Battle of Five Armies Diorama

[Xazil]

Greetings all,

I am looking at creating a diorama of the Battle of Five Armies with 10mm scale and after some advice.

Searching over the Pendraken range I have come up with the following:
Thranduil's Wood Elves - The wood elf range - FE1, FE2, FE3, FE4, FE10.  Would the outcast elves also suit?

Iron HIlls Dwarves and Thorins company - Dwarf range - Dwarf Army Pack, FD1, FD3, FD4, FD5, FD6, FD7, FD20, FD23.  Do the McDwarves match into this army?

Lakemen - Anglo-Saxon - AS1, AS2, AS6.  Are the huscarls good generic melee? Would these fit ok in scale with the elves, dwarves, goblins etc?

Gandalf - Wizard - AC19
Bilbo - Halfling - FH2
Gwaihir and Ealges - Wood Elves - FE9
Beorn - I haven't found a bear to use.  Any suggestions in 10 or 15mm?

Bolg's Goblins, wolves and wargs. - Goblins - Goblin Army Pack, FG1, FG2, FG3, FG4, FG6, FG7, FG9, FG10, FG11.   Would some hobgoblins (FHGs) work for Bolg's bodyguards and himself better than the goblin leader from the Army pack?

I am thinking of building up 600-800 total minatures for this about 200 elves, 100 dwarves, 100 Men, 400 Goblins plus misc.

Are the variety of poses varied enough for when using a lot of miniatures?

What is the normal base size for these minatures?   I have been assuming roughly 10mm also.

Any suggestions on casualties?

Are there discounts for ordering this many casts at once?

Thanks

[fred.]

Cool sounding project.

IIIRC all the dwarves scale with each other.

Lake men - these will be quite small compared to the Fantasy figures. The Fantasy ranges were made some time ago independently of the historical ones. As they will be their own unit you will probably get away with it.

I think the elves have the least pose variety - but perhaps would be a bit more regimented anyway.

Bear, not sure. There are Kislev bears for GW Warmaster but these go for lots of eBay. And there is a Beorn bear in the OoP BoFA set from GW but I've not seen this available individually, but this is a big figure, so a 15mm bear would work.

Bases - most people mount several figures on a single base, 40mm by 20mm is probably the most common. Are you building for a wargame or for a diorama? If you want to single base then I have found 12mm metal washers are about the right size and have a nice amount of weight to help keep the figure from getting knocked over all the time.

[Leon]

Would the outcast elves also suit?

The Outcasts are slightly smaller sculpts, and might not look quite right.  They've got a bit of a Robin Hood type appearance!

Do the McDwarves match into this army?

Yep, everything in the Dwarf range matches up fine.  You can also use the Hill Dwarf range, which are slightly smaller and thinner, and match in nicely with the Goblins, Elves, etc.

Lakemen - Anglo-Saxon - AS1, AS2, AS6.  Are the huscarls good generic melee? Would these fit ok in scale with the elves, dwarves, goblins etc?

The Historical ranges are slightly smaller than the Fantasy, but like Fred says, if you put them in different units then they should be fine.

I haven't found a bear to use.  Any suggestions in 10 or 15mm?

You might need to look at some 15mm options for this, as we don't have anything suitable.  They are quite high on the requests lists, but the designer has gone a little AWOL there.

Would some hobgoblins (FHGs) work for Bolg's bodyguards and himself better than the goblin leader from the Army pack?

Yep, this should be fine, the Hobgoblins are nicely chunky compared to the Goblins.

Are the variety of poses varied enough for when using a lot of miniatures?

Most of those ranges have different poses, so you can have a nice variety.  The Goblins are 2 poses per code, the Elves are 1 pose per code, and the Dwarves have 2-3 variants.



For bases, it's really up to you?  10mm bases would be too small I think, 15mm would be the smallest I would go.  But that's a lot of bases for the size armies you're talking about here!

[Xazil]

Thanks for the answers, much appreciated.   

The men being smaller than the elves works in Tolkien, it is probably men versus dwarfs that I am worried since they'll be deployed near each other.   The goblins are all of various sizes in the books so they matter less.     Does anyone have a dwarf/hill dwarf/historical man comparison picture?

Basing - It is for a diorama, I perhaps didn't word it the best.   I meant the diameters of the metal base that is part of each miniature.    I am currently planning out my board and where I want to place miniatures, thus the size mattering.

I found a nice 1/72 sized bear that's approximately 22mm tall, since Bilbo could walk between Beorn's legs when he was in human form with a tunic hanging to his knees that makes the bear nicely sized.

Thanks again.

[Dave Fielder]

If wait a few weeks, watch the Hobbit film, then this will become the new industry standard for the Battle of Five Armies. Have you seen the GW plastic boxed set? Hard to get these days but worth a look for inspiration. Pretty sure that Pendraken can provide figures to suit.

[Sean67]

Hi Xazil
I have the BOFA battleset the Boern figure is dire. I've used another company (Sorry Leon) and their not range to fill out the units you get from the box set but most of these come in strips of 5 figures so wouldnt look good as part of  a diorama.
Sean

[fred.]

Basing - It is for a diorama, I perhaps didn't word it the best.   I meant the diameters of the metal base that is part of each miniature.    I am currently planning out my board and where I want to place miniatures, thus the size mattering.

This is probably a reasonably generalisation - but if you want to get some figures closer then you can, either by trimming the bases a little, or just squeezing them together a bit more. 4 figures always fit across a 40mm base, but sometimes 6 will fit. And you can probably get 3 ranks deep on a 20mm base if you crowd them in a bit.

These Orcs have 5 on the front rank and 4 on the back - due to fitting the long pole arms in


These goblin archers (second unit back) are quite low density as the bows stick out quite a bit

[rexhurley]

Nice pics there Fred and here i was trying to be good and wait for a Fantasy revamp dangit...

[Xazil]

Cheers to all.   The replies and pictures have helped.   Made my plan out and sent Leon a nice sized order.