Dúnedain of the North

Despite a week of Prednisone medication with really irritating side effects, I managed to paint some more Middle Earth characters.

Here are the first four of the Grey Company, armoured Dúnedain rangers of the North.
Their shields feature the Star of the Dúnedain. According to the books members of the Grey Company only wore a brooch with a star. They did cary shields but there's no mention of any shield heraldry. Still, I think it looks good.
These are West Wind arthurians. Dressed and equipped like this I can see them do shielwall formations too, if necessary. A bit of Winter King action in Middle Earth.

The Corsairs of Umbar in the south seem to have a parallel with the Vandalic empire in North Africa. The Vandals with their Moorish allies were feared for their raids and piracy by the Byzantines.
I've been trying to find out what 6th century Moors would look like and for what I've gathered they probably looked like heavily romanised ancient numidians. Unfortunately there seems to be hardly any more information available.  
In any case, the miniatures here are late romans with head scarf and later Moors. They will be supported by a mix of ancient numidians and germans. The guy on the left must be a Donatist christian priest doubling as an advisor to the Corsair captain.

Here are two wicked orc drummers. Both by Copplestone, but sculpted with a twenty years distance.

I bought myself a gaming mat from Sagebrush, a generic Steppe layout. I'd never thought to get myself something like this. But after years promising myself to make a table myself without doing a thing I figured I'd better pay for a nice cloth that just looks good. Here a Rohan farmstead is being raided by orcs.