The Muster of Rohan: Painting Copplestone Casting’s Horse Tribe Cavalry

Sound the Horn— It's Painting Season! 

My painting set up: Ikea tray, old mug, block of styrofoam to hold the brushes.
The blue and green stands are "photo holders" I found in Target's bargain aisle. 

This season has become catch-up time with a number of my projects, so I thought I’d share another one of my latest efforts. The figures are from my growing collection of 10mm fantasy figures for the Warmaster game system. The project in question is a long-term one of gaming battles from The Lord of the Rings, one of my favorites being the Battle of Helm’s Deep between the forces of the Rohirrim and Saruman’s fearsome Uruk-hai. Fortunately for fans of Tolkien’s works (and Peter Jackson’s films), Copplestone Castings in the UK has a terrific, if small, “generic” high fantasy line. His stand-ins for Rohan are the “Horse Tribes,” and like Tolkien and PJ, they’re very clearly based on a mix of Anglo-Saxon England with a dash of Post-Roman Britain (indeed, they’d be strong contenders for the latter).

In my earlier posts, I had images of one unit of Copplestone’s Horse Tribe Cavalry, and another of the Horse Archers, which represent the heavy cavalry and missile cavalry depicted in the books and films. Copplestone also has Horse Tribe Infantry and Foot Archer units, so the line offers a well-rounded selection for a Rohirrim army, including the infantry actions which dominate the Battle of Helm’s Deep in both novel and film. While the foot soldiers are in my painting pile, I had a unit of cavalry already primed, so I thought I’d give it a go one weekend and share the results with my readers.

Note: Click on the pictures to see a closeup!

Color Choice and Paints

I don’t go for the big name miniature paints. I’m certain they’re quite good, and worth every penny, but I don’t have a lot of pennies to put towards the hobby. Instead, I opt for the much cheaper craft paints sold at hobby chain stores like Michael’s and Jo Ann’s. They work for me, and I’ve found most of them cover even black primer with a single coat. Brighter colors like reds and yellows may take more coats, but as I said, this stuff is dirt cheap, especially with the coupons the retailers send out.

For Rohan, I take the movie images as my cue. While the most obvious choice is the very dominant hunter green used in the films, other colors also stand out, including a deep golden yellow and a burgundy or russet color. I like to have some differentiation in my units so it’s easier to define which is which in the midst of a battle— especially as Warmaster battles can quickly become mass melees involving multiple units! Also, as the Rohirrim are more of feudal militia or levy than a standing force, I feel their attire would not be a national uniform, but rather a reflection of each units home region (such as the Westfold, etc.). As my last cavalry unit was traditional Rohan hunter green, I decided to opt for a different “Rohan” color for this unit, and chose russet or deep maroon as the dominant hue. For the remaining bits, I decided to keep the hunter green in the mix for bits of tunic and/or saddle blankets, and left the rest as the metal or natural leather suited for these smaller details.

Getting Started

I operate on an in-to-out approach with painting 10mm figures, meaning I start with the “innermost” layer of a figure and work outward, rather like someone putting on clothes. So this meant painting skin, or in this case, faces. For this I use a very pale Coral craft paint. (I prefer to use this straight out of the bottle with elves; with men and dwarves I might actually paint a thin layer of red first, which will bleed through the lighter coral to produce a ruddier complexion. In this case, I knew so little of the flesh would be seen that I didn’t bother with that.)

With the units primed in black, it’s hard to pick out which details are face and which are beard or helmet. But as skin is the first layer, any overlaps would get covered by darker colors as the miniature “gets dressed,” so if my dabs got too big, it didn’t matter.

Grooming the Horses

Faces, horseflesh and metal finished (not counting touch-ups).

After the faces, I decided that the ponies needed some grooming, so I painted their skins next. Again, I like a little subtle variety in the look of the horses, and try to capture a natural color scheme. People often think of horses as being primarily brown, but in truth the dominant color is the classic “bay,” which tends towards a reddish tone. So my choices of color for the horses were Burnt Sienna (a deep reddish brown), Milk Chocolate (a mid-level brown) and Light Cinnamon (another mid-level brown hue, also with a slight red tint). I like the command horse to stand out a bit, and this time I opted for a “roan,” horse, which is a shade of grey with black elements rather than white.

Although in larger scales, horses are notoriously tricky to paint realistically, at the 10mm size a straight color works fine, especially if you follow up with a dark wash afterwards. So my little force got 5 bays, 4 chestnuts, 3 light browns, and the commander’s striking roan.

Arms and Armor (and Other Shiny Bits)

Closeup of horses: Light Brown, Grey Roan, Bay (Burnt Sienna).

After the horse flesh, I opted to arm and cloth the men. The chainmail is an easy paint, almost a dry-brush approach with a Gunmetal shade (a dark grey metallic paint). This is a very dark paint that is hard to see against the black, so it’s okay if you get a bit more than the typical dry-brushing expects, especially as 10mm is really meant for arms-length or birds-eye viewing— you want to see a block of metal; a black wash will help create the texture of it.

The Copplestone helms are terrifically detailed, with crest rims, nose guards, and chin guards. They also vary from figure to figure, which fits the levy nature of the Rohirrim’s muster. Just a dab of gold metallic paint on the various helm features creates a great look. 

I also hit the horse’s bridle rings and the stirrups with the gunmetal paint, except for the commander who got a bit of gold bling with his tackle. Spear points, sword blade and shield bosses are also Gunmetal, though again the commander gets the gold treatment on his shield boss. Sword hilts and scabbard tops get gold dabs as well.

Later, I realized that the horses also have headpieces above their foreheads, and these would eventually be gold as well (though gunmetal would have been fine. Maybe the commander of this regiment has a thing for shiny stuff...). I would also come back later and add spur bands of gold on the men’s boots (again, I hadn’t noticed this detail yet).

Tunics and Cloaks

Cloaks and banner.

With the metal done (mostly), I went with cloth next. Starting with the green, I painted tunics and/or saddle blankets. I decided not to give all the saddle blankets or tunics the same color, in part because some of the men don’t have cloaks, so I need to confine their tunics to the russet color, and again, I didn’t want a “uniform” feel.
Green done (two coats of Evergreen, as it’s very dark and needs to be built up so as not to appear black), I pulled out the russet, which was actually a Wine paint. This took three coats, especially on the wide cloaks.

Bit and Bridle (and Other Leather Stuff)

Closeup of cloaks, shields and tunics. Color is "Wine."
You can also see the tackle, gloves, scabbards and other bits.
Only the lance shafts, hooves, manes and touch-ups remain.

Next I hit the tackle, using a Golden Brown camel color. I also used this for the riders’ hands. Although this is a bright color, it makes for a good contrast against the darker horse flesh. While in a larger scale model that might seem odd, in 10mm scale you want as much contrast as you can get so that the details still “pop” out once the figures are moving about the tabletop. 10mm scale, after all, is about grand spectacle and immediate troop recognition rather than the subtleties of light and shadow. Plus, once a dark wash is done at the end, the tackle color subdues to a deeper tan, which looks nicely realistic, even up close. I did have some painting error here and there, but I always come back to the horseflesh with a touch up coat, so I knew I would cover these slips. I also hit the straps of the bedrolls with this color, as well as the stirrup straps and a few of the saddle blankets, the latter to again avoid the “uniform” effect.

Pulling out some Spice Brown (a mid-to-dark brown), I hit the blanket rolls, pants, scabbards, belts and boots of the riders. Dark Brown (only slightly darker than Spice) serves as the lance shafts.

Grooming the Men and Manes

Done with clothing and accoutrements, I hit the men’s hair and beards with either brown (I think spice in this case), or French Vanilla, which produces an easy bright “Scandinavian” blonde effect, fitting of Tolkien’s Rohirrim. The horse's manes and tails are either black or dark brown (the roanI painted black, but the others I varied, just as real horses vary in their coloring).

Final Touch-up and a Quick Wash

After that, it was all touch-up, covering up mistakes or picking out details that now could be seen. I also gave a few of the horses white "socks" and "blazes" for a little more character.

Main painting done. Painting the bases and preparing the wash.

After giving the bases a quick slap of flat black paint, I used the same paint to create a shading wash. Others may use a precise mix, but I confess to the quick and easy method— a just add drops of distilled water to the paint to make it thin and runny, then slap it on the figure. I used the same brush to gently flick away pools of paint (as on the shields and cloaks) and dabbed with a paper towel if too much watery paint puddled into the space in the chest and lap area of the riders. This method isn’t perfect, and I wound up not entirely happy with the cloaks (though from a distance they look fine), but it’s definitely easy, and the horse tackle, horse muscle and armor bits gained definition, while the overly vibrant tackle bits were muted. (I asked my lovely bride’s opinion, because I wasn’t happy with the cloaks. She’s not a gamer, and has no real opinion of my “little men” (except that she doesn’t like “the ugly ones,” meaning the orcs). But she had seen the figures before the wash, in their vibrant state, and felt the washed tones were more realistic. I’m not going to argue with her!)

Behold the Warriors of the Westfold!

All told, this project took me three days of painting, though only for a couple of hours each day (largely while half-watching football games). For me, that’s the fastest I’ve ever completed any single unit.

So there’s hope yet that I will reach my goal of a playable Helm’s Deep force in a reasonable time frame. And then, on to the Pelennor Fields. ;-).

--- Parzival of TMP