Rohan, the Men of Snowbourne

In the Peter Jackson film version of the Lord of the Rings, the men of Snowbourne are late to the rallying point before the Rohirrim head out to assault the orcs of Morder besieging Minas Tirith.  The only excuse I could see is that they must be from the outer reaches of Rohan.  When I received this selection of soldiers, painted by none other than Sue (Hurklecat).  I thought immediately that they could be fashioned into Rohirrim with just a little bit of extra love.  I added just one or two figures, customized some shields and added some banners, replaced old lead spaghetti spears and then based them to match my collection.  Thus my second army of Rohan was born, this time featuring more reds than greens, a consequence of their distance from the main plains of Rohan, and also why there are more infantry, as they live in the foothills of the mountains bordering Rohan (at least that's my story and I'm sticking with it.)  The magician is meant to represent Radagast the Brown, who has emerged from seclusion to lend a hand against the evils of Isengard and Morder.

Radagast was on of the few figures I painted from scratch and is from a Ral Partha half-elf collection I believe.  I thought his armor/coat was reminiscent of feather, hence he is based with an owl and eagle.

There were two of these included in the selection and they were a bit too Roman to serve as rohirrim, particularly this on on the armored horse, so I sculpted a horsehair crest for the helmet and added a sword to help disguise his Roman heritage.

Rohan to the Rescue

King Theoden of Rohan takes the lead in this stand of knights with Gamling and a royal guardsman close behind.

Erkenbrand, the real hero of Helms Deep. Made conspicuous by his absence in the film, Erkenbrand led a vital contingent of the Rohirrim in a counter attack against the orcs of Isengard. This figure is one of those infuriating GW sets that pairs a nice metal rider with a cheap plastic horse. If you look closely you can see the support pin I had to put into the horse's belly to stabilize the figure.

Now counter attack would be complete without Gandalf to lead the way.

Here are two elements of riders who are the vanguard of a much larger force. I have enough for 1 more element of riders and 6 elements of knights already painted. They are just waiting on the basing.

Erkenbrand on foot with some royal guard, and some aerial support featured below.