Campaign Map - named regions

I have now named each of the regions on my campaign map. Many are based on well known names and others I have just made up that sound good (to me anyway!). Here's the latest map in all its glory...

I will be updating the rules with these details and then giving them a final last few tweaks before sending them out to the players. Hopefully, this game will go live around the beginning of August. It will mostly be a pbm style strategy game but, if a few friends pop round, I may take any battles to be resolved onto the tabletop.

Witches and Warlocks

The Rohan project is coming along nicely, more on that in a later post, but before paint actually goes onto the Riders, I have dozens of others that need to be finished in the meantime.

Here is the first - a witch of the element Water. Apologies again as it should be classed as an X-rated mini. The mini is an old Ral Partha one from their Personalities and Things That Go Bump in the Night range. The wash went on a little funny, for some reason, resulting in an odd stain.

The second witch commands the element of Air. I think she is from the Citadel Fantasy Adventurer range of minis.

The next two are wizards of the element of Earth. The first is actually a Citadel Druid mini. His scythe broke off eons ago, so I replaced it with a spear. The second figure comes from a small company, Warband I think they were called, that was only around for a few years. She also lost her wand over the years, and again I replaced it with a wire spear.

Finally, here are a couple of wizards of the Void. The lady on the left is a Ral Partha mini, and I think the wizard is a Citadel mini.

The picture below shows the whole ensemble. I have now completed pretty much all of my wizardly types. I think there are a couple of mounted wizards still to come and a few of Warlord Games' Celtic druids, but these won't be painted for a while, and probably in conjunction with other Celts.

Whilst I shall be concentrating on getting my Rohan minis ready for painting over the coming days, there are still quite a few other minis that are half done that will be posted up over the coming weeks. There are those Roman auxiliary spearmen, a couple of demons and one or two others that need a final lick of paint.

Doggerland Campaign Map

I had a little extra time available to me this evening, so I was able to knock up the campaign map for my new pbm strategy game.

This map is the rough and ready version, and still needs the names of the players' capital cities and the regional names put onto it. I will probably create a new website to house this, so I can do a bit more with it rather than it being a static map.

The rules of the game are almost completed and will just need a proof-read before sending out to the players. I am hoping to start refereeing this just as Tavern Knights finishes (perhaps 5 or 6 weeks' time?).

Summer Solstice

Today was the Summer Solstice - the longest day of the year. I have attached a lovely picture of Stonehenge, courtesy of English Heritage, to mark the day.

I chose this auspicious day as a point to start my Summer painting project : The Rohirrim. I have managed to sort out all of my Games Workshop Lord of the Rings minis for the kingdom of Rohan and listed them below...

Troops:

36 Warriors of Rohan

24 Riders of Rohan

Elites:

6 Rohan Royal Guard

5 Mounted Royal Guard

2 Rohan Outriders

2 Mounted Rohan Outriders

Command:

1 Mounted Royal Guard banner bearer

1 Rohan Captain

1 Mounted Rohan Captain

1 Rohan banner bearer

1 Mounted banner bearer

2 Grimbold's Helmingas Command

Heroes:

1 Grimbold

1 Hama

1 Gamling

1 Mounted Gamling with Royal Banner

1 Erkenbrand

1 Mounted Erkenbrand

1 Eowyn

1 Mounted Eowyn

1 Eomer

1 Mounted Eomer

1 Eomer : Marshal of the Riddermark

1 Theodred

1 Mounted Theodred

1 King Theoden

1 Mounted King Theoden

1 Mounted King Theoden (from Warg Attack)

I still have a few gaps in my collection, but as they are in expensive sets, I doubt I will get them unless I can pick them up on EBay. These include (but not exclusively as I have a poor memory and I am bound to miss some):

1 Mounted Royal Guard (there are 6 possible combinations)

1 Rohan Outrider (there are 3 different models)

2 Sons of Eorl (I won't be getting Eorl himself though - wrong period)

3 Rohan Command (Leader, Musician, Standard)

1 Gamling on foot with Royal Banner

2 Theoden on foot (1 heavily armoured, 1 light armoured)

1 Eowyn on foot (in dress)

As I said, there are probably others, but I can't think of them off the top of my head.

My first task is to get them off the sprues and out of the blisters, cleaned up, glued and undercoated. Some have already seen some action at a couple of gaming sessions at Games Workshop a few years ago (a 250 point army of mixed riders and warriors), but they will be repainted to fit in with the new paint scheme I want to run with.

Hopefully I can get a photo of the assembled army up on the blog this weekend. I will also be finishing off the last of my half-finished minis over the next couple of weeks too.

Last of the barbarians

As mentioned previously, Alex and I have been very busy today finishing off loads of stuff ready for our summer LotR offensive. The first unit I completed was the final HotT stand of Prince August barbarians. Like with Alex's barbarians, the 'leader' of the stand had lost his axe in the mists of time, so I replaced it with a wire spear. The shields are from all sorts of manufacturers on these barbarians, so many are actually fantasy shields used on these historical minis. That said, I will be using them as fantasy barbarians, so there is no problem there. I now have 6 stands of these barbarians, a stand of Amazons and a giant (behemoth); adding up to 18APs for a HotT army. These barbarians are now my largest HotT army.

Keeping with the barbarian theme, I have some classic bare chested warriors for use in fantasy RPG. The manufacturers are a bit hazy now, but to the best of my abiity to recal, from left to right, they are: Citadel, Ral Partha, Ral Partha (with the axe this time!), Citadel and Citadel. All are from the late 70s to early 80s ranges.

Looking at the RPG stuff I have completed now, I have a fair few towns/village folk, several fighters, rogues and wizards, a few dwarfs, giants and trolls, and now these barbarians. I am getting a decent collection together now, so time I started to use them! I just need to find some decent rangers and clerics.

Alex's Barbarians

Today Alex and I have been very busy trying to clear the decks ready for the summer onslaught. Alex managed to put paint onto the last of the Prince August barbarian minis. The mini that is centre-left is a Ral Partha Viking that he wanted to use as his leader. He has been modified slightly as the axe he was holding had broken off in the dim and distant past, so I drilled a hole so we could add a spear.

He also got to work on a stack of his Space Marines and a couple more Bretonnian Knights. His aim is to get these two armies completed by the end of summer.

The Last Giant

I had a bit of a relaxing weekend just gone. It was so relaxing I forgot to post my latest mini work. Anyway, here's what I should have posted on Sunday evening...

The miniature is an old 1970s Ral Parth Fire Giant. I painted it to fit in with my other fantasy RPG minis rather than going for a 'fire' look.

Next up should be some more wizards, some classic barbarians and then a whole stack of Roman auxiliary spearmen. Count down is still on for the Rohan Summer offensive - I have sorted out most of the minis now, so I should be in good shape to glue them up and undercoat them this weekend. The fantasy RPG/HotT stuff will be pushed aside for a bit whilst I get the Rohan done, but any minis that are halfway there will still be completed over the next couple of weeks.

More Wizards

A couple of magic users were finished this weekend. I think both are early Citadel minis, in fact I think the one below is from the Fantasy Adventurer range and is listed as an Illusionist. That said, I will be using him as a wizard of the element of Fire.

This picture should get an X rating, so apologies for any embarrassment/offence caused. The figure below is a priestess of some sort and comes from the same range as the self-dubbed Amazons from a few posts back. I also have a couple more of the range that are supposed to be on horse back, but several of the horses have become lost over the years. I do, however, have some alternative mounts, so I may come up with an interesting combination in the future.

This figure will probably be used as a sorceror - a person who is able to channel earth/life forces, like druids, shamans and so forth, as opposed to the elemental or divine magics that are also around.

So far, all of the magic users I have shown on the site have been wizards of the five Elemental schools of magic - Air, Earth, Fire, Water and the Void (lack of any element - the space between things). These are magics that are learned from dusty, ancient tomes as opposed to sorcery, earth power that is channeled naturally (through a natural gift), or divine magic that is granted by the gods. I am toying with the idea of five types of magic but have only developed the three (wizardry, sorcery and divine) above to any degree so far. The final two types will most likely be a form of necromancy and summoning from the Other Worlds (Cthulhu type critters along with demons, devils and so forth). That said, I may just stick with the original three magics idea above. I got the idea of Five Magics from a book title (Master of Five Magics) I saw many years ago, but never actually got round to buying or reading it, although it did, and still does, sound intriguing. I have also had some good ideas with regards the Afterlife etc recently and have some great details planned out as to how this works.

Hopefully more details on my RPG world will be put up on the site soon in snippet forms like above. The ideas are probably not original and others have most likely had the same thoughts, but they have been developing within my old gaming groups and more recently my imagination for the last 30+ years. I am hoping to kick things off in my fantasy world with some HotT action and a Play by Email strategy game.

Alex's second HotT Elf stand

Keeping with his Elven theme, Alex finished his second stand for Hordes of the Things. This stand is a bunch of Grenadier Elven command figures. When compared to other ranges these are very tall, but Hey, this is fantasy after all!

I think Alex is now working on some Bretonnian archers to further boost his army for Warhammer. I am sure these will be finished fairly soon as he seems able to paint very well at a blinding speed that puts me to shame.

Still Trolling along

Lots still on the workbench, but this one was very quick to finish. It is the last of my old trolls. It is a Ral Partha from 1978 or so. It was a doddle to paint as there was very little detail, but the image I had in mind didn't quite come across in paint - the skins I envisaged the troll wearing turned out a little too bright for my liking. Still, it hasn't turned out too badly. This mini will be used for skirmish and RPG gaming when I finally get my act together.

Lots of wizards are due to be completed fairly soon. Hopefully some of them may be up tomorrow. Alex also has a leader type stand of HotT Elves almost ready for display.

Alex's LotR Elven Army Part 2

This week is half-term at school in this part of the UK. Alex has spent a lot of his spare time painting figures as the weather outside has been pretty grim. Below is a picture of his Elf Heavy Spearmen. Due to my compulsive behaviour, these have been taken from the front again. So, although you cannot see details of the troops themselves due to the large shields in the way, at least you get to see how a warband of orcs would view them - not much to aim for there but plenty of sharp pointy stuff to get stuck with.

Next up are his three main heroes on foot: Elrohir, Glorfindel and Elladan.

The final hero on horse back - Elladan.

Finally, here are the finished versions of his Galadhrim Knights. He has a banner bearer in there and painted his leader of the squad in a slightly darker gold to make him stand out. He has obviously seen more action in his last 3000 years than the others.

100 Posts

Today marks a bit of a milestone. This is officially my 100th post on this blog. It only seems like yesterday that I started posting photos of the figures I have been painting from my 30+ year old collection. I have put up many from the 1970s ranges of Ral Partha, as well as numerous 1980s Citadel stuff. I have also published pictures of some old Asgard miniatures and some from manufacturers long gone. To bring the blog up to date, there are postings of minis from Warlord Games' Early Imperial Roman and Celts ranges.

Looking to the future, there are still about 200-250 figures left of my older collections, about 100 or so more historical minis, several hundred Games Workshop Lord of the Rings and a few hundred 15mm minis that will be completed over the next couple of years. I am aiming to buy only a few minis over the coming months to give me time to get these ones painted.

Gaming wise it has been a bit slack. I have been putting off gaming until I get two completed armies/forces, but as soon as they are done I should be able to get some reports up on the blog. My first game system to play, in time for the summer, will probably be Hordes of the Things. Following that it will be LotR:SBG. Alex has finished his Elf army (more on that next post) and I will be starting my Rohan army on the Solstice. These can then be pitted against each other, but the Rohirrim will have to double as a tribe of 'evil' men for now.

I will also be starting work on a new epbm within the next few weeks, with the hope of building some background for a skirmish and RPG game coming up probably next year.

Well, that's enough chat for now. Here's to the next 100 posts.

Thanks again for popping by and reading.