Tag Archives: Lord of the Rings

The Nazgûl: The Tainted. (Jewel of July ’18)

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Citadel Miniatures Nazgûl, Nazgul, Ringwraith, The Tainted

Where the other Nazgûl were slowly swallowed by the taint of their rings, the Tainted gave himself wholly and willingly to Sauron. Now all natural things rebel in his presence, vegetation withers, animals sicken and bold warriors cower. He is an abomination whose merest presence is poison to life, honour and hope.

The Tainted is a “Named” Nazgûl, created by Games Workshop in the period following the marketing period for Return of the King. With The Witch King and Khamûl the Easterling being named in the books (however brief for Khamûl), they saw an opportunity to expand the lore in the same way that videogames and other properties tend to do with licenced IP.

The Tainted appears to have been inspired (at least in part) by the scene in The Fellowship of the Ring where a Nazgûl (The Witch-King, I believe) bends down and “sniffs” for The Ring and the Hobbits, and insects and creatures seem to retreat from it (across the hobbits, natch).

Citadel Miniatures Nazgûl, Nazgul, Ringwraith, The Tainted

I tried to represent its written background by brushing the tufts away from the Nazgûl in both it’s incarnations, and also brushed them with a dark grey and brown, to represent the corruption of this particular Ringwraith blackening the grasses merely by being in its direct presence. I also avoided the dirty and dusty effect that I’ve given the “regular” versions of The Nine, because I wanted the sickly effect on the robes to stand out. I’ve already got 2×9 “realistic” Ringwraiths, after all.

I haven’t looked at the rules for it in many years, and while it’s very unlikely that it will feature in the Fellowship campaign that we’re going to play through, I’m sure it can find a place on the tabletop down the line. In the meantime, it’s a nice enough completed model for display. And let’s face it, that’s the fate of a LOT of my models…

Tom Bombadil and Goldberry (Lady Geneve, Red Box Games) (Jewel of July ’18)

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Tom Bombadil and Goldberry (Lady Geneve, Red Box Games)

Tom Bombadil is probably my least-favourite Tolkien character. He was omitted from the films, which was a net gain in some ways, but also a loss in terms of the Barrow-Wight scenes with the hobbits not being included at all. I also never liked the official Citadel figure, but ended up with it when buying out someone’s LotR models, quite a few years ago. I’ve now painted him, since he’s a needed character for the Fellowship of the Ring Scenario Project that I’m doing a bit for lately, and also because he nicely fit into Jewel of July as a character, being probably the oldest and possibly even the most powerful being in all of Middle-Earth, despite his unassuming exterior.

Tom Bombadil and Goldberry (Lady Geneve, Red Box Games)

His partner of course, is Goldberry. As I’ve never had any intention at all of paying way too much for a model of her that comes with another of Tom, I had to figure something else out. That was something I did a few years ago, in fact – picking out a Red Box Games model that I already had – Lady Geneve of the Council of Seven, Speaker of the Far Stars. While Tre’s model is clearly meant to be an elf, she looked the part well enough for me to use her as Goldberry, and so with a minor bit of updating to what was a “completed” model already (and painted as Goldberry originally), we have a completed pair.

I’ve got a bunch of catch-up posts still to do – I took photos for my June monthly round-up the other day, but messed up and so have to set everything out again and retake the photos! So in the meantime, I’m going to press on with sharing Jewels of July models.