Mordor Troll Chieftain – Lord of the Rings: SBG (Monster MAYhem ’22)

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Citadel Mordor Troll Chieftain - Lord of the Rings Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game SBG

It’s been quite some time since I’ve painted a Lord of the Rings model from the Citadel SBG ranges – so here’s one that I decided to assemble alongside the Minotaur Lord recently for the the Monster March painting challenge, and then finally got to painting for Monster MAYhem instead.

Citadel Mordor Troll Chieftain - Lord of the Rings Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game SBG

This is the metal version of the model, though I also have one in Finecast. As such, the thing didn’t lend itself very nicely to any form of conversion or modification, weighs a ton and was a real awkward bitch of a thing to paint. I may do something slightly more interesting with the Finecast one down the line, but that’ll be a different post for the future.

Citadel Mordor Troll Chieftain - Lord of the Rings Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game SBG

Painting was actually pretty quick and somewhat easy – going from assembled and sprayed to completed over three or four days – though very little enjoyment or fun was involved. Lots of drybrushing, washing (including thinned Contrasts) and a bit of normal brushwork. I might give a bit mroe effort to the finecast one down the line, but this one’s just not a particularly amazing model. Technically, the sculpting is fine – not flashy nor especially well detailed, though the armour is nice – but the awkward pose and weight of the model meant it was something I just wanted to get done and the fuck away from the painting desk.

Citadel Mordor Troll Chieftain - Lord of the Rings Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game SBG

One good thing about all of this was that despite the model not being any fun to paint, the speed I managed to get the troll completed in means I don’t have a particular resentment to it either – and so once it’s on the shelf (and possibly one day, an actual wargame table) I’ll be just fine with it. Not every model can be a favourite, and even some of the big impressive ones aren’t going to be fun to paint, but even so they can be completely decent on the tabletop.

Citadel Mordor Troll Chieftain - Lord of the Rings Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game SBG

This is my final model for this year’s Monster MAYhem, though I’ll no doubt be finishing off the stragglers for another few months at least. There’ll be just another post with something else before the round-up this week(end) and then I’ll have my May painting round-up alongside my Monster MAYhem round-up.

Zombicide Ghostbusters Crossover – Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, Gozer & Slimer (Monster MAYhem ’22)

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Zombicide Ghostbusters Crossover - Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, Gozer, Slimer, Terror Dogs, Keymaster, Gatekeeper, Zuul, Vinz Clortho

Amazingly, I managed to finish more models from this set before 2024.

Zombicide Ghostbusters Crossover - Gozer & Slimer

I finished Gozer and Slimer late last weekend, and so they were photographed and ready to have a post written about them, though I hadn’t had a chance to write and queue one yet. Both are a little more nuanced in hand than in these photos. Gozer’s skin and outfit have a ferw layers of pearlescent purple in the midst of the rest, so she has a nice sheen in hand that you only get a hint of in these pics. Slimer was painted with layers of mixes of Vallejo’s Mecha Colour Flouro Yellow and Green, with Citadel’s Tessaract glow added in towards the end for some shading.

Zombicide Ghostbusters Crossover - Gozer & Slimer

We haven’t yet used any of these Ghostbusters models or characters ingame, but Gozer is a custom Abomination, while Slimer is actually a companion card to the Ghostbusters. Not sure how that works in practise, maybe something similar to the Zombicide Dog Companions?

Zombicide Ghostbusters Crossover - Stay Puft Marshmallow Man

Then there’s the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Unsurprisingly, he’s also an Abomination. I just completed this one late on Friday night/Saturday am. A tricksy one to paint, as it’s a large model without much detail and a smooth soft form.

Zombicide Ghostbusters Crossover - Stay Puft Marshmallow Man

I used Contrast Apothecary White with some greys mixed in at some points over a white prime, then drybrushing over the top. It’s a little manky, but I figure that’s okay since it’s representing an animated advertising dummy… thing in the “real world” rather than a fully-spectral creature like Slimer, so it doesn’t need to be perfect.

Zombicide Ghostbusters Crossover - Stay Puft Marshmallow Man

While neither Gozer nor Slimer are extra large and so may or may not count, Stay Puft certainly is large enbough to count for the Monster MAYhem challenge. This just leaves the four Ghostbusters to go for the three sets to be completed. They’ve been cleaned up, spray primed and given a wash, so once I complete the two “regular” Zombicide survivors and their Zombvivor counterparts that are on the painting desk, they’ll be next up!