Song of Blades and Heroes - Battle Report 3

Last night we managed to get together for the final round of this mini-campaign. So far, the Orcs of the Red Eye had managed to push the human villagers away from their village. A band of elves saw this as an affront to their standing and forced the orcs to run away with their tails between their legs. Budlak, the orc leader, felt ashamed to be beaten by one measly elf, so he returned to the village to sort the situation out once and for all.

Orcs of the Red Eye (302 pts)...

Warchief Budlak Q 3+ C 4 Leader Tough (100 pts)

5 x Orc warriors  Q 4+ C 3 (115 pts)

3 x Orc archers Q4+ C 3 Shooter - Medium (87 pts) 

Orcs of the Red Eye

Since the previous game, Budlak managed to recruit two more archers to refill his ranks (basically I kept the same force composition for this game too). 

Defenders of the Realm - a mixed Human and Elf warband (295 pts)...

1 x Elf warrior  Q 2+ C 3 (38 pts)

1 x Elf archer  Q 2+ C 3 Shooter - Long (55 pts)

5 x Human Heavy Infantry  Q 4+ C 4 Short Move (130 pts)

1 x Human Light Infantry  Q 3+ C 2 Shooter - Medium (28 pts)

1 x Human Archer  Q 3+ C 2 Shooter - Medium (44 pts) 

Defenders of the Realm

To keep things "realistic" the remaining human and elf forces combined and added five extra human troops to swell their numbers. 

Again, this was just a straight fight to the bitter end - the winner finally keeps hold of the village. The orcs seemed to have the upper hand in both of the previous battles (apart from the devastation caused by the final gruesome kill in the second scenario), but would this time prove any different? The orcs gained the initiative so went first...

Starting positions

Turn 1

The orc warriors advanced rapidly towards the village, scenting a swift victory over the man flesh who they so easily defeated previously - the orc archers seemed to be a bit more cautious. The humans and elves (Defenders) advanced more slowly to meet the threat

Turn 1

Turn 2

When the elf warrior from their previous encounter came into view, the orc bluster ran out (rolled the dreaded double-one on my second activation) as Budlak caught sight of the elf that had caused his warband to flee. The human/elf archers let fly their arrows but all missed. The allies continued their cautious advance

Turn 2

Turn 3

Most of the orcs failed to advance (failed almost every activation roll) and the Defenders closed into combat. More archery failed to find its mark on the orc ranks

Turn 3

Turn 4

The sight of the heroic elf must have really affected Budlak as his forces again failed to advance into combat (double-one again, this time on the first activation!). The Defenders advanced further but all the combat ended without casualties. Again, the human and elf archers missed their targets

Turn 4

Turn 5

This is where the game began to warm up considerably (but typically I forgot to take photos at the end of each turn due to the excitement).

Budlak finally came out of his stupor and dispatched the troublesome elf. The melee around the farmhouse saw the humans retaliate for the loss of the elf by killing an orc warrior, but emboldened by his previous success against the elf warrior, Budlak killed again; this time a human warrior (O 8, HE 7)

Turn 6

Due to the pressure of numbers brought to bear, the orcs were forced to retreat from the combat, losing another of their warriors (O 7, HE 7)

Turn 7

The orcs finally brought their archers to bear from the other side of the building (it took a long time to get them there due to so many activation failures), causing the humans to huddle up closer after another of their number was felled by archery, but the defenders' bows kept the orcs at a safe enough distance for now.

Finally, the Defenders got a break through. Budlak found himself isolated and was cut down where he stood. This caused a few of the orcs to flee (Morale check on loss of leader), and then, seeing their comrades flee, most of the rest of the warband also broke away (Morale check for the warband dropping below half numbers), leaving just two solitary orcs on the battlefield. Seeing their fellow raiders killed or running away, and being only a tiny distance away from the board edges themselves (due to them also fleeing but not quite far enough to leave the battlefield), they decided that they would flee too (O 0, HE 6)

Turn 7

Well, that was a tidy bashing the orcs got there - again their poor Quality showed - Morale checks have been the bane of the orcs this campaign. This time the fighting was quite a way from the board edges but the orcs failed on multiple counts so all except two left the board - another massive collapse like last time.

The two double-ones during the game also did not help the orc cause, and neither did the fact that we got the movement allowances for the human heavy infantry wrong (they were moved a lot faster than they should have done). The orcs had pretty awful dice-rolls throughout the entire game; almost always when an outcome relied upon at least half-decent rolls - so many 1s flew from my dice hand during this game - at one point there were 6 failed activations in one turn! That said, the orcs lost and the human/elf alliance won not only the scenario, but also the campaign.

So, overall, the human/elf alliance was victorious over the orcs of the Red Eye. I really enjoyed the min-campaign, as did my son. He prefers this game now to Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game. I spent a lot of the time whilst playing what my son's options were at each juncture. Next game, I will let him fly solo, as he seems to have mastered the intricacies of the rules now.

Song of Blades and Heroes - Battle Report 2

We had a quiet Sunday this weekend just gone, so we pulled out the Song of Blades and Heroes rule book again for a rematch. This time, I kept my victorious orcs and #2 Son decided to go for an elven warband - this time his points values were more accurate.

Orcs of the Red Eye (302 pts)...

Warchief Budlak Q 3+ C 4 Leader Tough (100 pts)

5 x Orc warriors  Q 4+ C 3 (115 pts)

3 x Orc archers Q4+ C 3 Shooter - Medium (87 pts) 

The orcs of the Red Eye

Defenders of the Realm - Elf warband (298 pts)...

4 x Elf warriors  Q 2+ C 3 (152 pts)

2 x Elf archers  Q 2+ C 3 Shooter - Long (110 pts)

1 x Wood Elf warrior  Q 3+ C 3 Forester (36 pts) 

The elf warband

We decided that this skirmish would be the second part of an ongoing mini-story (we are hoping to get one more game in later on this week to conclude the saga). After the rather one-sided affair between the humans and orcs last time out, a small scouting band of elves decided that the humans needed to get their village back and the orcs needed to be put back in their place to restore the natural order (and restore the buffer zone the human village afforded the local elf settlement).

We chose to play a straight up fight again as the scenario we rolled just didn't quite meet what we wanted to play. We diced for who was to be the defender and who was to go first. The orc faction was the defending force, so set up the table, the elves chose which side to enter from, the defenders set up first and then the elves rolled the best initiative so went first.

Starting Positions

Turn 1

Both sides advanced across the battleground of the local village. The elves did not hold back in their efforts to close into combat with the orcs and reclaim the village from them

Turn 1

Turn 2

There followed an ineffective exchange of arrows, and close combat was joined (one wood elf versus two orcs)

Turn 2

Turn 3

This turn ended up being a bit of a disaster for the elves; the elves advanced but the dreaded double-one was rolled half-way through the process, so play turned over to the orcs whereby the wood elf was easily downed by the two orcs he was in combat with (O 9, E 6)

Turn 3

Turn 4

The combat began to coalesce on the village side of the board. The elves managed to inflict a gruesome kill on one of the orc archers which caused another orc archer to retreat away from the combat. The orcs retaliated by ganging up on a single elf spearman and hacked him down (O 8, E 5)

Turn 4

Turn 5

The elves managed to kill another orc archer but the tide really turned with another double-one being rolled. This meant that the orcs could really go on the rampage; they killed a further two elves and a Morale check caused a further elf to retreat off the board. What with the final elf archer being laid prone and the final elf spearman being isolated it should have been a small matter of mopping them up one at a time (O 7, E 2)

Turn 5

Turn 6

Unfortunately for the orcs, this was not to be. In a fit of rage at seeing his comrades being slaughtered, the final elf spearman managed a gruesome kill on the last orc archer which led to the entire orc warband fleeing from the board (O 0, E 2)

The orcs flee

Again, this proved to be a very one-sided affair right until the very final roll of the dice by the elves. The gruesome kill and the subsequent Morale checks meant that all of the orcs fled. I tried to roll for my leader first, because if he passed the test, then his Leadership trait would have added +1 to the other's dice rolls; he failed and so did the rest. Even if some of the orcs had passed, they would have had to have taken a second Morale check for the loss of their leader, and then a third Morale check if their numbers dropped below half. They didn't stand a chance at Q 4+. Lesson learned for the future - do not fight too close to the board's edge just in case a morale check looms.

My son was beginning to get side-tracked towards the end of the game as he was upset at how badly the elves had fought and how badly his dice rolls were. I managed to entice him back for the final turn (I asked him if he wanted to surrender but he said "No") and everything changed on the one combat dice roll. I felt a little underwhelmed at how defeat was snatched so easily from the jaws of victory, but happy for my son as he now knew that games can change direction on literally one dice roll.

We will try to play one more game later on this week to round out the mini-campaign. I will keep the same orc force (just need to work out two replacements for actual kills) as they return for one final attempt to wrest the village away from the humans, and my son will take the remaining humans and elves (2 of each) and add to them to make up a full sized force. As the score is one-all, then this will be the decider.

Gondor Repaints III

Apologies for the long hiatus between posts. I have not been well recently and I am still not fully recovered. Hopefully, I will be seeing the doctor again soon to see what is happening; I don't think it is anything serious but it is affecting my daily life, in that I do not want to do a lot at the moment except relax and/or sleep.

That said, this weekend saw me pick up the energy to get my paints and brushes out again to finish off a few of my son's figures that have been stuck on the painting table for several months. I managed to complete the basing for a couple of elf repaints...

And also the final few colours on another half-dozen or so Gondorian soldiers (the broken ones featured in the last post) and a Black Numenorian (a 2nd Age warrior of Numenor)...

This year I am hoping to get a lot more of my own Lord of the Rings miniatures painted in order to do larger battles with my youngest son. We have played several Battle Companies sized games over the last year, but we both feel the need to go larger on occasion. I think I will go for a new system for this, and Dragon Rampant is back in the frame.

Repainted Elves

Following on from yesterday's post about the completed elf archers, today I managed to finish off the last of the elf swordsmen. Here's the warband in its entirety...

The ones I completed today were the broken ones that had to be patched up with whatever spares I could find. Two turned out OK, I think, but I am not keen on the other two. Anyway, here they are; I like the ones to the left and right of the picture, but not so keen on the middle two...

This completes the painting that I have been asked to do by my son on these elves. Here is a picture of all of the elf archers that I have completed...

And, here are the sword/glaive wielding dudes...

 And, finally, those that my son will be painting himself...

The sword wielding elf will need to be fixed up with another blade and then littlun can get on with painting them all. I will hopefully be popping to my local GW store in the next week or two to pick up some extra paints, brushes and so on so he can get to work on these. Again, these will be used for Battle Companies and the possibility of games of Dragon Rampant if they ally with another faction. So far, for the evil side, my son has the 30 orcs that I have already painted for him, one of my old troll miniatures, quite a few Easterlings and a handful each of goblins and uruk-hai. And for the good side, he has 17 painted elves, around 30 Gondorians, and maybe 25 or so Rohan warriors on foot. Hopefully we can put together two opposing forces from these to duke it out on the tabletop.

Next up for me to work on for him are his Gondor warriors of Minas Tirith. There are thirty figures from the ebay purchases, of which two are Numenorians (that will be used as sergeants/captains for Battle Companies) and five that are broken in some way (including one of those Numenorians). I will try to get some before pictures set up and then get to work on these next week if I can.

I have also been working on those undead riders again; just a little bit more paint work and trying to figure out a colour scheme for them. I am not sure whether to theme them around a certain colour and whether that colour should look faded as if it had just come out of a crypt or grave. I also sorted out that dragon from a few months ago and began to finish her off too. Hopefully there will be some pictures of the dragon very soon.

Elf Repaints IV

Today saw me bring the total number of elf archers up to nine completed miniatures. I managed to complete five more elf archers for my son, so his Lord of the Rings elf warband is almost there now. Hopefully I will complete my part of the re-paints tomorrow. He still has his metal command that I undercoated for him a week or so back, and a couple of plastics that need a bit of TLC that he said he would like to paint himself.

Here are the lastest elves in all their painted glory...

Again, these were just a tidy up and make do kind of job - nothing special; no highlights, shading, washes or anything like that. They are more than good enough for the tabletop, even if I didn't quite get the colours on as well as I would have liked this time (age is beginning to ge the better of me now as my hands are not as steady as they used to be, and my eyesight is rapidly deteriorating). There are a few places where my ordinarily neat lines are a little wobbly, but this cannot be seen from the distance of my eyes to the tabletop.

I have four more elf swordsmen to go, which I am hoping to complete tomorrow, before moving onto his Gondor troops. He doesn't want the standard film colours on them either, so I need to pick up one or two new pots of paint to achieve this for him. He is braver than me going non-canon, but I really like his ideas. When I get around to painting my Lord of the Rings figures, I think I will look at doing a little of the same.

Over the last couple of days, I have also been putting a little bit of paint onto the skeleton undead cavalry, as well as starting to build the Otherworld skeletons I bought recently - these will be assembled differently to the six I already have, to bring the total number of variants to twelve. When I put in my next order (end of the month), I will be getting their armoured equivalents. I will then need to look into getting some zombies - I am not keen on the plastic ones on offer at the moment, so will need to find suitable miniatures in metal. Does anyone out there have any recommendations for decent zombie miniatures that are compatible with the Otherworld stuff? Heresy have some good undead, so they may get an order from me when I get around to the other types of undead. This project will be expensive, but I can build the faction slowly, and paint those that I have bought before I purchase the next batch. I am looking at around 20-30 figures again to round out the low level undead, before moving onto the upper echelons like ghouls, ghasts, wights, wraiths, banshees, vampires, liches etc. At this rate, I may be able to begin running some low level dungeon crawls; something I have never been able to do in the past with the figures that I own. I mainly concentrated on the adventurers and used counters etc. for the baddies. Hopefully I can run some games where all the beings encountered can be represented with a miniature.

Defend the Ruins

After we had finished our rule-driven battle companies battle, littlun carried on playing with his newly painted figures. In his mind's eye he had seen an heroic last stand by his elves against a small warband of orcs. Like the previous Gondor vs. orcs encounter, there were no rules involved, just a child's imagination and ability to tell a great, heroic tale.

The elves, cut off from support, take refuge in a ruined farmhouse...

The attacking orc force has them trapped and try to force their way in through the door supported by a couple of archers...

Whilst the other half of the band, with their leader, go around to the rear where access appears to be easier...

Unfortunately for the orcs, the elves have both accesses covered and are willing to sell their lives dearly...

After he had finished playing, the elves had three survivors and the orcs were either wiped out or had run away.

Battle Companies : Elves vs. Orcs

The kids were over this weekend, so my youngest lad got to see his newly daubed elf figures. He liked them a lot and couldn't wait to get to use them in anger. He swiftly set up the table and two battle companies, one orc and one elf, so we could go head to head.

Looking at the two units on the table he was a little over-awed; the orcs numbered nine, whilst the elves numbered only five. He thought that he would be in for a thrashing considering the numbers. I placated him by telling him that his elves were far superior warriors, and that his propensity to throw a multitude of sixes per game would help his cause.

The elf force...

The orc force...

The sun had just risen above the small hills surrounding the abandoned farm of Sunnydale. The shadows were long but cast deeper by the presence of an encroaching orc warband. Graznuk sniffed the air. "Elves." he spat. "Forward. Let's show those pretty boys a thing or two about knife work."

The orc commander split his forces with the archers peeling off to the right flank with a supporting shield armed warrior and the rest of the heavy hitters heading off to the left. The elves did the same, envisioning that the lone elf archer would be able to keep the heads down of the three approaching orcs. As soon as the orcs came into view, the elf let loose a shaft and an orc armed with a sword and shield dropped to the dirt with an arrow embedded in his throat (1 orc, 0 elves).

Graznuk noticed the loss of one of his warriors out of the corner of his eye and urged his troops to surge forward to engage the hated enemy. No sooner had combat been joined than another orc fell to the swiftly moving glaives of the elves. Undeterred by his losses so far, Graznuk pushed on and personally felled one of the elves in front of him. This seemed to be going easy for him, so he dispatched two of his axe warriors to help bring down the pesky elf archer, with orders to return to this fray once that easy task was accomplished (2 orcs, 1 elf).

The leader of the elves saw the danger that orc warband chief would cause if left to run riot, so felled him with one swift blow of his glaive (Graznuk failed his Fate roll). Unfortunately, this left him exposed to the remaining orcs and he almost suffered the same demise (made his Fate roll) (3 orcs, 1 elf).

The orcs remaining in the melee rallied around their second and all attacked a solitary elf who had been forced away from the fight. In what seemed a foregone conclusion, the elf ducked and dived his way out of being hacked to pieces by the heavy axes and spears of the orcs (they needed 3+ to hit but all rolled a 2!). Unfortunately, just after the elf warrior has retreated, the elf leader could not avoid being surrounded and was hacked down where he stood (3 orcs, 2 elves).

Meanwhile, on the other flank, the solitary elf archer managed to keep two axe wielding orcs and two archers at bay, but failed to cause any wounds. The attacking orcs, like their brethren on the other flank, could only keep pushing the elf back, despite winning combat after combat (kept rolling snake eyes or just ones and twos). Just as the orcs closed in on the elf archer, in what they thought would be a successful pincer movement, he managed to find a little space for himself and felled an orc archer that was pursuing him with a true shot shaft (4 orcs, 2 elves).

An orc war horn sounded off in the distance and the fight was warily abandoned. The orcs ran directly to answer their master's call, but the elves, saddened by their losses, gathered the bodies of their brethren for burial whilst they burnt the corpses of the orc dead.

This battle was a tightly run show. Although littlun didn't roll his normal unusually high number of sixes, I was unable to roll much more than a two on several critical occasions (two sets of snake-eyes, a 1 & a 2, a double-two, and three dice less than 3) to compensate for that. Any of these rolls being successful would have turned the tide of the battle firmly in favour of the orcs, and they would have forced a morale check on the elves. As a result, this battle was declared a draw.

We were going to try to begin playing a proper Battle Companies campaign this week, but we got involved in the game too quickly to think about it until afterwards. I am thinking of running the lad's elves as a battle company as they journey from Forlindon to Rivendell to deliver an important message to Elrond from Cirdan. He said he saw his elves as Lindon elves, hence the non-canon paint jobs on these figures. Hopefully we can start this campaign in a couple of weeks' time when he is next over, and we have a little more time to prepare and play due to the half-term school holidays.

We are hoping to get to our local GW in the half-term to pick him up his own paint brush so he can paint the elf command he bought, and thus help to reduce his own backlog. However, he said that he wants me to paint his Gondor troops after I complete his elves, so my painting list grows ever longer.

As an aside, I received those Otherworld skeletons through the post yesterday, but only saw the soggy package on the door step this morning (it has been raining heavily here for a day or two now). I will get them prepped tomorrow if I can, and then see about getting the paints out for them during the week.

Elf Repaints III

I managed to get the brushes out again today and completed three more Lord of the Ring elves. I also put a bit more paint onto several others, but these are not quite finished yet (hopefully next week). This brings the total of completed elves to eight; four armed with bows and today's repaints that are armed with swords/glaives.

This bunch, again, includes one of the test pieces I did a few weeks back to see what they would look like. The one with the blue-handled glaive looks like he has a badly deformed hand, but this was done by the previous owner - obviously some kind of repair. It looks OK from a distance though, so should not detract from our playing enjoyment.

Like with the orcs, there were several broken figures - about six or seven of the glaive-armed warriors. I was able to find the appropriate pieces for one or two of them, but four, so far, have had to be bodged. One or two look good, but the other two not so. At least it gives them a little variety to stop them all looking identical.

As mentioned above, I am hoping to get the rest of these sorted sometime next week. My son will want to paint the last four (the two command, an archer, and the last glaive warrior that needs repairing), but not sure when we will get time for that. Maybe the next time he pops over?

I am still awaiting a delivery from Otherworld Miniatures for another couple of packs of skeletons to go with the ones I already have. If they come through soon, I will try to get them onto the paint station next week in readiness for another Frostgrave game. I haven't played any Frostgrave for several weeks now, and I want to get back to Balthazar's and Dave's adventures on their way to Felstad. I am hoping there will be three or four more encounters by the time they get there, and then I will play some of the scenarios in the rule book and supplement. As these will be played solo, I will need to see if any adjustments need to be made to the encounters. Perhaps I can find some ideas if I trawl the web? That said, I am also contemplating getting the Rangers of Shadow Deep rulebook for me and the lad to play. Maybe I will see how compatible the rules are and adjust some of them to fit into the Frostgrave universe and vice versa? I am really getting into the mood to play some RPG/dungeon style adventures on the tabletop.

Elf Repaints II

The second task for my son's figures is to repaint the elves. I started on these a couple of weeks back but it has taken a little while to get any finished (other than the sample paint jobs from a previous post) as I have been working on some of my own miniatures at the same time (see the preceding post on the skeletons).

After completing the two sample paint jobs for my son to choose from, and amend if necessary, I was able to push on and finish a further three archers to bring the completed total to four.

There are still five more archers and eight swordsmen left for me to complete, but these should be done within the next week or so. There is also the command pack, a solitary archer and a final broken elf to repair that he wants to paint himself, which would bring the whole elf force so far to twenty one figures. My son has decided on the red cloak/white skirts as opposed to the white cloak/red skirts scheme, and as he did not like the blue hafts of the swords or bow staves, I have painted the latest ones with a more brown/wooden colour.

He will get to see them close up tomorrow as he will be over mine this weekend, but he has seen them in photos and likes them so far (phew!). Hopefully, we can get a little more gaming done over the next couple of days, as well as discussing our future plans for figures to paint and collect. He would like to build an elf army so I will have to begin scouring eBay for some cheap plastic figures for his collection, and will most likely also try get him some of the leaders and heroes in metal to match with the captain and banner bearer he has already bought himself.

Tomorrow will hopefully see me complete a few more of the elves - it all depends upon time and light (the weather has been very overcast with lots of rain these last few days, and it is due to continue for a few days more yet). Completing them will allow me to get on with painting some of my own miniatures next whilst he makes up his mind which of his old figures he wants me to do next.

Elf Repaints

Now that the orcs have been completed, I had a chat with my youngest to see what he wanted to do next. I initially thought he would plump for Gondor as that is the army I have been playing against him with, but he decided he wanted to start an elf Battle Company or two. To strengthen his decision, unbeknownst to me, he had already popped into his local Games Workshop to order a pack of Elf Command out of his pocket money.

When he mentioned he had got them, I asked him how he would like his elves painted. He suggested white cloaks etc. and silver armour. I was not too sure on this combination, so mentioned that they may need another colour to make them seem less "cold". He came to the decision that a red would warm them up sufficiently.

So, today, I knocked up a couple of test paint jobs to see how they would look...

Unfortunately, the white and silver just did not go, so I used a bronze colour for the armour. I have sent him the pictures above to make up his mind which way he wants to go. Again, these will only be block painted over the previously existing paint jobs - these figures were bought from eBay, and came pre-painted by the previous owner. I really like the blue bowstaff and weapon handle but he is not too keen. I will see what he thinks when he sees them in the flesh on Friday next week.

I also managed to get a little painting and undercoating done on those skeletons and that dragon I mentioned a few posts back. Hopefully, I may get some of these completed very soon.

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).

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.

An Alliance of Men and Elves

Today saw the turn of some odds and ends figures that don't fit into my main Third Age armies - variously referred to as Free Peoples these figures can aid and abet any faction that needs a little rounding out, especially the wizards. There are also some Second Age miniatures - I don't ordinarily play Second Age as the figure availability is a bit limited, but as I have a few minis from those factions I guess I could make up a few warbands and one or two Battle Companies?

With regards using the figures for Third Age games, I guess that the Numenorians, at a push, could be classed as one of the Mannish fiefdoms of Gondor and the Elves are timeless, so no worries there. My eldest son plays elves, so I may very well just pass them all over to him if he has any gaps in his collection.

I will be using the above picture a few times over the next couple of blog entries to show the starting point for each minor faction. As can be seen, there are wizards, hobbits, Numenoreans, elves and a number of one-offs to add a bit of interest to the gaming table.

Anyway, onto the figures I prepped this morning, here are the Numenoreans. I only have the plastic swordsmen (plus Elendil and Isildur in metal already made up), so they will make a small but none-the-less interesting faction to play in smaller skirmish games.

Next is a bunch of Elf Warriors armed with elven blades and bows. These could make for a powerful Battle Company if painted to represent a more modern (i.e. Third Age) depiction of high Elves.

I have 16 of these elves as well as a handful of leaders. Some are purely Second Age like Gil Galad, but Elrond, Glorfindel and Legolas (plus the few others in my collection) could be used in either age.

Looking at these minis now, I can't wait to get them undercoated and ready to take a lick of paint. There is still another set or two of miniatures in this "faction" to complete tomorrow and maybe Monday - these are the more one-offs and magical types. Another interesting bunch but I doubt they will be used that much in my gaming.


Over the last week or so I have made great inroads into prepping my Lord of the Rings collection for a long summer of painting (hopefully). I still have many dozens of miniatures to prep, but over the coming week or two these should all get to the same stage as the figures you have seen in the last few blog entries.

I have been putting aside an hour or two each day, whilst I can, to make sure that this work happens. I am feeling more positive about my hobby at the moment - long may that continue. Once all the figures have been prepped, they will be ready for the undercoating, I then just need to wait until I get a few warm, dry and sunny days so I can get out into the garden and get the spray cans out. I reckon it should take a lot less time to do the spraying than it did to do the prepping so, with a bit of luck, the next stage will only take maybe a week rather than the two or three weeks that this stage looks like it will take. That said, some of the multi-part figures may require a bit of green stuff to smooth out some of the joins and holes, so a few miniatures may get left behind until that phase can be completed too - they can be done on those days between spraying if the weather is not kind to me.

Obviously, as I get to each stage I will photograph the results of my work. I will probably go faction by faction again until it comes to the actual painting. I will then most likely do them warband at a time so that I can chop and change what I paint to stop me getting bored, fatigued or burned out trying to paint say 72 Gondorian soldiers that look almost identical all in one go.