Fantasy Flight – Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth Heroes – Elena and Beravor #Fembruary 2022

Fantasy Flight - Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth Heroes Elena, Elven Bard and Beravor, Dunedain Ranger

Today’s post features a pair of Lord of the Rings models from FFG’s Journeys in Middle-Earth core game. Now, you might be thinking… I’ve never heard of either of those names before, and you’d be right, as both Elena the Elven Bard and Beravor the Dunedain Ranger are FFG creations that did not feature in Tolkien’s writings. There’s an incresing number of these non-canon characters being added to the game via expansions, and while most of them are female, I’d say this is because there’s already a ton of male named characters to add in and include.

Fantasy Flight - Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth Heroes Elena, Elven Bard and Beravor, Dunedain Ranger

Since it’s Fembruary, I thought that I’d prioritise getting this pair of Player character models done first, though there’s a ton more of all kinds yet to come. These player models were a nice surprise in comparison to models like the Wargs that I painted recently – nicely details but not over-detailed, cleanly cast, minimal mould lines, good quality PVC – so cleanup and prep was nice and easy. They’re easily on the quality of a lot of metal models I’ve owned and own. They’re not “boutique resin” quality, but yeah – surprisingly good for boardgame PVC.

Fantasy Flight - Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth Heroes Elena, Elven Bard

Elena has an interesting pose – looking over her shoulder somewhat behind her. To get the full effect (and to see her face more fully) I decided to show the additional angle.

I AM THE LAW! Mongoose Emerald Isle Judge “MacO’Conihoonihan” #Fembruary 2022

Mongoose Publishing Emerald Isle Judge "MacO’Conihoonihan"

Following on from the recent set of old-school Citadel Judges I painted as part of Dave Stone’s Paint What You Got challenge when he mentioned that some people had decided to paint Judge Dredd models as well, I thought I’d keep going with a few more of my own. This Emerald Isle judge hails from the sadly short-lived Mongoose Publishing range of Judge Dredd figures. And.. uh. Huh. I might have something to do in uploading some images to the Lost Minis Wiki… Anywhoo… ss the other Judges I painted were started and inspired by that challenge, Old Judge MacO’Conihoonihan here was painted as a model for Fembruary. I’m not entirely sure if Alex over at Leadbaloony is “officially” running Fembruary this year, but regardless, I’ve been working on some models for it.

Not that we should need an “event” to paint female models of course, but given that I paint all sorts of stuff anyway it’s a good chance to make a specific pivot to paint a few more models that I wouldn’t have usually worked on – and a good chance to make myself complete some others that have sat half-painted for some time – some of those in later post(s)!

Mongoose Publishing Emerald Isle Judge "MacO’Conihoonihan"

While I feel like I’ve read a lot of Judge Dredd stories over the years, given the sheer amount written and published over the decades I also haven’t read a lot of the Dredd stories. That “the” is pretty important to distinguish the meanings between those two sentences! And among those that I have never read are the stories dealing with the Emerald Isle, or Ireland, or Eire, or, perhaps in this case – Oireland as so elequently put by Sho3box when he shared this same model in a post some time ago. If you love cringe-inducing “Oirishness”, please do take the time (2mins) to watch the below “highlight” video of Becky Lynch’s first match in WWE/NXT (WWF for you old-timers!) Make sure you also have the volume up!

It’s got Foighting Oirish! It’s got Riverdance! It’s got Diddly-Diddly-Diddly! More cringe than you could cringe a cringe at. Thankfully, old Becks has come a looooong way since then.

I also took the name of Judge MacO’Conihoonihan from Sho3box’s post – which could be his own piss-take, or certainly well could be a legit name of a Judge Dredd character!