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During the recent heavy lock down period Kev Dallimore  and I managed to cooperate on a joint personal project  whilst simultaneously keeping socially distant. In Part  One we explained why we did this. In this part we  conclude (almost), as all projects of this type should, with  the painting of the toys. We had both been inspired by the release of the new  Oathmark rules by Osprey and built these armies based  firmly on Tolkien’s works (specifically the Lord of the  Rings) but see Part One for details on that. We also  wanted to add one other element that isn’t covered by  Oathmark and that’s not surprising: they are decidedly  not a Tolkien based rule set. However we are getting  ahead of ourselves but – ‘bear’ that in mind!  PAINT As we said last month, the figures were assembled from a  selection of plastic Oathmark models with a fair number of  swaps and amendments to the models to stretch what we  had available under lock-down. But what we ended up  with was two armies; about 60 figures for the good guys  and 85 or so for the baddies: it was a lot of figures and we  had to develop a strategy for how we would divvy up the  paint work and yet play to each of our individual strengths.  FORCES OF EVIL Well we started with the baddies as there were more of  them and we figured that if we got those done there would  no stopping us!  It was decided Kev would paint a whole unit as a kind of  style guide and proof of concept and then we would split  the painting up between us. As you can well imagine, this  brought its own problems. Although in the past I have  painted using the three colour triads over black undercoat  process, in the last decade or so I have rather more  resorted to block painting, and a swift dry brush with a dip  of (usually) Army Painter Strong or Dark Tone varnish –  particularly on 15mm models. Kev Dallimore... well, not so  much. So this was going to be a trial: Kev was under the  strictest orders just to paint the figures with no shading  and even no highlighting. Sharp intakes of breath. RAPIDO But this, remember, was all about speed. So we decided  to stick to that ‘lack of shading/highlighting’ regime and so  we went for a straight, neat paint job in just block colours.  We used Army Painter Warpaints throughout (both of us  
OATHMARK EXPRESS
Above. Armoured Dwarves – Kings Body Guard (Line Breaker).
had a good supply in stock and so could match colours  with each other’s work) and very good they were too, all  supplied by North Star.  Over that we then used the afore mentioned Army  Painter Quickshade Strongtone varnish to provide all  the shading and contrast. Now – for this to work  successfully – the whole process rather relied on two  main things: the quality of the models and the neatness of  our painting, the former was not a problem: they have lots  of detail that the toned varnish will settle into. As for the  latter – the neatness part – well it’s horses for courses: it  wasn’t a problem for Kev but – inevitably – it was for me...   PRIMER The models were sprayed up with grey car primer, very  lightly, and then Army Painter Leather Brown Coloured  Primer Spray. This was a compromise forced somewhat  by simply what we had in stock. We settled on a brown as  it would be a good basis for the orcs and goblins, being  the flesh colour for these models and we felt the Wargs  could be mostly brown too. Lacking any double sided  tape, the models were tacked to long card strips with  three layers of Sellotape (one face up, two face down to  keep them in place. This format allowed not just ease of  transportation in their unpainted state, but quick spraying  without losing any of the models, and it was all done  outside in our gardens for maximum ventilation.   BLOCKS OF COLOURS I did the main blocks of colours and Kev generally did  smaller details and a tidy up any missteps (ie the bits  John missed). And this worked pretty well, although both  strayed a bit. Generally I used darker colours – like the  black – in a thin ‘semi-wash’ so that the under-colour  brown showed through as highlights, getting a little extra  free shading with no effort (eat your heart out ‘Contrast  Paints’...). Kev had to force himself to not put the paint on  too thick at this stage as he was used to adding colours  over the top to get shading – which we were definitely not  going to do! The downside, of course, was that my colours  could be a little haphazard (and his Orc shield designs  were... well: who said Orcs were professional artists!) and  Kev would then spend too long painting fiddly bits.   When doing this kind of fast job with the plan to use Army  Painter Quickshade it is best to be neat as you can as  the final result really does reflect this. And Kev just can’t  help being neat!  
COLOUR SCHEMES We decided on broad colour schemes for each unit and  tried to stick to them as we were trying to create a good  overall look for the units, not great individual figures. This  meant that there was lots and lots of black on the White  Hand troops, and lots of red on the Dol Guldur chaps.  Having a degree on uniformity in the unit adds to the  overall neat effect and it makes them easier to identify  different (often quite similar) Orc types on the table top.  Also we picked colours that would look best when shaded  with the brownish tint imbued by the Quickshade.  
THAT’S IT... ALMOST And that, boys and girls, was it. One layer of paint, no  highlighting: just neatness, good models and good basing,  and it gets them fighting on the table or would if it weren’t  for the virus shenanigans. And the dragon was done in the  same way as the troll and he was a real bugger to fit on  the base… Oh: did we not mention, Kev painted a Dragon  as well? All they need is someone to actually fight... GOODY TWO SHOES The Forces of Good follow a similar pattern, but with even  more uniformity and perhaps a few brighter colours. As  examples of the work, the Armoured Dwarves, Light Wood  Elves with Bows and Beorning Militia are examples of this  approach. The Armoured Dwarves were primed with  Platemail (lots of armour so it made sense) and the Wood  Elves with Army Green and then colours as appropriate.  All are Army Painter spray primer cans. Oh, and of course, there’s Beorn in bear form. 
North Star Military Figures OATHMARK: BATTLES OF A LOST AGE. Fantasy Mass Battle Game from Osprey Games. Miniatures by North Star and Osprey.
Building armies under duress. Part 2: Paint
By John Treadaway and Kev Dallimore
I would go through and blitz the big areas the Kev would  tidy and detail, and that was it. Well mostly. Short of me  driving around to his house and rapping his fingers with a  wooden ruler, Kev couldn’t resist doing just a tiny bit of  dry-brushing on one of the warg units, giving them grey  wargs. But I got my own back and insisted on shield  designs to differentiate the units, so white hands were  added to the Saruman forces, red eye symbols for the Dol  Guldur boys and a single ‘Misty Mountain’ (looking a lot  like a Greek lambda), for the mountain troops. As for other  colour choices, we didn’t leave too much in the leather  brown primer showing, but we did with some of it: the  flesh obviously, plus some belts and boots and jerkins.
Dol Guldur Great Orcs. Colours painted in.
Above. Dol Guldur Great Orcs with colours painted in.
Half Orcs of The White Hand (Orc Spear) with colours painted in.
Above. Half Orcs of The White Hand (Orc Spear) with colours painted in. .
The Goblin units are pretty much straight from the box though with head and spears sometimes selected from the Goblin Rider box just to add variety.
Above. Orc Spearmen of the White Hand (Orc Spearmen) with colours painted in.
QUICKSHADE Once were happy we had done all we could needed it was  time for the Quickshade. Now Army Painter themselves  recommend dipping the models into the tin and the flicking  off the excess and leaving the thing to dry. That’s certainly  the method usually used by me with blocks of 15mm  figures. However Kev – who had been tasked with  varnishing – wasn’t happy with this approach, as he had  some experience using varnishes with stains in to  recondition many old models, many years ago. We  decided that Kev was allowed to deviate from the holy writ  and apply the Quickshade with a brush: said that this  allowed greater control and more of that neatness. And he  was right. After painting on a fairly generous coat of the  Quickshade to ten models he would go back to them just  to check there were not horrible runs or big blobs  obscuring details, clearing them with a flick of the brush,  and also applying a bit more Quickshade to accentuate  some details. Easy. Mind you, if it’d been up to me, I’d  have been flicking them up the garden but – fortunately –  it wasn’t! VARNISH As these models are to be troops on the table and not  cabinet pieces they needed a good protective coat of  varnish. This was in fact two coats of Anti-Shine Matt  Varnish which – again – was brushed on.  FINISHING What really sells these models as good wargaming, “get  the damn things on the table and start playing with them”  
armies is the final stage. Or ‘basing’ as we call it. Kev was  charged with this task. It can be a dull task but then the  final results will reward some little effort. The master-stoke  we utilised (and one Kev had been dubious about for  years) is the use of a ready-mixed, all-in-one basing  compound. Following a recipe gleaned from Matakishi (of  on-line resource Matakishi Tea House) I make the stuff up  in two litre batches resulting in large, cheap tubs full of a  glutinous, chocolate brown, gritty paste. It does look  disgusting (we won’t tell of its rather earthy nickname but  – if you spill it – it will stick to a blanket) however it’s self-  coloured (saving a whole painting process) and dries to a  rock hard with a mostly matt-textured finish and saves  time and effort.   The ‘paste’ goes on the square plastic supplied base and  is thick enough to disguise the smaller, round model’s  base without the need for any other ‘filler’. It is applied  with an old and very blunt scalpel. One has to be careful  to cover the whole base and not get it up the models legs!  Left to dry overnight it reveals itself to be an ideal textured  surface that one could easily leave ‘as it’ with little further  work required. However – as this was Kev’s task – it didn’t  end there. Once the compound was thoroughly dry and  hard it was dry-brushed with Warpaint Desert Yellow, in a  fairly rough manner: it didn’t have to be too neat as most  of it would be covered with flock.  The flock is a tuft or two from the Army Painter 77 Tufts  range, and then a load of loose short nylon grass flock,  covering a good deal of the base, Kev can’t remember the  manufacturer but it was probably Heki . The loose flock is  stuck into place with good old PVA wood glue and then  left to dry.
•	The Goblin units are pretty much straight from the box though with head and spears sometimes selected from the Goblin Rider box just to add variety and some given Dwarf shields.
Above. Dol Guldur Orc Warriors (Orc soldier).
The Goblin units are pretty much straight from the box though with head and spears sometimes selected from the Goblin Rider box just to add variety and some given Dwarf shields.
Above. Uruks of the White Hand (Line Breaker).
Uruks had Goblin bodies and heads, plus Armoured Dwarf, round shields with human straight sword arms (with the odd one from the spares box: Kev found a Ghost Archipelago sword arm that worked very nicely!).
Above. Mountain Goblin Archers.
The Goblin units are pretty much straight from the box though with head and spears sometimes selected from the Goblin Rider box just to add variety and some given Dwarf shields. The Warg riders were assembled pretty much straight from the box with a little remedial putty work. There’s three units: five with bow (as Scouts); five with spears and five with scimitars. The leader is identified by having a pillion hanging on.
Above. Goblin Warg Archers (Scout).
The Warg riders were assembled pretty much straight from the box with a little remedial putty work. There’s three units: five with bow (as Scouts); five with spears and five with scimitars.
Above. Goblin Warg Riders with Hand Weapons.
Above. Light Wood Elves with Bows (rangers).
The Light Elves are Elf Rangers and built pretty much straight from the sprues by Kev.
Above. Beorning Militia (Human spearmen).
The Beornings have the Human bodies and heads but with the plain, round Dwarf shields and are exclusively spearmen. Shields aside – with an Armoured Dwarf shield for the leader – they are a pretty straight build.
Above. Shielded Dwarves (Dwarf warrior).
The Dwarves have had a little work, which we split between us. I swapped armoured dwarf and unarmoured dwarf ams around a little and I added the boar helmet crests (and I added a special big one for my leader with the boar from the standard.
Above. Armoured Dwarves – Kings Body Guard primed with Platemail (lots of armour so it made sense).
Armoured Dwarves – Kings Body Guard primed with Platemail (lots of armour so it made sense).
Above. Armoured Dwarves – Kings Body Guard with colours painted in.
Kings Body Guard with colours painted in. The Warg riders were assembled pretty much straight from the box with a little remedial putty work. There’s three units: five with bow (as Scouts); five with spears and five with scimitars. The leader is identified by having a pillion hanging on.
Above. Goblin Warg Archers (Scout).
Above. Armoured Dwarves – Kings Body Guard with Quickshade applied, and all-in-one basing compound added.
Kings Body Guard with Quickshade applied, and all-in-one basing compound added.
Above. Armoured Dwarves – Kings Body Guard bases dry-brushed with Warpaint Desert Yellow, in a fairly rough manner.
Kings Body Guard with bases dry-brushed with Warpaint Desert Yellow, in a fairly rough manner: it didn’t have to be too neat as most of it would be covered with flock.
PAINTING BEORN Well the Bad Guys had an Orc leader and then a troll  appeared. And then – incongruously – a dragon (this is  getting out of hand, Kev...!). So the good guys needed  something extra, we thought. In fact, it was a simple bear  necessity... The big fellow was sprayed with the same Army Painter  Leather Brown as the evil troops (as indeed were the  Beorning Militia to accompany him). He was then sprayed,  very lightly, from the above direction only with Army  Painter Yellow Sand Colour Primer Spray, just a touch to  vary the fur colour. Then the claws and teeth painted in  Skeleton Bone and his nose in black. He then got the  Quickshade with a brush treatment and was put aside to  dry. Again a very fast paint job. In Oathmark we couldn’t find a prototype to do justice to  the mighty skin-changing, goblin beheading maniac so we  made something mad up as follows!  
A M F S D CD H Pts Special Base 3 7 4 0 10 3 4 100 Horrific, Charge (3), Wild Charge, Nimble,  50 x 50 Regenerate, Command (2), Large Equipment: None. Well, a Goblin’s head on a spike possibly, just for laughs!
CONCLUSIONS We got off to a fast start but – frankly – slowed  somewhat. This was due to a number of  factors: personal circumstances, work and the  damned restrictions of lock-down plus the  difficulty in coordinating this over two  households in safety: not an easy task. But  there was also the very real problem with and  increasingly troublesome question of “when oh  when are we going to be able to actually use  them and play a game together?”. That’s been  a little demoralising and has taken some of the  wind out of our sails.  However, on the positive side, we have built  two whole LotR based armies in double quick  time and neither of us had managed this in  decades. So: chin up! Every cloud has a  Mithril silver lining. 
The big fellow was sprayed with the same Army Painter Leather Brown as the evil troops (as indeed were the Beorning Militia to accompany him). He was then sprayed, very lightly, from the above direction only with Army Painter Yellow Sand Colour Primer.
Right. Beorn, the mighty skin- changing, goblin beheading maniac.