Arthedain Arequain and Requain

Participating in the Wargaming in Middle Earth FB group has inspired me to finish another squadron of Arthedain cavalry - these are Arequain, or royal knights.  They wear the midnight-blue surcoats and bear the silver star of Arnor (I wasn't about to free-hand the plethora of Arthedain stars) upon each of their shields.

These miniature are part of the Scotia Grendel generic fantasy line and are listed as Men of the West Cavalry. There is also a command pack.

Also, in finishing the arequain, I found the shields for the requain (knights), finished some time ago, so I snapped a photie of the combined force. The requain have golden Arnorian stars on their shields.

There are some banners in the works, but Illuvatar knows when I'll get round to them. I've started working on some Northman mercenary cavalry for Cardolan to use, to give these fellows some opposition.

- Namarie'-

Arthedain Requain

Here are some recently finished Royal Arthedain Army Knights (Sind. Reqain).  These are taken from the old Harlequin/Black Tree Legions of the Realm (cute, eh?) line. They originally had the White Tree on their surcoats and all wielded swords.  Lances were had from the Old Glory equipment line.

I went with a lighter blue to give them a bit of flash and dash. Silver buckles and trumpet (did you know that in JRRT's mythology, silver is a pure metal, while gold is considered corrupt?) and plain leather belts.  The saddle blankets are dark blue with a silver fringe.

There have been some interesting debates on how feudal the Realm of Arnor/Arthedain should be portrayed.  I tend to go with the Greco-Roman Ancient Empires model that the Prof seems to espouse - Gondor as Byzantium, Arnor as Rome.  Broadly speaking, these empires had a manorial system that would survive into the Feudal period, so the idea of "lords" existing in Arnor and Gondor makes perfect sense, without the Post-Hastings culture that JRRT openly disliked (the Prof was a self-identified Anglo-Saxon who loved Beowulf, and considered the Normans about as bad as Ghengis Khan).

To bring this post back on topic, I consider the Requain on a par with the Roman Equites - mounted gentry with a military obligation. The better families who ranked below patrician were obliged to field a certain number of horsemen. Over the years of the Republic, the wars took their toll, and more and more of the better "common" families were required to provide cavalry for the legions.

Something similar is easily envisaged for Arnor/Arthedain. The manorial equestrian class supports the King's knights and draws more heavily on the better sort of commoners as the wars with Angmar wear on.

Eketani - Sword and Buckler Men

In the wars with the sister-realm of Cardolan, the Royal Army of Arthedain found an opponent equal in measure to itself.  The Cardolani Raggers (from MERP Dunael: Ragh Crann-Sleagha - Ranks of Pikes) had serried ranks of pikes which confounded the Arthedain knights (Sind. requain) and outreached those of the Arthedain Dírnaith.

Thus the Arthedain tacticians revived the Numenorian Eketani - short sword and buckler men, to disrupt the pike columns of the Raggers. Clad in leather surcoats to help catch and snag the pike points of the Cardolani, armed with a target shield to deflect and lift the opposing pike out of the way, and a short eket for wielding in the tight formation of the pike block, the Eketani were able to disrupt their opponents long enough for the Dírnaith to break them. These fellows also wear a steel corslet as added protection.

These figures are also old Time Machine/Mithril castings. Originally, they were spearmen - a short sword from the bits box was substituted.  They are painted in the blue woolen leggings and grey woolen tunic of the Royal Arthedain Army - household troops would wear their household colours.

Dírnaith

(Edit: I've switched out the word Ohtari for Dírnaith. Ohtari seems to be a word referring to a mounted soldier. More anon.)

It's probably fitting for the first miniature-specific post to feature one of the three units of Dírnaith (Sind./ man-spearhead) that I've painted for the Wars of Arthedain.

These are ex-Mithril soldiers of Minas Tirith that were once available from Time Machine Miniatures. They are based for Armati. The spears have been removed from the right hand and replaced with pikes from Old Glory. They are more likely to break than bend, but I hate bendy spears.

The history around these figs, as told to me by the caster, is that Mithril Miniatures couldn't sell "wargame miniatures" due to the rights being awarded to, well, the guys who currently hold the rights - aka Sauron's Workshop.  These figs were removed from the Mithril catalogue and TMM purchased them.

 
TMM has since re-focused on 54mm vignette-style miniatures, but perhaps it's possible to ask the proprietor to cast some as a special order? 

Somewhere I have target shields for these troops - only I'll need to dremel the White Tree of Gondor off each one before mounting.  Funny how this project had stalled...