Dol Guldur Project 1
My next army project
After having finished my Numenor army so far (more on the future outlook in another post ;) ) I had already my next army project in mind - Dol Guldur!
Why Dol Guldur?
Despite despising the Hobbit trilogy, it inspired a great desire to field a DG army and feature the DG Nazgul.
I really admire their design and the spooky atmosphere of DG in general. The Necormancer and the Castellans additionally factor into that. So style, lore and gameplay are the three things that make me like an army or not. So a check for style and lore ;)
The next check happened when I read the rules for them. They sound like a very unusual army and a lot fun. Also the idea of an all evil spirit army to send fear into my opponents heart inspires great anticipation ;) Another reason was that an evil all-hero army is pretty and rare might give the opponent a hard time to deal with because he lacks experience.
Plus the other options of the army do not really appeal to me (spiders, Gundabad orcs, etc).
And lastly, by coincidence, in the meantime since i had the idea for my army, the new expansion "Fall of the Necormancer" got released and features a Legendary Legion which encompasses exactly what I want =D
My plan
For my all-hero army I created the following wish-list:
- All nine of the DG Nazgul (from Forgeworld, secondhand or alternative miniatures)
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| Photo credit: FW |
- The Necromancer (from Gamesworkshop)
The road so far
After again and again looking up the DG Nazgul on the Forgeworld page while also again and again restricting myself to not buy them due to the high price tag, I decided i will look for alternatives ways to assemble my dream team.
I asked around on the various FB hobby and trading groups. And there was a name that I received and saw already on various other posts - Ridgeback Miniatures (I asked for permission and if get it, i will add the link to it). Seemingly a third-party creator of miniatures who did alternatives for the DG Nazgul and the Necromancer. However i was not able to find a shop but only a Kickstarter campaign website. This one showed the last batch of miniatures (including a lot of other LOTR alternatives). Including also the miniatures I have been looking for. And not only did they look good - the also were quite cheap! Sadly the campaign had already ended and I found no way to add an order or contact the creator. After some more search I found out that the creator has an FB page and through it, I was able to write him. It took some time and i got answer. But as it turned out, making an order outside of Kickstarter and without PayPal proved to be a problem. It did not help that the answering speed was not the fastest - the creator however was friendly and helpful and i understand this way of communicating was kind of outside the normal way. We ended with him saying he would contact me when it would be possible to order again. In the end however did not order because when he finally answered, i had already found another solution.
I now asked directly in the FB trading groups if someone sells his DG Nazgul. And i did not have high hopes since so far I only saw people selling single or in groups of three, which was not an option (since new miniatures are now only sold as a complete set). But again luck and a friendly fellow MESBG player stroke. I got in contact with someone selling all DG Nazgul. He was welcoming and we were able to negotiate a price that was ok for both of us. The only caveat was that one of the Nazgul was broken and missing the piece. But the miniatures were already assembled and primed + he gave me an additional to replace the broken one. There was no hesitating on my side and a bargain was made.
After having secured the most important miniatures for my army, I started thinking about the colors with which I wanted to paint them. Coming from a Numenor army - were black is the most prominent color - and liking the original Necromancer colors, I settled for this look. But this meant i had to find out the green scheme myself since the original DG Nazgul have black robes and the Necromancer does not feature any info on its color. Again FB grous came to my help and i asked people for their color schemes and pictures of them. I got a lot of input and decided to do this one:
- Metal (using the original FW scheme): Leadbelcher, Nuln Oil, Ironbreaker, Stormhost Silver - maybe a final shade of Biel-Tan Green
- Fabrics: Waagh Flesh Base, Nuln Oil, Waprstone Glow
An order (which I could luckily share with a friend to save delivery costs) is already out for the Necromancer.
By coincidence, while attending a MESBG play day at a local shop, I was able to buy the dice set! =D
Current State
The Nazgul arrived in time but the transport had damaged them and several hands and weapons were loose. Luckily gluing them together was easy and worked.
I bought all the missing colors I need + the dice set.
Outlook
End of November I should receive the Necromancer. I hope the mix of metal and plastic fits together without the need for greenstuff ^^"
Again with my friend, I will probably share an order in December - this time to get the last missing piece - the set of three Castellans.
In my next post update this project I can hopefully show you the first results of my painting.
Nice find - my brother 3D printed me a bunch of wraiths that have STL files on My Mini Factory that I'll be using - glad you could find the actual models, though!
ReplyDeleteCool you found nice alternatives! Looking to seeing them ;)
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