Gondorian Archer Unit

We had some nice, bright weather for the early part of this afternoon here in the south-east of the UK today, so I was able to get the spray can out again in the garden and then put paint to brush on some of the figures already undercoated. I managed to get the rest of the Gondorian foot undercoated, as well as some of the metal command miniatures. I decided to start work on the Gondorian archers unit first.

A small part of the Gondorian archer unit

I sprayed the figures with Citadel Chaos Black from the old can that was still lying around in the man cave. I then got the old brushes out and managed to put some GW Dwarf Flesh onto the faces of the first eight warriors - a nice easy start to the painting campaign. I will try to get the next eight archers' faces painted tomorrow and then start on their armour. I will probably only go forward with the dozen required for the unit I am making though, plus a captain and banner bearer.

Tomorrow I will also try to pick up some plastic glue (my existing tubes have now either dried up or run out) and a pack of Plasticine (more on the reasoning for this with my next post) and get some of the cavalry undercoated too.


Once they have all been de-sprued and glued up, I will lay the army out again to see what I need to buy (EBay here I come!) to complete it. I am envisaging a sort-of equivalent to a Roman Century plus support units in the cavalry and artillery. I do not know what Tolkien himself thought of the Romans, but I am a great admirer of their technology and warfare nous.

Until next time...

Gondor Rampant

Soldiers of Gondor

I have to apologise again for the long hiatus on this blog. Ill health and lack of hobby time recently has led to not so many updates as I would have liked.

After it had been built and decorated around this time last year the man cave became a junk room again, just like it was when it was the garage. Lots of those superfluous items have now been either thrown away or passed onto the charity shops as appropriate. Also, I have now sorted out and collated all the gaming related stuff in the hobby room and it is now time to get to work on the figures that have been without paint for several years since purchase.

What with the advent of Dragon Rampant in my games library, I have decided to create warbands based upon that ruleset for larger sized skirmishes (50-60 figures per army) for Lord of the Rings. I will also continue to play at the smaller LotR:SBG scale (20-30 figures per side), as the unit sizes in each are around a dozen. I will be carefully crafting unit stats for my LotR miniatures bearing in mind that Gondor is supposed to have the best troops in the kingoms of men. I will present my workings here for all to comment and critique, but only when I have painted samples of each unit completed - this is to spur me into action so I can get onto the fun of spreadhseet number-crunching creativity.

My first troops to see paint are the Gondor footmen. I have four sprues worth of these giving a total of 48 warriors that will be divided up into four units of a dozen each; one of archers, one of swordsmen, one of spearmen and a mixed unit. I have managed to clip them all off the sprues, glue them up and undercoat eight of each troop type so far...
Gondorian Archers...

Gondorian Spearmen...

Gondorian Swordsmen...

Unfortunately, I did not think too carefully about what I was doing, so I think I have missed one or two combinations that would have led to more troop variety (especially with the spears).

However, I may add to this number so I can create an additional full unit of either swords- or spearmen. I have metal captains and banner bearers for each unit, as well as some named heroes. I also have four of the metal knights of Minas Tirith as well as a dozen of the newer plastic knights. I also have some mounted leaders for these. If I do pick up another couple of sprues of footmen then I will work out the combinations I missed and maybe replace some weapons to create further units - axes might do the trick as I have some spare axes from other plastic minitaures that could be used.

These warriors will form the bulk of the Gondor army along with a couple of units of Rangers (with metal leaders), some more realistic ballistae and catapults (borrowed from Warlord Games's Early Imperial Roman range) with metal crews, and a unit of Swan Knights of Dol Amroth (I still need to buy a few more blisters/boxes of these to make up what I want). I may also look at substitute miniatures for the more well-known fiefdoms like Blackroot Vale, Lebennin, Lossarnach, Lamedon etc.

I will try to run a weekly update on how this army comes together in a staged process. As the weather has been brighter recently, my focus can now be on painting rather than cutting and glueing. I really want to get the first unit together so I can get to work on the stats for them.

I am also yet to decide upon the colours for the warriors' tunics. My initial thoughts were to create a scheme that had each colour of the rainbow represent each of the seven levels of the city of Minas Tirith; Red for the lowest level and troops stationed in Ithilien and Osgiliath, Orange for the second level, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet for the rest. The three companies of Citadel Guard mentioned somewhere in the book (I don't remember where the reference is but it has stuck in my memory) could then be in Black as per the colour scheme presented by the films, and the Fountain Court Guard in White. I am not sure about the company of cavalry/knights. After much thought, I have been thinking of going for red for the scheme for the warriors and knights and green for auxilliary units like the ballista crews to juxtapose the standard warriors. If I get tempted to create more then I can paint them in the other rainbow colours. As I said though, I am still undecided. I will get the armour painted on and then see.

Dragon Rampant - first viewing

I am a bit late to this party, but I have seen a lot of column inches on the web singing the praises of this game (and its predecessor Lion Rampant). I have been tempted to pick the rules up for ages, but just never got round to it. I have plenty of RPG and skirmish sized games, what difference would an extra one make? And, as I got it really cheap from Wordery, even if it turned out to be a stinker, it was not much to spend on a couple of hours' reading entertainment - it could always be mined for ideas.

I have only had one read through of the rules so far, but they seem to be pretty good, so the money was very well spent. I would like to try them out very soon, but I will need to see what forces I can actually muster. Luckily each "unit" can be made smaller but still have the points values/stats without too much detriment to the game (at least whilst trying it out). This will also spur me on to sort out a few more minis from my lead/plastic pile and get some paint on them.

I have a fair number of the GW Lord of the Rings figures that could serve as the bulk of a couple of fantasy armies, even if the first game or two would see them in action in an unpainted state. I am sorting out more junk and having a move around in the man-cave this weekend, so hopefully I can set up the gaming board again in readiness for a bit of Dragon Rampant action.


The game itself is open to any figures being used; it is not affiliated to any particular manufacturer or range and the photos in the book itself show a very wide range of fantasy products. This is a great selling point as everyone has a pile of old fantasy miniatures lying around that are screaming out for a fresh lick of paint and some action on the gaming board.

There are a few rules I would consider chaning from the off, but I will play the rules as is for teh first few games just to see what (un)balancing effect changing them would have. The two main ones for me are;

1) The way that the number of dice rolled only changes at half-strength. I would perhaps roll a dice per point so it changes as the unit diminishes in size due to casualties.

2) The 3" rule - seems a bit limiting to me at the moment.

As I said though, I will try them out as written first before seeing if my amendments would unbalance the game. Also, unless I missed them somewhere, I would introduce a campaign system such that when a battle is over, casualties are rolled for to see if the warriors/beasts/monsters return in the next fray.

I have to admit I don't really like the idea of "unit" based games for fantasy. Yes, great armies would come together in their legions (or whatever tactical size) to fight over fallen idols, great temples or just for the hell of it, but smaller skirmishes in my mind would just be a tactical free for all with individuals having free rein on the battle field. Dragon rampant has the figures in loose formation, so I can live with that.

Still, this is all supposition and procrastination, and I am sure things will sort themselves out when I actually get down to fighting a test battle. I will provide an after action report as soon as I am able.

The Mini Game

The Mini Game came about on a long driving trip with my daughters in the car. Although not strictly a game I would ordinarily cover on this blog, I thought I would mention it as it is something we have played now for several months.

This is a game pretty much on a theme that I played years ago when I was a kid - Syd Bishop, Norbert Dentressangle or Eddie Stobart were the theme back then.

The game basically involves spotting a car of the said model, shouting "Mini" and pointing it out to the rest of the car passengers before anyone else spots it. One point is scored per car spotted and two points for spotting the older model. No points are granted for car show rooms, but cheeky sons have managed to increase their score by several when a car transporter drives past - grr!

The game ends either whenever you get bored of it or a certain tally is reached - we usually score first up to 10 for a short journey and first to twenty on a longer journey.

What made me mention this game is that it was invented by my 10 year old but she has not played this type of game before. It was a stroke of genius to choose the Mini as not only is it a classic British marque but also there are just enough on the road to make the game a challenge without getting bored. I cannot think of another car that is as distinctive as the Mini and with enough numbers to justify a fun game for the family on British roads. Do any of you play a similar game with your family on a long car journey, and which car do you choose as your target?

Long time no post

A bit of an update and a promise to be more with it after Christmas. However, I have been updating the sister site The Taplow Horn. This is a blog to chart my journeys into the land of pubs and real ale; another hobby of mine shared by many more of my friends and family than gaming.

Things have been rather busy at chez Odo. My current contract role has been extended on several occasions and as a result I have not had much time to get any gaming stuff done. All the available spare time has been taken up by the kids who have been busy getting up to what kids get up to; changing to new schools, taking exams, being involved in after school and weekend clubs and activities.

All of this has meant that gaming has had to go on the back burner. That said, I have still been purchasing Lord of the Rings minis when I see them at knockdown prices on Ebay, so I have plenty to paint when I can finally get back to it. I also have to explore Frostgrave and I would also like to play Saga and Lion (Dragon) Rampant (I have yet to pick up these rulesets). I just need someone to play against!

When my curent work role finishes (any time soon), I am hoping to sort out lots more stuff in the man cave and get all my LotR and Frostgrave miniatures glued and undercoated. I am also part-way through making an Anglo-Danish warband - I am sure I can get thiat finished relatively quickly if I put my mind to it.

Anyway, until next time...