Dunlendings - new(?) style GW figures

So just a quick post to get 2026 under way.  The festive season has seen all my gaming, modelling and painting come to pretty much a dead-stop, but I have just managed to start getting some plastic figures prepped to send off for painting to Fernando Enterprises.

Most will be more Lord of the Rings (LotR) figures as recent games has shown the Legions of Saruman somewhat overmatched.  As I like my evil types to rely on quantity rather than quality this lot will include quite a few more orcs/goblins and for a bit of variety some Dunlendings (aka Wildmen of Dunland from GW).  When I started putting the latter together, I was surprised by the new style GW plastics, these now being multi-part figures with many fragile parts as shown by the example below.

As can be seen, the body comes in two parts, a front and back, with the latter also having the back of the head - the rest of the head, really just the face, is separate.  Each arm and leg is separate, as are the hands in many cases.  The hands just butt up to the wrists (there is no socket joint) and are fiddly to glue on and leave me worrying over how sturdy they will be.  That said body parts and limbs go together really well, they have no male-female sockets but interlock so well they are not needed.

The down-side of these individualised interlocking figure parts (each figure in the 12-figure set is unique) means that swapping parts is not feasible without a lot of remodelling.

The next problem was the prevalence of figures carrying torches and bows, four of each - I'm okay with a couple of torches but I didn't want any bow-armed figures.  The archers come with a sword in a hand as shown above, but these are in a right hand leaving the issue of the bow in the left.  

Anyway, to cut a long story short, after lots of fiddling I managed to the following.

Overall, I think they look pretty good, with the possible exception of the figure on the right, at the back, an archer in a shooting pose that didn't offer much scope for an easy fix.  Also, shown in the above is the abandonment of slotta-bases, the figures are now attached by glueing the soles of their feet directly to the base!  I never liked slotta-bases but this does not seem like an improvement, not helped by the fact that most of the figures only have one foot on the ground.

I now have to finish prepping some goblins and a few other trial figures before sending them off for painting.  Then I have a few more Tolkien figures - I enjoy painting the odd figure but not whole units of these.

Yuletide Inspiration

I received three books for Christmas this year - they were not a surprise as I make sure to let all the family know what's on my wish list.  

The first, 'The Advance on Caen' is by Tim Saunders, who I think write some of the best WW2 histories.  I find them pitched at just the right level to inspire my Chain of Command gaming with useful detail on organisation and equipment along with personal stories.  This one should hopefully inspire me to build the Early War Miniatures vehicles I got at Partizan - all French equipment re-worked by the 21st Panzer Division.

The second is just pure indulgence as I like all the period illustrations as well as the depth of detail Paul Dawson puts into his works.  From a quick Christmas skim through it seems that many of illustrations contain egregious errors that he has corrected in the captions (typically incorrect numbering on cavalry portmanteaus).

The last is a bit off-piste for me, but may well inspire some ship acquisitions.  The Spanish Navy was split pretty evenly between the two side in the Civil War and would make an ideal campaign with only minor outlay in terms of model ships.

Now I just have to find some shelf space for them. 

One Man and His Dog meet the Magnificent Seven

I've finally completed the batch of ECW commanders so, here they are with my shepherd who has now been joined by his dog - it's meant to be a Border Collie.

Well maybe they're not all that magnificent, but even the original seven had a few make-weights; I mean who remembers Harry Luck?  But here's a who's who of these guys.

But I guess not everyone is satisfied.

As my rules use card activation of commanders, and all the troops under their command, I've also made the necessary cards.

For those that are interested, all the figures are by Hinchliffe, except the Warbases dog.  Byron, Wentworth, Fielding and Heselrige have all had head swaps; Byron also had a new right hand with pistol added.  Byron was painted to match this portrait by William Dobson, complete with a patch on his left cheek to cover the scar from a wound received on the 30th December 1642 when his quarters in Burford were beaten up by Parliamentarian Horse and Dragoons from Sudeley.

All that then remained was to make up their cards for the activation system in my rules mash-up.

And as it's now only two sleeps to Christmas, may I wish all a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!