Painting & Building Dol Guldur Terrain

In October 2021, Games Workshop released the Ruins of Dol Guldur Terrain Kit. A very versatile and awesome looking kit, which I originally bought 3 kits of. However, when I started building the kit I was so impressed by it that I ordered 3 more, for a total of 6 kits. For me that turned out to be the right number, as it allowed me to build the parts I wanted the most.

In this post I will start with some general tips concerning this kit, followed by a painting guide, some building advice and I’ll finish off with some photos ‘in action’.

General tips

• Leave the parts on the sprue as long as possible, for easier spray painting and painting. Personally I did clip off the stonework ruins after spray painting, but I left the vines, trees and bones on.
• You can magnetise the stairs so that you have more flexibility in having stairs or not, as well as having more places where you could place stairs.
• Every kit comes with 2 ‘loose’ vines. You could use one or two of them for ‘Vine Markers’. In the 2024 edition there is a Magic spell called ‘Writhing Vines’ that (temporarily) creates a 25 mm vine marker. Radagast the Brown and Celeborn can cast this spell.
• You don’t need to glue the dead trees and skulls and bones to the ruins, as you can quite easily just place them on, in, or around the ruins. This again gives you a lot more flexibility. I did glue the vines on, since those are less stable.
• Plan ahead: if you use multiple kits you might need an extra paint pot for basecoating the stonework.
• Depending on what you build, you might have some parts that are not really visible (such as when building multiple levels). You don’t really need to use those precious pillar pieces to fill them up. You can probably get away with saving those for more visible parts of buildings. I noticed the pillar pieces were what I ran out of first.

Painting guide

I took inspiration from the official painting guide found in the Fall of the Necromancer (2021) supplement. Note that this is quite different from the official (but more generic) painting guide found in the Citadel Colour app.

Stonework

1. Prime the model with Chaos Black spray paint. I chose to leave everything on sprue, as this made spraying a lot easier.

2. Basecoat the entire model with Rhinox Hide. The official supplement suggests using a ‘wetbrush’, which they describe as the opposite of a ‘drybrush’. However I didn’t really find any more info on this technique online and I didn’t really understand exactly what they meant. I just made a simple custom wet palette to make it easier and dilute the paint a little bit.

To be honest, I think you could do without this step 2, but I did like how the Rhinox Hide gives a slightly more earthy look in the finished model.

3. Eshin Grey applied as a wetbrush (as described in step 2), making sure some of the Rhinox Hide still comes through and in the recesses.

4. Mechanicus Standard Grey, drybrushed. This may look subtle, but it adds to the contrast and makes the Rhinox Hide even less visible.

5. Dawnstone, drybrushed. I left the outer edges untouched, hoping to create more contrast and natural shadows.

6. Athonian Camoshade. The stonework is now almost complete, but still a bit uniform. I selectively applied some Athonian Camoshade for a more interesting and realistic look.

Metal parts

Make no mistake, if you thought clipping everything off the sprue, building the ruins or painting the stonework was a lot of work, you are in for a whole lot more. These ruins are covered in metal parts, which take ages to paint up. This is one of the reasons why I decided to disregard the advice found in the painting guide, since I wanted to do this as quickly as possible.

1. Balthasar Gold, basecoat. This immediately makes it look very nice, if perhaps a bit too shiny for such an old, weathered building.

2. Nuln Oil, washed. You could use other washes, but I personally liked Nuln Oil the most. Given the enormous task of painting all those metal bits, I am happy how these 2 steps give a satisfying result.

Vines (2 per kit, plus what’s already sculpted on the ruins themselves)

I left the vines on the sprue, to make it easier to paint them. I used two vines for use in Vine markers, as in the new 2024 edition there is a Magic spell ‘Writhing Vines’ that (temporarily) creates a 25 mm vine marker. Radagast the Brown and Celeborn can cast this spell.

1. Death World Forest, basecoat.

2. Athonian Camoshade, washed.

Dead Trees (1 per kit)

I left the trees on the sprue, to make it easier to paint them. I didn’t glue them on the ruins, since I could easily place them without them falling over, giving me more flexibility.

1. Rhinox Hide, basecoat.

2. Steel Legion Drab, drybrush. For some trees I used a heavier drybrush, on others a lighter one to give some variation.

Skulls & bones

I left the skulls and bones on the sprue, to make it easier to paint them. I didn’t glue them on the ruins, since I could easily place them anywhere, giving me more flexibility.

You can use your typical bone recipe. For me I used:

1. Zandri Dust, basecoat.

2. Ushabti Bone, layer.

3. Agrax Earthshade, wash.

Shadow markers

In the Fall of the Necromancer campaign there is one scenario (#5 Flight to the East) where you need 6 40 mm ‘Shadow’ markers, representing where the Necromancer could be. I just used cotton wool which I spray painted black and glued them on 40 mm bases.

Photos in action (showcasing some different builds; inspiration)

You can find my playthroughs of the scenarios in Fall of the Necromancer (2021) here.