these, and also more of the Gripping Beast sculpts that Colin did. Sure, if pressed, I'd have to say that the LoTR/GW work the Perry Bros did is a level or two up on the sculpting ladder. However, there is something to be said for "style".

Ditto with these fellows, of which I've a bunch. ,

The Vendel Dwarf force has 14 warriors [bondi?] 5 Carls, the King and his Standard painted. Additionally, unpainted in the bag [below] are another 21 armored warrior bondi, and 16 Fyrd, plus 6 more of the GW archers and two GW Heroes [plus a couple of Gimlis in various poses]. While there isn't a perfect mesh of GW and Vendel, I have to use the LoTR heroes no matter what, due to their movie likenesses and excellent sculpting.


I will have to paint up these "Fird" in the colors of the "There and Back Again" dwarves!


The total force will come in at 5 Units: 1 Housecarl, 2 Thegn / Fyrd, 2 archer units [Brigans, but superior due to armor and swords]. They'll need one ally, which will most likely be some Manlings from a nearby trading town...somewhere. Most likely Welsh spearmen.

Next time - cracking them off the bases and mounting them!

Dark Ages and Lord of the Rings...

...Two great tastes that taste great together!

Just like some of our favorite Halloween candy.

Well, had no idea it was a Putin-Trump level concern...https://imgflip.com/tag/reese%27s?sort=latest

It's no secret that LOTR is strongly based in the Dark Ages of history, especially that of Anglo-Saxon England. Rather than the elaborate themes of the High Middle Ages such as Camelot, pageantry of the joust, etc, it's from an earlier, simpler time, when mere survival was more an issue and a strong monarchy neither assumed nor looked upon as "good".

Third Age or Dark Age? Hard to tell, really.

Plenty of descriptions from the book make it clear that Gondor probably has more to do with Late Rome or Byzantium than Richard the Lionhearted, even though there are some visits and references to "Easterlings" who fight with Mumaks or Oliphaunts. The films emphasize this with lots of fighting on foot except for the Lombards, erm, Rohirrim, who certainly add dash to the battle for Minas Tirith, and actually in the second and third films in general:

The Franks probably saw this soon after the Lombards crossed the Alps...

With "Sound Officer's Call!" Steve on a 10mm Warhammer Fantasy painting streak, and the development of my own "Spear to the Strife: Fast-play Medieval Rules" pretty much done, it is time to think of the figures, armies, hobby projects and plans to move things along. With it is my - admittedly reluctant - thinking that it is time to divest myself of 28mm Heroic Fantasy Armies and focus on 25mm Armies, and along with that move to also focus more on LOTR as a fantasy genre than the icky-sticky Warhammer Fantasy world [which also has some of the most annoying rules ever].

This is a bit tough b/c the WH figs are big, boldly sculpted, and I've a shed-load of them. It is especially tough since many are painted. I'm considering an intermediate step whereby I switch to skirmishing with heroic 28mm fantasy, for which there are Legions of rule sets and options, and it'd keep the painting / sculpting / crafty side of things going. But do I really need two parallel projects? Also, LOTR offers a wider audience due to the movies, than WH Fantasy. Plus, WHF 8th / 9th or Age of Sigmar are pretty dead / unattractive rule sets. I can play Kings of War with my 25mm stuff, on the very bases on which I have them now [and which are featured in these posts HERE].

Adding even MORE complexity to the situation is that there's really THREE different size/style issues at play, since nearly all my dwarves [dwarrows or dwerrows if you want to get even more Tolkien-y] are from the venerable Vendel line. These sculpts by  Colin Patten are in a bulky, old-school style that itself invokes what Tolkien would've expected from a LOTR line of figures. They remind me a bit of the Grenadier figs I had growing up, but are have cleaner lines which also gives them a bit of a stylized appearance.

images from: http://marbles.frothersunite.com/Dwarf_Army_showcase.html

Colin's work lives on in many lines of figures by Gripping Beast, and now he continues his dwarf line at Conqueror Models and he himself can be found HERE at his website. In addition to his LOTR inspired dwarfs, I do have a bunch of his Gripping Beast, including a unit of Dark Age infantry inspired by the pretty adequate Winter King books.

The main aesthetic issue is that there's three completely different styles at play here: realistic 28mm sculpts, largely by the Perry Bros, 28mm Heroic by various GW sculptors [including the Perry Bros again!] and the Old Glory 25s sculpted by Dave Allsop [I think] which are dynamic and sculpted to game / paint with, in that important features are exaggerated for ease of painting and viewing from three feet away.

and a bit closer up...

Old Glory are some of my favorite "battle scale" miniatures in that they look great on the gaming table and are easy to work with, plus very reasonably priced.

Below, the movie realism of LOTR, granted, not a great photo, but you can see that the Cave Troll came out quite well, and close to the movie appearance.


Do these scales mix well? Kinda sorta. Patten's work is fine with Old Glory in terms of bulk and style. The 28mm LOTR figs are proportional to real life, so the faces and hands look small [but are correctly sized for a human, not sure about the goblins...] and the LOTR mixes best with itself, IMHO. On the table, the units do look a bit different, but it isn't a big deal. The easiest way to pursue would be to paint up the Patten and Old Glory items first, but I've also gotten some other plastics by Conquest, Fireforge and Wargames Factory [Warlord] in the mix. So maybe it is hopeless and I'm just overthinking the whole thing??

In any event, the priority of work will be:

1.  Magic rules. We need Warhammer Fantasy WAAAGH! and Schools of Magic for Steve's 10mm Armies as that should play up soon. I'd like to work on LOTR magic type rules, also, from the excellent [if complex] LoTR Fantasy Battles game.
2. Basing my 25mm Dark Ages stuff, and to start re-basing LOTR and my 20+ Vendel Dwarves into a Unit [of which I have 40 more to paint, incidentally]. This will get me playing Fantasy "Spear to the Strife" fantasy on my own.
3. Finishing up my Anglo-Saxons who are NEARLY DONE and offer the most unique and challenging force for SttS - all Infantry, much of it heavy Sergeants.
4. Painting up more Vendel Dwarfs, Old Glory skirmishers, and Dark Age Gripping Beast. Not to mention some plastics I've been slavering to do for ages! I especially need heroes to be finished up and based for the game.

Soooo, let's see what I manage to get to next!