Well, it's pic update time!

looks all very good... now i wanna see this lot based with a bit of sand and grass mix...

 Viktor von Domm wrote:
looks all very good... now i wanna see this lot based with a bit of sand and grass mix...

aye, just need to get three dwarves done, then imma base the whole lot ^^
god, basecoating all those bases is gonna get boring really fast...

what was your plan for basing these again? wasteland or something more alive looking?

 Viktor von Domm wrote:
what was your plan for basing these again? wasteland or something more alive looking?

the classic- stoney-gravel, patches of grass ^^
basically (no pun intended) like these:

I've also settled on an evil army for when I've finished my good army, which'll be kind of black gravel/ash.

... seems i have forgotten about seeing these already^^


and yeah! go evil... they have by large the better models anyway^^ i wanna see some big trolls^^

Yeah, my evil army's gonna be these cheerful fellas:

backed up by a bunch of trolls (including this chap):

and these guys:

hmmm.... nice concept... tho... do me a favor... make that sword of yon trolls bigger than the default ones... they look more like toothpicks...

 Viktor von Domm wrote:
hmmm.... nice concept... tho... do me a favor... make that sword of yon trolls bigger than the default ones... they look more like toothpicks...

aye, I was just thinking that...
I'll have a dig around the interwebz to find a replacement if and when I get round to buying it

replacement...? plasticcard and some sanding paper and some paper clips for pinning and you are set...

 Viktor von Domm wrote:
replacement...? plasticcard and some sanding paper and some paper clips for pinning and you are set...

Eh, I'll give it a go ^^

hehe^^

if you are short on money... you could use that lamination foil... get the basic shape of the swords out of cardboard and laminate it... then you can try to add it to the hilts too.... actually i have yet to try that for myself

I'm of the mindset that if something's worth doing, it's worth spending time and money on
'tis both a blessing and a curse ^^

In other news, I've picked up my last 3 rangers, and am working on converting them for cavalry.

good workings then

Merry Christmas, Shrike! Our dice arrived today.

Do you have any preferences or will I split all the colours 50/50? The ones I'm not too fussed about are the purple/blue and maybe the red too. If you were particularly interested in them I would be happy to shift the split. Either way works for me.

Merry Christmas again!

 Casey's Law wrote:
Merry Christmas, Shrike! Our dice arrived today.

Do you have any preferences or will I split all the colours 50/50? The ones I'm not too fussed about are the purple/blue and maybe the red too. If you were particularly interested in them I would be happy to shift the split. Either way works for me.

Merry Christmas again!

split 50/50 would be good
and a merry christmas to you too!

Brilliant, I'll send them off before Hogmany! Pm me your address.

Have a wonderful day!

merry merryness to you all!

 Casey's Law wrote:
Brilliant, I'll send them off before Hogmany! Pm me your address.

Have a wonderful day!

What is Hogmany

And "merry merryness" to you too, Viktor

Haha, it's New Year, which is a massive deal in Scotland.

Got it

Okay, so a bit of a text update- since christmas, I've built the models from goblin town (heading to my LGS for some spray paint tomorrow to basecoat them), and have converted Thorin- he has the option to either have a regular sword and his oak shield, or orcrist, so I logically went for the best of both and gave him orcrist and his shield
I've also taken my dwarf captain (far left):

cut off his right arm at the shoulder, and replaced it with a gondorian's, then taken the shield off one of my vault wardens, and given him it, then given the now-shieldless vault warden one of the shields my regular warriors use, so I now have a stand-out shieldbearer (formerly the captain), and a captain with a shield (formerly the vault warden). I'll post pics once I've got them painted.

when i picture dwarfs in my head i can´t see them with shields....hmmm....

sounds like a cutting edge update thats soon to be shown here


oh...and happy new years for you and your loved ones...and don´t do any nasty stuff i wouldn´t doo too

 Viktor von Domm wrote:
when i picture dwarfs in my head i can´t see them with shields....hmmm....

sounds like a cutting edge update thats soon to be shown here


oh...and happy new years for you and your loved ones...and don´t do any nasty stuff i wouldn´t doo too

you too vik ^^

I don't really like the games workshop dwarf models, too round (shields and helmet) for my image of a dwarf (all angular), but that's getting changed whenever they release the new dwarf warriors (hexagonal shields and gimli-style angular helmets). I did give my dwarves round shields, but that's because I don't have any angular shields lying around, and they're quite lightly armoured.
But yeah, pics soon


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So, pic update time! *yay!*

Looking good! I can't wait to see some of The Hobbit dwarf models (the ones from the intro of the movie would be awesome, although I don't know if they'll make them / make them yet). Although I will be holding out for the Avatars of War dwarfs

RiTides wrote:Looking good! I can't wait to see some of The Hobbit dwarf models (the ones from the intro of the movie would be awesome, although I don't know if they'll make them / make them yet). Although I will be holding out for the Avatars of War dwarfs

grimhammer dwarves (not in the film, they will probably be in the desolation of smaug next december) are probably going to come out this February, which look awesome:

but I'm more excited for whenever they release the dwarves of Erebor (with the shields and spears)- as awesome as two-handed hammers are, I do so love my phalanxes, which dwarves have gone without for far too long

seeing those round shileds of yours... they remind me strongly of the skink shields of WHFB...



which coould then help you with making more...

for angular shileds...plasticcard scratchbuilds... probably one of the easier conversions and use of PC...

Viktor von Domm wrote:seeing those round shileds of yours... they remind me strongly of the skink shields of WHFB...

which coould then help you with making more...

for angular shileds...plasticcard scratchbuilds... probably one of the easier conversions and use of PC...

aye, when they release the heavily armoured dudes, I may give them some angular shields... I would for the captain, but I kinda want him to fit in with the men he's leading, while looking more heavily armoured, so the same shield but made out of iron lined with gold rather than leather lined with iron seemed a good way to go.
and yes, the shields are actually old lizardmen shields with the iconography cut off- well spotted ^^

ha i knew it! *punches fists in the air*

and... for your information...with dwarves... i would always go more for a shield shape like this:



as dwarves are for me the dragon slayers incarnate... and this is built to reperesent a dragons scale...

 Viktor von Domm wrote:
and... for your information...with dwarves... i would always go more for a shield shape like this:

as dwarves are for me the dragon slayers incarnate... and this is built to reperesent a dragons scale...

I like that... though if I want a dragonslayer, I might just go with two axes for badassery

 shrike wrote:

RiTides wrote:Looking good! I can't wait to see some of The Hobbit dwarf models (the ones from the intro of the movie would be awesome, although I don't know if they'll make them / make them yet). Although I will be holding out for the Avatars of War dwarfs

grimhammer dwarves (not in the film, they will probably be in the desolation of smaug next december) are probably going to come out this February, which look awesome:

Spoiler:

but I'm more excited for whenever they release the dwarves of Erebor (with the shields and spears)- as awesome as two-handed hammers are, I do so love my phalanxes, which dwarves have gone without for far too long

Mmmmm, while those do look good, I can't wait for AoW's two-handed weapon dwarfs... I like my dwarfs heroic scale

aye... that would be totally gimli style too

Minor text update:
got my new set of dakka dice today, courtesy of RiTides and Casey's law- thanks fellas!
On it's virgin roll, they scored an average of 3.54- my first set scored an average of 3.4, so yay!

Also, played a game today- 870 or so points, and it started off not in my favour- my main troops (10 dwarves) and two heroes had deployed surrounded by 24 uruk-hai (let by two heroes), while the rest of my army faced two trolls backed up by 12 beserkers and uruks, several wargs and saruman. Also Grima was hanging around, which meant my heroes struggled to do anything with their might points (which is a big deal in my army).
Luckily with the dwarves outnumbered two to one, but being heavily armoured, they managed to spend the entire game (some two and a half hours) locked in combat, tying up a huge portion of the enemy army, and taking advantage of scenery let me take on the uruks and trolls in the center piecemeal, and so by the end of the game, I had about 8 models (4 heroes) sat on the objective, with only saruman (severely wounded) alive running away on his horse, and a couple of uruks in the corner, who had spent too long fighting the dwarves to come to saruman's aid.

I admit though, if it weren't for my insane luck, I'd have lost decisively- the dwarf flank would have fallen withing a handful of turns, and the uruks would have caught my thin green line from behind and destroyed my plan of a more skilled group of warriors bottlenecking a vastly more numerical foe so they couldn't press the advantage.
man of the match for my team was a tough choice, but I'd say either Murin on the flank, who must've killed 6 uruks and survived 2 hours of 4-on-1 combats, my ranger cavalry, who finally got some decent kills (made up thier points, which is saying something), or elladan and elrohir, who as usual, didn't pull off any specific great feat, but held the line and steadily killed a model or two a turn each.

Glad they got through to you, sorry they were a little later than I planned.

Btw, I'm not much into LOTR gaming so I don't know what stuff you need and all that but i have some stuff lying around if you're interested. I've had it since the early days. Some metal characters and some Riders of Rohan, maybe some other stuff.

 Casey's Law wrote:
Glad they got through to you, sorry they were a little later than I planned.

Btw, I'm not much into LOTR gaming so I don't know what stuff you need and all that but i have some stuff lying around if you're interested. I've had it since the early days. Some metal characters and some Riders of Rohan, maybe some other stuff.

It wasn't time sensitive or anything, and you even went first class, so it's all good
Oh, well, if you're offering, I'm a bit of a hoarder- never know what might come in handy

Good stuff! I'll have a look and see what I have tomorrow.

 Casey's Law wrote:
Good stuff! I'll have a look and see what I have tomorrow.

and I'll see what I can make of it
also, possible picture update in the weekend, but it depends how busy I am (mock exams coming up this month)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Okay, so I got bored- Murin's shield is quite nice (raven decal), which links it to the king's champion's banners, but it's too small for my liking- I was wondering if you guys preferred the normal one as-is or the same shield as my other guys (probably painted differently, maybe gold and iron like my captain):

stick to the lizard men shields... they look good together with dwarves... and that raven shield... you could add it to one of your SM later on

 Viktor von Domm wrote:
stick to the lizard men shields... they look good together with dwarves... and that raven shield... you could add it to one of your SM later on

well, it's attached to his hand, wrist, arm and beard, and it's quite small to begin with- I don't hold out much hope of keeping it intact
though yeah, I'll see about taking it off now...

fresh new blade... that might help...and i cross my fingers for you too

 shrike wrote:
Minor text update:
got my new set of dakka dice today, courtesy of RiTides and Casey's law- thanks fellas!
On it's virgin roll, they scored an average of 3.54- my first set scored an average of 3.4, so yay!

That's great to hear

short update- lizardmen shield is glued and primered, and I am planning on starting another vault warden conversion this evening- pics if I get them done today!

edit: started work on him, hopefully I'll finish gluing and basing him and get him primered and pictured tomorrow.

sounds good!

Finished early, here he is:

They look great from what I can see although needs a little more light for the photos!

yeah, the camera I use is terrible at picking up light, and I like to take pictures as and when I finish them (otherwise I procrastinate), and I do the majority of my painting and modelling in the evenings...
hopefully things will get better in the summer, when it's light outside then

So I've painted Murin and Drar, pics hopefully tomorrow!

because?

Pics as promised:

er.... dwarves with bows??? aren´t they more in favor with crossbows?

but good looking never the less...^^

Dwarves in LotR have bows (though their only siege weapon is a ballista, which is basically a big crossbow:

though I agree- I'd much prefer it if dwarves had crossbows- it fits more with their style (bows are meant for mobility, crossbows for hitting power- in confined spaces (like, oh, I dunno, mines and underground cities?), mobility doesn't really matter a whole lot), plus they're better in the LotR rules
I'm hoping with the release of the hobbit, games workshop will finally have some dwarves to be guided by (no source material for them in LotR), which might prompt them to make crossbows

also, bought two great eagles to add a little hitting power to my army (and to counter my regular gaming buddy's two trolls *grumble grumble*), but I'm puzzling as to how I'm going to transport them- they're too big to fit in my case, what with their huge wings, protruding tail feathers and outstretched talons:

Okay, so after a second game with my eagles (the first one not going too well due to bad tactics and not ideal deployment), I've decided that my good army is now complete (eagles need painting, but no more models to buy or build).

game went something like this:
My army:
Elladan and Elrohir
8 rangers
Murin and Drar
10 dwarf warriors
King's Champion
3 Vault warden teams
Gwahir
Great eagle

Enemy army:
Captain
11 crossbowmen
Troll
Lurtz
10 men
2 Trolls

deployment was 12" away from the middle of the board, opponent deploying most of his force (crossbowmen and 2 trolls) on my right side, infantry and other troll down the center. Hating his crossbows, my entire force deployed down my left side, out of range.
Then followed three turns of moving around so that we met in the middle, but instead of in a horizontal line to us as normal, as a vertical line across the board
I moved my dwarves up in a line along the center, with my rangers sitting to guard my flank against possible attack- eagles sat back. My opponent moved his men down to me to go towards my rangers instead of meeting my line, so I ran my dwarves at him instead, which he responded to by moving his men back up to meet my charge. The two trolls had moved too far down to charge, so I mobbed one with both eagles, but only succeeded in wounding it once.
a couple of turns later, his infantry were scattered, the third troll and lurtz had fled round to the back, and the other two trolls were in combat with my two eagles (who'd since taken a couple of wounds).
after some lucky rolls, both trolls were dead and my king's champion leading some dwarves chased the surviving troll and lurtz and were in combat for a few turns. The two remaining infantry were promptly shot down by my rangers, and half the dwarves and elladan and elrohir ran at the line of crossbows, which brought both heroes down to one wound, but were prevented getting one last volley off by gwahir, who hurled one unfortunate crossbowmen through the others like bowling pins- not wounding any, but knocking them to their backs.
The last few turns basically consisted of my dwarves and eagles mopping up the remaining troops who hadn't fled the field.
End game- enemy army wiped out, sustaining four dwarf warriors as casualties.
not-really-man of the match has to go to my eagles, who killed two trolls and saved my dwarf-and-elf charge from faltering, as well as being a thorn in the side for my opponent the whole game

congratz to your win... which was collected by yon eagles... on this i am particularly looking forward to see some good pics... feathers are always like fur a nice feature on a model...good luck with the paining!

btw...have you seen the new dwarven units by GW?

 Viktor von Domm wrote:
congratz to your win... which was collected by yon eagles... on this i am particularly looking forward to see some good pics... feathers are always like fur a nice feature on a model...good luck with the paining!

btw...have you seen the new dwarven units by GW?

aye, painting them's gonna be... interesting

and yes, I do quite like them- not sure about the weird lumps on either side of the helmet, but those can be filed off- really like them other than that though, just a shame I don't like two-handed weapons in the rules... when they come out with the dwarves with spears, then I'll get them, and if I don't like them, I'll use their weapons on these fellas
in any case, I'll probably not be going back to good for at least the summer holidays- my evil army I have planned will take at least until then to muster and paint ^^

Great batrep Shrike! And Great Dwarves too! Can you show a pic of the size of the Great Eagles?

Sure, I'll go snap a pic now ^^



sorry for the mirky quality, it's 11:00pm in the winter here, best I could do

So, played another game- my two eagles, a dwarf king and 10 dwarves allied with a friend's 24 elves, legolas and a captain against Lurtz, 8 crossbowmen, 3 trolls, a captain, 12 men, 5 warg riders and Sharku (750pts a side)
basically we won by a significant margin (lost six dwarves, six elves and both eagles, killed the uruks to a man)
here's how it went down:
Allies' bowmen facing off against the uruk crossbows down the right flank, beside which are the trolls.
My dwarves (in front of eagles) facing off against the uruk infantry down the middle.
Allies' infantry facing off against the warg riders.
First few turns, we both moved towards each other, but kept our bows out of range (so the crossbows don't mow them down), so the crossbows killed a dwarf.
Trolls and men moved forward, wargs facing off against a spread out spear wall.
Eagles take on trolls, kill one, inflict three wounds on the other two (2 on one, 1 on the other), then got overwhelmed, but slowed the centre long enough for the bowmen to gun down most of the crossbows, taking advantage of their mobility against the crossbow's "if you move, you can't shoot" handicap.
Down the left and centre, the two infantry contingents and wargs are facing off, with the two wounded trolls behind them.
I open up a hole in my dwarf line, through which the bowmen, safely out of range of the crossbows, kill the front three wargs.
following few turns, the crossbows are reduced to three men, and there's a big swirling melee between the 12 uruks, 2 captains and a warg and the now 8 dwarves, 12 elves and my king.
Over the next few turns, I lose four dwarves and my ally loses 6 elves, but we kill (with a ridiculous amount of luck) both trolls and several men (heavily reliant on my dwarves' hardiness and my ally's superior fight value.
Then the remaining crossbows charge in, but are quickly overwhelmed by my ally's bowmen led by Legolas.
two turns later, the uruk's force is either dead or fleeing.
I kinda feel bad for my opponent, his rolling was terribly unlucky and ours (90% of the rolling being done by my ally) was insanely fluky


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So, played another game- my two eagles, a dwarf king and 10 dwarves allied with a friend's 24 elves, legolas and a captain against Lurtz, 8 crossbowmen, 3 trolls, a captain, 12 men, 5 warg riders and Sharku (750pts a side)
basically we won by a significant margin (lost six dwarves, six elves and both eagles, killed the uruks to a man)
here's how it went down:
Allies' bowmen facing off against the uruk crossbows down the right flank, beside which are the trolls.
My dwarves (in front of eagles) facing off against the uruk infantry down the middle.
Allies' infantry facing off against the warg riders.
First few turns, we both moved towards each other, but kept our bows out of range (so the crossbows don't mow them down), so the crossbows killed a dwarf.
Trolls and men moved forward, wargs facing off against a spread out spear wall.
Eagles take on trolls, kill one, inflict three wounds on the other two (2 on one, 1 on the other), then got overwhelmed, but slowed the centre long enough for the bowmen to gun down most of the crossbows, taking advantage of their mobility against the crossbow's "if you move, you can't shoot" handicap.
Down the left and centre, the two infantry contingents and wargs are facing off, with the two wounded trolls behind them.
I open up a hole in my dwarf line, through which the bowmen, safely out of range of the crossbows, kill the front three wargs.
following few turns, the crossbows are reduced to three men, and there's a big swirling melee between the 12 uruks, 2 captains and a warg and the now 8 dwarves, 12 elves and my king.
Over the next few turns, I lose four dwarves and my ally loses 6 elves, but we kill (with a ridiculous amount of luck) both trolls and several men (heavily reliant on my dwarves' hardiness and my ally's superior fight value.
Then the remaining crossbows charge in, but are quickly overwhelmed by my ally's bowmen led by Legolas.
two turns later, the uruk's force is either dead or fleeing.
I kinda feel bad for my opponent, his rolling was terribly unlucky and ours (90% of the rolling being done by my ally) was insanely fluky

Not-quite-man of the match has to go to my ally's bows, those 8 men with legolas took out all the enemy crossbows (keeping them off the vulnerable wood elf troops), broke a cavalry charge which could have easily broken through and surrounded the infantry, and also chipped in with mopping up afterwards.
On my side, I didn't really do too much beside providing a few more men to stop his elves being overrun, but my eagles certainly played their part- seriously damaging the trolls and slowing down the centre for three turns (long enough for my ally's bows to take out the crossbowmen and the wargs)
On my opponent's side, I'm sad to say nothing really went well- they were strategically played, but overwhelmingly bad luck kind of prevented anyone to shine through.

Wow! Those look about the same size as a Thunderbolt!- and you get two in a box??
"It comes in Pints!?!?!..I'm getting one!"

 dsteingass wrote:
Wow! Those look about the same size as a Thunderbolt!- and you get two in a box??
"It comes in Pints!?!?!..I'm getting one!"

and yeah, two in a box for £30. Gwahir's on his own for £25, but the only real difference is he's in finecast.

as an unrelated thing I just had to say, here's this:

.>And interestingly, the scenario in the rulebook calls for 5 Great Eagles plus Gwahir right? lol

 dsteingass wrote:
.>And interestingly, the scenario in the rulebook calls for 5 Great Eagles plus Gwahir right? lol

think so, yeah

So I played an 800pt vs 800pt vs 800pt game today.
my army:
Gwahir
Eagle
King
10 Dwarf warriors
King's Champion
3 Vault Warden teams
Elladan and Elrohir
8 Rangers of Arnor

Opponent A's army:
Khamul the ringwraith
10 easterlings
Dragon Knight
4 kataphracts
Uruk-hai captain
4 crossbowmen
2 trolls
5 Warg riders
Easterling captain
7 easterling bowmen

Opponent B's army:
Khamul the ringwraith
Some character (forgot the name)
12 easterlings
Captain
12 easterlings
Dragon Priest
9 easterling bowmen

The deployment was me on the left side, opponent A on the right, opponent B at the back and the hill at the front (objective was to get the most men on the hill by the end)
First few turns, the armies moved towards the hill, A keeping all his infantry and his wargs facing opponent B, who then duked it out for a while as my dwarves moved up onto the hill.
Opponent A's kataphracts (heavy cavalry) charged my dwarves, who held the line and slowly killed them off.
Both opponents realised what was happening, so they ganged up on my outnumbered and surrounded dwarves on the hill, as the rangers gunned down the enemy bowmen.
The huge swirling clusterfeth on top of the hill (my dwarves definitely starting to buckle) was interrupted, as always, by the arrival of the eagles, who killed several men, but were kept from the ever shrinking circle of green-cloaked dwarves surrounded by the gold-armoured easterlings.
Game ended after three hours, with a grand score of:
10 of opponent B's men on the hill against 9 of mine and 7 of opponent A's.
I'd like to think that if the game had continued, the easterlings would have forced a stalemate with each other (B probably winning by a small margin), and my eagles slowly but surely picking men off the dwarves, while the rangers charged in and swayed the odds in my favour, but ultimately my opponent's use of might to alter movement and combat led to the cornerstones of my army (the king, his champion and the eagles) being cut off from the main force.

edit: forgot not-quite-men of the match:
for my army, it's probably my lone spearman, who stood up against two trolls and three easterlings for two turns straight, killing one and holding an entire flank alone, stopping the remainder of my men being trapped.
For opponent A, it's probably Khamul, who held up 4 dwarves for about 6 turns of combat, not really killing anyone but being a constant thorn in my army's side.
For opponent B, it has to be his lowly unnamed captain, who stood up to, and killed, an uruk-hai captain, 3 easterlings and a dwarf warrior over the course of 5 turns.

*phew* three hours of gaming one battle...how do you keep staying motivated to wait such long hours? i get tense just playing a regular game of cards^^

 Viktor von Domm wrote:
*phew* three hours of gaming one battle...how do you keep staying motivated to wait such long hours? i get tense just playing a regular game of cards^^

If I'm having a good time, it just flies by- when I'm not, I usually try and hurry it along a bit, and f I'm having a miserable time, I make some excuses and leave

lol... so we can deduce from the amount of time spent it was time spent in pleasure?

 Viktor von Domm wrote:
lol... so we can deduce from the amount of time spent it was time spent in pleasure?

Yup, it seldom isn't but usually the game's a little less interesting- this was a three-way battle full of forged and broken alliances and lots of good and bad luck each side, resulting in a close and hard-fought victory

i can only assume how complicated it must be to develop a strategy against two oponents...

It got confusing when the two easterling infantries charged each other in a swirling melee
with me, it was kinda simple- sneak up the hill while those two batter each other, defend said hill from any attackers.
I was the victim of bad luck- because opponent B had won every game we'd played with him, me and A decided to not exactly gang up on him, but prefer to attack him if we had the choice and it was reasonable.
Because I'd done that a couple of times previously, I decided to make it look like I wasn't teaming up, so I fired a bowman at A's crossbowmen, which I rolled a double 6 for and killed- A then took that as a declaration of war and assaulted my unprepared army, and I couldn't say why I shot at him without giving the game up to B

lol... clver strategy it seemed...but if your teammate/oponent doens´t read the signs then every clever plan is futile... too bad... could ahve been quite the lecture for B otherwise...

true
In other news, I'm planning on building a valley board some time relatively soon (gathering stuff next week), hopefully getting it built before the end of march (depends how quickly me and a friend get everything together and build)
It's basically gonna be 4' x 3', with the last 1' x 3' being the valley, which'll be about 8" wide and with ledges up the sides for archers.
The valley will end in a dwarven gate, and there'll be a river about a foot into the board on the opposite side with three bridges on.

something like this:

green being the defender's deployment, red being the attacker's.
The valley's a different size to the others because if it were any bigger it'd look weird, and it wouldn't need the corners to be cut out because it'll be removable for when we feel like a regular game

Just played a game today:
Ally:
Legolas
8 wood elves w/ bows
Haldir
4 wood elves w/ spears
4 wood elves w/ elven blades

My men:
Murin and Drar
2 Vault warden teams
10 Iron hills warriors
Gwahir
Eagle

Enemy men:
Khamul (ringwraith)
Dragon Knight
6 easterling cavalry w/ war drum, 6 shields and banner
10 easterlings w/ 10 shields, 5 pikes
Uruk-hai Captain
2 trolls
4 crossbowmen
1 beserker
7 easterlings w/ bows

Basically the deployment kinda went awry- Elves were in the top right, with the uruks top centre and easterling cavalry bottom right surrounding them.
My dwarves and eagles started bottom centre, with the enemy easterling infantry starting top left.
Objectives were top right (easterling-held), centre (no-man's) and bottom centre (dwarves)
Basically the elves got slowly but surely wiped out, but held on long enough for most of my dwarves and my eagles to take on the trolls (losing an eagle but killing both trolls) and holding off against the easterling cavalry and uruk-hai, winning that objective.
Unfortunately, the easterling infantry managed to rob the dwarf-held objective by having six men on the objective to my five (though I could probably have taken it back next turn if it went on), and the top right corner was held by two easterlings camping out for the game
We said we'd finish at five, and at five a turn ended in which we held two objectives out of three, but we didn't notice and were into the next turn when we realised, so a moral victory for us good guys, but an actual victory for the forces of evil due to player error

I still haven't finished painting my Dwarves, here you've played a bunch of games!

normally once or twice a week
not really in a painting mood the past couple of weeks, more in a gaming mood

nice looking sketch for the table... we´ll definatly need more sketches^^

aye, it's kinda rough ATM, but hopefully over this weekend we should be talking about materials and sorting it out, then possibly next week buying 'em.
The main board's kinda easy- 4' x 4' sheet of wood, cover in sand, spray black, drybrush as stone with patches of grass.
Then there'll be the river, which we haven't decided whether or not it'll be modular (i.e: movable or embedded), modular allowing better aesthetics, but modular being, well, movable.
There'll be a stone bridge (not sure what we'd make it out of though) and a wooden bridge (lots of coffee-stirrers).
A ford, which'll basically just be a shallow patch of river with rocks on it for men to try and cross.

Then there's the valley itself, which we're not too sure on.
Pink or blue polystyrene would allow more detail, but we'd need something along the lines of a 12" x 12" x 18" block, and cutting that much would be a .
then there's regular white polystyrene, which would crumble and decay quite a bit, even with a coating of PVA.
Then there's good ol' paper mache, but that'd be fairly imprecise and we'd still need something for it to lay on.

so in conclusion, we don't know
we're going to be talking to our GW manager to take a look at what we've come up with this weekend.

Hey chief,

Just dropping in to say I finally looked out my lotr stuff. There is much less than I thought so I think I dumped a lot but I'll have a think about where I might have more.

So far I found 6 incomplete Riders of Rohan, a troll, Sauron and Mount Doom Elendil and Isildur. I believe the last pair are quite rare now.

If your interested reply here or pm me.

Oh no Shrike! You don't need solid foam, it's the understructure, so just cut small manageable strips and then glue them together. ou'll likely be covering it in spackle or filler. Foam cuts like butter with a sharp knife! Much easier than you might think!

aye... and slice it like plasticcard... only score and then snapp it for straight edges...at least that´s what works for me...

dsteingass wrote:Oh no Shrike! You don't need solid foam, it's the understructure, so just cut small manageable strips and then glue them together. ou'll likely be covering it in spackle or filler. Foam cuts like butter with a sharp knife! Much easier than you might think!

I've only previously tried to cut it with a poor quality craft knife and a tenon saw (which probably wasn't great either), and it could just be my pathetic excuse for upper body strength
thought didn't really occur about doing 'em in strips and gluing 'em, that sounds good

Viktor von Domm wrote:aye... and slice it like plasticcard... only score and then snapp it for straight edges...at least that´s what works for me...

ah, thanks for the advice

so... have ye strated yet?^^

Alas no, and I'd forgotten about a family outing tomorrow, and a few of us have a game planned at the store on friday, so it's looking to be next week

d´oh....

aye

Had yet another gaming session:
First game pitched mine and an allies' forces:
Gil-galad
12 warriors
Elladan and Elrohir
6 bowmen
King
3 Vault warden teams
13 dwarf warriors
Murin and Drar
Gwahir
Eagle

against two enemy forces:
12 Kataphracts
Dragon Knight on horse
Dragon Priest
20 easterlings
Captain
Captain on horse
7 Bowmen
Amdur, lord of blades on horse
4 Kataphracts

Basically went something like this:
- We stay put and gun down a few easterlings per turn
- Easterlings charge, centre (guarded by the elves) gets hit hard due to an easterling phalanx letting all 12 men attack 4 elves (the rest not being able to push a gap to even the odds), meaning they are steadily killed
- Left flank (vault wardens, king and a couple of elves) holds out against , but after the middle folds, the infantry from that peel round to attack them, and ultimately surround and kill off the defenders (albeit taking several losses, including Amdur)
- Right flank (13 dwarves, Murin and Drar), somehow, manage to hold off against 12 Kataphracts, a captain and a Dragon knight, despite being up against superior fighters, on horseback, and outnumbered, for almost the entire game (the last two dwarves, surrounded, outnumbered and knocked to the ground for three turns) get finished off.
- Eagles, having tried to fly around and attack said cavalry from the back, got tied up for three turns fighting four kataphracts sent to slow them down, and were then killed by the bowmen, a captain and the dragon knight trapping them (though, again, they did take some men down with them).

In the end, our forces (due to extremely bad luck down the center) just couldn't push through the enemy lines and were constantly fighting outnumbered and trapped, while the enemy forces (due to the war priest giving them, in effect, a 5+ invulnerable save) just kept getting back up- we must've killed a dozen of the easterlings which got back up. If these two pieces of bad luck for us had gone differently, it'd have probably been a closer defeat (probably bowmen and a few isolated cavalrymen vs. the elven heroes and a few isolated dwarves), and maybe possibly a narrow victory if my eagles had been luckier and survived another turn or two.

well, my order of Dol Amroth knights (these fellas):

arrived today.
Well, briefly- the postman turned up with 'em but no one was home, so he left 'em back at the post office sorting place a couple of miles away, which is annoying seeing as he could've hidden them or given them to a neighbor instead, but hey.
I'm hopefully going to pick 'em up tomorrow.

Can't wait to see them!

I can't wait to play with 'em!

In future news, after I get Imrahil (ordering next week, getting him the week after), I'm going to be picking up this pack:

Not really for Durin on the left, but for his Bodyguard, Mardin, on the right- I'm planning on converting him into a king- that bald, eyepatched head is just too awesome
plan is to remove the spear, rotate his left wrist 90 degrees (and give him a shield on it), then replace his right forearm with one holding an axe, pointed outwards, kinda like my captain vault warden fella:


Then a long period of slowly buying four men a fortnight for my gondor army will ensue (£16.00 for four is pricey for my lowly income), followed by faramir (who I'm still puzzling over how I'll make him- I want him with armour, but I'm not a fan of his helmet, and these are the two models for him:

If I feel like splashing out on the money, I might buy both and stick the bare head on the armoured one, or I might just stick with the (much cheaper) leather armoured one.

Well, after two weeks since the last update, I have assembled a list of everything I've done:

as you can see, I've been immensely busy
Hopefully pics at some point of said men between now and saturday, nothing special, but then nothing special's really happened recently...

but then nothing special's really happened recently

beside life in general

 Viktor von Domm wrote:

but then nothing special's really happened recently

beside life in general

aye, other than that

Quick update time!
Picked up Durin, Mardin and Imrahil today, no painting done, just building.
I've began work to convert Mardin into a dwarf king, but haven't added the weapons yet (possibly tomorrow):

Yeah, very WIP- literally just cut and filed his new hands in, stuck a bit off a tomato puree tube for a cloak, and filled a hole in his beard (for his spear to slot into) with white-tac (not great by any means, but the paintjob and/or shield should cover it up).

Also, Imrahil is built (as well as a few of his knights- two WIP painted, the other four just basecoated- the two not shown have broken during transportation to games- curse you, plastic lances!)

sweet! i´ve now read quite a few times peeps using tomato puree tube material for banners and such ideas.... at first i thought you greenstuffed that cloak... looks very impressive!

Imrahil looks cool too... tho i think he deserves a bit more colorful a paintjob than his other cronies

 Viktor von Domm wrote:
sweet! i´ve now read quite a few times peeps using tomato puree tube material for banners and such ideas.... at first i thought you greenstuffed that cloak... looks very impressive!

Imrahil looks cool too... tho i think he deserves a bit more colorful a paintjob than his other cronies

Said Chronies are awaiting blue paint for their cloth (which is the huge black mass over the horses), so they'll be a little more colourful

and yeah, I really like Imrahil's model, very striking horse he has there

But yes, finished my Captain/King:


and him with his fellow badasses:

while he looks cool as hell... with his eyepatch and all... isn´t his axe a bit on the small side?

That axe is actually a two-handed dwarf warrior's
Plus if you compare it to everyone else's, it's actually slightly bigger, it just looks small for some reason

it's actually slightly bigger, it just looks small for some reason

best line ever... if you werent so bloddy young... i´d added another comment

 Viktor von Domm wrote:

it's actually slightly bigger, it just looks small for some reason

best line ever... if you werent so bloddy young... i´d added another comment

yeah, looking back, that could be taken out of context...

what? i am totally surprised^^

Whelp, I've done a bit of work, but nothing really pic-worthy so far:
Based all my models for Panda's competition
Built most of them (one left)
Started work on the unit's banner
Bought and built 8 guards of the fountain court (these guys):

started painting the first guard
given them all shields

maybe pics today/tomorrow, depending on if he gets finished or not, and how tired I am

well... i look forward to the scheme then

Well, almost finished the fountain guard (couple of bits of gold trim and he's done)- lovely model, just time-consuming to paint, and there'll be 12 of them total

Well, I'm resurrecting this thread with my entry for Comrade's brotherhood competition:

will you add some force effects to the glaives?

and a wash or two would do these knights well methinks

but I gotta say... verrrry good looking brotherhood!

 Viktor von Domm wrote:
will you add some force effects to the glaives?

and a wash or two would do these knights well methinks

but I gotta say... verrrry good looking brotherhood!

Yeah, I was planning on some better effects than a quick highlight and a coat of varnish, and adding a bit of a wash to the armour, but it kinda got last-minute so I had to skip it

hehe...no... not really... do the wash... now... darn... it is like yelling to my own kids now...

 Viktor von Domm wrote:
hehe...no... not really... do the wash... now... darn... it is like yelling to my own kids now...

by the way... since we are on ordering terms here... i am secretly building an airship for the whole world to see....come and see

Saying that it's been a while would be quite the understatement, but here I am.

I'm not going to make excuses beyond general life stuff, but good news - I've been quite busy on the hobby side of things!

In order to not flood the thread with everything I've done at once, I'll space it out a bit.

First up, a smattering of Rohan (including my first forays into the wondrous world of green stuff):

Thorongil (Aragorn before the War of the Ring, when riding with Theoden's father)



Grimbold, Captain of Rohan


Captain of Rohan (Glorious fat with a muscle cuirass)



Erkenbrand, Marshal of the Westfold, of the broken sword




Elfhelm, Captain of Rohan, of the bendy spear



Eowyn and Merry, when fighting at the Pelennor

and there we thought you left the nerdy life style to be in a full time job with a newly formed family of your own... naawww... nerdy it still seems welcome back to the fold^^

Still a massive nerd, working part time, and no plans to start getting chained down yet

 shrike wrote:
Still a massive nerd, working part time, and no plans to start getting chained down yet

LOL...history will see about that...