Category Archives: Moria Goblins

Citadel Moria Cave Troll with Chain and Hammer

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The last (currently) painted “proper” model from the Moria army – aside from extra models that will be roped in like my GW Orc & Goblin War Machines, and other monsters from Reaper Bones and such. The first Moria Troll from GW’s Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring range.

Citadel Lord of the Rings SBG Moria Cave Troll with chain and hammer

Moria Cave Troll

I painted this guy using GW’s studio model a general guide, and somewhat followed their scheme and style of blending between the flesh tones and the blackened skin, as well as the flesh between the cracks. Since I followed their scheme it’s most likely a fair bit brighter than the actual movie CGI model, but hey.

Citadel Lord of the Rings SBG Moria Cave Troll with chain and hammer

Sexy Abs?

I added a couple of resin “orc” skulls and a femur from some blister I bought in the mid-90’s, along with a Moria Goblin Shield. I’ll need to push-mould some replacements!

Citadel Lord of the Rings SBG Moria Cave Troll with chain and hammer

You spin me right round…

Aside from obvious uses in LotR games, he’s going to act as a Troll Bruiser (hero) to start with in Kings of War. Later on when I’ve got the other Moria Cave trolls painted, he’ll simply become one of a unit, and eventually Buhrdur, the Hill Troll Chieftain will take over the Bruiser role in the army.

Citadel Lord of the Rings SBG Moria Cave Troll with chain and hammer

A view of the backside.

The model was painted as a Christmas gift for Marouda back in sometime ..around 2003-5. He’s pretty much lived on shelves ever since. I’ll get some WIP Moria army shots up soon. Hopefully this weekend.

Durbûrz, the Goblin King of Moria and his Shamans

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Durbûrz, the Goblin King of Moria, Moria Goblin Shamans

These three are the top end of the Moria Goblin Army I’ve painted up for LotR SBG and KoW recently (and WotR if I ever actually play it). Durbûrz, the Goblin King of Moria will lead the forces until Golfimbal on Foot and Mounted are finished, and no doubt sometimes even then.

I experimented a little using some Seraphim Sepia wash on his armour to try and give it a “gold” feel, as befits a king. It didn’t exactly work for gold, but I didn’t want a shiny, nice, bright gold anyway. Still, it looks decent anyway on him, and different enough from the standard muddy-steel look. The rock he’s perched on was also the impetus that led to adding bits of slate onto all of the “leader” models in the Goblin army, including all of those Captains I finished recently.

Moria Goblin Shamans

These two were a nice surprise. I thought I had some shamans, somewhere but couldn’t for the life of me find them. I gave up and grudgingly resolved to buy some at some stage, and then lucked out and found these guys, along with a bunch of unpainted Gundabad Blackshields. Since I’ve got two of the same sculpts here, I added some colour to distinguish the two by glazing their armour plates with Army Painter red and green washes. These, as with the sepia washed armour on the King kept the palette within the one chosen for the army while giving both models a bit of individuality.

Moria Goblin Shamans

I still need to buy Drûzhag, The Beastcaller and possibly the Moria Goblin Commanders set for the alternate Shaman model and the Drummers. Aside from those, the Blackshields and the more exciting and exotic models like Trolls, Wargs and the like, it’ll just be the 11 sprues of plastic Moria Goblins and I’m done. 132 models. Bleugh. I see some dead-eyed batch painting in my future.

Citadel Lord of the Rings – Moria Goblin Captains

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Citadel Moria Goblin Captains

More Lord of the Rings stuff today. I recently finally finished what felt like an endless run of metal Moria Goblins. I know some of them were definitely released as “Captains” while others were probably released as them, and others might have just been released essentially as metal grunts. No matter! If they’re metal, I’m promoting them to captains – to keep the unruly and also-endless horde of plastic plebs in line.

Citadel Moria Goblin Captains

Because of the piecemeal nature of how I acquired these figures over quite a few years, there was no strict rhyme nor reason why I have any given models. No attempt has been made to differentiate them from one another, with the exception of slight variations in dirty-hair colours. They’ll all stand out well enough when dropped into their own units.

Citadel Moria Goblin Captains

I could do with a few more spearmen and a few less swordsmen, for their Kings of War use, but c’est la vie. I added the little bits of slate in order to more easily distinguish them from their plastic counterparts when playing SBG and for friends less well acquainted with the various sculpts.

Citadel Moria Goblin Captains

The slate also serves to tie them in a little better with the model of Durbûrz, who will be one of the leaders of this force in many instances. Stones on bases becoming a mark of leadership – at least of sorts.

Citadel Moria Goblin Captains

The usual group shot of the models from today’s update. This many “Captains” will help fill out quite a few units for Kings of War, LotR SBG or anything else I might wish to play using them. I’d have taken pics of them slotted into their units, but it would be long and repetitive, and as such, bloody boring. So I thought I’d skip that.

Lord of the Rings: Moria Goblin Prowlers.

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Lord of the RIngs, Middle Earth SBG, Moria Goblin Prowlers

Moria Goblin Prowlers in SBG formation. A mass of nasty-sharp axe-blades!

Lord of the RIngs, Middle Earth SBG, Moria Goblin Prowlers

My original trio of Prowlers, painted a few years ago now.

I finally finished these Goblin Prowlers last weekend after starting them about a month ago during my Moria Goblin push. Unfortunately, and, I guess rather predictably, I got sick of painting Moria Goblins, and they sank to the back of the front of my queue. I took them to work a couple of times. but there were just too many of them to get anything substantial done, so they sat for a little while. I finally split them into two groups and took them to work last week to get stuff done in a more focused manner, and then finished them off on the weekend.
Lord of the RIngs, Middle Earth SBG, Moria Goblin Prowlers

A Conga Line of Prowler Axemen – all newly painted.

Lord of the RIngs, Middle Earth SBG, Moria Goblin Prowlers

More of the New Blood

Lord of the RIngs, Middle Earth SBG, Moria Goblin Prowlers

…and only a couple more of this sculpt.

As with this sort of thing, I put more effort into these than I do with faceless plastics, but still – they’re not exactly models that inspire my top-tier paintjobs. I also wanted them to look grotty and grubby, so after my usual highlighting and shading I gave them a glaze/wash of AP Soft Tone. One commentator remarked at one point that they felt that the Moria Goblins were Ochre rather than Green, but my reviewing of both stills as well as and statues and other such merchandise makes them pretty well green. Though it’s more of a light olive. I’m using Citadel Foundation Gretchin Green (sadly discontinued) as a base, then highlighting it with blends into VGA Rotting Flesh. They do blend upwards into yellow-greens, but Ochre really seems to be something based off this particular still, which can be found with more than one tone to it anyway. Either way, this tone fits the Moria mob much more than the traditional Goblin Green of my (and many other) WHFB Orcs and Goblins.
Both pics here just pulled from pages on the intarwebs, with no touch-up by myself except for resizing and renaming.

How Green is my Goblin?

All depends on the light or filter, I guess?

In Kings of War they’ll be part of my Goblin army, though I couldn’t find an appropriate unit for how they’re armed – and the actual goblin infantry all seem to be listed as pretty much rabble.
Lord of the RIngs, Middle Earth SBG, Moria Goblin Prowlers
Since this simply won’t do, I’ll be using the unit profile of a KoM unit – either Foot Guard with 2-handers or perhaps Berserkers – it works legally as the armies can be allied anyway, and it thematically fits the unit. I’ll be doing a similar thing with the Gundabad Blackshields when I get around to doing them (probably “regular” Foot Guard).
Lord of the RIngs, Middle Earth SBG, Moria Goblin Prowlers
 My only real issue is that even Goblin Kings in KoW are Yellow-Bellied, so it’ll be a bit odd to have their Elites braver than their leader. Then again… even that kinda works thematically as well if you think about it…
Lord of the RIngs, Middle Earth SBG, Moria Goblin Prowlers
12 for a Regiment of “20”, and two leftover for other duties and fill-ins. Unfortunately with only three sculpts there are no fancy-pants models to be banner bearers or leaders, but such is life. Let’s face it, I’m way too slack to convert any for this mob!

C22 Orc Bolt Thrower

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C22 Orc Bolt Thrower – Citadel Miniatures, 1988.

Something from 1988, this Bolt Thrower sat around part painted for more than a decade. Recently I noticed it on the paint desk and decided to get rid of it – doing so in my current fashion by finishing the bloody thing. The crew had already been painted several years ago, so it was really a no-brainer that somehow took me years to figure out. What does that say about me, then?

What does Short Attention Span mean?

Ahem.

So anyway, I finally got it done. Semi-interesting fact: The same bolt thrower was also packaged with Dwarf Crew for a time as a Dwarf Bolt Thrower – sometime after they discontinued the cool-looking (and much more Dwarfy) Imperial Dwarf Bolt Thrower. The thing about this Bolt Thrower is that uncrewed, it’s generic enough to be used with pretty much any army at all. My plan for the time being is to use it (and the Goblin Stone Thrower I also fixed up recently) with the LotR Moria Goblins for the time being, as my 3rd Edition Orc and Goblin army is probably quite awhile away from becoming a force that can hit the tabletop.

C22 Bolt Thrower

C22 Bolt Thrower

It’s far from an “exciting” paintjob, I’ll admit. But then it’s a simple thing made from metal and wood and wheels and spikes. Very utilitarian, and so I decided to reflect that with a very simple and straightforward paint job. I might string the bow one day down the line. But not today.

C22 Orc Bolt Thrower, Iron Claw Goblin Stone Thrower

Orc War Machines, Ready to lay the Smack Down on some Humies. Or Stunties. Or Pointy ‘eaded Elves.

C22 Orc Bolt Thrower, Iron Claw Goblin Stone Thrower

But being Orcs, a disagreement starts between the War Machine bosses.

C22 Orc Bolt Thrower, Iron Claw Goblin Stone Thrower

Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!

From the Painting Desk #12 – Yet another LotR Goblin Challenge

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Well, strictly speaking, I failed the last one of these. Two metal goblins still left, as well as the Dwarf Slayer and Ogre (who didn’t get touched). Between a solid batch of videogaming and friends coming over for some Zombicide – and just needing a bit of a break from painting. So for this week, which I have off work – I’ll be trying to finish those four, as well as several additions by this coming Sunday night:

Yet More Goblins on the WIP desk.

So now the priority queue is:

  1. C23 Ogre Bounty Hunter.
  2. Dwarf Slayer (Finally identified him – he’s a Daemon Slayer circa ’96-97).
  3. Those last two Metal Moria Goblins to be used as Captains and Unit Leaders (Spear, Sword). Perhaps the odd Biggit.
  4. 7 more Metal Moria Goblins for use as above. 4 Bows, 1 spear, 2 swords.
  5. 4 Goblin Prowlers. They’ll combine with the other three to make a unit. Shame I can’t find another one, cheaply.
  6. 6 plastic goblins with sword & shield.
  7. 10 plastic goblins with spears.
  8. Durbûrz, Goblin King of Moria.
  9. Tom Bombadil (GW) and Lady Geneve of the Council of Seven, Speaker of the Far Stars (Red Box Games) – to be painted and used as Goldberry.
  10. Reaper Bones II “Cython” (a Grick from D&D*)
  11. Reaper Bones II  “Mind Eater” (an Intellect Devourer from D&D*)

So… 36 models. The goblins shouldn’t be too hard, but the more individual characters might throw up a bit of a difficulty. I’d wanted to paint something nice on my break as a reward to myself for my recent productivity. Perhaps a Minotaur or the Greek Talos. Instead, I’m going for more goblins. I guess the reward there is getting a ton of them done and out into the War Room as a very quickly put together starter KoW army.

After I finish the above, the remaining (for now) push of Goblins I plan to paint will be made up of Golfimbul, Foot & Mounted; 6 Warg Riders (strictly speaking, Orcs); 18 Wild Wargs with a Wild Warg Chieftain; a possibility of 2 more sprues of these Moria Goblins (24 in total) and several “Hobbit” plastic goblins to use as Shamans, since I’ve been unable to get find any “proper” Moria Goblin Shaman figures for a reasonable price. Same deal, unfortunately with the War-Drums. The problem with all of those is that while they round out the (new) KoW force and also allow some more LotR SBG scenario play, they’re not “half-painted”, and so would all be freshly started models. So the question will be whether I continue to clear the desk, or let these upstarts jump the queue…

…and my plans were to finish Gondor, then start on the Dwarves…

*Thanks to Tarmor for IDing the D&D critters – I’m not especially familiar with the D&D menagerie of exotic monsters.

From the Painting Desk #11 – A Week’s End/Easter Weekend LotR Challenge

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After the last one of these helped motivate me to finish a whole lot of (mostly tedious) stuff done in a reasonably fast (for me) timeframe, I’ve decided to go again.

(Slightly NSFW at the end)

This week’s end/weekend project – See if I can finish off these figures by Sunday night:

This Week’s End Paint Challenge

Again I’ve also posted these in a LotR forum’s monthly army painting challenge pledge thing, because they’re almost all LotR models. 8 Moria Goblin Archers that I got half-painted and am ending up giving a full repaint to (already did the bases), and 7 metals that will act as Captains or at the very least, KoW unit leaders. For pleasure, there’s a Dwarven Slayer and C23 Ogre that were both started 10+ years ago which I’ve started doing some work on again lately. Time to get those suckers finished!

If I manage to get these done in time, I’ve got 2 units of cavalry I want to get rid of, since they’re taking up valuable space by being half-painted in one of my cabinets. But that’s my next self-challenge.

Update 1: 8 Archers completed so far…

Update 2: …and five of the 7 Captains/Metals…