Several months ago, inspired by that dastardly blogger known as Wudugast and his constant showing of his rather spiffing ASOIAF TMG Miniatures, I finally buckled and Marouda and I picked up the (old) Core set featuring armies of York and Lancaster – as well as a few extra force boxes. Off the back of that, we also started watching a niche little TV show you may or may not have heard of called Game of Thrones – which we’d tried to start several years ago but bounced off S01E01 for various reasons. So we’ve started watching that again, pausing at the end of Season 2 (so no spoilers, please) to watch House of the Dragon (no spoilers please, we’re only up to S01E06)
Anyway, that long-winded intro leads us to this post’s models. The Mountain’s Men – the foot soliders of House Clegane’s head villain, Gregor. A shame that outside of a KS-exclusive model, they don’t really look anything like the character from the TV series, instead going with the more “Knightly” look that is somewhat at odds with his brutish characterisation.
If I could find a right-sized close-shorn or bald head I’d be swapping that right in, but the Mountain’s model requires a head that is space marine sized, and all of those appear to have earpieces and ribbing built in – he’s way too big for any of the Stormcast heads I have on hand.
Despite being relatively straightforward, I did get bogged down on these models – it’s a combination of too many straps, them being preassembled with closed poses leading to a bit too much of “what’s that supposed to be?” which just kinda ended up with me painting things that were easier to work on instead of finishing these earlier.
It took Dave Stone’s “Apocalypse Me” challenge and it’s …generous interpretation of “Apocalype” including the War of the Five Kings (I assume there’s some White Walker Undeadpocalypse and/or Dragonpocalypse later – don’t spoil it, though!) for me to drive myself to completing the last four of these guys (the ones with long surcoats) and the Bannerman.
I’m using a different basing scheme for these models to my usual, a more “mid-brown” made up of a giant tub mixed from three different AK modelling pastes so I can try to keep it consistent.
Still, as often happens with difficult models like these, as a completed unit I’m quite happy with them. I do kind of wish I hadn’t picked up another box of them, though since I now need to paint those as well…
I’m probably likely to add a subtle bit of mud spatter to their tabards and long surcoats just as I have to the bottom of their greaves, but I’ll wait until I’ve gotten that second unit of these guys painted, so it can be more consistent across the figures as they will no doubt be mixed between the two sets of models over time.
It does feel pretty good to get my first unit for the game painted – let’s hope it’s just one of many I can get done without it taking a decade! I’ve got one more post for Apocalypse Me to go up (sorry Dave!) so expect that in about 48 hours…
Azazel's Bitz Box. 