the Miniature World of Mike Peters: Forth Eorlingas!

I like to listen to music or audiobooks or podcasts while I paint, it engages part of my mind and leaves the rest of it to concentrate on my painting. While I was painting the Rohirrim, I listened to a Lord of the Rings audiobook, not an expensive production but extremely well done just the same. It occurred to me, that Tolkien wrote his novels as stories to be read aloud in the tradition of Sagas. It leant a new aspect to my understanding of his work. Hearing those wonderful descriptions takes you deeply into Middle Earth in a way that reading just doesn’t achieve. Try it. Warning, the quality is a bit iffy at the beginning but improves as it goes on

Lord of the Rings Audiobook

I also listened to a History Extra podcast five-part series on the Bayeux Tapestry as the Prof said the styles of the warriors there fit the Rohirrim “well enough” It was very informative but didn’t really help when it came to choosing a palette! In fact, the tapestry colours as they appear today are really quite muted and dull, probably not bright enough to stand out on a wargames table.

I am bit of a novice when it comes to photographing my figures. I have built a light box but I don’t think I have been using the right lights. So, I spent £30 and bought these.

The Set Up

They are Ideas Illuminated Emart LED 60 (whatever that means) and come with a handful of filters. They have a really neat system where the little feet spring out of the little pole and extend.

After trying a few shots, I found using a normal bulb, clipped to a mike stand, as a “fill-in” made quite a difference to how the pics looked

I don’t have a camera; I just use my phone. I take lots of pics from various angles and then have a look through them. I often see an error of positioning or a stray hair or some artefact of modernia in the background.

In this pic it really annoys me that the middle riders base is not flat on the board, completely destroying any pretence of reality

That’s better. You can still see the edge of the base but it’s not so obvious. A tactically placed piece of scatter would hide it even more.

I crop as appropriate. You can often find some detail in an otherwise less than good picture that looks ok when cropped and blown up

Same pic having used the “spot-fix” tool in Windows photos to blur the edges of the base

In this version I have used Spot fix on the other bases and have used the various adjustments in Windows photos to increase colour saturation etc

To be honest I usually use auto-fix but I don’t always keep the result as it can sometimes look a bit lurid

Dressing the scene is important. After every game I play, the board is covered with little bits of broken Lichen etc. I sweep these bits up, pop them in a bag and supplement them with small stones and bits of bark and other such organic dross and to use as foreground scatter.

See in this pic how “busy” the area around the figures is compared to the more distant parts

The Royal Guard ,the Kings Riders

Riders of Eomers Eored

I like this guy, he looks too big for his horse!

Eomer’s Eored are described as having grey horses, it doesn’t state that all the horses are grey but it is implied

As there is no regular standing army, it would seem unlikely that each Eored has horses of matching colours. This rarely happened historically with regular cavalry regiments of any era and where it did happen, the system swiftly broke down at times of war.

Far more likely then, that there would be horses of all colours

Historically, cavalry presented a nightmare of logistics. Medieval knights required several steeds each, even the hardy Native American warriors had each a “string of ponies”

If each warrior had only one or two remounts the Muster of 7,000 Rohirrim would require 14-21,000 horses which all need shoeing, watering, grazing…

Then there are farriers, horse doctors, victuallers, grooms and spare harness. All of which need transporting.

It’s probably best not to overthink this. Certainly, the prof didn’t. “As a story, I think it’s good that there should be a lot of things unexplained” JRR Tolkien letter 144

He describes the Rohirrim as “a still partly mobile and nomadic people of horse breeders” letter 297 which might suggest that each rider independantly provides for his mounts and so does not require as much logistical support

When I am creating Middle Earth armies, I try to reproduce what I saw in my mind when I first read the books. They are written in a style that leaves plenty of room for imagination, with minimal description and very few details. This is a deliberate strategy and the secret of the popularity and longevity of these remarkable stories. Feel free to follow your heart, imagine what you will.

When it came to details of clothing, uniform, war gear, Tolkien spent very little time thinking about it, his mind was focused on the language, the geography, the cartography the landscape and the story.

When asked in 1958 “What clothes did the people of Middle Earth wear?” he replied “I do not know the detail of clothing. I visualize with great clarity and detail scenery and “natural” objects, but not artefacts” letter 211

So there you have my take on the Rohirrim. At some time, I will knock out a few more Riders, I think an Eomer and a Theodred would be good and my own particular favourite, Erkenbrand, until then-

Arise now, arise, Riders of Theoden!

Dire deeds awake: dark it is Eastward.

Let horse be bridled, horn be sounded!

Forth Eorlingas!