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).

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.

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.