Hello all,
I have decided for my next project to do a first age setting, mostly elves for good and then the armies of Angband for evil. They will be my first purpose built wotr armies. I quite like most of the models that GW produces for the elves and fit my mental image of the elves from the Silmarillion, so I will be using the wood elves (for Sindar) and galadhrim (as Gondolindrim).

I have plenty of miniatures to make a start on both armies. Before I start however I realised that I have a problem in paint schemes. I am in the process of rereading the silmarillion and the lost tales and unfinished tales, and I find it quite rare that Tolkien gives us a strong image for the colours of the elves' clothes (in battle at least). I will most likely be using either a woodland green for the cloaks and gold or silver armour, or a light blue with white robes and silver armour for the galadhrim. Both schemes would then have more colours introduced for the officers and heroes. I will probably do a practice of each to decide which I like and will post up pictures of them. Both may come in as alternate schemes for different units.

Like I said I will post up some pictures in a few days. Has anone done something similar, and what colours did you use? Anould be greatly appreciated as I am only halfway through my reread and am sure there are some details on the elves that I have missed.
Thanks for looking and any advice!
Nick

Well, another fellow interested in starting the First Age

I had a thread on what miniatures to use for the First Age a while back... The GW elves do not quite fit my mental image of the first age but to each his own...

As for color schemes, When I have found suitable elves for my First Age collection I would go with the following... (Just my personal opinion...)

The House of Feanor.... as per this artwork
http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/ ... 80b88c.jpg
so Black Metallic Armor, with red cloth....

The House of Fingolfin
Blue Cloth
Silver Armor

The House of Finarfin
White Cloth
Gold Armor

For Sindar (Wood Elves) I would use primarily greys and muted greens as that is what Tolkien mentions

To build the first age in its entirety in miniature form is actually not as hard as it might seem... Especially if you want to throw in the houses of men... Gripping Beast, and Fireforge games have large plastic sets of perfect models for the Edain... and Warlord games has good Easterling choices (Celts, Britons etc)

Anyway.. hope this helps a bit

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"A king is he that can hold his own, or else his title is vain." - Maedhros

You have to see this thread here, right now.
http://www.thelastalliance.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=6627&p=78821&hilit=house#p78821

He does so many houses and color schemes and conversions for first age and they are all fantastic.

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http://www.sithious.webs.com

I don't play WOTR and rarely play LOTR, but I am using GW minis for a Tolkien variant of a Dark Age skirmish called Saga. I am using Galadhrim models for my Elven forces (they will be used as High elves in the odd game of LOTR that I play as well) and have gone with a sliver, blue and grey scheme. Here's a couple of pics of what I have painted so far. They are in various other threads on here but I felt it was easier just to post them here for you to see. Feel free to use any ideas you like the look of on your models...




I think that a look something like these would fit the bill very nicely for your Gondolin force, judging by what you say you are thinking of doing.

I hope that helps...

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For more of my painting and gaming stuff, please visit my blog: http://guitarheroandy.blogspot.co.uk/

Thank you

Looking great! Where did you get that eagle?

Cheers.
Its an old Warhammer eagle...

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For more of my painting and gaming stuff, please visit my blog: http://guitarheroandy.blogspot.co.uk/

Thank you

Thanks for all the replies.

Lord Maedhros: thanks for all that information, its great to see what other people have thought of using. Those give me some more colours to work around with. I am sure collecting the first age can actually be quite easy given we have no films and can be much more free therefore. I have some gripping beast already that will be used as men, and most of my evil army is already collected other than some more monsters and beasts. Really helpful stuff.

Sithious: that thread is great, I can believe I've never seen it before, there is so much inspiring and original content, thanks for putting it up.

Guitarheroandy: thanks for those pictures, thos elves are beautiful, and a colour scheme similar to what I am thinking, I will definately be stealing some of those ideas, such as the great jewels. May I ask how you painted them? I can't get over the archers, especially Haldir, his face is amazing.

Thanks again all, I am getting very excited to start this!

Glad you like them, Nick. There's a tutorial on how I paint my Elves here: viewtopic.php?f=50&t=25020/

The Foundry paints I use are great as they come in packs of three shades - shade, main tone and highlight, so layering is a breeze. However, as you'll see from the tutorial, on these models the only thing that is really layered are the gems.

I used the three layers of Foundry Sky Blue, but any similar blues would do the job. The trick is to highlight the bottom of the gem, not the top. Your highlights should get progressively lighter towards the bottom. I then put a dot of white on the dark part at the top to get the 'sparkle'. Also, the gem got a diluted black ink wash before I applied the mid and light tone highlights and I brushed on GW 'Ardcoat on just the gem after the rest of the model had been lacquered with a matte medium, as this makes the gem shine and helps it stand out a bit from the rest of the shield.

I hope to get 5 more spearmen completed over the next couple of weeks and then I may start on a group of swordsmen or maybe some 'Rangers' (the old unarmoured metal Galadhrim archers from way back). I have loads more spearmen, armoured archers and heroes to do as well (Celeborn, Elrond, Gil-Galad) so there's plenty to keep me busy. I'm getting back to them after over a year break, and I will try to post them on my WIP thread here. However, everything I paint goes on my blog first so bookmark that if you want to be sure to see stuff as soon as its painted.

Best of luck with your project - the First Age has so much great gaming potential!

I look forward to seeing what you come up with on your models.

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For more of my painting and gaming stuff, please visit my blog: http://guitarheroandy.blogspot.co.uk/

Thank you

Guitarheroandy: thanks for the tips on the jems, I think they really make the models stand out. I look forward to seeing more of your elves.

On another note, what models do people think would fit the naaugrim (dwarves). While I quite like the gw lotr ones, there are some very attractive alternatives. I very much like the look of the vendel miniatures dwarves and may picl some of them up as allies. Has anyone got any of these or seen them?

Nick

Yes, I have seen the Vendel dwarves... they are on my "First Age To Buy" List

For other options look at....

Hasslefree Miniatures probably my #1 First Age Dwarves they really fit a "Dark Age" look...... full line including heroes
http://www.hfminis.co.uk/shop?category= ... sy-dwarves
and Warriors... (With Spears....)
http://www.hfminis.co.uk/shop?product=d ... sy-dwarves
http://www.hfminis.co.uk/shop?product=d ... sy-dwarves
As for Hasslefree Scale... http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mugZVAUb-JM/T ... G_3067.JPG
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HLWi5DjflYg/U ... CN0197.JPG

Red Box Games Dverger have good heroes.... and limited warriors...
http://red-box-games.com/index.php?main ... 8dfed0b2cb
they also scale well... http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg14 ... C06473.jpg

Miniatures of the North Fallen Dwarves have a different look but they are also quite good... some of the members on here have them in their WIP's
http://www.anvilindustry.co.uk/Miniatur ... en-Dwarves


That is all I can think of for now... hope that helps...

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"A king is he that can hold his own, or else his title is vain." - Maedhros

I like the red box stuff a lot, really well done. Unfortunately very few troops from what I can see, mostly heroes. Much better than hasslefree IMO

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My trade thread
http://www.one-ring.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=25957&p=325932#p325932

So I've now mostly painted up the first 16, I did these over a week ago but I have been having computer issues, so its taken a while.

Here are the first batch of 8, not quite finished yet, I hope to get another 8 infantry done (that'll be all my galadhrim infantry I have so far painted) then I will add further highlights and round them off, and base them all together. I wasn't too happy with these actually, but they were quite rushed and I think the second 8 that I did were better.





All comments are welcome, I know that I have much to improve.
I do really like the colour scheme however, which is a relief as I wasn't sure before. I'll try and get some pictures of the second batch I did as they look much better, and I have a third 8 waiting to be painted.
Thanks for reading
Nick

Very nice color scheme, Probably would not be my choice for Fingolfin's men (I would probably use more for Cirdan's men) But it is a good scheme.... Looking forward to more...

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"A king is he that can hold his own, or else his title is vain." - Maedhros

Thanks, any particular reason why you wouldn't use this for Fingolfin's elves?
I always pictured Cirdan's elves being less armoured in general, obviously just in general, not as an ablsolute, but just my feeling.

I always pictured Fingolfin's men with a darker blue.
Cirdan's men would probably have a fair amount of armor considering that they were in alliance with basically all the other elves in Beleriand... and especially close to Thingol who would give a lot of stuff to them. Also they played quite an active part in the Wars and held out for a long time...

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"A king is he that can hold his own, or else his title is vain." - Maedhros

I guess, I had always thought that they had held out against morgoth mainly as they were quite out of the way being by the sea and so he never brought his full weight to bear on them (this may well be wrong). They would have had a good friendship with thingol and melian as you point out. That is something I might think about for the Silvan elves that I also plan toadd to the project.

Actually they fought in almost all the battles of the First Age... which included marching to the Nirnaeth and a couple others as well... They fought two sieges, one they successfully defended, the other they lost because it was after the Nirnaeth so Morgoth sent a full force against them.... they then fled to the Isle of Balar and blah blah...

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"A king is he that can hold his own, or else his title is vain." - Maedhros

Hi all,
Its been a while since I updated as I have been busy with going back to school and all that, so not much time for hobbying at all. However I have managed to complete an Elven captain. Here he is:




I am quite proud of him, and dont think the pictures really do him justice. Its very difficult to make out the many layers of highlights n the cloak as it looks too dark, and the face came out quite flat and most of the details seem to have been lost. I am happy with him though, and it was my first time basing a model like this and I was also happy with how that worked out. I kept to the same colour scheme to not make him stand out too much, the more wild schemes will be for the named heros, I wanted him to blend in more.
thanks for looking, and comments criticism would be greatly appreciated.
Nick

Shame about the photos but the main one who needs pleasing is you and if you are then thats great.

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Very heroic!