Scotia Grendel Ruined Keep & Ruined Gothic Archway

No figures to show off today. The painting’s been going well, but I’ve got to get out and take some more photos soon. In lieu of anything new, here’s some scenery that I painted a long, long time ago and photographed last year.

Scotia Grendel Ruined Gothic Archway

I bought both of the sets mentioned up top around the same time, but I vastly preferred this entranceway “Ruined Gothic Archway” to the “proper” one that came with the set, so this is the one that I ended up painting up to go with the walls. Much more “Gothic” and since the main game this stuff was used for over the years was 40k…

Rear View of Ruined Gothic Cathedral

Imagine my surprise and pleasure at seeing that the rear of the arch piece was void of all detail whatsoever – just a smooth resin piece from a one-piece pour mold. The base was fine, but I decided that I had to do something about the lack of detail on the upper. I scraped out the stonework with a hobby knife, and did my best to weather and stress the stonework using the tools I had at my disposal in the mid-1990’s. So probably the end of a file and a hammer, by the look of things.

Scotia Grendel Ruined Keep wall sections

As can be expected, these walls from the Ruined Keep have seen a lot of action over the years in no end of configurations. Another of the unpleasant surprises from the Grendel Kit once I opened it was the fact that all of those windows were sealed. As in cast-solid. It took my pin vice, a hobby knife and no small amount of time to cut them all out.

Scotia Grendel Ruined Keep ruined towers

As you can imagine, these “ruined towers” have seen a lot less action. Mostly due to being shorter than a Space Marine in height, so not exactly much of a ruined tower in any of their cases. Three or four steps hardly makes a tower, after all…

Scotia Grendel Ruined Keep with Gothic Archway – “Closed” layout.

Here’s the typical “closed” layout I’ve used in games for the entire set. It really could use some more wall sections to look a bit more reasonable.

Scotia Grendel Ruined Keep with Gothic Archway – “Open” layout.

And here’s the “Open” layout that gets used much more often, as it allows models to move through the ruins while taking cover from their enemies. Now that I’ve been gathering and painting a lot more scenery in the last couple of years, I could do a lot more interesting things with these. For example combining them with the WHFB Gothic Graveyard kit, as well as other things I’ve picked up and painted, like those Confrontation brick walls. I need to get some Hirst Arts molds as well, the Graveyard scenery kit looks promising.

Lord of the Rings Return of the King: Strategy Battle Game – Scenery!

Rarely has so grand a title announced something quite so unexciting? So anyway… remember this from 2003?

LotR RotK SBG Box. FFS!

Well, only 11 and some change years later after buying them, I’ve finally painted the scenery that came with it. I started one statue and rubble pile last year, then found the second status and rubble pile, sprayed them, then let them all sit in their own (rubble) pile on the painting desk until a couple of weeks ago, when (as you’d be used to by now) I pulled out my finger and finished the former and painted the latter.

Lord of the Rings SBG Scenery

Rubble from RotK. You might remember it from that one scene in the film.

Actually, I’m pretty happy with how well they came out in the end. Some static flock, some tufts and a bit of weathering powders have given them a look I’m quite happy with over the bog-standard drybrushing.

Lord of the Rings SBG Scenery

LotR RotK SBG Statues

For the statues I ended up repainting the first one. I went for an aged, dirty and yellowed “white” stone. Just the kind of thing to make you think of fallen civilisations. I honestly wouldn’t mind getting hold of another of these sets at some stage soon. I think another of each of these pieces would go well with the ones I’ve (finally) finished here. Now I’m tempted to string some Ivy over these. Thanks, Dareios!

Lord of the Rings SBG Scenery, Rackham Confrontation Hill.

An exciting group shot of my recent completed scenery for scale. They all work pretty well together.