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!