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.
The LotR will be an interesting project. It is always surprising how long it takes to glue together a group of figures.
ReplyDeleteIt sure was! It didn't help that they had no locating lugs so you had to wait until the previous joints were fully dry before handling them. That took a while as I used generous amounts of cement for butt joints like at the wrists.
DeleteNice work on them, way too complicated for my fumbling fingers I fear, good project to do, look forward to seeing the goblins.
ReplyDeleteLuckily I didn't know how fiddly it was going to be or I might've been put off. The goblins will be the same as the previous batch as I'll include a couple from the last batch as a painting guide for them to copy.
DeleteOh goodness those look fiddly, but certainly very nice once assembled. Seems like a good reason to stick to my Ral Partha orcs!
ReplyDeleteYep, well fiddly. But, I did really want some Dunlendings to add a bit of variety to Saruman's army. He also just needed more as the 'goodies' can easily overpower them if I field them all. That's why I'm now painting up another troll and the batch to be sent for painting also includes25 orcs/goblins.
DeleteThe 'trial' figures mentioned are a few 15mm Pony Wars and 20mm Zulu War figures as I can't decide which I'll go for so hoping some painted figures will make up my mind.
Nicely done Rob…
ReplyDeleteI’m looking forward to seeing how they look when they are painted.
I have to admit that I prefer the earlier Lord of the Rings figures… Mainly because they are only in a few parts 😁
All the best. Aly
Thanks, like you I prefer the earlier ones; easier to build (if any build required) and easier to paint - if the detail's not there it doesn't need to be painted.
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