March...where does the time go?

How exactly is it March already? Where does the time go? Ugh...

Ok, so I haven't posted anything yet this year until now...because I haven't completed anything like I planned to. I've picked up the brush a few times, but haven't finished anything. The only good news is that I've managed to get in quite a few games! So far this year I've played Might of Arms (huge Mongol -Russian game), Napoleon's Battles (refight of Waterloo, another huge game), Combat Commander Pacific (great boardgame), Flames of War (2nd edition tournament...still haven't played 3rd edition), and Lord of the Rings (using the new lists...finished 3rd place in a local tournament). So at least I have been gaming even if I haven't been painting anything. I hope to end that soon and get into a painting groove that I haven't been in for a few years it seems. Today I did get some painted figures...Joe is painting up a 28mm Carthaginian army for me in trade and he gave me the first of the figures and I really like them. His son, Joey has turned into quite the painter and did a great job on the shields! Figures are Gripping Beast with a couple of 1st Corps figures mixed in I believe.

Looking Back & Looking Ahead

It’s that time of the year again…a time to look back on the year that was, and a time to look forward to the new year ahead…

Looking back, I have to say that 2011 was a “mixed bag” on the hobby/gaming front. It had several positives like:

Finishing 2nd in the Gathering In The Desert LOTR tournament which earned me an invite to the GW sponsored Throne of Skulls event in Vegas

Getting in a lot more games than the previous year. In 2011 I played a lot of Lord of the Rings and also a significant amount of Flames of War. I also played 15mm ancients using Might of Arms, got my feet wet with Clash of Empires using 28mm ancients, played some 28mm American Civil War, played Warmaster fantasy, 15mm Napoleonics, and a fair number of Command & Colors Ancients and Combat Commander board games.

Playing in my first Flames of War tournament using the 2nd edition rules (and now 3rd edition is on the horizon), and actually finishing 2nd which qualified me for the US Nationals; I will be going to Adepticon in Chicago in April to play in the Late War Nationals.

Contracting out some painting work to help clear up some of my pile o’ lead resulting in me having a large 15mm Mongol army as I posted on this blog and a really nice 10mm Orc army for Warmaster, both painted by Tim K at Saguaro Painting Service (with pics of the Orcs on that blog), as well as a nice 15mm German Panzer Company painted by Robert as documented on his Drunken Samurai Painting blog.

Clearing out some armies and misc. hobby stuff that I know I’d never use again.

On the negative side of the “mixed bag” for 2011 are the following:

As of yet not finishing the 28mm Republican Romans I’m painting up for Mike; the good news is that I’m working on the last of the infantry and have the cavalry all prepped & primed and ready to go.

As of yet not finishing the 17 chariots for the 28mm Mitanni army I’m working on; I had Tim K at Saguaro Painting Service base paint the chariots and horses for me and now I just need to go through and add some extra detail and color, mount the crews and do the basing and they will be done…after years of languishing…

Throne of Skulls LOTR tournament; as I previously posted, I like seeing a lot of the regular LOTR players, but really was disappointed in the scoring, the scenarios, and some of the cheese-ball army compositions that were there.

Not posting as much to this blog as I would like to; I would like to do more battle reports and post more pictures of stuff I have.

Not deciding upon a “Tom Project”. Let me explain this one…at one point in my gaming life I had a couple of projects that were mine…I could bring everything needed for the game from terrain to all of the painted figures needed to play, and I could host multi-player games in doing so. I can still supply both sides and terrain for games like Flames of War or LOTR or 28mm & 15mm ancients, but none of these are unique to the group of guys that I game with most frequently. I spent quite a bit of 2011 looking into various projects such as Eastern Renaissance/TYW, 10mm or 15mm WWI, 10mm or 15mm Russo-Polish War, and 15mm modern “what-if” or ”imagi-nation”. Maybe I’ll finally decide on one of these in 2012.

As for the year ahead, I think it’s going to be a good year. I hope to continue to game on a regular basis like I’ve been with the games I’m going to focus on for the first few months of the year being: Flames of War (with the new edition coming out and having to get some practice in for the Nationals in April), Clash of Empires in 28mm (I want to play more often and get some more of the locals interested if possible), Command & Colors Ancients – Miniature (several of the guys are giving serious consideration to doing 28mm forces to convert the board game to miniature and I’m jumping onto this and will be doing a Greek army for this project), and 28mm American Civil War (once I get the Rebs based up and ready to go I plan on getting in more games of Action Front and give Black Powder consideration too). After spring has come and gone, I’ll see where I’m at and take it from there; I have a lot of armies started that I need to finish as well as armies that I haven’t started that I would like to, and then of course there is always terrain to do…it never ends. As for acquiring new stuff in 2012, I’m sure I’ll pick up figures for at least one more project with the leading candidate right now being 28mm Napoleonics; I purchased the Waterloo set of rules and want to give them a try. Another possible candidate is doing some smaller fantasy games using 15mm minis with a set of rules like HOTT or Basic Impetus - Fantasy or ??? Only time will tell what I end up accomplishing in 2012, but I'm fairly confident it will be at a minimum the same amount as I did in 2011...

"Throne of Skulls" Thoughts

Well, having attended my first GW "event", I have some observations and thoughts on my experiance.

Things I liked:

• Seeing and talking with players I've gotten to know at Gathering in the Desert


• Facing tough opponents


• The food; good catering


• Winning a random door prize of 3 Lord of the Rings "command" boxes


• The venue (Vegas!)

Things I didn't like:

• The fact that some guys played against each other in 2 out of the first 3 games and got a bonus point for it; there were enough armies (24) in the tournament to allow for no rematches on the first day of the tournament.


• Not having good vs. evil for the first round; again, there were almost enough armies from each "side" to allow for that in the first round. Instead it was Gondor vs. Gondor, Isengard vs. Isengard and Moria vs. Moria for some of the first round match-ups.


• The format. There were only wins, losses and draws; there were no "minor" or "major" category for either wins or losses. I guess I've been spoiled by the effort that Tim K goes through at GITD and other organizers that I've heard about at other Independant tournaments have taken to give players interesting yet challenging scenarios for LOTR.


• The scoring. It seemed kind of mysterious to me...no painting...no sportsmanship (just a single vote for the "favorite game" which was just weird IMO).


• The results/awards. Besides taking so long to give out the awards, I think that for being a "core" game, LOTR got shorted. For WHFB and 40k, each distinct army present that has an official codex had a best general award, even if there was only 1 or 2 armies from that faction participating. This didn't happen for LOTR with only a best "good" and a best "evil" general and a best overall given. It just doesn't seem consistent to me; the LOTR players traveled just like players from those other systems and should have been given the same consideration.

Things I'm undecided about:

• The terrain. The battle boards were nice as were the ruins, but I didn't like the tree bases or all of the fences...apparently there are abandoned farms throughout Middle Earth with random fences everywhere. Now I understand trying to make the terrain consistent for a tournament setting such as this, but again I guess I'm spoiled by the themed terrain Tim K puts out for GITD and that I know others also put a lot of effort into.


• The paint scoring. Two of the three armies that won awards for painting in LOTR were nice, but I felt there were a couple of others that were clearly nicer. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder I guess.

Other thoughts:

• If I qualify for next year's TOS, will I go to Memphis? If I had to decide right now, no I wouldn't go. The event wasn't bad, but I expected something more...this just was "eh"...ok. Now, when the time comes and if I had an opportunity to go, I probably would just to catch up with everyone and hope to get in some challenging games, but only time will tell on that.


• I'm not sure if I like 700 point games. Until this tournament I've only played at 350, 500 and 600 points. Out of those I honestly like 350 point games the best. I saw some of the games at 700 points end in draws because both players were at max model count and it took so long to deploy, move, shoot and fight that those armies couldn't hope to break an opponent in the alloted time. This point level also gives some players additional leeway to take even odder, more strangely configured (IMO) armies than at lower point levels. LOTR is a skirmish game and I've always felt that the forces on the table should reflect lower level battles from the books and not turn into min-max combinations where players cherry pick certain troop types and ally them with another certain troop type from another army just to win. I mean, why can't people try to win with common troops or troops from just one list? Isn't that more of a measure of how good of a player you are instead of spending hours figuring out great combinations from various lists that will be ultra-competative? Of course, this doesn't apply to all of the armies that were there...there were some very solidly themed armies, but there were several others that left me scratching my head.

Lord of the Rings "Tournament of Skulls" Recap

When I finished second overall at this years Gathering in the Desert Lord of the Rings Tournament, it earned me a spot in this "Throne of Skulls" tournament that Games Workshop was running for the first time in North America. Luckily for me the TOS was in Las Vegas which is only 4+ hours from Phoenix so of course I was willing to make the trip; combine that with the fact that I was married in Vegas...by Elvis of course...and my wife agreed whole-heartedly with me attending the TOS while she gambled and shopped of course! So last Friday, we picked up Tim K who had also been invited and made the drive up. I took my Isengard Raiders list with Mauhur leading 28 scouts, 6 feral Uruk-hai, 8 warg riders and Saruman tagging along with hopes of finishing in the middle of the pack.

I enjoy LOTR and was looking forward to talking with, and hopefully playing against, a lot of the people that have made the journey to GITD over the years. I was also looking forward to seeing how GW ran an event as I had never been to anything "official". Here's a quick rundown of the tournament which I will follow-up with some general comments at the end:

Registration - Though the line seemed long initially on Friday night, I think registration went smoothly. We got little "goody" bags along with our badges and schedules. I got a tape measure, a bag of LOTR blue Gondor dice and a GW water bottle. Not bad.

Saturday morning - Breakfast was provided at the venue in the Tropicana and was scheduled to be from 7am to 8am, but there was apparently a disconnect as the Tropicana staff thought it was to start at 8am. Eventually the hungry gamers prevailed and opened the serving lines up by themselves. Nice continental breakfast.

Game 1 - The first scenario was "Clash of Piquets" and I drew Mike B. who had made the journey from Floriday for TOS. Mike ran a combined Isengard Raider & Goblin list; he had Ugluk, 17 feral Uruk-hai, some scouts and a bunch of goblins including prowlers and maxed out at 75 models. This was a bad match up for me because from experiance I have to be able to concentrate my force and pick my spot; being outnumbered by 31 models pretty much killed me in this scenario and I was doomed from the start. Mike wins.

Lunch - Well, lunch started on time. It was basically build your own sandwich and the food was again good.

Game 2 - The second scenario was "Storm the Camp" and I drew Josh L and his Galadrim elf list. I figured I'd have a chance in this scenario if I could close with Josh before I was shot up by his S3 bowfire. Unfortunately for me, Josh's dice were "hot" and he killed 6 Uruks in his first turn of direct fire (after killing some in volley fire before that)...and when I finally closed with his line preventing him from firing at me it seemed every time I rolled a 6 in melee he would match it and win due to FV5. Another loss (see a trend developing?)

Game 3 - Well the last game of the day was "Domination" and because of my excellent performance in the first two games I played the "Ringer" army in the third game. The "ringer" was being run by Price who had made the trip from Memphis with the other GW staff. It was Easterlings with Khamul on a fellbeast along with some Khandish mercenary cavalry. This was a game where fate was against me. I left my archers securing one objective, sent a small force after the 6 archers Price moved toward the objective on my left and sent my wargs off to the right against the Khandish mercs and Khamul while Mauhur and Saruman drove up the center of the table toward the far objective. It was close initially, but my 7" move for the scouts came in handy in this game and I got the Easterling army to break when I had secured 2 objectives; now I just needed the game to continue a couple of turns and watch as some of the Easterlings failed their Stand Fast rolls so I could get one more objective; unfortunately the scenario has a variable end and Price rolled a "2" at the end of the turn he broke and the game ended in a draw...I needed one more turn for the win...oh, well...

Dinner - My wife was done with her day at the spa, shopping and gambling so she joined me for dinner at the venue. It was very good and we both really liked it. There was plenty of food and I don't think anyone went hungry.

Day 2, Game 4 - Well I was doing really poorly and hoped to get at least one win on the second day. I knew that it would be a challenge when I saw I was facing Gary L in the "Seize the Prize" scenario. I had faced Gary a couple of years ago at GITD and he is a tough, friendly, player that doesn't make mistakes and plays to win. Gary ran a "White Company" list with the upgraded Faramir, Eowyn and Beregond leading a bunch of Osgiliath veterans and rangers. The modified scenario required the artifact be exited off of the opponents edge to win. With my speed and Gary only having one mounted model (Faramir) I hoped that I could work some magic. It really turned into a meat grinder for both of us and the re-roll from Faramir won Gary quite a few combats. The key turning point, for me at least, was actually fairly early in the game. I had a clear line of sight to Faramir with Saruman and I tried to Sorcerous Blast him to get him off of his horse; he ended up using all of his will and might to resist. After that Gary thought about moving him, but left him in place which gave me an opportunity. Gary appeared to be lining Faramir up for a charge and had left a gap in his line through which Faramir could move; well on the next turn I caste Compel using 2 dice knowing that he couldn't resist and I was positioned to be able to surround Faramir and hopefully do some damage to him. No such luck as I rolled snake eyes and Faramir thumbed his nose at Saruman. I did manage to dig up the artifact and hand it off to Saruman and tried to break through on the far left only to die to a man. Good, challenging game that I could have won...

The last game of the tournament left me matched up with Eric Roof's Dwarf army. Eric runs Conquest Miniatures and produces wonderful figures. The scenario was standard "Meeting Engagement". We traded casualties for the first part of the game, but I think I peeled off too much of my strength to my left in an effort to surround 4-6 dwarfs Eric had moved there to shield his ballista. I had an opportunity for glory when I managed to get Sorcerous blast off at the start of my move that took down his King's Champion, the 2 accompanying banners and Dain! I immediately swamped all of those figures hoping to get some wounds in on them and keep them on the ground...sadly, my dice failed me because eventhough I won all 4 combats, I didn't do a single wound...and that's with rolling double dice with multiple attacks from ferals and Mauhur on each figure!!!! Ugh...sadly for me...after that the dwarfs stood up and just went to work. Eric broke me and though I had him close to break I reached 25% pretty quickly after I was broken. Good game against a good opponent.

After the last game ended at 330pm they did a quick Q&A session without many answers and though the schedule said awards were supposed to be given out at 430pm we were told to be back at 515pm for the awards. I didn't like the delay because we were leaving right after the awards to drive home. Well 515pm came and went and they finally started on the awards just before 6pm, and though they went through them quickly I don't think it made up for the huge delay.

Next post will be on some general thoughts about the TOS...

Another LOTR Isengard Additon

Well, I've finished off another figure for my LOTR Isengard Uruk-hai scouts, Mauhur. He's a character from White Dwarf that benefits from a 7" base move which can be used in rough terrain, and for 1 point each other scouts in an army be upgraded to "marauders" with the same movement bonus. I've only used him on one game and found the extra movement beneficial.

Up next on the painting bench are 48 more 28mm Republican Romans for Mike, some 28mm American Civil War for myself, basing some already painted 15mm figures, and some Warmaster Dwarfs for Al.

28mm Roman Triarii

Well, it goes without saying, but I've been in a definite painting funk for the past few months and I think I'm finally snapping out of it. This week I finished off a couple of units of 28mm Republican Roman Triarii by Crusader Miniatures. These are part of a paint-for-trade deal that I'm working on completing for my friend Mike. I previously completed the Velites for the army and will begin working on the Hastati, Princeps and Cavalry eventually (first I'm going to do some 15mm WWII for Mike). I really liked painting these figures once I got into the flow. The sculpts are nice and they are pretty straight-forward without intricate detail.

Next up, besides the 15mm WWII for Mike, is completing my LOTR army for the "Throne of Skulls" tournament in Vegas in June. I actually finished second overall at this year's Gathering in the Desert. I've only got one new figure to paint and some touch-ups on my Uruk-hai Raider/Scout force to do and I'll be done. After that is done, then I'm not sure what else will be next...but it's good to finally be thinking about painting again.

Lord of the Rings: Isengard Additions

Well, the Gathering in the Desert Independant Lord of the Rings tournament is next weekend and I finished a few figures to go along with the army I'll be running. At one point in time I was delusional and thought I could run a completely new/different army each time this annual tournament came around, but reality set in and I simply don't have the time for that; plus, I really like the two armies I have completed, Rohan and Isengard scouts. This year I decided to stick with the Isengard Uruk-hai scouts, but with a twist. I was inspired by the "A Dark Day in Rohan" scenario in White Dwarf 362 to run Saruman with a bunch of scouts in the mission to meet Dunland chieftan Thrydan Wolfsbane. So here's Saruman who will be the leader of my force in the tournament. I've previously posted pics about the Uruk-hai in the army, so you can check back to see pictures of them.

Saruman will start the game mounted and I have the foot figure ready for when/if his horse becomes an arrow-catcher.

Tim K, who is running the tournament has some sort of "emissary" scenario where a regular foot model that isn't part of your main army needs to exit the board and I wanted to get one of the Uruk-hai scouts carrying Merry or Pippin from the Amon-hen box, but the only place I've seen them is up on Ebay and I keep losing out on the auctions. Faced with not having those figures, I had 2 options: 1) paint up and use Grima as the emissary, or 2) use some other unique figure. I decided against Grima because I didn't want to possibly confuse my opponent, so I went with "A Mighty Orc Warrior" pictured below!

So, I'll be bringing a knife to a gunfight again...the army is predominantly D4 & D5 which isn't good when I'll be facing Defence 6 armies for the most part with the same or higher Fight value. The strength of the Uruk scouts will help, but being outnumbered won't help. Isengard and Rohan are the two Lord of the Rings armies that have suffered the most from stat creep in the game and that likely isn't going to change any time soon. I like the armies and I'll keep playing them because of that and if I win a few games it will make it all the more sweeter! And after running Isengard for 2 years in a row, I will likely switch back to Rohan next year...

See Ya' 2010

Well, I only managed 13 posts this year (14 if you count this one)...better than 2009 but not where I want to be. I've had some real life stuff taking up time and just haven't had that "hobby" drive I need to focus and do things consistently like paint and blog! That said, here's what I've done off of my "wish list" for 2010:

1-Finish Uruk-Hai scout army for LOTR: Done, but I will eventually be adding stuff to the army.

2-Do terrain for Gathering in the Desert 2010: Done. I've toyed with the idea of getting rid of the Osgiliath terrain because I no longer have armies for any game that fit that basing, but I still have it.

3-15mm Napolenics: Done...kind of...I ended up selling/trading what I had acquired off. The guys I game with have more than enough 15mm Nappy's and anything I was going to contribute would be duplication.

4-Finish Trucks for my DAK FOW Army: Work in progress...I'm a lot closer than I was last year...just some detailing and basing to do. I would have been done, but I did some additions to my 8th Army force and also additions to a Late War Soviet force that I acquired instead.

5-Chariots for Mitanni WAB Army: These have been passed off to Tim K to finish up as the final part of a trade that we entered into years ago.

6-40k Stormtroopers: Done...mostly...just have some detail and basing to do. This went to the back burner pending the new DH codex coming out.

7-WHFB Army: I have a Tomb King army that I had previously owned and I think I may get rid of it. I won't play WHFB competitively so I may just stick with my Dwarf Wars stuff when I get around to playing this game.

8-New 40k Army: Didn't happen...

9-Base up 15mm Marian Army: Didn't happen...but I did have Tim K paint up a 15mm Mongol army that I have to base up as well...so something did get done on the 15mm ancients front.

10-Start new game: I purchased stuff for Dystopian Wars...and I'm also thinking of Warmaster...

Well...it was an "ok" year...at least I got to play a lot more games than I thought I would. Now I'll mull over what I want to accomplish in 2011 and post that up when I get if figured out!

More 2010 Gathering in the Desert pictures

Here are a few other pictures from this years Gathering In The Desert. There were some really nicely painted armies there.

GITD Pictures

Well, it's actually been a couple of months since the 2010 Gathering in the Desert for Lord of the Rings SBG and I'm finally getting around to posting a couple of photos I took. I took some notes, but can't find them so instead I'll just make a couple of observations that have stuck with me:

• Tim and his wife Shannon did a great job in putting the event on. They were organized and everything went off without a hitch.
• The players were top-notch; at least all of my opponents were. There were no "push-overs", that's for sure.
• The tables looked great...thanks to everyone who contributed to the tables.
• Armies and army composition are tough. Defense 6 and a tough character or two rule the day in the game now it appears. My forces for the past 2 years (Rohan and Uruk Raiders) have suffered greatly IMO at the hands of the dreaded "creap" as subsequent armies or armies with actual supplements have gotten better. Nothing like having a lower Defense, lower or the same Fight, Lower or the same Strength than your opponent AND being outnumbered!
• Also, I know composition is tough, but some allied contingents always make me scratch my head...and I'll leave it at that.
• Playing to the scenario is discouraging when your opponent would rather just focus on breaking your army and then can mop up and get extra points.
• I'm not sure which army or if I'll play next year. I have always used a different/new army at GITD and I have unpainted Easterlings, Dwarves and Orcs that I could get ready for next year, but I need to take a step back and see if I want to play.

Well enough of that...here are some pictures.

GITD 2010 - Rohan Settlement Debut

OK, so here is a possible lay out for my "Rohan" settlement for the GITD. It would look better on a mottled green and brown table, but all I had was green to chose from. The road, rivers and bridge are from JR Miniatures. The buildings are Old Glory. The Fences are from Pegasus (but have been repainted). I've had the hills for years; they were made by a local gamer (thanks Neil). And I did the tree pieces. They are Xmas tree armatures I got from Michaels...I brushed the snow off with an old toothbrush, sprayed them with Krylon camo brown, mounted them on some pieces of wood (also got from Michaels), stuccoed the bases and put some rocks down and then used Woodland Scenics foliage that comes in a small sheet that you unfold and cut and stretch. I think they look OK from a distance...less so from close up, but not bad. I didn't have time to replace or modify the roofs for the buildings in a true "Rohan" style....sorry...maybe next year.

GITD 2010 - The Return of Osgiliath!

Well, I had set a date of February 1st to be done with my army and terrain projects for this year GITD...it turns out I needed a few extra weeks, but I got it done! Here are some pics of a possible layout for "the dreaded Osgiliath" table this year. I eliminated one of the larger buildings from last year and replaced it with the "weathertop" Hirst Arts kit I won last year. I also eliminated a few of the smaller building pieces and added more rubble. It still will be a challenging table for all hopefully. One note...the large 3 storybuilding doesn't have the floor pieces in it for these pictures...it will for the tournament though. See you all there!

GITD 2010 Terrain Progress Report 2: Rohan

Well, here are some pieces that will likely be on the Rohan table I'm doing for GITD 2010. The great thing about these pieces is they can work for a wide variety of settings...I'm sure some will end up on the table when doing 28mm ACW as well as 28mm WWII Eastern Front! So, here's what I have so far:

Fences by Pegasus Hobbies, but I repainted them to fit in with the rest of the terrain. The bridge is from JR Miniatures. The sheds (there are actually 2) are from Old Glory and they have lift off roofs. The watering troughs are also Old Glory. I'm not sure where the well is from; it is resin and I've had it for a long time and I finally had a reason to paint it up.

Here are 2 Old Glory houses. These come from their Russian building range. As you can see the roofs lift off. The doors are metal and the buildings are resin. I tried to get the doors so they could open, but they it was impossible for me to do so...the combination of the size & weight of the door, the place to drill for rare earth magnets or pins, and the relatively thin resin at the bottom of the door defeated my feable modeling skills. So the doors are glued in...deal with it!

Here's a closer picture of one of the houses.

And a closer picture of the second house.

And here's a barn from Old Glory. It is similar to the house, but with a staw roof. I have 2 of these as well because they came in a set along with the shed and some large log walls that I will be painting up after the tournament. This is a little shiney because I had just gotten done putting a coat of spray polyeurothane on it. It will be dulcoted once it dries for a nice flat look.

The last pieces of terrain I have to finish off for the Rohan table are some woods...I'll put some pictures up once I finish them off.

GITD 2010 Terrain Progress Report 1: Osgiliath

Well I've actually been doing pretty good with the terrain I've been working on for GITD 2010. Here's the Hirst Arts piece that I won last year for the Osgiliath table I did. Thanks again to Tim K. for putting it together for me. I did some light rubble on it. It will make a good addition to the Osgiliath table for this years tournament! Once I finish off the pieces for the Rohan settlement I'm doing for this year, I'm going to figure out how I'm going to rearrange the Osgiliath table.

Terrain for the 2010 Gathering in the Desert

Last year I supplied a rubbled "Osgiliath" table for the Gathering in the Desert Lord of the Rings tournament. I received an award for the table which consisted of a nice kit from Hirst Arts. After much procrastination I finally broke down and had Tim K assemble the piece. I just got it back last week and added some rubble to it and just got done priming it. It will be part of a slightly modified "Osgiliath" table at this years GITD next month...many of the same pieces as last year will be there, but it will be reconfigured somewhat.

When I won that Hirst Arts piece, I got thinking about another table I could do at the same time I got thinking about what army I'd like to field. Since I all ready had a Rohan force and had some figures to start an Uruk-hai scout army, I figured I'd do a Rohan settlement. The settlement will have consist of pieces mainly from Old Glory, JR Miniatures, and Pegasus Hobbies along with some scratch built pieces. I spent this morning priming everything using Krylon Ultra-flat black and Ultra-flat brown (for the tree armatures). Now I just have a month to finish it! The good news is that I like painting terrain and can bust through it pretty quickly once I get it primed and ready to go. The hardest part will be the trees which I'll seperate into smaller groups, glue to bases (which will need additional detailing) and flock with leaves.

Here are some pics of what I have to tackle:

Wish me luck!

Cross One Off The List!

Well, I can cross one of my "to do" items for 2010 off of the list...I finished up my Uruk-hai Scout Army up for Lord of the Rings. It also has some Dunland Allies with it. I was actually done a few weeks ago, but was under the weather and finally got around to takeing some quick pictures. So, here they are:

Sharku, some Orcs (for dismounted Warg riders), and some scouts

Some Feral Uruks, more Warg riders and scouts

Scouts and Warriors of Dunland
Lurtz, Ugluk, Vrasku, and Dunland Command

The Army

Now, there is over 600 points here and I have a few different list options that I've come up with. I have tested one list and I have a game scheduled tomorrow with Tim K and I'll try another one then. I still have some time to figure out how to configure the army, so that's good. I do feel that, like last year when I ran my all mounted Rohan force, I'm bringing a knife to a gun fight.

A New Year - 2010 resolutions?

Well, the New Year and New Decade is here and though I haven't been updating this blog much I have actually been doing some gaming related activities. I had a target date of December 31st to finish off my Uruk-Hai scout army for LOTR, but I'm going to be a little behind on that...maybe this weekend...the reason I'm mostly behind is that I decided to do up another box of Warg Riders that I won at the Gathering In the Desert Primer event. So here's my "plan" (subject to change at any time, of course!) for 2010:

1-Finish the Uruk scouts for LOTR: I plan on taking pics and posting them next weekend.

2-Do a bunch of buildings from Old Glory and JR Miniatures, along with some accessories from Pegasus and a piece from Hirst Arts; I want to get this done by the end of January or so because I'll need this stuff for a couple of tables I'm supplying for the Gathering in the Desert.

3-Touch up and rebase a bunch of 15mm Napoleonics I got in a trade. I traded off a 25mm Early Imperial Roman army for these troops since some of the local guys have started playing Napoleon's Battles and Shako II. I'll likely trade/sell off the Russians I got so I can expand the French and Poles I have.

4-Finish up the 15mm DAK trucks for my FOW army.

5-Finally finish up the chariots for my 25mm Mitanni army for WAB.

6-Get some figures suitable for 40k Stormtroopers to add to my Daemonhunter Army.

7-Start on a Warhammer Fantasy Army: I have a large number of Dwarf Wars figures that I can proxy as either an Orc army or an Empire army based on how they are armed, but lately I've been thinking of starting either a Skaven or a Dark Elf army instead.

8-Start on another 40k army: I have my Grey Knights and I think I will start off by adding IGuard and Space Marine allies with possibly expanding these to full blown armies in the future. I'm also interested in Eldar and Dark Eldar though too...

9-Finish off and base up a 15mm Marian Roman army that was painted by Philgreg painters in Sri Lanka. This is for Might of Arms...a good game which I hope to play more of this year.

10-Commit to one "new" game...I'm thinking this will be Uncharted Seas, but we'll see.

That's all for now...hopefully I'll have the time (once my son's basketball season is over with at least) to update the blog more frequently.

Happy New Year!
Tom

More DAK and "What's Next?"

OK, so here are some more (poor) pictures of my 15mm DAK Flames of War army. It's playable; I just have to finish up the detailing on all of the softskin transports. Infantry are Battlefront, Tanks are Old Glory and the guns are from both manufacturers.

So, now that I'm pretty much done with that, "what's next?" Well, I'm working on another Lord of the Rings army that I'll be using in the February Gathering in the Desert (pictures of that when I get further in the project). I also want to do some terrain for the event; I like having deadlines in some cases because it motivates me. I've also started collecting up models for a 40k Space Marine Army I want to do.

Until next time...hopefully it won't be 7 months!

DONE!!!!!!!

Well, I can FINALLY say it...MY ROHAN ARMY IS DONE!!!! (actually shouted it...sorry!). I've been working on this army for a while now with the aim of getting the entire army done in time for the Gathering in the Desert Lord of the Rings tournament which is this upcoming weekend. I took some time on this army with some extra highlighting that I normally don't do when I'm painting "assembly line" style. I also didn't just do the figures that I needed for the tournament...I did every single Rohan model I had, including extras that I won't be using this weekend, so that's good. Oh, and I did up a small display board which blends in with the figure bases and I can use to carry the army from table to table with. Each of the mounted models in the entire force has a dismounted figure...some of the shields are not the same, but the entire force comes out to be: Theoden, Gamling, Eomer, Eowyn, Captain, Standard, 6 royal guard, 10 bow armed riders, and 20 throwing spear armed riders (again, all of these have dismounts...oh, and I have a dismounted Merry too).

Sneak Peak of my GITD Tournament Army:

Another view of my GITD Tournament army:

Yet another view of my GITD Tournament army:

The entire Rohan Army:


It feels good to "finish" something...as with all projects, I'm only done with them until the urge hits me to add more to them!

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!