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Related to my previous post showing my first unit of Gondor Spearmen, here are my first two units of Swordsmen. They used to be three units, but I combined two into the larger unit. These guys were painted last year, making up a decent chunk of the models I painted. As I've said, I wanted to avoid showing them individually (or at all) until I had more to show. Now that I've shown some of them recently, I figure I may as well start to show them off here on the blog to help motivate myself to get the army finished. I've got two units of swordsmen finished so far for Kings of War - one set up as a Regiment, and one as a Horde. Everything I said about painting them previously applied and applies just as much to these guys, as well as the ones I've still got to paint. For Horde-sized units, I just double the number of models I use for a regiment. In this case 12->20 becomes 24->40. I think it still works, especially on the tabletop. My two units of Sword-Armed Warriors of Minas Tirith

Just a simple one today. Some of these models were finished last year, but I've finally finished off the last few of these last weekend, so now the unit is finished (for now). I've got them stuck to a Renedra 100x80mm movement tray for Kings of War, but since I use these guys for the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game I keep them based on 25mm rounds (also for aesthetics, and for consistency with most of my other models). These figures, as reasonably simple and uniform as they are have become a real bane to my painting queue. Originally, I only had the 24 models that came with the RotK starter box, and so with 8 of each type (Archers/Spear/Blade) I afforded them each a reasonable paint job, which involved blending their skirts, leggings and the edges of their shields with wolf grey over black rather than doing something simpler and faster like a black wash over dark grey. Because of this, and the fact that they're just not that interesting to paint - particularly en masse, they tend to take me forever to get done. The tree device on the shields, as many people will know is reeeeeeeally shallow as well, making it way trickier than it should be to give a quick once-over, which is a bit annoying. When finished - and especially in a unit either on a tray or in a bunch - they look pretty good. They're effective at looking like what they're supposed to be. On the other hand, individually, they're really not very exciting at all. This is why despite painting quite a few of these guys last year and haven't shown any of them off to date aside from a single character model - Beregond. These guys are only on show today since I'm wanting to photograph everything I finish this year, and because people on Dakka's LotR forum have shown some interest. In the rear view here you can see the blending on their skirts. It's come out a little more stark in the photos than in real life, but that's ok. The 75mm of the three ranks of figures also doesn't quite fill the 80mm of the movement tray, but again that's ok - especially as Kings of War is an element based game, and people often use fewer models and/or unit fillers - this unit "should" be 20 men strong, rather than 12 - but that's okay since it means I actually get a lot more units completed by using models and their bases in this way.