My Mordor army has been a part of my collection since at least 2003. It started off small, just a small force of Mordor Orcs that came in the Return of the King starter box. But over the years it has ballooned massively, especially with the addition of Morannon Orcs over the years, both independently and with the addition of the Pelennor Fields boxset when that came out.
However, the painting side of things has been dragged out for almost as long. Few models had been painted, and none of those based. This was a situation that had to be rectified if I wanted to ever play them properly.
I chose to start with painting one entirely new model, the Orc Taskmaster, and three models I touched up slightly and based.
So with this playing in the background…
Oh yeah, so this exists. God bless the 1980’s!
So without further fluff, lets take a peek.
First up, a Mordor Orc Captain. This model is long OOP, and is a fantastic sculpt, chock full of great detail.
Pardon my hands, but the light doesn’t catch the face all too well otherwise. I love the scavenged Minas Tirith armour, and the gruesome severed head on the belt.
The shield is also a great touch, and yep, that is another severed head. This model has more character then a lot of the more recent FW captains!
Another OOP model, a Morannon ‘Orc’ Captain. I found this model looked more like an Uruk Hai, which another blogger(long since forgotten unfortunately) also had done. He is still being fielded as an Orc Captain though.
The nice, spiny armour takes a wash really well. I didn’t touch up this model much, it was pretty good to start with.
Some detail I hand-painted years ago, which I kept.
Its Skully! The name the character has is Guritz, but he will forever be Skully in my mind. This is literally the third iteration of the model I have, and the only one that was made specifically to represent the Movie character.
Lots of great detail on this FW model, but that isn’t altogether too surprising.
The first entirely new model I painted today, an Orc Taskmaster. This is a metal model, and I believe he is still available, albeit it in Finecast.
This guy definitely has eaten well in Mordor. Meat perhaps is back on the menu?
This model is based of the Orc ‘inspector’ that almost finds Frodo and Sam in Return of the King. I didn’t take too long trying to copy the film version, and just went with colours that I felt worked really well.
Not too much work, but a nice fun distraction. I’m looking forward to painting more, but I’m avoiding burnout as best as possible so no masses of the same thing being painted days on end.
Just a short post today, I hope you enjoyed the read! Happy War-gaming wherever you are, and have a great day!
Not by Strength, By Guile 
First! LOL
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Funny. 😅
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They are looking fearsome, especially that taskmaster! Fantastic
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Thank you! 4 down….a lot to go.
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Very nice- monstorous and not cartoony.
Cheers,
Pete.
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Thanks! Wasn’t intentionally going for that look but it works! I did want a gritty realistic take so I’m glad I’m closer to PJ then Bakshi
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