The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge

Welcome to the Painting Challenge. Here you will find the fabulous, fevered work of miniature painters from around the world. While participants come from every ethnicity, gender, age and nationality, they have three things in common: they love miniatures, they enjoy a supportive community, and they want to set themselves against the Challenge. This site features the current year's event along with the archives of past Painting Challenges. Enjoy your visit and remember to come back soon.

Thursday, 5 January 2023

From Codsticker: Lord of The Rings- Variags of Khand (50pts)

In my continuing quest to tackle that Lonely Mountain of unpainted lead and plastic I call my LotR Collection, I have decided to go after a range that does not get much love from either GW or Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game players: Khand.

It's a very small part of my collection consisting of two of the 10 man infantry boxes (one of which is the subject of this entry), 12 cavalry and 4 chariots (including a King). The infantry box contains 6 warriors with axes, 3 with bows and this fella who is a captain of some sort:

I must admit that when I read the books as a kid I did not envision the Variags of Khand to look so far eastern. In fact GW has combined the Wainriders (which I thought were more like Easterlings) with the axe wielding Variags which I imagined to be more like hairy barbarians.

Having said that, I quite like the mish mash of medieval east Asian "aesthetic"; take 3 parts Joseon Korea, 1 part Samurai, 1 part early medieval Chinese and 1 part 13thC Mongolia and mix thoroughly. Unfortunately, not GW's best sculpts; parts are a bit messy, some of the faces are just a smidge misshapen. On one figure you can have one hand perfectly realised and the other a total afterthought.

If I recall correctly, 28mm figures are worth 5 points for a total of 50 pts for this entry.

For me, this challenge will be almost a repeat of the last challenge, focusing on LoTR figures, Dark Ages and ECW but with a small excursion into some 15mm stuff and, possibly, some 40k.

From TeemuL: It is always nice to see more Lotr goodness. Yes, Khand is not that popular I guess and I agree they look a bit more eastern than I thought they would. GW standard on Lotr minis is quite flexible, there are some masterpieces (even in plastic one pieces) and then there are some blobs, which are very difficult to paint, when you don't have any idea what the details are supposed to be. Anyway, once properly painted (like here) they look good on the table. Your memory serves you right, 50 points it is and welcome on board!