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...

Flames of War Afrika Korps Completed!

Well, as I've mentioned on more than one occaision I've had a cloud hanging over me in the form of an unfinished DAK army for Flames of War; I have finally removed the cloud! I just got done dulcoting the trucks for the army that have taken so long for me to complete. They are a mixture of Old Glory and Battlefront; I have to say I like the Battlefront single piece resin trucks better than the Old Glory from the standpoint of not having to assemble them! While I was at it I put a wash on the tanks and guns for the army...as you can see in my post from October 2009, the tanks were a bit light for my liking once I got them on the table, so I put a brown ink wash on them and they look much better. So that's one thing done from this year's list!

Hello 2011!

Wow...2 posts in 2 days...a good way to end the year I guess! So...having taken a bit of time to look back on my gaming efforts in 2010 I now turn to looking forward into what I'd like to accomplish in 2011. I had 10 items on my list for 2010 and I did ok, so I think I'll shoot for 10 more things in 2011. Here they go in the order I'd like to get them done:

1-Finish the freaking DAK for FOW! Ugh...this has been hanging out there for me and I just have a little ways to go, so I'm going to focus on it and get it out of the way so it's no longer haunting me!

2-Paint the rest of the 28mm Republican Roman Army for Mike. I have the velites done and the triarri preped and primed, so I'm looking forward to getting this done.

3-Assemble, paint and game with the Dystopian Wars Prussians I got. The models are very nice and the rules look good...just need to get ready to play!

4-Paint some 10mm Warmaster Dwarfs as part of a trade. This will be the first 10mm stuff I've painted in a number of years since I did a bunch of WWII (before moving to 28mm then 15mm); I'm looking forward to it because the figures are nice and should paint up quickly.

5-Base up the 15mm Mongol army for Might of Arms that Tim K from Saguaro Painting Service (see links section) painted for me.

6-I have 3 projects currently being completed by other people as parts of various trades. I'm in no rush to get them back because as you can tell I have a ton of other things to do, but when I do get them back I aim to do any completion work (namely basing) right when I get them back and not put them on the shelf in an incomplete state. Having stuff in an incomplete state is driving me crazy because I have too much of it already!

7-Begin working on the 15mm Polish FOW army I have. This army is for the Polish 10th Mechanized Brigade and is all True North figures that I purchased from Old Glory.

8-Finish painting and base up the 15mm Marian Roman army I have for Might of Arms.

9-Work on getting some of the 28mm American Civil War figures and units I have done. I'd like to build the forces for the Peach Orchard at Gettysburg eventually. I have Barksdale's Brigade and Graham's Brigade organized, now I have to get them cleaned/prepped and decide whether I'm going to try to speed paint them myself or send them off to Sri Lanka to get painted.

10-Something else that I'm undecided about. One of my big problems is that I like a plethora of time periods, game scales, etc. and I don't know how many times I've invested in a game only to have my attention switch focus and end up selling/trading stuff I've never used. I doubt this will ever change for me when it comes to gaming interests, so I figure that this year there will be a project that pops up that I will focus on and begin work on...whether it ever sees the table...who knows! That said, several gaming possibilities keep entering my thoughts including: 28mm English Civil War, 28mm American Revolution, 15mm Fantasy, 10mm Eastern Renaissance/Thirty Years War, 15mm Modern African wars in an alternate setting, expanding my Daemonhunters for 40k when the new codex comes out, and who knows what else!

So, that's what I'm looking at for the upcoming year. It goes without saying that I want to be able to play games too! That's one good thing I managed to do in 2010 with games of 15mm and 28mm ancients, 15mm WWII, Lord of the Rings, 15mm Viet Nam, 28mm ACW, Legends of the Old West, and others being played. Considering that 4 items from my list entail finishing things that are already started, and 2 other items are doing things for other people, I think I can get through a lot of the list and have a productive 2011. Oh, yea...I'd like to try to record more on this blog too...just takes time!

Later,

Tom O

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!

28mm Roman Velites

Well I've been busy and not as dedicated to my painting efforts as I should be...that said, I have managed to get something done recently. Here are a couple of photos of some 28mm Roman Velites that I'm painting up for Mike as part of a trade. They are from Crusader Miniatures and were great figures to work with. They were easy and enjoyable to paint. Next up for Mike's Roman Army for WAB are the Triarii which I'll post pictures of when I've finished them. Eventhough I'm not painting as much as I'd like, I've been getting in about a game a week and having fun, so there's that!

28mm American Civil War - 114th Pennsylvania

Here is the first completed unit for my 28mm American Civil War Union force. It's the 114th Pennsylvania Volunteers. The figures are a mix of 1st generation Old Glory and Sash & Saber. I purchased some of the figures (Old Glory) off of Bartertown a few years ago and sent the Sash & Saber off to Sri Lanka for painting (I hate trying to match paint jobs). I finally got around to basing the figures up and finishing them off...the flags are from GMB and they look very nice.

114th PA Color Guard

114th PA

I have plenty of other 28mm ACW to paint up. I'm going to try to work on the rest of the 1st Brigade/1st Division/III Corps from Gettysburg to start with, and then I'll likely move on to Barksdale's Mississippi Brigade. This is a long term project and I'm in no rush. I'll use the figures for either Johnny Reb III or for a set of rules that my friend Don is working on.

Warhammer 40k Stormtrooper Conversions

OK, so as anyone can tell you (especially Robert from the Drunken Samurai Paiting Blog and Tim from Cursed Treasures) I am not much of a modeler, nor have I done a lot of conversions. I have a rather large Warhammer 40k Daemonhunter Army that I've been wanting to add some Stormtroopers too for quite some time, but I don't like the standard GW ones. I saw some various posts up on the 'net somewhere that inspired me to do the following conversions. I used plastic Cadians to which I added WHFB Knights of the White Wolf capes along with heads from the West Wind Secrets of the 3rd Reich range; the heads are French Adrian helmets with gasmasks and they look ok on the models. I also converted a couple of flamers into meltaguns as you can see below. I'm hoping these guys look better once they are painted...now I just have to decide on a paint scheme!