Gondor Repaints II

The weekend just gone saw the paint brushes come out again in force. I managed to paint seven more Gondorians for my son; this time it was the turn of the swordsmen.

Again, these are just re-paints; lots of tidying up where I could. They took maybe four hours tops to get to this stage - the waiting time between the different stages of basing took up the lion's share of time for them though. I am pleased with them even though they are just single layers of paint with no shading or highlighting. The main reason for getting these done this way was to get them ready enough to plonk down onto the tabletop with the minimum of fuss. 

There are still around half-a-dozen Gondor miniatures to be painted, but these are the broken ones. I will need to find some swords and bows from my historical bits box to complete them. This mis-match of weaponry will make the Gondor force look more like a rag-tag, battle-hardened unit of veterans than if they were all painted neatly with their "official" weapons all pristine. This worked well for his orcs, but I was a little disappointed with my work on his elves.

My son's forces are really coming together now. He has more than enough now to make several Battle Companies, but there is still have a little way to go to create a couple of forces for something like Dragon Rampant. I will sit down and calculate what is required soon as I think a mass battle would suit us both nicely at the moment. He still has a force of about 30 or so Warriors of Rohan and a few less in the guise of Easterlings for me to paint up. I think, added together, there should be enough figures to make a good side and an evil side if we can also find a couple of leader types.

I was due to sort out roster sheets for the two Battle Companies in readiness for this post. I have got them both written up but there are a couple of annoying issues with the PDFs that means they will be difficult to showcase. I will see if I can find an alternative version that works a little better.

I have also managed to do a little bit of work on my skeletons. They are glued up now but just need shields that match the previous ones adding. Hopefully I can get a little more painting done on the undead cavalry soon too, as once these are all completed I can buy the last few skeletons I need to complete the force. As mentioned in a previous post, I am going to try to paint up units of my old figures before buying any new ones. Once the skeletons are done, I will try to move onto a force of zombies which are needed for a lot of the games I have recently bought, like Frostgrave and Rangers of Shadow Deep.

Battle Company Re-inforcements

We played our second game of Battle Companies a few weeks back, but I didn't get round to dicing up the results and writing up the Battle Company rosters.

After our first game, Damril was able to recruit an extra spearman using his Influence points from winning the scenario...

And, after our second game, he recruited another spearman from his winner's Influence points. He still has 2 Influence points left, so even if he doesn't win the next game, he will still be able to recruit another warrior to his cause...

However, Ushnar, the orc battle company leader, despite losing both games, was able to recuit an extra in the shape of a Black Numenorian. I managed to roll two sixes in a row to achieve this - its a shame I cannot do this in a game. Unfortunately, I lost one of my orcs in the scenario, so this new arrival was just a replacement - but what a replacement!...

I used a 2nd Age Numenorian figure to represent this new arrival as I didn't have any of the purpose made Black Numenorians that Games Workshop designed. I like the idea of these once proud men turned evil; especially as they cause Terror in their opponents, which may come in handy against normal warriors, but I daresay my son's impressive dice rolling for his archers will come in handy for despatching this warrior in short order before he can use his full powers on the tabletop.

The camera has been a bit harsh on my paint job, showing up places where I quite seriously went over the lines - my eyesight is not what it once was, even with the aid of glasses.

Anyway, this was just another short post to keep the blog turning over with my gaming stuff. Next time I will try to show off the two Battle Companies as they stand right now, including maybe a roster sheet for both at long last.

Gondor Repaints

The kids have been over the last couple of weekends, so I was able to spend some time with my youngest son again to do some work on our gaming stuff. Last weekend was paperwork for Battle Companies and Rangers of Shadow Deep, which I will get written up properly in the next few posts.

This weekend we got the paint brushes and glue out to complete a few more Gondorian miniatures to go with his Gondor Battle Company under the command of Damril. Here are seven archers that we repainted in order to add to his Gondor force when they are needed...

Apologies for the blurry picture - it doesn't do the figures any justice.

This was the first time my son had really used a paint brush on his own figures. He did previously paint a Goblintown warrior at Games Workshop that he was allowed to bring home for free, but he was very young and literally painted the whole thing yellow (he wants me to re-undercoat it so he can give it a proper paint job).

He did a really good job with these archers - we went one colour at a time and most likely both of us put at least one or two colours on each figure; so it could be said that these are all a joint effort rather than full repaints just by me.

His total completed Gondor force now consists of his original six (2xswords, 2xspears, 2xarchers) from Damril's Battle Company, plus the extra spearman he gained as a reinforcement after our first campaign game. He now has the seven archers mentioned above to add to that total as well as another spearman reinforcement (more on that in the next post), bringing his total to 15 completed Gondorians.

Battle Companies : Gondor vs Orcs

This weekend the kids were over again. Two weeks ago, when they should have been over last, I had spent a long weekend in York, so missed out on a gaming opportunity with my youngest. We didn't get the chance to update the rest of the warband roster sheet and stats, so we have carried on from last time we played. We grabbed our miniatures, rolled for the scenario and put out the scenery.

12. Plunder the Camp

The table was set up as per the scenario. In the roll-off, we determined Gondor as the defenders and the orcs as the attackers. Gondor therefore had to set up first and then the orcs could set up no closer than 6" away from the encampment.

Upon re-reading the scenario after we had finished playing, we realised that we had made the camp only 6" across instead of 12". Not sure if this would have made much difference to the outcome, but it was a fast-paced, exciting game none-the-less...

The forces of Gondor led by Damril (the five objective markers for the scenario are the barrels)...

The few days after the encounter with the troll at the previous watchtower, Damril led his patched-up men onwards to the next watchtower along the valley. Again, the small hamlet should have been uninhabited, but hopefully he could repair it a little, like the previous one, and report back to his commander that he had had some success ridding the area of a troll, an orc warband, and had reinforced the two watchtowers so that fresh guardsmen could be posted in them thus allowing freer movement of troops throughout the valley.

Night was falling and the light was fading fast as Damril and his warband approached the next hamlet. In the distance he and his men could see the glow of a campfire. He whispered his orders and the troops approached the camp cautiously, but all was deemed safe when the camp password request was sounded out from behind the ruined walls. He responded with the correct code for the day and the warband made their way into the camp.

The latest news and passcodes were swapped over a hot meal and then the current incumbents gathered their belongings and moved out. However, Damril was told that a new recruit, a spearman, would be his to train up over the coming weeks, thus his warband now ranked seven warriors; Damril, two archers, three spearmen, one of whom was the new recruit, and another swordsman. It was time he decided upon a couple of sergeants to help him with the chain of command.

By the time the other warband had left, Damril had staked his camp and ordered the watch; no-one could see further than a dozen or so yards in front of them due to the darkness, which would make it very difficult for the archers to pick out targets when on sentry duty. Damril got his company of weary troops into position to see out the night; he was wary that the orcs they had encountered the previous day would still be somewhere in the vicinity.

On the other side of the settlement, Ushnar was approaching the camp with vengeance on his mind. He had wanted the glory of killing that troll, so he had followed Damril and his warband throughout the day in order to spring an ambush at an opportune moment. Upon arriving at the campsite, he noticed that bundles of supplies were dotted around the camp. If he could destroy some of these, he thought, he could whittle down his enemy through hunger and fatigue, and then finish them off when they were weak and weary.

He split his forces and gave each squad orders on what he needed them to do. With a few hooted signals, the orcs advanced upon their foe. The two orc warriors with bows loosed their arrows at the earliest opportunity, but their shafts flew wide of the mark. The Gondorian archers returned fire and felled two of the orcs charging the campsite, but this did not stop combat ensuing. The orcs had the worst of the affray and two more fell to the trusty swords of the Gondorian soldiers.

The combat in the camp became more intense as more orcs joined the fray. A further orc fell to the Gondorians but they managed to set fire to two bundles of supplies. Fearing for their supplies, the Gondorians pulled back from the orcs to readjust their battle lines, but one of the swordsmen was felled by Ushnar (using his point of Might). Damril returned the favour and slew another orc (using his point of Might), before the rest of the orc warband turned tail and fled the scene.

The final score was that two bundles of supplies had been destroyed before the orcs had to retreat. This meant a victory for Gondor. Again, the orcs were cursed with rolling too many ones and twos, whilst the Gondorians were blessed with an inordinate amount of fives and sixes. If the orcs hadn't lost four of their number in the second round alone, then things might have been different and a possible draw could have been snatched by the orcs.

These two warbands are now slowly drifting apart in power; Gondor has two victories under its belt, so this gap will widen a little more. We still did not use the full rules and we will hopefully get two sergeants statted up by the time of the next game. 

Anyway, here are the Experience scores...

• Orcs - HW Orc killed Gondor swordsman
• Gondor -Archer 1 killed 2H orc, Archer 2 killed spearorc, Sword 1 killed HW orc and 2H orc, Damril killed HW orc and spearorc
  

and Influence...

• Orcs - Taking part (2)
• Gondor - Taking part (2), Winning the Scenario (2)
  

We ran out of time to see who survived and died or how to spend our Influence points. We will do this next time he is over.

In this battle, we used the orcs and Gondor warriors that I painted up for him recently. What with my new temporary role being extended out for another three months, I will not be able to paint and procrastinate about our games as much as I was just five or six weeks ago before I started work. That said, at least we have longer evenings now, so I may be able to do something if I get the chance.

Fathers Day Haul

A little late, due to being away this last weekend, but here is a small summary of my Fathers Day haul. My kids are wonderful and always get me a small hoard of wonderful gifts. This year I had the usual scrummy Green and Blacks quality chocolate selection, as well as the beginnings of a Hobbit warband for the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game...

My youngest took it upon himself to go to his local GW and order up the Hobbit warband - a dozen Hobbit Militia (8 of) and Archers (4 of). He then split the cost with the rest of my kids. Add these to my big 4 (Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin - a few variants of each), Farmer Maggot and his dogs, and I have the beginnings of a great little battle company. Just a few more packs to go to complete the army.

These will be next on my list of warbands to paint after I complete the skeletons and my son's Gondor troops. I may be some time on these however, as my temporary role has been converted to a fixed term contract of three months - happy days - and this will leave me with a lot less time to spend on our hobby.