Games Workshop -Lord of the Rings

Mordor Orcs Starter Set -Review by Steve Crofts

First Thoughts

The Box, no doubt by now most of you will know what the boxes look like, and what is upon them, so I won’t bore you and open up the box!

Well, Well, Well….. hmmm

This is novel!

Inside I found the following:-

A full colour A4, 3 page “booklet” on how to paint the figures.

12 Plastic Mordor Orcs with various weapons on a sprue.

12 Plastic Slotted bases.

Another booklet containing information about other products in the L.O.T.R’s ranges.

6 Small pots of paint.

A plastic tray with slots moulded in to fit the paint pots in, and the centre of which was also the mixing palette.

And finally a paint brush.



This looks a good Idea I thought to myself as I viewed the contents, Aimed at the beginner their seems to be nearly everything in the box to start off collecting and painting.

I’ll start with the painting guide.

This reads well and has a colour illustration for every step, perfect for a beginner to learn the very basics of painting figures, Although I do think the beginner may get a little confused as to how the artist painting the figures stage by stage acquired green out of the paints provided, (Oh dear someone’s dropped a clanger!), Especially if the figures are supposed to be painted I suspect, from the colours provided! 

Photo 4 shows this hiccup, quite clearly the Orc has a green face!

Apart from this obvious clanger, I find the whole concept of this box a good idea.

Another good point is that the booklet also shows the novice how to go through the basic assembly techniques as well as the painting, so I give them a 10/10 for this splendid idea.

Next the pots of paint…. These are of various colours, (but no Blue or Yellow, or Green, (see what I mean nothing to mix up a green)), I’d say that they are the same size pots as you’d find in a painting by numbers set, (if you’ve seen them), and if used carefully they should paint up a few more figures than what is in the box.

The Palette… this is quite useful and should serve for quite a long time, I gave this one to my son for his use for painting as I use the acetate from the blister packs as a palette, plus he has somewhere to put his paint pots to keep them steady as he practises his painting, But again it is an excellent idea.

The Paint Brush…. This looks decent although the bristles are not the horse or camel hair that I normally use, these do seem a little stiff?

The brush does have it’s own plastic Bristle sheath to protect the end of the brush when not in use, and seems to be of what I’d call a basic all rounder, although I won’t be attempting to paint eyes and pupils with it! I’ll give it a whirl and see how I go.

The figures… As I said before there are twelve of them. All are of the plastic variety.

Detail on the figures is fairly decent although in a couple of areas, (the sides), the detail does get lost and a bit of guess work is needed to work out which items are what.

I didn’t like the quivers on the archers backs as they need undercutting around the edges, if you follow me, to give them a more “separate” look, as they stand it looks like the quiver is part of their backs.

Flash… to put it bluntly…None, as for mould lines, these are evident, and care must be taken to remove these as too much pressure can cut a very deep gouge. The worst part of this mould line removal is around the heads and especially the finger areas, the heads aren’t that bad if the figure has a helmet but the fingers, (I’ll be honest, I gave up for fear of cutting out the finger detail).



All in all the figures do look a motley bunch as they are depicted in the films.



Painting

As I’m not a beginner, (Although some may say otherwise!( I did read GW’s guide, as I do all painting articles,(it is amazing what snippets of these can do to enhance your painting!), I did paint the figures using more than the colours in the box and I used my usual grey rather than there advised black undercoat.

I sprayed the figures and set to work,( using the brush provided).

It wasn’t long though however that I found myself swearing and cursing as the brush tip began to curl and split. This wasn’t due to any bad treatment either, some brushes that I use are quite a few years old and are just starting to be ready for the bits box.

It soon became apparent that me and this brush were going to be enemies! So without further ado I cleaned it, put the cover back on, (for what it was worth) and got out my faithful set, (here’s a tip, if you don’t like a brush don’t paint your figures with it! But that doesn’t mean to throw it away, I know use it for applying watered down PVA glue to my bases to stick scatter flock! Also if it had been no good for that I’d have used it for some other job).

Now I was motoring, maybe the brush I was given in the set was a bad apple and I would be prepared to give them another go but if they generally ended up the same I wouldn’t get them.

I wouldn’t say that I totally enjoyed painting some of them, but overall they were not too bad, I would have liked a little more detail on them and the sides of some of the Orcs were a bit sparse in places for detail that was enough to distinguish which bit ended and which bit started.

End results Hmmm not bad, they don’t paint up as good as their metal brethren but they are pretty good for plastics.

Just as a pointer, (another tip coming up!), It would be an idea to use either a matt lacquer or matt varnish on these figures if you don’t usually use one as I found that on one or two the paint seemed to rub off slightly with very little handling, this may be due to me not washing them thoroughly enough in lightly soapy water or maybe a bit of grease getting onto the undercoat after spraying I don’t know, but I’d give them a squirt just to make sure.



Final thoughts 

Well Games workshop….. A Great Idea, I personally didn’t like the brush, for the reason in my review.

Another point is that if a painter of yours is going to show what can be achieved by using the set provided, it would be a good idea for the painter to use only that set and what is in it, then nobody gets confused as to where the colour comes from!

Apart from these I’ve no other major grumbles.

10/10 for the idea.

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