Hi all
It's been a while since I actually did something with my models. So recently I got back into it. I took a brake of my Khazad-Dum WIP, painting the same colours over and over again got me bored. So I set my eye on an other army I always liked, both in the books and the movies. I am talking about Easterlings (hence the title ofcourse, haha). In my collection, I had two boxes of Easterlings lying around. I already asseblemd them, but never really did anything with them. The day I bought them, the only troops you had were the metal Kataphrakt, the captain and banner and the basic infantry troops. So not much choice for playing. That's why I started playing gobs and Dwarfs instead.
Now, some years have passed.. Easterlings got a lot more options and I still had them lying around.. So... I made some conversions.
I love the heavy cavalry, they look so tearrifying! The only problem I had with them..
1. No light cavalry, which makes the heavy cavalry the only options, which costs a lot of points for your army.
2. No archers.
Especially the second problem bothers me the most. I mean, I got this from the LotR wiki after some research:
"... Easterling cavalry archers were uniquely skilled, and while riding kept their quivers slung at their sides. They learned to stand up in the saddle and release their arrows at the moment the horse's hooves were off the ground, allowing them to shoot more accurately than Rohan's horse archers."
That inspired me for creating some myself. I used the plastic Haradrim Serpent riders' horses and bottom-half of the rider. Doing this created some light cavalry horse archers. I also did this with two swordsmen, just to see what it'd look like.
Anyway, enough talking, let's get some pictures up!
Now, you might ask what the thing on the back of the horse is. Well.. I'm not sure. I just liked it as a sort of decoration, my Haradrim wouldn't be needing it anymore anyway haha.
Yes, on this photo, you can also see two heads from the horse's side. Gondorian soldiers decapitated. I also got this idea from the LotR wiki:
"... Easterlings also liked wearing battle trophies, talismans of victory that could inspire them to glory and riches and power and territory/region ownership and totems of fear that would intimidate their next opponents. This psychological warfare struck terror into their enemies and gave them an even greater advantage in battle"
What better way to make your enemy fear you than seeing heads of their dead friends as a trophy?
Here's a close-up
Last weekend, I also got my hands on some metal Kataphrakt, I found them in a hobby shop just across our Belgian border... The Netherlands!
I picked up a set of Easterling infantry (still with 20 soldiers for €20) and the metal riders (€35). I found it a good deal, knowing that the riders are OOP and you can only get the soldiers in sets of 10 these days.
Unfortunately.. Two of the swords broke of. They were badly bend. So I replaced them with some pikes!
For the foot soldiers, I converted some of them, as I have not assembled all of them yet, had a busy week at school.
And to finish it of... I made a house for my soldiers. It's still a WIP ofcourse, still have to add brickeffects, put some windows and a door in it and finish the roof.
I hope you liked reading this, as soon as I got more, I'll put it up here.
C&C are mostly welcome!
PS: does anybody have a nice idea how to paint the armour? I was thinking of a silver or bronze basecoat and drybrush it with gold. What do you guys do? Maybe show me with some pics if you can, that would be appreciated!
Jorn
u got quite some backlog to work trough 
