Campaign Map - named regions

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

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

Witches and Warlocks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Doggerland Campaign Map

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

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

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

Summer Solstice

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

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

Troops:

36 Warriors of Rohan

24 Riders of Rohan

Elites:

6 Rohan Royal Guard

5 Mounted Royal Guard

2 Rohan Outriders

2 Mounted Rohan Outriders

Command:

1 Mounted Royal Guard banner bearer

1 Rohan Captain

1 Mounted Rohan Captain

1 Rohan banner bearer

1 Mounted banner bearer

2 Grimbold's Helmingas Command

Heroes:

1 Grimbold

1 Hama

1 Gamling

1 Mounted Gamling with Royal Banner

1 Erkenbrand

1 Mounted Erkenbrand

1 Eowyn

1 Mounted Eowyn

1 Eomer

1 Mounted Eomer

1 Eomer : Marshal of the Riddermark

1 Theodred

1 Mounted Theodred

1 King Theoden

1 Mounted King Theoden

1 Mounted King Theoden (from Warg Attack)

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

1 Mounted Royal Guard (there are 6 possible combinations)

1 Rohan Outrider (there are 3 different models)

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

3 Rohan Command (Leader, Musician, Standard)

1 Gamling on foot with Royal Banner

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

1 Eowyn on foot (in dress)

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

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

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

Last of the barbarians

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

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

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