Missives from Middle Earth #14 - "Who now has the strength to stand against the armies of lsengard...?"

Catching up on posts on the Tell Me A Tale, Great or Small blog a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that the July 2026 Middle Earth FAQ and Errata had made Uruk Hai Shamans available to the Lurtz’s Scouts army list. I’m not sure how that had passed me by as I usually give the FAQs a look over when they’re published on WarCom, but anyway, my newest MESBG army could take a new thing (yay!). With a Shaman I’d have a 300pt list – well, technically 301pts unless I pretend that one of the Uruk Hai with shields doesn't have one – (yay!), but Uruk Hai command miniatures are all cast in metal (boo!). 

All things considered though, despite my trepidation, Lurtz is a metal mini and he really wasn't bad to work with at all, and I couldn’t think of a way to kitbash a Shaman from a plastic Uruk Hai that I would be happy with, so in the end I thought ‘ok, lets do it’ and set about getting my hands on the ‘unarmoured’ Shaman model. If I’m honest, I think I prefer the ‘armoured’ Shaman, and if I can find one I will probably pick one up so I have the option, but I having found a really good deal on a new but second hand unarmoured one for less than a tenner all in, I’m not really complaining! 

Painting the mini wasn’t all that bad in the end, but before I get into that, I do have to say that for all of the charm that the older MESBG range manages to retain for being 20+ years old at this point, mould slips are really starting to creep in on some of kits and this Shaman was unfortunately no exception. Mould lines aren’t ideal, but as a hobbyist of a certain age, they’re par for the course and not really a problem that a good knife, file and sanding sponge can’t solve. Slips though are more problematic, especially with metal and it’s one of the reasons I’m not that keen on the medium. I think I was able to clean the Shaman up so most aren’t noticeable, but pretty please with sugar on top James Workshop, can you give every army in MESBG some new sculpts and retire more of the metal casts, even if it’s just new command models and they’re in resin? 

Ok, slight frustrations out of the way. Painting: having firmly established my colour recipes earlier this year it didn’t take long to get everything basecoated up and plan the sequence for working the model up to completion - once everything is basecoated, I tend to collectively shade some areas of the model and work them to completion, leaving lighter or ‘higher’ areas towards the end so I can tidy as I go if I make any mistakes. The only additional colour I had to consider for the Shaman were the bone totems and fetishes he has adorned himself with and it didn't take long to decide I'd do them in a dirty-ish tone using Zandri Dust as a basecoat.

As it turned out, an afternoon of blocking in colours and getting shading in last weekend got me started and then a couple of evenings of leisurely painting this week getting everything worked up were sufficient to get him finished and ready to join his comrades in the cabinet fairly quickly a real benefit of doing the planning beforehand!

Of course now I’m finding myself thinking that since the Shaman is a Minor Hero, he could lead a small entourage of Uruk Hai, so I might have to paint up a few more to accompany him at some point down the line. I'm also watching an unbuilt Drummer on a well known auction based website as well. But I think what I really should do now is see if I can arrange an opportunity to give my wee army a go on the table top if I can and see if I can do better than Lurtz did at leading them to victory <insert evil laugh>. On that note then, until next time: as always, thanks for reading and happy hobbying.