Painting Update - Skeletons, Monster and Castellans

Hello All,

Got a bit more painting done over the break, so I thought I would toss up a few more quick photos. Maybe not so great of pictures but that is ok.

Skeleton Archers:

First up a few skeleton bowmen, I found some old tomb kings guys that never got painted completely before so figured I would give them a quick go. Still need to add the snow but that is not a big thing.

Castellans of Dol Guldur:

Also a few Castellans I got for Christmas, these guys maybe need a bit more done for basing but basically finished. Ready to cause some damage with their morgul blades!

The Gorm:

Finally a big scary monster. We were playing some Kingdom Death over the break so I thought I would paint one of the expansion monsters to mix things up a bit. Was pretty fun for sure.

Pledge Status, 2017:

Bought: 405
Painted: 441 
Total: 36

Thanks;
Mike

Battle Report - Battle Companies!

Hello All,

The new Lord of the Rings book is in! Battle Companies let's you play so small fast games that let's your team grow. Kind of like a frostgrave type thing I guess. Anyway figured we should give it a go.

I decided to try out the mordor company which has a few orcs, Serge went for Thranduils hall.

I set up a more wood type table, with a spider nest and pile of slulls to show it's a bad forest. First mission is to capture some weapons in the middle. It is random what edge every guy arrives on, but it wored out that the eleven were all North and West, and tge Orcs South and East.

With more guys I thought I had to get there first, then when the Elves kill me to take over I will still be in control at the end.

Orcs getting close to the goodies. Starting to get bow fire now. Some how an Orc manages to tag an elf!

Orcs in charge of the weapons,  but my bow hero has gone down.

The Elves rush in to try and get the loot.

Furious fighting, but it is not going well for the Elves, lots of casualties not good for them. Being really brave the Orc heroes keep an eye on the goodies.

Sadly the Elves break leaving the Orcs with the win! After rolling for injuries the bow armed orc hero took an arm wound so he can't shoot anymore!  Crap and the other misses a game. One Elfe missed a game as well. Reenforcements for the orcs was another bow warrior!

Game 2:

For game 2 we had to find which point wad a relic, then get it off from the enemies side, not easy.

This time the Elves race for the items. The Orcs have had to spread out which can be bad.

Perhaps as a sign of things to come, but the new Orc with bow brough down an Elf! Sadly ghe Elf ranger was not impressed by that and killed him as well.

The Elves uncover all the possible relics and get nothing, leaving the 2 on the edges. The Orcs find it on the west side and start carrying it with some 2 handed weapon guys. Sadly the third orc has am arrow in his belly.

The Orcs with the loot run for freedom as the Elves close in, and the other orcs now baldy out of position run after.

Realizing they will be getting cut off the Orcs wit the relic pull back to try a different route. The Elves try to keep up pressure with arrows.

Cat and mouse game continues, trying to use woods to stay safe from the arrows of doom. Hoping the other guys can tie up the orcs whole these guys run!

This us going ok but the arrows are taking there toll.

Almost there just run!!!

So close I can taste the victory. The Orcs are rolling courage tests to stick around.  With an abysmal courage of 2 they are mostly doing it. Next turn they get with in one move of the edge. But dye to a miscalclarion the Elves can get both guys and they die. The Orcs route so it's a draw.

Not to bad on injuries. That heroic bow guy got killed and another guy has an old battle wound.  The Elves have an Old Wound as well now, and the Ranger got even better at arrow murder  (reroll 1S to wound).
 My group gained another shield guy and the Elves got another archer which is just painful!

Battle Companies was pretty fun will have to give it another go some time.

Thanks;
Mike

Painting Update - Undead + Lord of the Rings

Hello Folks,

Way over due on another painting update, not going to lie. Sometimes I just get lazy I guess not really sure hah. Anyway here is the stuff I have been working on since the last time, possible that I forgot something,  but I think I got it mostly covered.

Riders of Rohan:

Another set of Riders, this time plus a banner guy. I am starting to have problems with them staying on their bases now. On guy pulled off, some of them only have 1 foot on the ground which is just a terrible design choice in my opinion. The banner is mounted and his horse visible deflected when I laid him on it, so I decided to just put in a giant pin on the front going to the ground.

Erkenbrand:

Of course getting to the point now where I need a hero for all of these Rohan guys, so I painted up Erkenbrand, was already heading towards that what with the red shields. Next set of 6 will be for another Hero. This guy is a cool model thou I like it.

Celeborn and Fountain:

Last bit of painting I got done was Celeborn and Galadriels Fountain (she was already done from this set earlier). I just felt like painting this one day not sure why.

Mariachi Band:

Then I had an Old West game coming up so I decided to paint up the band I got at Fall-In. I like collecting Western Civilians for some reason, at this point I think I have more of them then gunfighters probably hah.

Sepulchral Guard:

The big diversion was Skeletons! I saw this set that got released for Shadespire, and could not resist getting them to paint. They are the best Skeletons in a long time hah. Particularly like the half guy.

More Skeletons:

Well painting Skeletons was kind of fun so I felt like doing more. Christmas was coming up and I often do something Warhammer related to play back home. SO I thought why not just do more and play Age of Sigmar so I went for that.

Wow Really More Skeletons?:

Just another 10 wasn't enough so I got another box to work on. I cheated a bit here, already had 3 from way back when so I just did 7 to finish the unit. Would have done the other 3 but I just ran out of time. I finished these off on Tuesday and Christmas is right here now!

Took a scythe from another set to make a cool champion for this unit. Including another unit I already had this gives me 4 units plus a commander and some wizards, should be a laugh.

Pledge Status, 2017:

Bought: 405
Painted: 426 
Total: 21

Seems like I won't be able to beat last years record, but should come close. Actually I changed how the accounting works for 6mm stuff is part of it. Need to beat the 500 model barrier some year hah.

Thanks;
Mike

Battle Report - Lord of the Rings - Goblins vs Men and Elves

Hello All,

Another Lord of the Rings battle report for you all. Once again made a trip to FDB to play a 700 point game. This time I was good with some Gondor gut and a few elves facing off against all of the goblins.

Here is the start point.  I put Boromir and his group right in the middle to try and hold that objective. My hope was that his horn of Gondor would mean lots of dead Goblins. Others spread out a bit. Made a bit of a mistake with Damrod and the archers and had them a bit to close to the middle. Actually takes me to an annoyance with some these missions, you can have guys that start in charge range, which really takes out any manoeuvre.

Things got moving pretty fast with lots of goblins storming Boromir and the king murdering his way up the steps. A goblin shaman casted Fury making people pass corage test, this negated Boromir horn, so not good. On the far side Faramir faced down a troll, and Damrod was attacked by lots of Goblins.

Push continues, Damrod goes down easy so the archers are left doing a fighting retreat.

The king makes his way to Boromir and makes short work of him. Things are going a bit better for Faramir. Arwen knocked down the troll once, but sadly theen if Gondor failed to capatilize on that.

Goblins start to press through, at this point it us only a matter of time before the good side breaks.

Dventually the Goblins close in and see the deal. Some interesting small battles but not enough.  I think like 20ish goblins died which is not bad but there first break point wad like 32.

Made a few mistakes with Damrod and Boromir which cost me to much I think was the issue.

Thanks;
Mike

Battle Report - Team Yankee (Stripes!)

Hello All;

Got the chance over the weekend to try out another game of Team Yankee with Duncan and Stan. We played 80 points so I made an 80 point force and they did 40 points each. One East German tank company and one Russians mech infantry one.

The new US book has just come out so I was pretty excited to try it out hoping for better results. New stuff in my list were hummers with stinger AA missiles,  and improves production on the tanks giving them 1 more front armor for 1 point each.

We played Free for All, I wanted to go for a mission without reserves and that is the only one!

Duncan had set up a very nice table and we deployed. I am kin of split on both sides to cover the objectives, the Red Tide is just everywhere as you can see.

Turn 1 my plan was to knock out Stans t-72s with my tanks before they could do serious damage, aND for my VADS to take out some smallets b class vehicles. This went ok but not great. On the other side I pulled back to be on the hill and got some more shots. Need high ground to survive the Red Tide right?

Generals view.

The Germans just advanced but the Russians fired away destroying an abhrams. I fired back as I could and tried to scoot into cover which failed.

Couple of turns later. A few more tanks are down, but the Germans are closing the noose on the left. I have been chipping away at them but a combination of not great luck and tons of Russian vehicles to kill is taking a toll. A couple more abhrams are down which really cuts into my fire power.

Everyone is closing in around now and allot of my tanks are Germans. Feel like that guy in the Fellowship of the Ring movie. The drums in the deep,,,,,, they are coming.

 Finally the Germans press into the woods and kill my last guy so it is a total loss for the US, even the choppers are down.


Was pretty disappointing I am going to lie, not much of a better situation for Abhrams forces. But there is at least lots of new lists and things to try now!

Still have yet to see a US win thou and that's not great.

Thanks;
Mike

Battle Report - lord of the Rings - Lords of Battle

Hello All;

Time for another Wednesday wargaming battle report! Once again playing some Hobbit games, thus week instead of a scenario we headed over to the local hobby store and played a points match game, 700 points. I had all 3 Trolls (Bill, Tom,  and Bert), a Ring wraith, an Orc Captain, and some orcs. Facing off against Rada gast a couple of Eagles, and a few Dwarfs, Thorn,  Dwalin,  Gloin,  and Noticed I think.

Mission was Lords of Battle where you basically get points for Murder and the game can end suddenly after one side is broken.

The store (FDB) quickly set up a nice table for us, call it the Ruins of Armor maybe? I hAve trolls and Angmar Orcs so makes sense for the to be there, and Thorn and Radagast are both known to wander, works for me.

As you can see the Dwarfs are looking a bit hard pressed facing up to 3 Trolls some orcs and a wraith!

So they fall back, I was hoping to shoot and had priority so they got away! The Eagles swoop in thou with an eye for a tasty snack.

My priority again so all advance. Last turn the wraith sapped Thorin's wI'll now it is Nori's turn. Other side Orcs are fighting Eagles. They are doing quite well but not getting any wounds in.

Thorn and Dwalin show up to help the Eagles. That is not good for business, also the Captain got eaten last turn.  So the Orcs retreat.

Next turn the Dwarfs are starting to feel the pinch. The Orcs are catching up! Nori gets compelled by the wraith to stumble forward into some Orcs. So the others head back. That means the Orcs can go back to fighting Eagles. They are mostly to scared to charge but a 2-handed weapon guy takes off a wound!

The Dwarfs get one more turn, now fully engaged with the orcs before it's Troll time. But they are not doing well winning fights. The Eagles are chipping away at the Orcs thou bit by bit.

Now the real fight finally happens! Nori is killed first and a couple others are in trouble.

An Eagle tries to help Thorn and fights off But, but Thorn gets stuffed in a sack. Mean while an angry Tom squeezes Radagast to hard.

In the final turn Thorn bust out of the sack and managed to survive! But Bert killed an Eagle anfld I think Tom killed Dwalin.

With the good guys broke we rolled to see if the battle would keep up but it ended. Evil was ahead a bit on kill points with like a dozen or so Orcs killed, but the heroes are worth 4-5 point each, the extra for not being broken sealed the deal.

Was a fun game I thought pretty close really. The Eagles and Dwalin both did much worse then expected so could have turned around quick!

Thanks;
Mike