Cob Wargaming
Ruins of Osgiliath
We recently purchased the Ruins of Osgiliath triple pack from Games Workshop. It didn't take us long to throw it together and this page is all about how we painted it. After a few trials and tests of different paint combinations we finally decided on this super simple and highly effective recipe that we are currently busy applying to our brand new ruins.
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We found the ruins pretty simple to put together (after a quick look at the instructions!). They joined together pretty well although some people might want to use a bit of modelling putty to fill the odd gap between connections. To convert these ruins into different shapes or combinations would probably prove pretty difficult as they are a pretty specific design but it wouldnt be impossible.
Painting the Statues
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Give the statue an undercoat of Abbadon Black. Make sure to get a thorough covering including getting into all the recesses. This is important because, unlike normal miniature painting, a lot of the undercoat will still show through on the final model.
Next up, take a large brush and give the model a very heavy dry brush of Administratum Grey. The tricky bit is getting the paint to be quite thick on the brush but still being able to use the dry brush technique.
Once the Grey has dried take your average sized brush and give the statue a normal drybush with some Ceramite White. I gave the face a slightly heavier coating so that it would be lighter and draw the eye.
I gave the plinth of the statue a wash of Agrax Earthshade and then when this was dry a very light drybrush of Ushabti Bone. this was a theme a carried on with the rest of the ruins.
The different stages together showing how the statues developed as the stages were applied.
We experimented with some different ways of painting walls on some old ruined walls we had that came from the first LOTR starter sets. As you can see they still fit in with the new ruins and they compliment each other well on the battle field.
Painting the steps
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Once again undercoat thoroughly with Abaddon Black. Then give a thick drybrush of Administratum Grey.
These pictures show the stone walls of the steps. The left picture shows the white highlight. after this we tried adding a slight drybrush of Ushabti Bone to give a bit more colour but ultimately we decided against this.
The below stairs were given a wash of Agrax Earthshade in an effort to make them look like they were made of sandstone. The result looked okay but we weren't a hundred percent satisfied with the result.
After the first attempt proved to be a bit of a flop we tried giving the flagstones a heavy drybrush of Ushabti bone. this looked a lot better than the previous test.
We followed up the drybrush with a heavy wash of Agrax Earthshade. This sat in the cracks and in the indentations of the flagstones making it look like very realistic sandstone.
The Arches
These were painted using our normal stone recipe as described above. The white highlight really brought out the detail above each of the arch ways and the edges of the broken side. We debated whether or not to add a gold highlight to the top pattern so it looked like gold leaf but we decided that he stone looked fine as it was.
The wood across the top of the arches was painted with a base coat of Doombull Brown.
This wood was given a light drybrush of Tallarn Sand, being careful to go across the grain of the wood pattern.
Finally the wooden section was given a wash of Agrax Earthshade to make the planks more distinguishable
The main Gateway is the centrepiece of this collection of ruins with two archways for players to attack or defend and a upper floor to add some height to your games. We kept to the above formula for painting the walls in the grey stone and the warmer sandstone for the two floors.
Below you can see a comparison of two walls before and after the white highlight. You can clearly see the difference that it make to the finished model. They grey just looks flat whereas the white has really picked out the details of the stonework and almost makes it feel realistic. The black undercoat works really well as a shadow effect and it also makes the stonework seem deeper than it really is.
The end result. Put together, one of the ruins packs looks pretty spectacular and with the triple pack that we got from Games Workshop we can't wait to get them all painted up and ready to go. The process we have used on these ruins is very straightforward requiring only a handful of paints. It is fairly quick to do but we would recommend that you make sure all the coatings are very dry before applying the next one, this is very true of the black undercoat and the wash.
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Although the scenery is designed for use with LOTR and the Hobbit it is still perfectly usable with 40k or other miniature games despite them being a slightly different scale.
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Thanks for reading, we hope you find this article useful and enjoyed it as much as these cultists did.
