Category Archives: Kings of War

The Madness of Denethor (6-Month Tale of Gamers Challenge)

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Even as Gandalf and Pippin ran forward, they heard from within the house of the dead the voice of Denethor crying : ‘Haste, haste! Do as I have bidden! Slay me this renegade! Or must I do so myself?’ Thereupon the door which Beregond held shut with his left hand was wrenched open, and there behind him stood the Lord of the City, tall and fell; a light like flame was in his eyes, and he held a drawn sword.

Citadel Miniatures Lord of the Rings Denethor

Denethor, Steward of Gondor and Lord of the City.

This model is of course a likeness of John Noble as Denethor, Steward of Gondor. Sculpted by one of the Perrys from memory, this figure was released shortly after Return of the King was released, and is now sadly discontinued. It’s quite a good likeness, especially given the truescale nature of the model.

John Noble as Denethor

As Denethor is a rather understated model despite being fairly important in the story of LotR, I wanted to make him stand out in some way – even if he’s far from a must-have combat machine like his sons. I attempted to do so by mounting him on a back-to-base-ix resin base to raise his stature a little above the rank and file of Gondor. I painted the base as stained white stone – perhaps some of the ruins of Osgilliath? A little bit of ivy and a couple of tufts add the little colour to what is otherwise a very monochromatic model.

Citadel Miniatures Lord of the Rings Denethor

Denethor. On his way to the loo.

I started painting Denethor sometime years ago, but never really got far beyond the black. Last year, I started working on him and got his cloak to a point where I was quite happy with it. I then gave it a black wash to bring it back down and unify it, which just fucking wrecked the whole thing. You know when you hear about people having a bad mistake happen to a model and then throwing it in the bin? That kind of thing. More recently, I worked on him a little again, this time stalling out due to still being frustrated by the wash wrecking it last time, but it’s been sitting on my painting desk, and is one of the models I had specifically in mind when starting this challenge. Given the month that it’s been, I decided to work on Denethor this last weekend so I’d have something “legal” finished for the painting challenge in the Gondor category..

Citadel Miniatures Lord of the Rings Denethor

Denethor, gliding across the battlefield.

I’ve tried to replicate Howe’s 5 o’clock shadow and also distinguish the shades of black/grey/white between his cloak, the fur lining and his hair. Howe can look quite pale and gaunt in colour in some stills from the film, though in others his face is much closer to normal. I tried replicating that, but I felt that he was already monochrome enough, so I added a subtle amount of colour back into his face.

Citadel Miniatures Lord of the Rings Denethor

Denethor! Grimly surveying the dead and dying.

Aside from obvious scenario-based uses in LotR games, Denethor can also make an appearance with my Army of Gondor on the Kings of War battlefield. Possibly as a “Wizard”, where the Fireball spell could represent Denethor directing artillery fire onto his chosen target, Bane-Chant representing his oratory driving his troops to greater valour on the field of battle, and so forth…

(A unit of) Mantic Zombies! (6-Month Tale of Gamers Challenge)

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Mantic Zombies, Vampire Counts, Zombicide Black Plague, Deadwalkers

In much the same way as I’ve grown sick of painting plastic Gondor dudes over the past few months, I’ve grown equally sick of painting Skeletons. As the time counted down for April, I happened to spot a pair of Zombies sitting randomly amongst the painted undead out in the War room. I’d painted the pair one weekend last year after seeing them randomly sitting on my painting desk, partly-done. So with absolutely no randomness this time, I grabbed out a couple of Mantic’s Zombie (and one Ghoul) sprues, clipped a few off, cleaned up the bits, and then assembled them, attempting to build as many unique figures as possible while bringing the total to 12. Not all that easy, as the Mantic Zombie sprue is pretty limited. The parts from the ghouls aren’t a terribly hard kitbash, but I did find that the kits weren’t designed with inter-compatibility in mind when they were originally tooled and sculpted. Mantic weren’t all that forward-thinking at the time, I guess.

Mantic Zombies, Vampire Counts, Zombicide Black Plague, Deadwalkers

Now, we all know that a mere dozen Zombies isn’t all that many, even when reprsenting “20” on a regmient base. I reckon I’ll slowly build up a tarpit unit of Zombies, a dozen at a time over the course of whenever I feel like painting more zombies. I know I could churn out a ton of decent looking ones very quickly via “the dip”, but somehow I managed to really quite enjoy painting that first pair last year, so I decided to paint them via brush instead.

Mantic Zombies, Vampire Counts, Zombicide Black Plague, Deadwalkers

Having said all of that, the Army Painter Washes did most of the heavy lifting. After basecoating the flesh in various mixtures of Vallejo Model Air: Sand, Aged White, Duck Egg Green and AP Camo Green and VGC Off White for flavour. Then AP Purple Wash, Green Wash and some Lahmian Medium. For the rags I continued with the “army palette” of dirty dark grey to stand in for black, rather than a more realistic various shades of brown. Once again, I mixed up some greys, this time adding Sand for the hightlight mix colour, so as to avoid a monochomatic grey. Dark Tone AP wash to finish off.

Mantic Zombies, Vampire Counts, Zombicide Black Plague, Deadwalkers

Next up was painting in the exposed bone and various bits of exposed muscle and offal, then lightening or blackening the edges of some of the torn flesh as I felt appropriate. Did the “lunch” portions of those who have been dismembered by the zombies in slightly “fresher” skin tones, and then did a little work picking out teeth and eyes and hair. I added a bit of bruised skin via additional brown-purple washes on many of the models, though it’s a bit hard to see in these particular images.

Mantic Zombies, Vampire Counts, Zombicide Black Plague, Deadwalkers

Finally, I matt varnished them, and once dry, went in for a bit of fun with the Blood Effect paint. In this case, Citadel’s Blood for the Blood God.

Mantic Zombies, Vampire Counts, Zombicide Black Plague, Deadwalkers

I think the most surprising thing about these guys was just how easy and more importantly – fun they were to do. So much that I’m tempted to start another unit of 12, which I’ll them be able to combine with these guys into a horde.

Mantic Zombies, Vampire Counts, Zombicide Black Plague, Deadwalkers

Here’s the traditional regiment shots. Another use for these models is to use them for Zombicide Black Plague. I’m tempted, but the fingers on them are pretty fine and fragile. When I was clipping and assembling them I’ve already managed to break a few off – so I just painted the stumps bloody – fits zombies, anyway – but with the amount of rough handling the Zombicide models get, it might not be such a good idea to use these guys in the game…