Workbench Update: Numenor

Good morning gamers,

In our last post, we looked at the work I did on my High Elves recently. Today, we look at the other side of the Last Alliance and visit with Numenor. The last time I did a workbench update on Numenor, I had only just finished painting most of them and was still working on cleaning up new acquisitions of Isildur and Elendil. Today we’ll look at finishing the work on most of the infantry and some touch-ups on the heroes.

Warrior Conversions

As highlighted in the last update, I’ve taken several Numenoreans (nearly 20) with shields and converted them into Warriors of Numenor with spears and shields or Warriors of Numenor with spears and bows. Today we’ll look at each infantry type and see what we’ve done with them.

The shield-toting crew is…pretty much unchanged from the sprue. Some have had their hands adjusted to hold their swords at different angles. This is a simple trick that I like to slightly alter your army so you don’t look too uniform. Most of the shields for these guys are just silver - intend them to stay that way to make them not draw too much attention. One of the guys in the front has a flail (not quite done with it), since I talked about giving flails to them in a post I did on weapon swaps.

The spear-toting crew got some simple conversions, varying from hacking off hands at the wrist and replacing them with spears from a Warlord Games Saxon Thegns box set (I've gotten a lot of mileage out of that set, by the way) that were also only held in a hand to hacking off a whole forearm and replacing it with a spear couched in the forearm of a Thegn model. The result here came out great – very dynamic poses, a variety of options, all very neat and tidy.

Having a banner is a must for Numenor - with only average Defense and "only" Fight 4, you need to get as many dice in the fight as possible in order to take advantage of your very impressive Strength 4. As such, I have converted a banner to have a shield (I've since given him a spear). The banner comes from a Swordmasters of Hoeth set from Warhammer Fantasy - I had two and only needed one for my swordmaster block. The banner is quite striking and is also red - a color used on my heroes but absent from my grunts.

The bow-conversions were…more difficult, but the general conversion was straight-forward: some bowmen could keep their swords out (so long as they held their bows in the other hand), others carry their bows in their right hand while carrying a quiver to cover the hole that is supposed to hold the shield. Still others carry swords in sheaths or spears to cover that hole (sometimes more than one). Their bases have been accented with spears embedded in the earth or arrows embedded (courtesy of a Perry Miniatures Bows and Bills set).

Hero Work

There are three heroes available to a Numenor list: Elendil, Isildur, and generic Captains. Let’s look at what we’ve done so far.

Elendil got a nice paint-up, along with a shield from one of the bowmen who didn’t need it anymore. While I didn’t run Elendil with a shield during Brawler Bash 2019, I have come to admire the ability to become D8 when you’re surrounded. It’s also very good for keeping S3 archery from killing you as you charge across the field (though once you're in combat, it's hard to note two-hand Narsil all the time, so you'll probably fight at D7 unless you're surrounded and fear dying).

Isildur also got a paint-up and a spare shield, and while Elendil doesn’t NEED a shield, Isildur can really benefit from it (he often won’t be two-handing). As such, I’ve had a shield equipped on Isildur for a while. Since Elendil’s presence in the army precludes him from carrying the One Ring, I like to use him when allied with my Rivendell faction – he not only allows a large contingent of F4 S4 models to supplement the F5 S3 High Elves, but carrying the Ring now has HUGE benefits.

The Captain is…boring. To be fair, the original captain models were also boring – so nothing lost there. This guy was traded to me by a friend and they looked good, so I kept him the way I got him (some touch-up on the bases, and painted their capes red).

What’s next?

So what's next? Next year, we're looking at acquiring an extra copy of Elendil and Isildur as well as some Knights of Minas Tirith. The hope is to be able to do some body-hacking and make a mounted Elendil and two head swaps on Warriors of Numenor (similar to the Captain model above) with a Warrior of Minas Tirith and a Knight of Minas Tirith to get a Captain of Numenor in heavy armor on foot and mounted. Still trying to decide if I want the captain to have a shield or a bow (probably going with a shield), but either way he'll have heavy armor, a lance, and a horse. The resulting Numenorean-bodies-with-Minas-Tirith-head models will likely be used as Captains of Minas Tirith, though I haven't decided on that or Citadel Guard. Time will tell.

The extra Isildur model won't be turned into a cavalry model - he'd throw his horse if he put on the Ring, so I don't see much point in getting used to using him mounted (though he does undoubtedly get better when mounted). Instead, I'll be altering the model a bit to use as an Anarion conversion once the new profile is released (whenever that is). Besides that, I don't see anything I need to add to this army. Our next trip takes us to the land of Mordor, where we'll see what's been cooking behind the Black Gate. Until next time, happy hobbying!