Harad Army - Completed

Here are the shots of my completed Harad army for Lord of the Rings.  I actually took these three weeks ago and just found them on my camera.  I'm very pleased with how this army came out.  There is, certainly, room for improvement and I could tweak quite a few details, but all in all I'm very happy.

The entire army, with some extra models to give me choices.

Painting Status III

I've been wrapping up my Haradrim army this month.  I don't think I'm going to make my goal of twenty painted models for March, but I'm really quite pleased with how these came out.  It's another twelve models.  Six Warriors with spears and then all of the heroes and specials.  I'll get my Betrayer painted up, to use instead of the generic Nazgul model I have been using, but that should be it on this army.  It's going to be used by the Traveller, while he decides if he is going to invest in the game or not.  I lent him the Fallen Realms army book so he can start making his own lists, instead of using mine.  If he chooses models that I don't have painted then I'll be re-visiting this army.  I suspect that Suladan may get painted in the next couple of weeks, for example.

Without further ado, here's the new additions.

All twelve models.  There is a ton of light on these guys, I don't know why they come out so dark.

Nuradan - front...

and rear.

Aladhi - front...

and rear.

Banner bearer front.  He is not part of the current list, but such a beautiful model...

From the rear.

The Master - front...

and back.  Every time I look at these pictures I find something I missed.

Hornblower - front...

and back.

Mumak Chieftan - front...

and back.

Six spearmen.

I'll do an army shot later today with all of the lads in one place.  It's in the seventies today so, as long as the wind doesn't kick up, I'll be varnishing this army later in the afternoon.  I had hoped to get it done by the first part of March.  That didn't work out but I'm still pleased with my progress.  Now I just need to step up the pace so I can get these 39 Elves and 104 Romans and 43 Celts done in a timely manner. 

Battle Report - Harad vs Isengard Part II

Nuradan had gathered the remnants of his warband and started south, with the Betrayer urging haste every step of the way.  Following the battle for the chests all five had been brought to the Betrayer, who had searched them and secreted something within his robes.  Nuradan had no idea what the object of this expedition was but they had, apparently secured it.  Now they just had to get it back to Mordor.

The scouts informed Nuradan that the Uruk Hai were gaining from the rear, and the howls of Whargs could be heard from the front.  More worryingly, the scouts reported seeing Saruman leading his forces in pursuit.  It appeared that the white wizard had more tricks up his sleeve.  Nuradan led his force into some ruins, hoping that the ruined buildings would provide some sort of advantage against the enemy.

The initial positions of the two sides.

Battle Report - Harad vs Isengard Part I

On Monday I was able to get a couple of games in against Huntsman and his Isengard army.  Huntsman was recently blessed with the addition of a little orc in the family and has not been able to play in several months.  Our first game reflected his re-learning the rules.  Our second showed that he was definitely playing attention during the first.

Nuradan was again attached to the command of the Betrayer.  It was clear that Sauron had a plan for his men, it just wasn't at all clear what it was.  The army had force marched to the north and crossed into the lands of the horse lords.  They were supposed to meet with Saruman's Uruks.  The problem, from Nuradan's point of view was that the meeting between the Betrayer and Saruman went poorly and he found himself facing an army of angry Uruk Hai, deep in doubly hostile territory.  Some days it just didn't pay to roll out of the blankets.

The battle lines on turn four. 

The Betrayer was interested in five chests, spread through some ruins.  Saruman, apprently, did not want to give them up.  This fight would be for control of the chests, but also for the survival of Nuradan and his men.  Nuradan was able to get one of the chests, on a hill, firmly under his control.  There was a second, in some ruins at the base of the hill, that he knew he could contest at will.  The other three were on the wrong side of a bunch of angry Uruk Hai and one angry wizard.

Battle Report - Harad vs Gondor

Something a little bit different this time around.

Nuradan was feeling weak and frustrated.  His wounds were healing slowly and the Nazgul wanted to get on the road.  Nuradan's Kharna levies had fought a dozen battles against elves and men trying to keep the Dark Lord's road through Ithilien clear.  This last one had gone well, except for his own part in it.

The battle had been in the south of Ithilien, among some long forgotten and crumbling Gondorian settlement; remnant of Gondor's past glory, and the still bitter subjugation of the Tribes by the men of the White City.  The Haradrim, Nuardan's own Kharna levy as well as the Betrayer and his Abrakhan guards, had arrived first and occupied the ruins.  The heir of the Stewards, Faramir, had detected the movement of the Southrons and brought his battle company to destroy this isolated band.

Battle Report - Harad vs Gondor and Dwarfs

With the league in hiatus there were only two of us playing last night at Collectormania.  When Rhys and I arrived there was no one else there to play so he played with his Star Wars Squinkies on some Osgiliath terrain while I talked painting and rules sets with Russ and Chris.  Chris is a great painter with a really entertaining blog, which I can't find right now.  Hopefully I'll be able to dig it up or someone will shoot me the link.

Micah showed up a little after 1900 and we agreed on a game.  I had played him a couple of weeks ago, before the switch over from Legions to Warbands.  In that game he had an avenger bolt thrower and Boromir.  Two very expensive options.  His new list is led by Faramir as a ranger.  It had a Capt with five knights, Faramir leading nine rangers, a captain with six sword/board and six spear and shield and finally a Dwarf captain with five or six Iron Guard.

We rolled up Reconnoiter, which is not my favorite scenario.  It pulls me out of my comfort zone.  This is not a bad thing.  My army is designed to stay out of combat as long as possible while shooting the hell out of everything that gets in range.  If I haven't whittled my opponent down, by a lot, before we get into combat then I am going to lose.  My guys are squishy and my force is only average sized.  The opposition last night was very crunchy, and had almost as many models as I did.  Not a good place to be. 

Reconnoiter gives points for getting models off your opponent's table edge, wounding or killing the opposing general and for breaking the enemy.  His knights were a priority target.

I apologize now for the pictures.  I forgot my camera so these were taken with my phone.

Two warbands, one of which is the Nazgul and Hornblower.

The knights moving forward to try to get off the table.  Faramir, his general, with the rangers, moving up in the background.

The Gondor Phalanx followed by the slow moving Dwarfs.

Monthly Retrospective 1

What did I accomplish this month?  A big part of the reason I keep this blog is to motivate myself to get things done.  I'm always happy to play; it's harder to get myself motivated to build terrain and, especially, to paint.

I painted twenty six models.  That beats my goal of twenty a month.  That's a success and having the month end deadline definitely helped.  I'm a "beat the deadline" kind of guy.  Tournaments, challenges, those work to motivate me.  Those twenty six are completely done, to table top standard, except for grass on the bases.  I plan, eventually, to come back and hit all of them with some more paint to spiffy them up before the Mayhem in the Mountains tournament in September.

I also played quite a bit this month.  I got in seven games, which is almost two a week.  I can't really complain about that.  One of them was a teaching game, which is always a good thing.  More opponents are always good.  I hope to be doing a lot more of those this year, leading up to and following the Hobbit, since we have a two or three year window where GW cares about the game.

Painting Status II

I have completed the rank and file of my army.  All I have left is to get them based and to finish up the hornblower and three heroes.  That will be my current list finished.  I'll do two more heroes, a chieftan and Suladan as well as finishing up the extra spears I have and knocking out more archers, but that's for next month.

Twelve new archers  for the force.

Painting Progress

With all of those Romans on the way I need to get cracking on finishing up my Haradrim.  I finished six more today, the Abrakhan Merchant's Guards.  That leaves me with twelve archers, the hornblower and the heroes.  These guys need some touch ups, and the whole army will get highlights and such once they are all done.  I'm trying to get these to table top standard so that I don't have to feel ashamed to throw down at the shop.

I've been nervous about these guys because I'm still not sure how I'm going to do their flesh.  They are going to be dark skinned, but I have to play with it and figure out the recipe.  Since these guys have so much flesh on them, they will show any mistakes the most.  For now I got around that by just leaving them the basecoat color.

Group shot, I need more lights for photography.

First Miniature of the year

Here it is, almost the end of February, and I just bought my first miniature of the year.  I'm way behind.  I bought the Betrayer for my Haradrim army.  He is thirty points more than my budget Nazgul but adds the re-rolls for poison on 1 and 2, doubling my chances for a re-roll.  He also has two more might.  My play testing so far indicates that he is a good choice.  I could also drop him and go back to a budget Nazgul.  I could then upgrade my king to Suladan, since I only have thirty six warriors anyway and only need three heroes from the Fallen Realms list.  I'll get around to play testing that one soon.