How to Hobbyist: The Eastern Kingdoms

Hey, guys! Kyle Perkino once again but this time I am blogging about the Games Workshop hobby, specifically the Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game. "How to Hobbyist" is going to be a blogging mini-series about how to collect, model, paint, and game a different army of the Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game per blog post.
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This, the pilot episode of this series of posts, is how to collect, model, paint, and game The Eastern Kingdoms. I chose this army for the pilot episode because this is my default army in this tabletop miniature game and because I love the way they are gamed these days, 2012 to present. Now let's begin!
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First off, I will go into collecting. Now, keep in mind these miniatures can be a bit on the pricey side, let's just use specific examples rounding to the nearest USD up. Easterling Warriors, for example, is a box of 10 infantrymen in 27 parts for $25; while Easterling Kataphrakts is a 70-part kit of 6 cavalrymen for $38. If you want to try to make army buildup affordable like I try, you may need to set a $100 monthly maximum for yourself. For example, you want to buy several Easterlings of both types, you have a few options. You can either buy 3 Easterling Warrior boxes per month, or you can buy 2 Easterling Kataphrakt boxes per month, or you can alternate between these two patterns with one pattern for odd number months like January and March and the other pattern for even number months like February or April. With these limits and patterns, in one year you'll have mustered yourself a force of either 360 Easterling Warriors, 144 Easterling Kataphrakts, or just 180 of the former and 72 of the latter. However, these are not the only models that can be collected. There are also multi-part metal Variag charioteers, based on the Men of Khand from the Return of the King book, for $28 per model. And then you have two distinct multi-part ultra-detailed resin options: Dragon Knight and War Priest, both Easterling command horsemen, for $25 per model. In one month, based on the financial limit, you could get two Dragon Knights and two War Priests; and the next month get up to three Variag Charioteers. And of course, there are the two named characters, a Ring Wraith named Khamul and a human warrior called Amdur, who come in multi-part, ultra-detailed resin couples of footman version and horseman version for $37 per couple. But you only need one of each of character, Gaming phase will cover why, and also the third option for Khamul, in particular, is to buy the $62 Winged Nazgul multi-part plastic kit. All these minis are in 28mm scale. Many of these minis had their template design sculpted by the Perry Twins (Alan Perry and Michael Perry) who have their own line of Historically based Late Medieval Korean Warriors, who from what I've seen are easy to proxy as Variags of Khand on foot, on horses and on chariots, provided you have enough Citadel Green Stuff and/or ProCreate modelling clay to make them aesthetically correct proxies for Men of Khand.
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Now its time to talk modeling. The assembly methods should be self-explanatory, if you get Kataphratks and Warriors in the same buy, then you can make foot and mounted versions of the banner and the drummer. You can also use the spiked helmet and billowing cape bits that the Kataphrakts come with to make a Captain on foot and a Captain on an armored horse. The assembly can go with any kind of glue that is designed for plastic miniatures, the Citadel Plastic Glue in particular bonds quickly by briefly melting the surfaces that are supposed to be stuck to each other into each other... as far as I know. If you include Perry Twins Medieval Korean Warriors as Men of Khand, those are all metal just like the Citadel brand Variag Charioteers, so if you need Citadel Glue then it's about the Super Glue. A very good tactic I have seen veteran hobbyists get up to is to sandpaper the surfaces that are to be glued together before gluing, and I as an intermediate hobbyist will adopt this tactic with glee! Conversions, hm... let's close this portion by talking conversions. The Perry Twins have sprues of the small, vertically rectangular back-flags for your Men of Khand, and for your Easterlings if you want them to also wear back flags, in their stock's Medieval Japan section. As for pikes for your Easterlings, if you want more than 20% of your army to be pike and shield guys then I suggest buying the Perry Twins 80mm Yari pieces, and all the Perry Twin stuff can be found at discount American prices at The War Store.
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For this painting phase of this blog post, I will be using the Citadel Paint app while forging my own color schemes, which differ only slightly from those found in The Fallen Realms, the $28 army book where the army's gameplay is found, pages 40 to 45. Before I do that though, let me talk about the need for an undercoat of Abaddon Black. On the unpainted model, undercoats make for a good entry level painting surface for the basecoat, layers and dry brushes.
Now that this is clarified, let me go into my paint plan. You can use the Citadel Paint app and the How to Paint Citadel Miniatures book to forge your own color pattern, but here you'll only find my pattern. So then, let's go from the bottom up in the Easterling army caste. Keep in mind, whatever color scheme you build can be applied across the entire army from Warriors to Kataphrakts and even the Variags of Khand, as well as to all hero minis. First I will basecoat the Easterling armor and shields with Balthasar Gold, the silks with Khorne Red, the leathers (meaning quivers, belts, and boots) with Mechanicus Standard Grey, the blades and arrowheads with Leadbelcher, and the wooden parts (pike shafts, arrow shafts and shield inner squares) with Dryad Bark. Then I will "give the model a wash of", which really just means "use a shade or glaze brush to douse the model in", Agarax Earthshade. Lastly, I will drybrush the armor and shields with Golden Griffon, the silks with Astorath Red, the leathers with Dawnstone, the blades and arrowheads with Necron Compound, and the wooden parts with Sylvaneth Bark, and end with a second wash of Agarax Earthshade.
Horses I will basecoat with Rhinox Hide and Morunfang Brown for respectively the skin and the reins, followed by Agarax Earthshade wash 1, followed by a drybrush of Sylvaneth Bark for reins and Verminlord Hide for skins. When it comes to the hair and hoofs, I will leave the undercoat untouched other than by Dawnstone drybrush.
Leaving the Abaddon Black undercoat without a basecoat and dry brushing with Dawnstone as steps 1 and 3 will be my approach to painting Khamul, steps 2 and 4 being the Agarax Earthshade washes. I will paint his armor and blade the same way I paint the Easterling blades and arrowheads, too.
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Gaming time! This will be the last part where I talk about pros and cons, while also letting you figure out your tactics and warning you against stating your in-game battle plans in the comment box :-)
Pros?
First off, Khamul being a Ring Wraith means he can choose one of three different variants of Fell Beats for a mount! And in this game, that means he can choose between one of three different 12-inch-per-turn mounts who Fly. One is the normal kind who have Strength 6 and Defense 6. Armored and Horned are the other options, Armored Fell Beast - my default for Khamul - has Defense 7 instead of 6. But for Horned Fell Beast, the stat 7 instead of stat 6 is in the Strength stat.
Second off, Amdur and all Variag Kings have weapons classed as Elven Blades at Fight 6 by default. This means they can outfight an overwhelming majority of troop types in this tabletop miniature game and if dragged into 'drawn combats', they win on a dice score range of 1~4, instead of the usual for a Forces of Darkness range of 1~3.
Third off, Easterling War Priests - the sorcerer guys - have the only Fury spell in the game which covers every model in one's own faction, and not just same-faction models of the same race. This means that when the War Priest casts Fury; all humans, horses, chariots, Nazgul, Fell Beasts, and anything else with a Courage value in The Eastern Kingdoms army list automatically passes all Courage Tests. It also means that when they lose a wound point, you roll a dice and if you score a 6 then the loss is canceled. Unless you Channel Fury in which case the minimum dice score to cancel the loss is 5.
Fourth off, Variag Chariots are very versatile mounts with Defense 7 and 3 Wounds and are able to bulldoze enemy cavalry despite being only Strength 3. Normally a steed needs a Strength 6 or more to be able to do that. Plus they allow their riders to move the full 10-inch move for this 28mm scale cavalry miniature and still do archery and carry multiple weapons at once without penalty, something not allowed for normal cavalry or foot-fighters.
Fifth off, Easterling Warriors can carry pikes and shields at the same time without losing the Defense 6 they get for having a shield, under the Phalanx special rule. No other army with pikes and shields can do this, other infantry either go pike only or shield only, or they lose the Shield's defense bonus for also having a pike. Not Easterling Warriors though!
Sixth off, Easterling Kataphrakts tend to be the fastest moving, best-armored cavalry for the least amount of points per drummer model in the entire game. 14 points in base cost, Defense 6 by default, drumset option is 15 points per model, and with drums, if they are Not charging then they move 13 inches per turn! For 28mm scale minis on 40mm circle bases, this is adamantly beneficial! The infantry with their 25mm circle bases moves 9 inches per turn from being within a 12 radius of one or more of these 29 points per model Easterling Drummers. Let's examine other factions' drummers. Isengard Uruk-hai drummers and Mordor Orc drummers are infantry models costing 40 points each; Mordor Uruk-hai drummers, known as Black Guard drummers, are 45 points each. So you can field 50% more drummers than any of these can and have it all be cavalry at first. When drummers lose mounts in the battle that's how you get your foot-drummers.
Seventh off, Easterling armies or Easterling portions of Eastern Kingdom armies have an archer limit of 1 model in every 2, rather than this tabletop miniature game's normal 1 model in every 3.
Cons?
First off, Amdur is somewhat low courage for a hero with his benefits package at only a Courage of 4 rather than something like Courage 5 like, say, I notice in Variag Kings.
Second off, Dragon Knights cannot be made to lead packs, so if you want to spend 85 points per model on Might-focused commanders riding steeds, you are best off proxying Variag Charioteers as Variag Chieftains on Chariots.
Third off, Variag characters tend to be of low defenses of 4 for everything; Warriors, Horsemen, and Charioteers. Only the Kings with Defense 6 and Chieftains with Defense 5 are worth your in-game points budget.
Fourth off, this army has the smallest troop type selection of any Force of Darkness, lacking monsters and lacking artillery means they will have to ally with Isengard and/or Mordor to compensate this particular weakness.
Fifth off, Chariots cannot do Brutal Power Attacks despite being classed as Monstrous cavalry.
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Yes, I know this was a long one, but hopefully I got you guys interested in researching what this collecting-modeling-painting-gaming hobby is about. Thanks for reading to the end;
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~Kyle S. Perkins