The Watcher in the Water - Finished

 "There are fouler things than orcs in the deep places of the world!"... A wonderful line from Gandalf, that alluded to all manner of possibilities for creatures in the realm of  Middle-Earth...

I had always assumed in hindsight that it was Gandalf's hint at the threat of the Balrog, but I think it also covers the Watcher rather aptly, as there's no knowing where this thing came from...

This creature is GWs creation, and is based no doubt on the movie beastie, especially in the last moments of its scene where it appears to try and crawl out of the water to pull down the Doors of Durin.

So we have this huge beastie with eight tentacles and six legs and assorted other appendages...

I have painted it up as per the boxed image, but did a little more work on the base, as per prior post...

A couple of shots trying to show the face, its a tricky beastie to photograph, and get everything in focus...

The base, complete with Woodand Scenics Realistic Water for rock pools...

And yes I painted the underside! This was the most time consuming part, what felt like 'thousands' of fine flesh coloured lines...

I just have to varnish it, and then attach it to the base... though I am two minds to leave it off... it could be fun that way for photo work when it attacks the Fellowship!

Just some thoughts on the model. Its a big model and I am actually happy in retrospect, that it was cast in "Finecast". Although lengthy to trim ( and almost costing me my thumb!), and the other prep work, once done, it was fairly straight forward to paint...
It was relatively light weight, making handling easy - I recall doing the Balrog, Dragon and Fellbeast (all metal models) some time ago, yet recall how tired my hand would become holding up the weight of the models while painting them.
Also the tentacles were slightly flexible which at times allowed me to get the paintbrush between them more easily!
I must still say though, I wonder if I were to have to do it again, I might leave the tentacles off, and paint everything then attach the tentacles, but admittedly then concealing the joints would be the tricky part...

But not to worry, my Easter Weekend gave me some time to finish off this beastie!

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In game terms its quite a fearsome beastie with S6 and 6 attacks, and will no doubt benefit from the new Monster brutal power attacks. It also has a rather interesting method of entering play- it is not deployed at start of game, but rather bursts up from underneath enemy models scattering their formation... that's perhaps a little bit gamey (and reminds me of the use of it in the video game, Battle for Middle Earth, where it is actually a 'special effect' in the game ), it would work OK where water features are present in the game, but in their absence it would seem a little odd...

Still it will be interesting to try it out and see how it plays...

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I have since varnished up the model, giving it a coat of polyurethane gloss varnish, as I tend to do with all my models to protect the paintwork. I would then normally varnish over in matt... but I am inclined to leave this model glossy ... as its supposed to have just got out of the water... so should look wet!