BEAST OF GORGOROTH

I was asked by my oldest lad to help out this weekend. He is building a small force of  Lord of the Rings orcs based on a force from Minas Morgul and fancied getting one of these for his army

A beast of Gorgoroth from Games Workshop.

Sadly they retail at £44, not a demented price (some 1/72 kits are a similar price) until you realise the model is cast in crappy brittle resin and is likely to fall apart at the merest touch. 

A trip to that highly useful budget shop The Works produced a £1.50  plastic Rhinoceros and after an hour with the milliput and balsa wood we had this

I believe it's being painted as I type. Not an exact copy but good enough. Now we need to source some crew at the next wargames show.

AT LAST.....FINISHED (well almost).

I've been painting these for well over a year and have now finished all the essentials to re-enact the Battle of Lansdown in 54mm, toy soldier old school style (I just need a 12' x 8' table).  Just finished the movement trays at work today (during lunch break I hasten to add), so this is the second complete project I've  finished in my wargaming career, about 400 54mm figures in all. It's easy to carry on ad infinitum, and I have a few more command figures to do, some casualties, and the famous exploding powder wagon which wounded Hopton the day after the battle, but I'm going to give 54mm a break for a while. When oldest boy starts his Lansdown project at school in the new year he should be able to use these chaps to good effect.

Royalists on the right, Parliamentarians on the left, and the wall will be behind the Roundheads for them to withdraw behind as the Cavaliers storm the hill.

Thanks for your encouraging comments chaps, over the last few months...much appreciated.

PARLIAMENTARIAN HORSE COMPLETED

Here are the Roundhead cavalry in all their glory. Haselrigg's in the foreground, Waller's in the centre and the Bristol and Devon horse in the distance. 

Sir Arthur Hazelrig's regiment of horse. The famous 'lobsters' so called because "they are couvered in bright iron shell." 17c cuirassiers are my favourite troop type in history.

Sir Arthur himself, sporting a rather nice savoyard helm held in his hand. Figure by Langley models, he is considerably larger than his 54mm troopers, but I'm not too fussy about scale.

Hazelrigg's cornet

The Bristol horse, Major Hercules Langrish's regiment. I painted these chaps up to look like the roundheads in Witchfinder general.

Langrish's cornet 

Sir William Waller's own regiment

Waller's cornet (Fructus virtutis- The fruits of virtue )

Captain William Carr's troop (Carr served with Colonel Robert Burghill and led the second wave of cavalry down the slopes of Lansdown at the Royalist army, putting the cavalry to flight. Richard Atkyns a Royalist cavalryman who recorded the battle in his memoirs said

"...this was the boldest thing I ever saw,for a party of less than 1000 to charge an army of 6000 horse, foot and cannon in their own ground at least a mile and a half from their body."

Carrs'cornet (Pour la verite- For truth)

Captain George Thompson's troop of the Devon horse

Thompson's cornet (Veritas erit victrix- Truth will be the victor)

There seem to be a lot of Parliamentarian cornets recorded for Waller's army and I had a surfeit to choose from, whereas the Royalist list was a bit thin. Hopefully next posts will be showing the completed armies en masse.