+ inload: Tallowland Marches +

+ inload: Tallowland Marches +

+ It is said the Star Giants drew their plough across these lands long ago; before even the raising of the Hold. The land buckled and melted in the heat, and the bones of the earth themselves grew soft and flowing. For two wholemoons the skies rained ash and fire as the plough drew slowly through the groaning ground. All who stayed on the surface perished. + 

+ As the Giants passed, the land grew cold once more, and the mountains set into the soft rolling hills you see now. The great King-before-Kings came to explore the furrow they had ploughed. As Nog reached the edge of the blackened land, he saw a long scar in the earth. It sank deep – deep beyond his sight – and was seeded with gems and ore to delight a thousand lifetimes. +

+ Nog knew then that he would raise a hold. A Hold of a thousand – ten thousand! – families. He and his kin would steward these new Tallowlands. And so it became. A fort was raised; and then a keep. Over five manling lifetimes Nog laboured and sweated to bring his hold to reality; while drawing the richness of the furrow to himself. +

+ Then came the nomads. Then came the orcs. +

+++

+ More orcs on the painting desk. As mentioned in the last inload [noospheric link embedded], these Black Orcs were second-hand. The image to the right shows the colour scheme they came with. Second-hand models often come painted. A lot of the time it renders the model unpaintable owing to obscured detail etc., and they require stripping, but in this case the paint's serving as a nice basecoat – thin enough not to obscure detail, it's acting a bit like a nulti-coloured primer. I'm simply painting right over the top. +

+ That certainly makes things nice and quick, and the heavily-armoured nature of the models means that suits them well. They paint up very effectively with minimum time – perhaps an hour for each model. +

+ The orc on the right is still on the original base. They'll be moved to round bases (30mm) as I prefer the frame that creates, but it's an interesting comparison. +

+ There are another six in the process of painting (an unusual batch approach for me), and roughly thirty more either basecoated or primed. I'll probably reserve the remaining unbuilt plastic ones for my 40k orks (more on those in the next couple of months), but I do have some other fantasy models on the way. My plan is for two self-enclosed forces of what I regard as the iconic fantasy battle – dwarfs vs orcs. Keep yer eyes peeled! +