Umbar goes to war

...well, some of them anyway.The Umbar crew is up and running, with the unit of Marines and Bûltungin the Mûmakani (the latter still, alas missing his Savannah Warg companions) all painted and awaiting a spot of clear weather to be varnished.

Despite having converted Bûltungin before The Renaissance Troll did his, I was beaten to the punch on painting (not surprising, really). Happily, I went with a more Masai-influenced palette, and kept the warpaint/scarring to a minimum, so there's going to be a pretty complimentary couple of Mûmakani/Mahud running about the place. He was painted using exactly the same painting style as I employ for all my models, albeit with a darker base skin tone – all I changed was which Army Painter tone I used: "Soft" is my default on for most models, for this one I switched up to "Strong". I'm very happy with the results.

I didn't enjoy painting these Marines, so I'm glad they're done. The Mongol shields I used look great, but are a nightmare to paint. I'm not a fan of painting then gluing, so these were affixed to the models pre-paint. Normally not a problem, but these shields are so concave that they took almost as long as the rest of the figures! Still, quite happy with the end result, and they've set the the colour scheme for the force as a whole.

The Marines are still a little squat for my liking and, depending on how they fit when all the other corsairs are done, they may get updated. In retrospect, I'd rather have them with pikes anyway, as that fits both the role I have in mind for them and the explanation for arming Maugor the troll-thing as I did.

Still, no doubt they'll get a run-out for a few games at least. Perhaps if they perform admirably I'll let them stay!