Tuesday 2 July 2019

A Brief Pause in Production

You may have noticed that my gaming output, and therefore my blogging, has dropped off a little over the last couple of weeks. There are a few reasons for this, but I will only be discussing one of them here today. This is a good news/bad news post that will explain why the drop off occurred.

Good news because, finally, after almost exactly a year, I landed myself a new job. I will hopefully be able to stop struggling to pay the bills and actually gain a new purpose in life. So far, it has been a good first three weeks or so on the whole, although, like with all new jobs, there have been moments of self doubt as my skillset hasn't matched what might be required. This will come in time and I am looking forward to applying myself to improving my lot in life.

The bad news is that my painting and hobby stuff will probably have to go on hold for a little while as I adjust to my new lifestyle. I will be working quite a few weekends over the coming months in addition to my normal working week as there is a massive project rolling out. For me, this will involve lots of foreign travel to our offices overseas. This is a new experience for me and will amount to quite a challenge as I try to arrange cover for the kids whilst I am away.

I don't have much more to add to this post other than that I am slowly moving forward with my life after so many kicks in the teeth over the last few years. Things are so much better than a year ago; there have been a few downers recently that I won't go into here but overall I think things are beginning to look better for me at the moment. Hopefully the momentum will continue and I can look forward to a happier and more secure life at least for the next few years.

Unfortunately my hobby will suffer for a little while, but hopefully that will pick up a little in time too. I have a few gaming invites coming up (D&D and Pendragon with my usual Wednesday Nighters), so have a few things to look forward to.

Wednesday 19 June 2019

Fomorians, Ushabti and Wolfen

My Other Fantasy Army Factions (Prepped and/or Undercoated)

There are not so many figures in each of these factions, so I will run through what I have prepped and undercoated so far for each of the three armies; Fomorians, Ushabti, Wolfen.

As mentioned previously these will appear as allies to the other LotR factions when used in my own universe battles. I like the idea of some strangeness appearing on the tabletop upon occasion to spice things up a bit.




Metal:

29 Fomorian warriors
2 Ushabti
14 Wolfen warriors

It would be nice to spring these forces onto an unsuspecting opponent and see their reaction. Without knowing points values and so on, the opponent would be likely very wary of attacking these warriors and monsters, which to me seems so much more realistic than the opponent seeing them and saying: "Oh yeah, they are worth twenty points, my three warriors can take one of those down easily".

I like the idea of the unknown on the tabletop - it makes for a more fun game. Obviously I would not set a very unbalanced/overpowered force against an opponent as that would not be fair; just inject an element of doubt and surprise.

Saturday 15 June 2019

My Lord of the Rings armies

Now that I have finally got nearly all of my Games Workshop Lord of the Rings figures out of their boxes, cut off their sprues, pulled from their blisters, tidied up and, in many cases, undercoated I will stop and take stock of what I have. There are probably one or two figures that I have missed on the lists, but in the scheme of things those few won't make too much difference to the overall numbers.

I divided the figures up into several themed factions and put them away - into the Kaiser Rushforth storage boxes I have had lying around for many years - based on those divisions. They seem to go nicely into the storage boxes except for a few oversized miniatures (mounted warriors with banners and upright lances mainly, but also the cave trolls and Shelob) which I will have to think about.

Now that the vast majority are prepped and undercoated, I am hoping to start to put some paint onto them and thereby get them ready for the tabletop. This will take me a lot of courage going forwards as my eyesight for close work has deteriorated quite badly over the last couple of years (especially two years ago with a brown out episode of my sight whilst driving!). As I still need to do a little more prep work with regards filling gaps with putty and completing the undercoating of the rest of the miniatures, it may be a while before I get around to actually painting anything. However, I am hoping that the warmer weather and therefore clearer, brighter days in the coming months will aid me somewhat in my endeavours.

Here is the final tally of numbers of figures I have per faction...

199 - Gondor
170 - Isengard
163 - Rohan
137 - Easterlings (85) and Harad (52)
73 - Khazad Dum
69 - Random Free Peoples
53 - Moria
10 - Mordor

874 figures in total.

This is quite a shocking number of figures to be honest. Thinking back on the amount of time, effort and money I spent on collecting these, I am wondering whether my efforts could have been spent better elsewhere? Yes, it is my hobby, but whoa, that is a lot! Admittedly I got the majority of these from the DeAgostini monthly (?) Battle Games in Middle Earth magazine and subsequent orders when the run had finished at a knock down price, so saved a pile there. Then I picked up a load of metals and random plastics on the cheap from eBay. There were not too many I actually bought full price from Games Workshop directly, so maybe the cost tally isn't too bad after all?

If I add in the allied fantasy contingents to these factions, then the total number soars by an additional 45 miniatures bringing the tally to well over 900 figures! This does not include all of the other figures (fantasy, historical, sci-fi) I have lying around - possibly another 4/500? Oh well, I will be busy up to and well into my retirement!

Friday 7 June 2019

LotR Easterling/Harad Army

Lord of the Rings Easterling/Harad Army (Prepped and/or Undercoated)

I managed to get a lot of this work done yesterday alongside the Isengard stuff, so an early post today.

I have decided to combine these two factions into one post as I think they ally very well. I will be painting them so that they can be used either separately as Haradrim and Easterlings, or together as some kind of combined force that is tied together with the paint scheme.

These two factions combined make for a great themed army, with the Eeasterlings offering up the heavy infantry and heavy cavalry, whilst the Haradrim offer lightly armed and armoured skirmishers and mounted raiders, as well as some interesting one-offs in the form of half-trolls and hasharin.

Anyway, here are a couple of pictures of the two factions pre-prep...



I did include some EBob Mongols and a couple of other Citadel miniatures I thought might fit in, but have decded now to do away with those in order to streamline the army to just GW LotR products...


This force is made up of the following miniatures...

Plastic:
6 Easterling kataphrakts
42 Easterling warriors
6 Haradrim raiders
36 Haradrim warriors

Metal:
2 Khamul the Ringwraith
12 Easterling kataphracts
8 Easterling heroes (capatins, banners, war priest etc.)
15 Easterling warriors
5 Haradrim heroes
3 Haradrim raiders
2 Half trolls

This gives a total of 137 evil mannish troops, consisting of 85 Easterlings and 52 Haradrim.

I have a short list of figures I would like to add to these factions just to round out a couple of units, but I am also wondering whether it would be possible to add some kind of artillery to the Easterling forces and perhaps scratch build some oliphaunts with riders?

I envisage the Easterlings as being quite advanced in field warfare, so I think artillery wouldn't look out of place - some kind of large siege/warbows, chariots of some kind (I am not keen on using the GW Khandish, but may appropriate the chariots for an Easterling crew) etc.

With regards the oliphaunts in the movies and what GW subsequently produced I am not able to get around their exaggerated size. Not sure if I am misremembering the first time Sam saw oliphaunts in the books, but I recall it as saying that the elephants were actually of a normal size, but due to Sam being practically half the size of a normal man they would appear twice as big. I will stick with my possibly misremembered theory and try to use some toy elephants that scale in and try to scratch build a howdah of some kind on them.

Thursday 6 June 2019

LotR Isengard Army

Lord of the Rings Isengard Army (Prepped and/or Undercoated)

This is the first of the main evil armies (Moria is only a small army in comparison, so doesn't really count) to be photographed after being as completed as much as can be with the tools and time available.

I decided to incorporate all of my non-Mordor specific orcs into this army to give it a big boost. Unfortunately, I didn't spot that the bolt thrower has an Eye of Sauron motif on the front of it until I was putting the miniatures away again. Oh well, perhaps I will either not use it or just ignore the fact it is on there. Anyway, here is a pre-prep photo of the army; mostly pure Isengard...


And here is the same army prepped and mainly undercoated with the orc additions...


Plastic:
12 Warg riders
51 orcs
23 fighting Uruk Hai
8 Uruk Hai engineers with 2 bombs and 4 ladders
2 berserkers
24 Uruk Hai scouts

Metal:
4 Isengard heroes (Saruman ft&mtd, Sharkey, Grima)
4 Warg rider heroes
14 Dunlending warriors (incl: ft&mtd Thrydan Wolfsbane)
4 orc command
3 Uruk Hai command
3 Uruk Hai crossbows
7 berserkers
3 Uruk Hai scouts
3 Uruk Hai heroes
5 orc crew and 1 ballista

This gives a total of 170 Isengard troops, 6 pieces of siege equipment and 1 piece of artillery, making it a marginally larger army than the Rohan faction but smaller than Gondor.

This army is now more than a match for Rohan, so will make for some interesting match ups later. Although Rohan have the mobility, Isengard has a solid core of well-armoured, hard-hitting troops.

I will most likely pick up a few more Rohan elites (Royal Guard and Outriders) and heroes (the new plastic Theoden, Eowyn and resin Elfhelm and Deorwine) when I have got further along the painting path with these, so will probably also pick up a few extra Uruk-Hai or whatever (maybe a siege ballista?) to round out this particular army.

Wednesday 5 June 2019

LotR Gondor Army

Lord of the Rings Minas Tirith Army (Prepped and/or Undercoated)

Today I think we get onto the big one. This Gondor army has taken on a life of its own and been appended to with third party stuff that, to me, makes more sense.

I had a certain idea in my head about how I wanted this army to look and feel on the tabletop. I was kind of going for a Roman type feel with several branches of troop type that perform different functions on the battle field; after all, Gondor was fighting a war on several fronts against several enemies who all use different tactics.


No previous shot of the pre-prep army unfortunately so just the post-prep and mostly undercoated shot above. This army does look impressive on the tabletop I must say, even though much of it is unpainted and there are several miniatures that still need completing and undercoating.

Plastic:
72 Warriors of Minas Tirith
24 Ithilien rangers
18 Knights of Minas Tirith
12 Swan Kinghts of Dol Amroth

Metal:
5 Heroes (Denethor, Boromir, 2xFaramir, Pippin)
2 King Elessar
1 Gandalf the White (mtd)
1 Faramir (mtd)
14 Gondor scouts (Faramir, banner bearer, 12xscouts)
2 Prince Imrahil (ft & mtd)
8 captains and banner bearers
14 Citadel Guard (2 heroes, 12 guard)
3 Fountain Court Guard
6 Osgiliath veterans
6 Ithilien ranger heroes
4 warmachines
7 crew

This gives a total of 199 Gondor troops and 4 pieces of artillery.

Gondor, being the pinnacle of the mannish kingdoms, should rightly have all the cutting edge technology in warfare, although Isengard under Saruman's guidance with his cogs and wheels will come a close second.

I have a strong core of foot soldiers armed with swords and/or spears in heavy armour with archer support for the main body, plus artillery, and heavy cavalry in the form of the plastic Knights of Minas Tirith and Swan Knights of Dol Amroth to back them up. For skirmishing there are the rangers and the original metal Knights of Minas Tirith that I will be using as scouts. This faction has plenty of named heroes for leading the troops into battle and Gandalf the White for a bit of magical punch.

With regards the artillery, I was never keen on the Avenger bolt thrower or the trebuchet models offered by Games Workshop, so I went all historical and bought Warlord Games's onager, ballista and a couple of scorpions for battle field support. I am using the GW crew members for them though.

There isn't really much to add to this army list except maybe some fiefdom units. Again, I am not keen on the GW versions of fiefdom troops, so will most likely just give that a miss. They would add a little more colour and more tactical nuances but I think what I have is more than enough.

Monday 3 June 2019

LotR Rohan Army

Lord of the Rings Rohirrim Army (Prepped and/or Undercoated)

Managed to get some work done on things over the weekend in between running the kids around and various other stuff on my plate, so this post is being published a little earlier in the day than usual.

Due to being my favourite Lord of eth Rings faction, this was the first army I started prepping and painting several years ago. I managed to complete 24 Riders and 36 Warriors of Rohan back then. I even got to play a few games with some of them down at my local GW when it was still open. These miniatures will form the core of my Rohan army and the figures will be used as parts of any force under any commander - kind of generic troops that can fit in anywhere within the army.

I didn't previously take a before shot with these, so here is the prepped and/or undercoated picture of the figures so far; taken today. There are a lot of miniatures here...


There are loads of different types of warrior in the Rohan faction ranging from the standard warriors and riders of Rohan, via elites like Royal Guard, Sons of Eorl and Outriders, to the goodly amount of named heroes. Rohan, as an army, offers a fair bit of variety tactically but the troops are fairly standard, building on a theme of a mounted warrior culture, with nothing really "out there" in terms of fluff like warmachines, monsters, wizards or whatever. That said, it is a solid army and looks darned good on the tabletop - who doesn't like to see a full-on massed cavalry charge?

Plastic:
48 Rohan warriors
36 Rohan riders

Metal:
3 Theoden (2xmtd, 1xft)
10 Royal Guard (mtd)
2 Royal Guard banners (mtd)
12 Royal Guard (ft)
Grima Wormtongue
5 Gamling (2xmtd banner, 1xft banner, 2xft)
Hama

3 Theodred (2xmtd, 1xft)
6 Sons of Eorl (mtd)
6 Sons of Eorl (ft*)

5 Eomer (Marshall (ft*&mtd), 2xmtd, 1xft)
4 Outriders (2xft, 2xmtd)

4 Eowyn (3xft, 1xmtd)

2 Erkenbrand (ft & mtd)
3 Grimbold (ft, banner, horn)

6 Captains (4xft, 2xmtd)
3 Banners (2xft, 1xmtd)

Aragorn (mtd)
2 Merry

This gives a total of 163 Eorlingas: the biggest army so far. I wonder how Gondor and Isengard will compare? Looking at what I have here and the plans I originally had for the army, I don't think I will be purchasing any more figures (unless they come with something else). There will have to be a lot of doubling up of what each figure is used for rather than representing each unit I would like to collect as a separate entity.

The vast majority of these miniatures are from Games Workshop, but a few that are marked * are from Unreleased Miniatures - I discussed these in a previous post. Looking at the plastic warrior and rider miniatures now and comparing them to more modern figures, they seem very basic, with lots of big areas where undercuts could not be circumvented except by straight line fill, but at the time they were cutting edge. There is a certain aesthetic and appeal to these miniatures that time hasn't dulled. I like them a lot.

Friday 31 May 2019

LotR Free Peoples and Mordor Armies

Lord of the Rings Free Peoples Army (Prepped and Undercoated)

Third entry in this series of summaries - this is not really an army as such, more a collection of individual heroes and some back up troops. Here is what they looked like pre-prep...


And how things look post-prep...


There is a great variety of characters and troops in this little faction; some of them being from different manufacturers that fit in nicely and add a little colour to the mix. Most of the non-GW figures will be used in Adventures in Middle Earth games as NPCs etc., but I may get around to statting them up for the Strategy Battle Game, Saga or Dragon Rampant as part of certain units.

Anyway, here's what I have so far for this faction...

Plastic:
16 Elf warriors
16 Numenorian warriors

Metal:
Gil-Galad and Elrond
Elendil and Isildur
4 Elf Heroes (Galadriel, Haldir, Glorfindel (GW), Glorfindel (Mithril)
Radagast, Tom Bombadil, Gan-Buri-Gan and King of the Dead
5 eBob NPCs (Barliman Butterbur, Bill Ferny, Gatekeeper, Lady Greensleeves, Queen)
9 Fellowship (Gimli, 2xLegolas, 3xGandalf, 2xStrider, Boromir)
9 Hobbits (Farmer Maggot, 3xdogs, Bilbo, Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin)

This gives a total of 69* Free peoples heroes and warriors.

Lord of the Rings Mordor Army (Prepped and Undercoated)

Again, this is not an army by any stretch. I could use the orcs and warg riders from the Isengard army (more on them later) to supplement it but will most likely not worry about Mordor as an entity in itself. I prefer the idea that it is a distant menace and occasionally its more sinister denizens (read: Ringwraiths) venture forth to gather information or infiltrate in order to disrupt. Here's the original picture of the Mordor faction pre-prep...


And the very much cut down set of personalities left over after the orcs are moved to the Isengard faction...

Not much to say on these, so here is the list of what I have got...

Metal:
Gothmog and two Morannon orc capatins
Shagrat and Gorbag
Gollum
3 x Witch King

This gives a total of 10* Servants of Sauron.

*Oops, I missed Shelob from the list, so the Servants of Sauron total is 10 miniatures (not 9) and the Free Peoples gained an additional 2 (Sam with Sting and Frodo wrapped in spider web) taking them to a total of 69 miniatures (not 67).

Thursday 30 May 2019

LotR Khazad Dum Army

Lord of the Rings Khazad Dum Army (Prepped and Undercoated)


Today, I can present to you the second of my Lord of the Rings miniatures armies; the Dwarfs of Khazad Dum. These can be used against the Goblins of Moria featured yesterday, or in fact any other orc type army.

I have quite a few of these and would like to add to them a little in the future to round out the army. Again, this all depends on me securing a new job and then being able to fund the collection. Here is the army pre-prep...


And the army removed from its blisters and boxes, prepped and undercoated ready for painting...


Plastic:
24 Dwarf rangers

Metal:
Murin and Drar
12 Dwarf warriors
Balin and Dain
14 Khazad Guard
4 Dwarf kings
Floi Stonehand
2 Dwarf captains
1 Dwarf banner bearer
Durin and Mardin
3 Iron Guard
King's Champion (3)
1 Dwarf ballista
1 old Citadel Thorgrimm miniature

This gives a total of 73 Dwarfs (plus one ballista)

This army is probably the least complete that I have. I would like to add in some standard plastic Dwarf warriors and beef up a few of the elite units so I can field either 12 or 6 of each. Details can be seen in the list on the right hand side of the page.

Wednesday 29 May 2019

LotR Moria Army

Lord of the Rings Moria Army (Prepped and/or Undercoated)

This is the first in a series of follow up posts to the one I made way back in January 2015. The previous post "My Lord of the Rings Armies (The Boxes)" contains details of what I had back then when hardly any had been prepped in readiness for painting. This series of posts will feature each of those armies of the Lord of the Rings minis in turn that I have recently prepped and/or undercoated. There are a few minis that are still at the prep stage (need some putty work to fill a few gaps), but the vast majority of figures are ready to take a lick of colour.

I will follow a similar format with each of these posts, in that I will feature each army arrayed on the tabletop battle map and give a brief overview of what is in that faction.

First up is the army of Moria that I have collected over the almost twenty years since they were initially released. Here is the original pre-prep photo from a couple of years ago...


And here is a photo of the army post prep...


As can be seen there are two main components to this army; the goblins themselves and their troll support. The trolls still require some prep work with green stuff and then a subsequent undercoat with the spray can. A brief listing of the army is as follows...

Plastic:
36 Goblin warriors

Metal:
Durburz (Goblin King)
2 Goblin captains
1 Goblin Drum
4 Goblin warriors
4 Goblin warriors with bows
4 Goblin prowlers
1 Buhrdur (Hill Troll leader)
3 Cave Trolls

This gives a total of 53 Goblins (plus one drum) and 4 Trolls.

This is one of my smaller armies but it is certainly big enough to give the Fellowship some grief, or a dwarf expeditionary force a run for their money. Once all of the armies have been featured I will begin to stat them up for a variety of games systems and then get onto painting them all, which may be several years in the undertaking!

Wednesday 22 May 2019

Glorfindel and the Witch King

I was away for the weekend (Friday thro' Monday), so only just getting back to the gaming stuff. Just a quick update today based on a little bit of work I was able to complete. Whilst working on the non-LotR fantasy miniatures over the last week or so, I came across a couple of blister packs I picked up as freebies at Salute over the years. These were produced by Mithril Miniatures who seem to have some kind of licence for an official range of Lord of the Rings figures based on the books.

I didn't get around to glueing up the orc on warg/giant wolf but I did manage to do something with Glorfindel and the Witch King. I cut them off the integral base things that they were on and pegged them by their feet to the standard 25mm slotta bases I use. You may also have noticed that they have been sprayed in black undercoat. That is because I was able to get out to my local GW store last week and pick up a new can of Chaos Black. Unfortunately, they no longer supply Rhinox Hide which is what I use to undercoat horses, scouts, rangers and so on.


These miniatures are made at a slightly larger scale than the Games Workshop figures, but a quick measure up proved that they would work with the rest of my collection. I only have three other Ringwraiths and two of those are also of the Witch King (plus Khamul, foot and mounted), so when I get around to painting him, I will show a comparison of them side-by-side. I would like to grab a few more generic Ringwraiths, but they will have to wait at the back of a very long queue for now.

Until I get some putty sorted out, my work on these miniatures has ground to a halt for a bit. I think I will photograph each army (whether undercoated/puttied or not) in its entirety and run a few numbers just to get everything catalogued to date. At least I can then begin to work on statting the units/armies to see what I have and in what games systems they can be used.

Thursday 16 May 2019

Battle of Pelennor Fields

This is just a quick update post on some new stuff that is due to, or has just, come out recently for the Rohan faction on the Lord of the Rings side of the Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game.

A friend of mine (RM) has just recently bought the Battle of Pelennor Fields box set. It contains a hard back copy of the main rules manual, a softback supplemental on the Battle of Pelennor Fields, several gaming aids (dice, measuring sticks etc.) and around 84 miniatures (Riders and Warriors of Rohan, Warriors of the Dead, a new plastic Theoden (foot and mounted), the Witch King on a fell beast, a Mordor troll and tons of orcs.


He said that the box represents great value for money as, for once, GW has produced a set that actually has contents at a rate discounted from their normally recommended prices. RM has been using the Riders of Rohan as knights in our Pendragon campaign, and they are working rather well. The plastic Theoden figure is a superb sculpt and well worth picking up on its own.


Also released are a bunch of named heroes to add to the strength of the Rohan faction. Here we can see a plastic Eowyn and Merry kit, a resin Elfhelm set and another resin set for Deorwine, some kind of King's champion.




The Eowyn and Merry set allows for them both, or just Eowyn, to be mounted on her horse. This is a neat touch as I would want to field them separately anyway; I would just need to find a suitable pony for Merry.

Elfhelm is a Marshal of the Riddermark, and an actual character from the books. I was looking for a suitable minature to represent him in my Rohan army to lead a small faction of troops with their own personal emblem on their shields. I am not overly keen on resin miniatures but may take my time looking at these ones just to see how they pan out.

Deorwine is, presumably, a GW made up character as I have not heard of him from the books or the film. I am not too sure about him (very chunky shield aside) as we already have Gamling and Hama to represent captains of the Royal Guard. That said, Rohan is low on elite troops and heroes, so maybe he is just the ticket? This gets me to wondering whether GW will be releasing a plastic box set of Royal Guard to go with him? Now there's a thought!

These new additions to the Rohan faction throw a spanner into the works of what I have been working towards collecting so far. Apologies for repeating myself, but I will have to see how I can fit these new miniatures in and to what units I can append them. Theoden, Eowyn and Merry can all fit in wherever as they will be associated, generally, with the royal household. Elfhelm and Deorwine will prove to be a little more difficult as they will need to command a unit of troops each. As mentioned above, Deorwine could be used to head up the Royal Guard (keeps that simple) and Elfhelm can take a foot and mounted unit with some of my personally made sets of shields for identification on the battle field. Luckily, the Elfhelm set has no shield that I can see, so that will work out just fine.

Wednesday 15 May 2019

Scouring of the Shire mk II

As I am unable to progress with any figures prep today (and most likely not tomorrow either) I thought I would add in a couple of supplemental blog entries about the Games Workshop Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game.

Whilst surfing the good ol' internet last night I came across a few new releases from Games Workshop for the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game. This is probably old news to most, but I am going to post up as an aide-de-memoir, so I know what I am missing from my GW LotR hobby. It is also a coincidence that I only posted up a few of my Bree/Shire related miniatures the other day and this is what is due out in the next GW release.

Since the game's relaunch last year, GW and Forgeworld have been good to their word and are fully behind supporting it as a mainstream game. As a result, several rulebooks have already been released (of which I have only the initial Battle Companies one). I would like to grab the Lord of the Rings related ones when I am able but don't have much interest in The Hobbit stuff except for completeness sake.
  • Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game Rules Manual
  • Armies of The Hobbit
  • Armies of The Lord of the Rings
  • Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game : Battle Companies (release 1)
  • Gondor at War
Very soon now, we should be getting the following plus a hole heap of miniatures to accompany the rulebooks...
  • Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game : Battle Companies (release 2)
  • Scouring of the Shire (release 2 - this topic was covered in the game's previous incarnation)
I am not sure about the second coming of Battle Companies so soon on the tail of the original version, but I have heard rumours that the original sold out on no less than six print runs! I think that was seen as a sign by GW that this was a horse worth backing. On my current budgetary restraints, I will pass on the latest version until I can justify getting it after all the other goodies I would like to grab. I am also not sure on the other rule books just yet.

Also to be released at the same time as these new rules manuals are a whole bunch of new hobbits and ruffians as well as the original metal sets which I have already toyed with getting, so this may add to the pressure on me to cave-in to those demands.






There will also be a new hobbit hole and the re-release of some other old miniatures that the hobbits can fight against, like Golfimbul. Added to a few wild wargs and some orcs and we have a game on!

 

Exciting times ahead for players of the Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game. This all ties in nicely with me prepping and painting my old LotR miniatures collection. Hopefully I will be having a busy summer getting all my old minis ready for some tabletop action.

I should have an update tomorrow about what is happening with my favourite faction: Rohan.

Tuesday 14 May 2019

Wolfen

The final set of non-LotR miniatures I have assembled over the last few days is my pack of Rackham's Confrontation Wolfen. Over the years, at trade shows, I have been lucky enough to pick these up very cheaply in deals. Ordinarily these would have cost a fortune, but my collection came in at maybe a third their retail price. All of them are the metal versions before Rackham made the bad mistake of moving to some kind of bendy plastic that nobody liked and therefore did not buy.

First up are a couple of Wolfen Warriors and a Wolfen Repentant of some kind that I have not been able to find in their catalogues. I had previously undercoated these figures but there were many spots I missed, so I re-sprayed them for better coverage.


Next up are a couple of Wolfen Hunters and a Wolfen Vestal. Again, these were partially undercoated, so I tried to complete the coverage with the spray can.


Two more Wolfen Hunters and a Wolfen with a pretty powerful looking crossbow. I imagine the stats for that crossbow will be the same as a ground mounted human ballista judging by the size of it. The two Hunters were partially undercoated, so just needed a touch up, but the crossbow armed warrior had yet to see a lick of paint and needed a bit of prep work done. Unfortunately, it was at this point my spraycan gave up the ghost and ran out on me. I will have to grab a new one when I can to complete these miniatures and the ones in the following photos.


Next up are a few elite/hero types: In the background are Onyx the Prowler and another Repentant type, whilst in the foreground is a Wolfen Predator with Great Blade.These all required a quick clean up and then sticking onto their new 50mm round lipped bases.


Finally, a couple of leader/hero types: Varghar and Ophyr the Guardian.Again, these just needed a bit of prep before sticking onto their 50mm round bases.


As can be seen from the photographs, I mounted all of the figures on 50mm round lipped bases as they are too big to fit on any others I have in my bits box. This works well for some rules I want to try working on regards knock-downs when combatants win/lose a fight.

These are some of my favourite ever miniatures. I really like the dynamism created with each of these figures - each one looks like they are in the middle of actually doing something rather than being upright and marionette-like. It was such a shame when Rackham went the way of the dodo as they had so many fantastic miniatures factions, great artwork to inspire, and a fully rendered background for the world in which their peoples moved.

If I am able to track down any more of these on the cheap, I will certainly pick them up. It seems (even from the small collection I have) that there are more out there than the catalogues I have viewed suggest.


I may not have a full update for the next few days as I am out of the spray paint I use for undercoating miniatures. I always tend to use Games Workshop's Chaos Black (for most figures) and Rhinox Hide (for rangers, scouts, orcs, horses and other figures that will consist of a mostly brown paintjob) to undercoat as both colours are tried and trusted for me. I have tried other manufacturers' paints but they are either too thick (too much pigment that tends to clog detail) or don't cover as well as I like them to. I know GW stuff is expensive but I am going to stick with what I know on this.

Anyway, I am hoping to gather up the pennies in the next few days and get down to my local GW store to buy another couple of cans. I can't do this tomorrow as my car is in for a service all day and Thursday I need to wait in for a delivery; I hope the delivery company gives me one of those "windows" so I can plan the rest of my day around it and get to my local GW (a good 5 mile/30 minute drive away - its a very busy road between the village where I currently live and the local town).

Monday 13 May 2019

Fomorians

The weather has been much brighter and warmer today, so I was able to get into the garden and begin undercoating a few miniatures previously featured, as well as prepping some more of those still on my work bench. Today's miniatures come from the Celtos range by i-Kore Miniatures. They have since been marketed by a variety of other companies, so I am not sure where to get them from now. I managed to buy these at a trade show many moons ago from Brigade Games. I thought I had bought the whole collection, but there are a few more leader types to get and some sirens (female Fomorians, which I probably won't get as they don't really fit in with the male versions imho - they would make a good female only faction though for another game).

I have broken my Fomorian collection down into four types and photographed each faction separately.

Fomorians with Spears...


There are nine of these in the range and I managed to get them all. The barbed spears/harpoons look great for a sea-based bunch of raiders. I was going to paint the weapons as sharpened bone to fit in with the sea raiders theme.

Fomorians with Swords...


Again, there are nine miniatures in this part of the range. In true i-Kore style, the weapons are over-sized. I am not too keen on over-sized weapons, even if it is in a fantasy setting. I was going to paint the swords as some kind of sharpened cuttle fish bone; light weight and easy to wield, especially underwater, but when they come up against steel weapons, pretty ineffectual. Hence why Fomorians usually only raid isolated fishing villages - no trained soldiers using steel weaponry should be in the immediate vicinity.

Fomorians with Great Swords...


There were six miniatures in this part of the range, but I only have five of the variants. I have a double of the second from left - looking at the catalogue, he is very similar looking to the other variant, so an easy mix up to make for the manufacturer when packing. I will try to pick up the last variant at a later date.

Fomorian Command...


This set contains a variety of Fomorians in suitably heroic poses. The first one is a Fomorian blowing into a huge shell-like instrument, and the others are all armed and dangerous. There are a few more named characters in the range which I might get, as well as some beastmen and reavers that complement them but, again, I may or may not get those.

Even though I looked everywhere, I couldn't find the shields that should have come with these miniatures. That said, what good would a shield do underwater? It would be very unwieldy. Perhaps these figures will be shieldless to befit their oceanic origins? I looked in the catalogue and saw that shields are available separately in packs of 12, so maybe those poses that look like they are holding shields will get one? Maybe they realise that even farmers can fight back with farming implements and makeshift weaponry and therefore some kind of extra protection is necessary; so they carry shields onto dry land for warding off errant pitchfork blows whilst raiding but don't use them in the water?

I am not sure how to go about painting these fellas yet. Do I do them a drab green/blue or grey/brown to match their oceanic environment or should I maybe push them to brighter colours as befits a more tropical sea? Perhaps the further up the greasy pole these chaps travel, the brighter their markings?

Friday 10 May 2019

Breelanders

A quick win today; this session's work consists of a few models I bought from EBob before they were discontinued. He also made a certain ranger with a dog (I think) that took my fancy but it was always out of stock when I tried to order it prior to it also being pulled.


Unfortunately the photo is not too clear (it was taken from my phone in the still dull weather) but in the front row can be seen a not Bill Ferny, Barliman Butterbur and the gate-keeper from the films. In the back row is a kind of queen miniature (not sure who she is supposed to be) and what is now called Lady Greensleeves(?); otherwise known as Galadriel? The back row miniatures were still available last time I looked, but the front three were pulled several years ago.

These will make great additions to any adventures that happen to occur in Bree, or for use in a Scouring of the Shire scenario with a handful of ruffians (need to see if these are still available on GW's site when I get some spare cash, or look for third party companies' offerings to use as proxies) and orcs to fight against some hobbits.

I have been flipping through my Adventures in Middle Earth 5e rule books again recently so my imagination is working overtime on what scenarios I can run as RPGs and then as tabletop battles. Again, like with the Ushabti, and the Fomorians and Wolfen to come, I will need to stat these up for each of the games I intend to play.


These figures have been mounted on the standard GW 25mm sized slotta bases so that they fit in with all of my other LotR miniatures. Whilst looking at my other slotta tabbed fantasy miniatures, that will be featured over the next few days, I decided that I would put them all on round bases according to their size too. So, from my bases collection I sorted out 30mm lipped bases for my Fomorians, 40mm troll bases for my Ushabti, and 50mm lipped bases for the Wolfen. I had to use these sizes so that the minatures would actually fit. As I am not really a big battle game type person, the square bases have been put to one side for other uses in the future; the round bases suit my preferred skirmish style of gaming. That said, I could always get hold of some sabot bases for these miniatures to sit in to create units if required.

Thursday 9 May 2019

Ushabti

This is the first of a few posts that are not really, but kind of almost are, Lord of the Rings hobby related. There will be more LotR posts soon, but these are kind of linked in by the fact that in one of my imaginary worlds, these will be allies for factions that I will use Lord of the Rings figures for.

First up are a couple of Games Workshop's Ushabti (apologies for the dull photo - light conditions are terrible at home due to the overcast/rainy weather we are currently experiencing)...


I did have three of these (out of the four available in metal - jackal, crocodile, asp and vulture) but cannot seem to find the third one (the asp headed version). I managed to build and clean them up today whilst waiting for a small break in the weather that never came which would have allowed me to get out into the garden to undercoat more Games Workshop LotR minis. I also got a few more miniatures that I will feature over the next few days out of their bags/blisters in readiness for preparation tomorrow and the rest of the week.

A brief look at the GW site shows that they released more Ushabti subsequent to these metal minatures in resin, but they do not have the same style, and therefore aesthetic I want. I will probably try to hunt down the fourth metal one on eBay (the Vulture headed one) and see if I can find the asp headed one here at home. I have a few boxes of figures I have not gone through just yet, so probably lots more lovely surprises to come.

I am not at all sure how to paint these yet. Do I go for the blue, white and gold Egyptian look, or for the red and gold look of the Easterlings? Also, do I paint them as beings made of bone or jet black like the statues found in Egyptian tombs? Lots to ponder over the coming weeks.

As mentioned in a previous post, these beasts will be the result of an Easterling (or whatever I decide to call that faction) War Priest summoning. To make things fair, their points values will have to be calculated when creating an army otherwise adding a few of these to an even sided fight will certainly tip the balance in the Easterling player's favour. When I get to statting these up, I will publish them on here for all to use.

Along with these Ushabti, I found some EBob unofficial LotR miniatures (much better than the Unreleased Miniatures mentioned in a previous post on Rohan elites), i-Kore Fomorians, and I pulled together my collection of Rackham's Confrontation Wolfen. All of these will make nice additions to my future games.

Wednesday 8 May 2019

The Library of Planarium - D&D 5e

The Library of Planarium - D&D 5e - 6th May 2019

Even though my recent circumstances have dictated that I cannot get out for my usual mid-week gaming sessions, I have been very lucky to have been able to play in several weekend and holiday sessions this year.

Monday was a Bank Holiday in the UK, so the afternoon and evening was a trip back to D&D 5th Edition adventuring. I was able to amend and play my 4th level Ranger (whom I have used on two occasions previously this year - but I have not documented his adventures). There were seven players and the DM involved in this session - quite a number to fit around the table, but it seemed to go off without a hitch.

This adventure ended up being a three-section, two dungeon affair. The first part involved a bit of roleplay in a small town, followed by a trip to a local mine to discover more clues, and the denouement being inside some kind of elder being's brain! As we were limited for time, a fair bit of the adventure was rushed through to get us to the good parts.



The party arrived together in the small town of Bellium on the Sword Coast. Some characters had been there before, so were known to the local populace and, as a result, they were all called to a meeting of the town council. The party was told that around a month ago a great comet crashed to the ground on top of the old abandoned mines a few miles distant. Upon investigation, it was found that there was an old library building, protected by certain charms that limited entrance, where the great cosmic rock would have struck.


Since the library had crashed to the ground, three townsfolk had disappeared and a small djinni fair had arrived just a few miles distant even though there is not enough trade in the environs to keep the town going let alone beings of such magisterial renown. The Town Council requested that the adventurers investigate the disappearance of their friends and try to work out why the library was there and see if they could do something about it.

The party decided to talk to some of the locals after the meeting with the town council to get further clues. They ended up following one of the only two people left who worked the mines several decades ago before it was abandoned due to the ore running out. The other was on the missing persons list.

The trip to the abandoned mines was uneventful, so the party took the lead from Old Albert and went looking for Old George in the disused tunnels where it was known he had a still. It didn’t take long to find Old George but he had been possessed and took off his best mate’s head with a spade. The party restrained and tied the old fellow up before continuing deeper into the mines to discover who or what might have caused the old timer’s possession.

It didn’t take them long to encounter the denizens of the abandoned mines; rats, and giant ones at that! These didn’t prove to be too much of a problem for the party, but after an encounter with a dozen or so, a rest was required. Unfortunately, their rest was broken by the scurrying sound of more rat paws; this time in the form of rat men.

Another brief fight ensued, with the party continuing on to discover their lair after dispatching the first gang of rat men. It wasn’t long before they found the nest and were attacked by another pack of slavering rat men pushing their giant scorpion familiar before them. One of the rat men was able to cast a few spells, but after a while it dawned on the adventurers that he too seemed to be possessed. However, the party of seven adventurers proved too strong and adept at fighting for the rat men, and they were soon put to the sword.

In need of rest, the adventurers holed up in the rat men’s lair to bandage their wounds. They were just settling down when they were surprised by a minotaur that was invisible until the moment it struck one of the party members.


The minotaur also seemed to be possessed and fought with a tenacity that many a hero would have been proud of. Fortunately for the party, this stopped its master, a mind-flayer, from being able to deploy its full quotient of attacks on them. After many minutes of frantic fighting, magical toing-and-froing, party member deaths (reduced to 0 HP or below) and revivals, the foul creature from the Void was finally laid to rest.

It was at this point that a bunch of celestial beings with their attendant clerics and paladins decided to show themselves. They cured and revitalised the party members who needed succour (pretty much all of them) before requesting their aid against the Elder Brain that inhabited the library. The party were told that the brain had been mostly subdued but there was just one remaining section that needed to be put out of action. To do this, the party were needed to enter the brain, pour a calming fluid into particular receptacles, one chamber at a time, whilst the celestials, clerics and paladins fought the Elder Brain from the outside thus causing a diversion. The party agreed and were ushered into the tube that led to the first chamber.

There were six chambers in all, with the final one being only partially subdued, and therefore the most dangerous. Each pulsating chamber was reached by cutting through a thin membrane into the adjoining one and then the vials containing the subduing liquid needed to be poured into the receptacles within in order to finally subdue that portion of the brain.

The first chamber was empty and so the party decided to cleanse the second chamber before returning to complete the first one. The fluid was poured into the receptacle and the chamber began a frantic pulsing as it tried to fight the subduing liquid. Meantime it also put out tentacles of red ectoplasm from a pool at its centre to entangle the party. These tentacles proved to be easy to avoid, and when the chamber fell asleep, the tentacles stopped bothering the adventurers.

The party returned to the first chamber and put that one to sleep too with no ill effects. The third chamber proved to be a challenge as half-a-dozen or so horrors emerged from some pools of black goo to fight off the party. However, the magic using members of the band managed to put paid to their attacks and they were soon dispatched.

The next couple of chambers proved to be a little more difficult due to the psionic blasts that the adventurers had to fight against, but time and again these blasts were resisted by just enough people to allow the serum to be poured into the holes and put those chambers to sleep.

Just before entering the final chamber each party member heard the voice of the Elder Brain stating that they would not be able to defeat it as those outside were also unable to cause it harm. Just to illustrate its point, the death screams of another paladin echoed through the chamber; much like the screams the party had heard on a few other occasions on their journey through the brain.

When the party stepped through the membrane and into the final chamber, the chamber grew to ten times its original size and there were now three receptacles; it was only now that they noticed the large pulsating brain in the middle of the room. The party split up and raced towards the far end of the chamber to pour the contents of the vials into the receptacles.


Unfortunately for all, whilst they were on their way to the far end of the chamber, the Elder Brain hit them with psionic blasts and summoned more of the critters they encountered in the third chamber. Magic and psionic resistance was tested to its limits but eventually the three receptacles were reached and the serum poured down the correct one to cause the brain’s activities to subside and for it to fall into a slumber.

The celestials and paladins broke through and joined the party and thanked them for their help. Unfortunately, there was no treasure to be gained; only the knowledge of a job well done and the rewards that the town offered for the solution to the mysteries.