Painting the Lord of the Rings Mines of Moria Game

Mines of Moria miniature strategy game

This article describes the painting of the Lord of the Rings Mines of Moria game from Games Workshop. For years I resisted earlier Lord of the Rings miniatures games from Games Workshop. I did not like how the combat rules were in one game, the mounted rules were in another, and the siege and elephant rules were in yet another. Finally, after several years of partial games, Games Workship has come out with a complete rule book for Lord of the Rings and a a complete game, the Mines of Moria, for beginners. I particularly like that the Mines of Moria game comes with the entire Fellowship in miniature, an interesting set of enemy miniatures, some basic scenery, and a nice brief summary of all GW LotR rules to date.

To the right is a photograph of the box contents. The game comes with nine 25 mm figures for the Fellowship of the Ring (Gandalf, Aragorn, Boromir, Gimli, Legolas, and 4 hobbits), 24 Mines of Moria goblins (with blades, spears, and bows), and one giant cave troll. Note that these figures are 25 mm and not the 28 mm figures that are more popular today. The game also comes with some cool terrain, including some pillars, the tomb of Balin, a reinforced door, some ruins, a rules booklet, and an introductory magazine.

I beefed up my game by filling the pillars with plaster to make them heavier. I painted some foam insulation with granite textured paint to make thick walls. I made a 42 by 28 cm (16 by 11 inch) cardboard game board that just fits in the box. This too was sprayed with gray granite textured paint. I redid the plastic metric measuring pointers with wooden ones shown at right with red and green one inch stripes. And I chopped up the gray plastic sprues and glued them to a sheet plastic base to make four more brick rubble piles. Additionally I had to glue a heavy fender washer to the base of the troll to help keep him from falling over.

Fellowship heavy hitters
Here are the heavy hitters of the Fellowship defending Balin's tomb. To the left is Boromir, to the right is Aragorn, up on the tomb is Gimli the dwarf, and in front is Legolas with his bow. These plastic miniatures are nice, the sculpts look just like the actors from Peter Jackson's movies.

I decided to use speed painting techniques. Thus, these guys are primed in black, with very few colors drybrushed over the black. There is no highlighting other than what you get by drybrushing and leaving some black shadows along the edges. The base is done very simply with some Woodland Scenics black coal ballast (used for model train layouts) drybrushed with some medium gray. Done! Blast them with Krylon Matte Varnish and off to the next group.

The Fellowship Hobbits
Here is Gandalf the Grey and the 4 hobbits from left to right: Sam, Frodo, Merry, and Pippin. Again, they are painted for speed, primed black and dry brushed with a few basic colors. Sam has a ready frying pan while Sam and Pippin have big rocks at the ready. Gandalf is ready to lay Glamdring on yo' butt. Once again, the sculpts are great, looking very much like the actors.

Most of the scenery in Moria is done by priming black, drybrushing with medium gray, and highlighting with a lighter gray. The double door in the back is articulated and can open and close.

"They've Got a Cave Troll"
This set comes with a cave troll. He is very deadly in this game with a strength of 6 and 3 attacks per turn. Poor Aragorn and Boromir only have a strength of 4 and 3 attacks per turn. When you play Mines of Moria you will almost certainly lose a few members of the Fellowship to this guy.

The troll is a about 10 pieces of styrene plastic that must be assembled. He leans precariously to the right, so I glued a heavy metal washer inside his base to help keep him upright. I like the look of Peter Jackson's trolls. They look somewhat amphibian, somewhat mole-like with heavy teeth and claws that appear to be used for gnawing some tunnels in the mines.

Some goblins
Here are some Moria goblins. There are 24 of them of 3 basic types: spears, blades, and bows. Each type has about 3 poses which is a healthy amount of variation. Plus I added some fright hair combos to make them more individual.

Once again these are speed-painted for gaming. Of all my paint jobs here, these are my least favorite. I think I was a little too generous with the steel armor. Although I use Vallejo acrylic paints for most of my figures, I use Games Workshop metallics for anything metal. The GW metallics simply are more opaque with many more smaller metal particles. Here I use boltgun metal, which, although it is supposed to be blackened, looks kind of bright and shiny. I should have added more black to make it look even more like wrought iron. Or perhaps I should have gone all black for a more black leather armor look. Oh well, sometimes you have inspired paint sessions, sometimes not.

I hope you enjoyed reading the details of the painting miniatures from Games Workshop's Mines of Moria strategy board game. More miniatures-related articles are at Dan Becker's Miniatures and Models site. Also there is a Mines of Moria Battle Report on playing one of these games. Thanks for stopping by and reading about my miniatures.