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

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.

Shagrat, Mordor Black Uruk Commander and Mordor Uruk Banner – Lord of the Rings: SBG

Shagrat, Mordor Black Uruk Commander and Mordor Uruk Banner - Lord of the Rings: SBG

Convoluted enough post title for you? It should actually be worse, since the character of Shagrat should really be called Gorbag if we were going by their actions in the books, and then they should both be Black Uruks of Mordor, and – you know what? Never mind all that for now. Let’s just talk about the toy soldiers instead.

So, Shagrat is the one with the heavy armour, shield and sword. He’s also the one pointing, with Frodo’s Mithril shirt. Waitwat? Well, when GW initially released Gorbag and Shagrat (that sounds so dodgy, doesn’t it?) they were doing figures based very much off the films, and so Shagrat got the coat and a pointing pose – probably telling his underlings to kill Gorbag, come to think of it. Later on, when GW changed their focus from being more about the films to being more about selling wargames figures for wargaming, they decided that Shagrat didn’t look war-ish enough, and kitted him out with what they decided was Black Uruk Captain’s gear. No idea why their painted version of him is blonde, though. That’s just weird.

Shagrat, Mordor Black Uruk Commander and Mordor Uruk Banner - Lord of the Rings: SBG

The other model here is a regular Black Uruk, which I had too many dupes of and so converted into a banner bearer using one of the spare plastic banners from either the Chaos Beastmen or Marauders (I’ve got both in the same storage tub). The skulls are pretty oversized, but then I’d say they’re clearly not from humans, and must be from …Half-Trolls. Or something. Not human, though, right?

Shagrat, Mordor Black Uruk Commander, Mordor Black Uruk-Hai Banner, Mordor Uruk-Hai - Lord of the Rings: SBG

These three were painted pretty much alongside the rest of the Black Uruks for the most part, just separated out a little at the end and completed last so they could have their little extra bits picked out nicely enough. Two commanders and a banner is probably command overkill, and while I’d like to get that last figure from “Mordor Uruk-Hai 2” blister, I don’t know if I can face painting any more of these guys. Even though they’d be a good idea, thematically…