Tankreds Osgiliath Armee
This is my Grand Tournament 2005 army themed as an Osgiliath army. Incredibly many participants voted for this and for my Harad army to be the "Best Army" of the tournament. Thank you guys for voting me, it was a big honor to me to win that price!
I always loved Gondor - this people was the reason for me to start the tabletop game. Since I read the book I wanted to own a army of minitures from Gondor. Especially the Rangers always inspired me.
I started to build this army in February. I have chosen troops which I like to play. Therefore a big amount of knights was very important for me. Since I wanted to get them more spectacular I modeled reins on every knight´s left hand and changed the way some kights hold their lance.
Since Boromir beared that wonderful white banner I decided, that his brother should have a similar one. I urgently desired another spectacular standard since I love to paint the colors (and trooping them). For sure that knight with the standard is one of my favourite miniatures in the army.
Every base was modeled with stones, and parts of buildings. I made some moulds from the ruins of the RotK-Box and added them. Moreover I made a mould of an Argonauth´s head from the extended version DVD. After that my knights looked as if they were ordered to defend Osgiliath.
The Rangers of Ithilien
They were always my favourites in the book. I liked these specialist troop and decided to give them a amout of spears in order to have a group able to fight in a melee very good. They prooved to be good but Hengest shot them devastating with his Uruk-hai...
Anyway. The spearmen consist of modified Rangers of the North and a modified southern one. I modeled a face cover, a new tunic and hided the chainmail with greenstuff. I was very surprised by the result since many did not see that I modified those Rangers.
How to paint black clothing?
Anja Wettergren answers this question on her site www.hvminiatures.com in the tutorial "Paint it Black". These instructions were really excellent.
Since May she is painting in the Eavy Metal Team in Nottingham - good Luck Anja!
Warriors of Minas Tirith
Well, nothing special here. Maybe it is worth to mention that I love to give some color to them by painting red leather and detailed wood. The warriors´armour was drybrushed whereas the knights´armour was painted in layers. Therefore it was possible to paint a detailed helmet for Faramir.
Conclusion
This army was quite expensive and only experts see the details which took me hours and hours to make. For sure Dol Amroth would have been more spectacular but I wanted to serve Minas Tirith directly. (Maybe I did not like the coneheads...). On the other hand Finarfin showed me how to make a wonderful DA army.
However I am really happy with my Gondor army and playing it was really great. Once again thank you for voting and be curious what I will show next year.
Yours Tankred
