Lord of the Rings Rohan

Well, I have just over a month to go before the Gathering in the Desert Lord of the Rings tournament. The only other LOTR tournaments I played in I used my Minas Tirith and had a blast; for this event, not only did I volunteer to do a terrain table of Osgiliath ruins, I decided I'd like to use it as motivation to finishing off one of the armies I had. I chose Rohan. As you can see from this first picture, I stll have a ways to go! I'm not just painting up the army I'll use in the tournament, but I'm painting the entire force. So there are more figures here than I'll be using in the event, but I won't have to worry about adding figures later to the army...though that may change when/if a Rohan book ever comes out. The "In Progress" figures include 10 archers, 10 hand weapon, 10 spear, dismounted Merry and both mounted and dismounted figures for: Theoden, Eomer, Eowyn, Gamling, Captain, Standard, and 6 Royal Guard.

The good news is that I'm done with the regular Riders of Rohan! I have 10 mounted archers and 20 mounted with throwing spears complete! I also have the horses done for the other mounted figures (except Gamling, Theoden and Eowyn). I oiled the horses and think they came out quite nice.

I did do some converting as I didn't have 20 throwing spear armed figures. I made spears out of brass wire and used them to replace hand weapons in some case, or to place behind shields on other figures to indicate they do indeed have throwing spears. I also did some other minor conversions like switching this figures sword for a hand axe.

Though this last picture didn't come out too well, I hope you can see that after the figure was done I went back and highlighted some of the cape, shield and metal. This added some nice contrast and it looks better in person than in these rushed pictures (I didn't take the time to set up my photobox today)...well, back to painting!

Pegasus Hobbies Terrain

OK, here's the last pictures of the Osgiliath terrain that I'm doing for the Gathering in the Desert Lord of the Rings tournament. This first piece is by Pegasus hobbies and came all ready finished. I mounted it on the display board, rubbled it, repainted the small roof sections, and gave it another dry brush to help it blend in with the rest of the pieces I'm doing for this project. Each of the corners in this building come with 2 removeable floors which are not in place for these pictures.

Now this Pegasus hobbies piece was is a plastic kit that had to be assembled and painted; this is the only plastic kit I'll be using...everything else is resin. I didn't want another building ruin with the center collapsed like the one above, so instead I decided to set this one up with 2 adjacent corners still standing and make it a longer piece.

Crusader29 Terrain

Here are some pieces I put together using resin Crusader29 terrain. This stuff started out as completed wall sections provided by Tim K (thanks Tim); Tim said he never thought he'd get around to using this stuff so he donated it to the Osgiliath project. I had to break apart the full wall sections and damage them some to get the look that I wanted. I also took modeling putty and filled in the inner facing of the walls; the outer facing has great detail, but the inner facing was recessed in the center and the edges were raised...this was due to how the molds were set up by the company. Using the modeling paste allowed me to give a stucco looking finish to the inner walls. Overall I am happy with how they turned out. Here are a couple of pictures of one of the ruins...there are more, but I only took pictures of this piece.

Armorcast Ruins

Well, I've gotten some flak recently about not doing anything for myself except purging stuff from my collection...so to prove my nay-sayers wrong, here's some terrain I've been working on in support of the Gathering in the Desert Lord of the Rings tournament which will be held in February. I'm going to provide the terrain for a 4x4 ruined city representing the beaten and battered city of Osgiliath. I'm using terrain pieces from Armorcast, Pegasus, and Crusader29. I would like to thank Tim K for cutting the bases the building ruins are on. So, here are some of the pieces:

Armorcast ruines and ruined walls

Armorcast ruined cathedral
Another view of the cathedral

Armorcast ruined building

Another set of Armorcast ruins

2009 "To Do" List

OK...I know...I know...it's been several months since I posted last...been busy, but that's no real excuse. One of the big issues for me is that I want to take decent pictures, but I have no conveniant place to do so...that's one of the things I'll work on this year. Here are some others:

1-Finish my Lord of the Rings Rohan army in time for the Gathering in the Desert tournament in late February. I have 30 riders complete...now I just need to do the characters and dismounts.

2-Post an average of one post per week on this long-neglected blog, so 52 posts for 2009 is my goal.

3-Finish the 17 chariots for my 28mm Mitanni army for WAB; this will complete the army.

4-Finish my 15mm WWII Afrika Korps. Fernando painted the infantry, but I have to do touch-ups and base them. I also have to assemble and paint all of the tanks, trucks, and guns.

5-Finish either the Babylonian or Andalusian armies I have for WAB. In this case Philgreg painters painted all of the infantry and cav riders, but I have touch ups to do and also have to paint several dozen horses for each (and a few chariots for the Babylonians) and do all of the basing (which is a tedious chore for me).

6-Finish up Mike's 28mm Flanders army for WAB.

7-Undecided. I will either do a 15mm army for Might of Arms or some 28mm ACW or who knows...maybe just a combination of things and start some new projects as the items I have listed previously make up the majority of the started projects that I haven't finished yet.

If I do anything "new" it's likely to be 15mm Napoleonics as I've been kicking that idea around for a while...though there are some other areas/periods I'm interested in as well.

Well, that's it for my 2009 "resolutions" for gaming I guess...of course, this list is subject to change based on my ever changing interests!