Conversion Projects: Knights of Dol Amroth and Warriors of Arnor

Hey Reader!

Greetings again from the Forge!  The boys over here at the How have been pretty busy clearing space on the workstation so that there's enough room to work on the terrain projects I promised in my last post.  To clear space on my desk, I finished up some long-term projects from a purchase I made several months ago, namely, what to do with a pack lot of over 30 Numenorian Warriors I purchased off eBay.  In line with Tavros' decision to convert swordsmen into Knights of Dol Amroth, I followed suit and crafted a number of Dol Amroth Knights as well, and I also came up with a creative use for all of those spearmen that came with them.



1.  Knights of Dol Amroth

Tavros posted back in February about converting Numenorian Swordsmen into Knights of Dol Amroth, and I basically followed his lead in regards to how to build my knights.  Instead of using cardstock for the wings, though, I simply used some modeling putty (faster and easier), pressed it into the shape I wanted, and then painted over them to finish the helmets.  Five of my warriors were already painted when they arrived, so I painted up the rest of the warriors to match them.

Both Tavros and Games Workshop went for a brighter, "white knight" look for their models - I opted for more of a "hidden guard," dark scheme for mine, though I still used the traditional Gondorian Blue (in my case, Kantor Blue) for the trim.  Other than that, not much that's exciting about these guys.  My plan, if I ever use a Fiefdoms army list, is to use Imrahil and Angbor the Fearless (who I showcased in a past post), with Imrahil and his knights serving as the D6 F4 "shield," while Angbor and the Clansmen of Lamedon will form the firepower side of the list (in addition to C5 units for charging terror models), with a handful of blackroot vale archers for ranged attack/anti-monster options.  We'll see how those turn out.

2.  Warriors of Arnor

Zorro pointed me to a very insightful article on how to convert Warriors of Minas Tirith into Warriors of Arnor, which is a *much* cheaper way of obtaining Warriors of Arnor than purchasing the models from GW.  Since I had a stack of Numenorian Spearman on-hand, though (and they could not become Knights of Dol Amroth), and in part because I wanted to convert all of my Warriors of Minas Tirith into Osgiliath Veterans (which you can see here, though I've done some work to them since then; more about that in a future post), I opted to make the conversion using Numenorian Spearmen instead.  The result was this:

It's actually a very easy conversion.  First, take your Numenorian Spearman, and, if he is a metal figure, press the wings together to form a point.  Then take some modeling putty, twist it into a twined long strand, and then fold it around the head.  If you are converting a plastic swordsman (like the two on the end), you can simply add putty to the helmet to create the dome of the helmet.  After that, almost everything is the desired paintjob.  I've been thinking about the possibility of adding green stuff for chainmail, but I'm still making up my mind on that.

In my tactical post on the Grey Company units at the beginning of the year, I mentioned that I'm wary of Warriors of Arnor, as they are an inefficient use of points in a game.  This is one of the reasons that I'm glad I only built eight Warriors of Arnor: I'm highly skeptical I'll ever use more than that (if that) in a given game.  What this means for me as a Grey Company player, though, is that I now own all of the units and heroes from the Arnor civ other than Arathorn, which will give me more opportunities to experiment with the Arnor list.  We'll see what these guys do in the future, :)

3.  Update on Operation Tuckborough

So far, I've shaped the foam for two more hobbit smials, and have done the latice work for two of the storefront stands for the marketplace.  I'm also in the process of cutting up a piece of computer packing cardboard into what will become the marketplace, so I hope to update you all on those projects by next weekend.

In the meantime, I have a few more projects on my desk that need to be cleared away, including a few more ranger conversions, so I'll keep you all posted on how that goes.  My general rule of thumb is that I don't buy more models until I paint/finish converting the models I currently have, so finishing up the projects on my desk also moves me closer to buying the hobbit archers, hobbit militia, and hobbit heroes that I need to finish my list.  Currently I'm thinking of adding 4-4-4 of the archer-shirriff-militia core to the army, and then adding in Merry and Pippin in armor (there's a good bid going on eBay right now, so I'm on a schedule, :P ) to finish the hobbit side of the list.  I'll then round out the points with my choice of heavy-hitting heroes like Aragorn, Gandalf, and Dunedain to bring me up to 600 points.  Until we meet again, you'll know where to find me,

Watching the stars,

Centaur

"I watch the stars, for it is mine to watch, as it is your's, Badger, to remember." ~ Glenstorm, Prince Caspian