I am that exact type of person that plans annual holidays using the Ordance Survey maps of Ancient and Roman Britain. I spend days hiking through the remote countryside in the rain with a napsack full of boiled eggs to find the spaces prehistoric people once lived and thrived.

Fancying myself as Lord of the Ringforts, Mr. Crabb at Fogou Models offered me the very first castings of his latest terrain project in return for photos of them painted nicely. And paint them I did.

This is the basic ringfort, built from seven wall sections and one gate section. All the pieces have an interlocking brickwork design on the outer face to disguise the component joins. I don’t know how Mr. Crabb got it all to line up so flawlessly, but I suspect dark Cornish sorcery.

If that understated rectangular doorway with its stone lintel are too low key for you, there’s also a fantasy style gateway with a pair of towers flanking a bronze goblin-faced gate sculpted by the Kev Adams. Now you can have much larger things get in and out the fort – like trolls, ogres and my reference library on prehistoric and Dark Age structures.

To accompany the ringfort, I also painted this pair of thatched buildings which can either go inside the fort as the defended structures, or act as standalone pieces. I’m going to pair the recentangular one with my Dark Age Church as a crofter’s dwelling.

But wait! There’s still more! There’s a nice pair of thatched stilted granaries, a pigsty, a well, firewood and pots that I’ve used to make a complete village.

I got a bit carried away painting freehand patterns onto some of the pots – I like to imagine them as vessels with histories of their own that come from the extensive trade networks. I also see them as a nice way of adding life to a scene, and they make for subtler representations of material wealth than the classic objective marker of a treasure chest full of gold coins.

There’s a desstroyed wall section you can use to represent a partially ruined fort, and even switch into your fort mid-game if you’re playing a siege.

Here’s a pile of Orcs pouring through it to fight the Fellowship of the Ring.

Stone buildings are pretty timeless, and with a bit of “set dressing” in the form of modern crates, here it is being used in the Napoleonic era.

Nicely, the doors are cross-compatible with the other Fogou offerings, so a quick switcheroo and this fort section is ready for science fiction wargames too. Thanks to everyone that’s pointed out the door looks like a Confederate flag.

Finally, my cat (who is coincidentally named after a ringfort) has also found a great use for the piece.

So thanks to Mr. Crabb for letting me be the first to get one! If you’d like your own, they’re currently over on Kickstarter and will be added to the Fogou Models site in the future.

Ninjabread out!

Len suilon Ninjabread readers. I’ve painted a set of Dúnedain Rangers in order to play some Fellowship of the Ring games set on the borders of the Shire.

With the exception of Aragorn, Dúnedain Rangers don’t appear directly in Tolkein’s Fellowship of the Ring book, or the Peter Jackson film adaptation. They’re just noted as lurking in the background being mysterious.

“…in the wild lands beyond Bree there were mysterious wanderers. The Bree folk called them Rangers and knew nothing of their origin. They were taller and darker than the Men of Bree and were believed to have strange powers of sight and hearing, and to understand the language of beasts and birds. They roamed at will southwards and eastwards even as far as the Misty Mountains; but they were now few and rarely seen.”

– The Lord of the Rings, At the Sign of the Prancing Pony

Six of the miniatures (all the ones with masked faces) are Citadel’s ME-25 Rangers of Ithilien, but I’ve repurposed them as their distant Dúnedain cousins, as Tolkein is sparse with descriptive details. Modern Games Workshop also produce a set of “Rangers of Middle-earth” that they recommend you use as any type of forest-lurking human group.

Attached to the group is the ME-12 version of Aragorn, in his Strider the Ranger persona. He’s a really strong sculpt, with a weathered nobility on his face. A nice detail is that his left hand is clutching a second sheathed sword – the pieces of Narsil that he carries as an heirloom of his family and to symbolise his birthright to the throne of Arnor.

In command of the Rangers is my slaphead with an earring rendition of Halbarad. The sculpt’s expression of withering disdain is his main tool for keeping the group of strong-willed loners together. Thanks to Jesper Moberg over on the Oldhammer Community for identifying the figure as a C04 Thief.

I’ve added some further variety to the group with a pair of Citadel’s Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Thieves, and a wannabe Hobbit ranger to impress on players they’re not just anywhere in Middle-earth, but defending the borders of the Shire. I’m excited to see how they get on in games against the Nazgûl and other nasties.

More from Ninjabread’s version of Middle-earth soon! Novaer!

It’s Christmas time, so enthusiasm for the ultimate Christmas films – The Lord the Rings Trilogy – has enveloped Ninjabread towers.  While binging on DVDs and mince pies, I’ve painted a breakfast (that must be the collective noun) of vintage Games Workshop Hobbits.

Left to right: BME1 Pippin, Frodo, Sam and Merry.

These are the four Halflings from the BME1 Fellowship of the Ring boxed set.  They’re wonderfully characterful – Frodo with a troubled expression, gazing towards Mordor, rings of his Mithril shirt peeping out from under his sleeves.  Sam looks very much the bimbler.  Merry and Pippin are the pint-sized action heroes jumping in to defend Frodo with their Barrow-blades.

Since 2001, Games Workshop’s highstreet stores have sold minis based on the movie trilogy – buuut these aren’t them.  In 1985 Games Workshop were selling minis to support Middle-Earth Role Playing (MERP) game.  It was a range of a few hundred figures which includes most of the major heroes, villains and troops.

ME-63 Witch-king of angmar leading a the ME-64 Black Riders.

I’ve also painted up a selection of Ringwraiths to chase those pesky Hobbits around the countryside.  I’ve gone for four repeats of the same pose so they look like they’re advancing in unison, performing a ritualised Hobbit-slaughter like the movie’s Brie and Weathertop scenes.  In my mind it works, but in photos they come across a bit dance troupe.  More Lord of the Dance than Lord of the Rings.  Oh well.

“I can’t believe you started the conga without me.” – Witch-king of Angmar

The lines between the Lord of the Rings and Warhammer ranges was blurred, with many Lord of the Rings figures appearing later as part of the Warhammer range after the license expired.  I was really excited to discover the Ringwraith miniatures were modified and rereleased as Warhammer Fantasy Empire Wizards.

Wrecycled Wraith Wizards in 1991’s Citadel Catalogue 2.

I’d like to find these figures and paint them as the Witch-king of Angmar and the sorcerers of the Second Age as they appeared before Sauron gave them their magic rings.  Or maybe as the ghostly forms Frodo sees when he puts on the One Ring.  Or maybe actual Warhammer wizards.

The Hobbits defend themselves from Ringwraiths in the ruins of Weathertop.

I’ve enough Ringwraiths and Hobbits for several scenarios from the first half of Fellowship of the Ring now, and will spend Christmas recreating the Hobbits getting repeatedly stabbed in various locales of Middle-Earth.

Patreon Painting Tutorial

These Ringwraiths are a great miniature to teach how to paint black cloth with, as it’s 98% of the miniature.  Over on Patreon right now is the detailed stage-by-stage write up of the paints, techniques, theory and secrets that you let you learn how to paint black cloth to this style and quality.

If you become a supporter today you’ll get access to this in-depth masterclass tutorial, and also the back catalogue, which covers last month’s Golden Demon winning entry, two varieties of Space Marines power armour, and human flesh.  Thanks to everyone that ha signed up so far this year.  Thanks to this month’s new patrons: Liam, Claudia, Daintist, Craig, Dan, Jason, Andrew, John and David.

I think next I’ll work on some more prey for the Ringwraiths based on the early chapters of the Fellowship – probably the ME-25 Rangers of Ithilien reimagined as the Dunedain secretly defending the Shire, or a Gildor once I’ve worked out a suitable vintage Warhammer Elf.  Watch this space!  Merry Christmas everbody!