A little under ten years ago, I painted up my very first Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game miniatures to take part in a local Battle Companies campaign. I had no real idea about the game or the factions within it, so I adopted the tried and tested principle of hobbyists everywhere: picking something I liked the look of and wanted to paint. After extensive perusal of the shelves of my local Warhammer Store (well, Games Workshop as it was back then), I settled on the elves of Lothlorien as they seemed to be pretty competent fighters and more importantly, I loved the look of the miniatures. I bought a box of Galadrhim Warriors and a box of Galadhrim Knights and set about building and painting my Battle Company.
In the end I think I only played a handful of games in the campaign, but I've hung on to the miniatures and still have them carefully packed away in my hobby room. I had a feeling I'd also hung on to the miniatures that I hadn't built and painted too, so when I was looking for a 'palate cleanser', my mind turned to the spare Galadhrim I thought I had in my pile of opportunity.
This was no doubt inspired by the game of The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship which Mrs TC and I played with a couple of friends last weekend in which we came incredibly close to destroying the One Ring. Sadly our luck deserted and the One Ring betrayed Frodo and Sam to the Nazgûl on the very slopes of Mount Doom.
After a brief hunt through some storage boxes, I located a couple of Galadhrim Warriors, got them based and primed and then set to work. My goals in painting them were to:
- paint something totally different to the mobile suits I just finished
- revisit a previous project with a decade of learning and development
- dip my toe back into Middle Earth
- have fun
I'm pleased to say that I think I hit every single goal with this pair. They weren't just a welcome change from my previous project in style and form, but in colour scheme and materials too, so I had a good look through the Lothlorien range on the Warhammer webstore while waiting for the primer to dry. I drew a lot of inspiration from the box art of the Galadhrim Warriors kit, but borrowed a little from Rúmil & Orophin as well because I really like the use of red leather for their abdominal armour. Not only does it add a nice spot colour that helps to break up the gold and blue which comprises the majority of the Galadhrim colour scheme, but I think it also hints towards an armour design that enables greater mobility than the heavy plating worn by some of the other inhabitants of Middle Earth.
Having finished these two protectors of Caras Galadhon, I'm starting to feel like I might be quite ready for a new adventure so I think I'll see if I can remember where I put the left over Galadhrim Knights. Until next time, as always, thanks for reading and happy hobbying.
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