With 500 points of my army sorted, a turned my attention to a small side project. Namely sorting a battle companies detachment for my Morannon Army.
Old blog posts will show I’m a huge fan of the system, and with time often at a premium, Battle Companies games are far easier to fit into a schedule.
I also wanted to make sure I continued working on my Mordor force, and though Morannon Orcs don’t have a set list themselves, they could easily form a Mordor Battle Company, with a 50 point selection.
I still had 12 un-assembled Morannons from the Starter Set. I’d done some basic conversion work before, but I wanted to try and push myself a little this time. I also had a theme in mind…
I can’t find the source now, but remember reading once that Peter Jackson toyed with the idea of having a younger Gothmog show up in the Battle of Five armies, as an Easter Egg for fans. I got me thinking that a younger version of Gothmog would form a great basis for a battle company campaign. The potential narrative arc could see the young Gothmog fleeing the fall out of the battle at the foot of Erebor, and his emergence as the warlord at the Pelennor.
I did toy with using Gundabad orcs as the basis for my company but instead choose to amalgamate parts from the Gundabad conversion kit into my Morannon. This would give the ragtag impression of those warriors who started life as Gundabad but slowly come to be amalgamated into those we see at the Pelennor. Plus they’ll make great looking personal bodyguards for Gothmog in my matched plan force.
With 50 points as a starting force I could get Six Morannon Orcs. 3 with shields, 3 with spear.
I did make a slight alteration though, paying 1 points to swap a spear-men for a pick.. The reason? I wanted Gothmog to be accompanied by his trusty lieutenants. Gurtiz and the Enforcer…
I had bought a second Guritz and Gothmog’s enforcer, but I wanted them look different and act as Battle Company heroes. Guritz was made using his original pick, but his head is taken from the BGIME conversion kit. I filed down the shield on a normal Morannon but didn’t edit the pose.
For the Enforcer (What’s his unofficial name again?!) I carefully cut away the head of the Morannon, and his own head on the forge world model. Some careful work green stuffing the Gorget and hair made the fit better. I also did some work on the arm and gave him a Gundabad sword.
Now… For Gothmog himself. Well I only had a metal model on foot, which I managed to butcher completely. So I’ll probably have to try and get myself a finecast version to use! So I started to make more of his subordinates.
The following four were made with some crafty knife work, weapon swaps and new parts from the conversion kit.
So the additional four consist of two with spear, and two with shield. A nice mix. I’ll drop out one of the shield warriors once I manage to sort Gothmog, but until I can sort a finecast version of him, I’ll look to use my regular on foot version, with one of these Morannon Orcs ready for any warriors who get some upgrades.
Next week I’ll get some paint on them all, and show you how the starting company is looking!
Middle-Earth Moments 