I recently started checking some articles about the Easterlings since I'm thinking of collecting a small army of them.

There's just one thing I'm wondering about. Their connection with (a) dragon(s).

They have 'Dragonsworn' and 'Dragon Knights'.
Which dragon is this all about?

And does anyone know cool articles about the Easterlings' lore?
All I have is the armybook which is not very specific.

I'm 90% sure the dragon connection is GW invented.

http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Easterlings

Enjoy!

PS- I love Easterlings. A great augmentation to any shadow force. I love to field Amdur with 9-12 pikemen. You have to broaden your horizon to build a pure Easterling force, but a contingent of shield wall is super fun to play.

As far as I know, in the books there is no connection between Dragons and Easterlings. The connections is made up by GW (or possibly WETA, but I don't think so).
At the end of the Third Age, there were still some dragons left in the North (Grey Mountain and north of that), but only one entered into the stories of the late Third Age. The rest was probably quite in the northern wastes or did insignificant things.

So, this gives lots of possibilities for your own imagination!
You could easily say that in the North East some cold drakes have gone south to Rhûn, and are worshiped (and feared) by some Easterling tribes. You could say the most daring of them have to accomplish something close to the dragon, and the ones that survive get the title of Dragonsworn.

Thanks for the info!

It's sad that there's not much known about the Easterlings. I could come up with some background information, but Tolkien's stuff is always many times better than my own imagination.

Just wondering about Rhûn and the lands to the east for the basing of my miniatures.

I got some white and pink blossom to use for trees and on the ground, inspired by the japanese landscape. I was going to use those for the warriors of Rhûn, but I'm wondering if there's anything known about the Easterling's habitat.
Harad has their deserts, but many people seem to base Easterlings on desert-like bases and I'm not sure if Rhûn was really a sandy place... Or was it?

The shadow in the east source book presents them as oriental. I really like the ambience it creates.

I believe Tolkien describes the Easterlings as men with axes, extensive cavalry, and chieftains who rode in chariots. Gondor interacted with Easterling tribes or confederacies in the mid third age who encamped and fought with wains, presumably armored wagons. This choice of war equipment tells us a few things about their environment. They likely lived on the steppe, so rolling plains of semi-arid grassland would seem appropriate. Historically, the Scythians and others who lived on the steppe used similar equipment, as well as the Mongols, who GW chose to model the Khandish people after. I hope that was helpful.

As mentioned earlier, Shadows of the East sourcebook presents the Easterlings as oriental. With that in mind, I stumbled across warlord games newest project. Very timely for our conversation

http://www.warlordgames.com/new-japanes ... i-terrain/