Basing

As noted below, I have quite a few new figures inbound.  These are all historicals, Romans and Celts.  Coming from a GW background, I like my minis individually based.  Add to that the endless variety of historical rules with their basing arcana and I have been at a loss as to how I am going to base these models.

I've decided that I will base them individually.  I can build movement trays of whatever size is necessary for the rules I'm playing.  I am, very strongly, leaning towards round bases.  The reason for this is simple, I want to be able to use them for skirmish games.  I want to use the Lord of the Rings SBG rules.  These need round bases.

If I use the GW War of the Ring movement trays I can fit eight round bases on a tray.  Two of these will suffice for HC, especially if my opponent is using the same style.  So!  Problem solved you say!  Not so fast.  I am having a hard time finding the bases I need.  I found an ebay seller who sells 100 for a couple of pounds.  Great.  Only the shipping works out to be three times what the bases cost.  There are a bunch of sellers who sell in smaller quantities for more money.  I'll keep looking for the solution to this one.

This leads to the next part of the question.  Using Romans and Celts in a skirmish game, what stats will I give them?  I know there is a yahoo group dedicated to alternate uses of the LotR rules.  I also happen to know the author of Legends of the High Seas, so could ask for advice from him.  I want to work this one out on my own, (though I may still hit up Tim for advice).  I'm thinking, right now with no play testing, that I will use Uruk Hai for the Romans.  For the Celts I'm leaning towards orcs, though that is still not a great fit for me.  It may take some fiddling but I'm going to work this out.

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.

Battle Report - Harad vs Galadrim - Again

The ongoing grudge match between Harad and Lothlorien continued tonight.  I got to Collectormania early.  Jonathan showed up a bit later and, yet again, we were left with only each other to play against.  Don't get me wrong, I always enjoy playing against Jonathan, he's a great opponent and our games are always nail biters.  It's just that, if you look at the bat reps on this site, you'll see that we play each other more than anyone else.

Now that the league is over we are firmly into the new "Warbands" era, leaving "Legions" behind for good.  This means a new meta-game.  All armies, in the local group, have gotten smaller.  We are, mostly, still trying out new lists and making our first purchases of new models, mainly heroes.

Jonathan's list was Rumil, an archer captain and a mounted captain.  Rumil had his phalanx, spears and pikes, though smaller than under Legions.  The archer captain was leading, oddly, eight archers.  The knight captain had four knights, two with bows and six sword and spear elves.  My list is pretty much the levy of Kharna list.  The Betrayer, Haradrim King, Taskmaster, Chieftan, one Warrior of Abrakhan with horn, six Abrakhan guards, twelve haradrim with spears and eighteen warriors of Kharna with bows.  This gives me eighteen shots hitting on threes with poison re-rolls on a third of the dice (1-2).  With the points for the Kharna upgrade I could add five more models.  So far, in four games, the upgrade seems to be worth the points.  We'll see how it works out in the long run.

Initial Deployment.  The Taskmaster's ill fated band is behind the ruins to the left.  You can see the hornblower.

Four Month Plan II

My original plan, found here, is going to have to change a little bit.  The new source books change things a lot.  I'm going to have to react to that, so...

Goal 1:  Have my entire Harad army painted.  This is not going to be done by the end of the league as I have to figure out what my new army is likely to look like.  I'm not going to paint figures that will not be making it into the list, long term.  I'll keep working on spears and bows and Abrakhan Merchant's Guards, since I know they will be in the list.  The rest will have to wait.

Lord of the Rings Source Books - Initial Impressions

My initial impression - I don't like the changes but it's not game breaking and I think everything will be fine in the long run; except for Rohan, they are just as bad as before.

What I don't like:

1.  The Warbands rule.  You have to have a hero for every twelve warriors.  This forces smaller armies.  The hordes are pretty much dead.  There's nothing wrong with hordes.  It was a viable army build.  In return for more warriors you had fewer heroes.  Most factions don't have cheap heroes meaning a bunch of troops are going to have to be dropped to fit in the extra heroes.  This rule just takes away options from the player.  I'm not sure what problem GW was trying to fix with this.

Battle Report - Harad vs Galadrim

Last Thursday Jonathan and I played my first game of the league. It was a reprise of the game from the week before, his Galadrim led by Glorfindel and Rumil against my Haradrim. I was tripped up at the last second by the League rule that you can only ally one faction into your army, a rule I believe we should change, by the way. Consequently I was forced to drop my Far Harad and went with a list that consisted of Bob the Budget Nazgul, a Haradrim King, a Haradrim Chieftan, a Haradrim Task Master, a banner, a hornblower, six fat guys (Abrakhan Merchant's Guards), fourteen archers and the rest spears for a total model count of 56. We played Domination with the MitM change of only three objectives.

I had a big hill in my deployment zone. there was a ruins between my zone and the objective to my left. The rest of the terrain, of which there was a lot, did not really factor in the game so I'll leave it off. I made a lot of mistakes in this game. Jonathan only made a couple. He, again, got a well deserved win with a minor victory. One more turn would have given me the minor but two more would have made it his game again. This was a real nail biter and I found myself thinking about it quite a bit the next day, which is the mark of a great game, to me.

We started off with a general advance on the part of the elves towards the left and center objectives. The elven phalanx headed towards the left while the cavalry and archers, with Glorfindel riding along, went towards the center. I left my archers behind the hill, firing in volleys most of the game (mistake number 2, I waited way too long to start firing directly). I split my force with a strong infantry force heading towards the left objective and a smaller force going over the hill and towards the center, (mistake number 1. I shouldn't have split them the way I did and had too many high value units in this group with no meat shields.)

My volley fire was average over the course of the game but started out strong. I killed both knight archers and another model in the first round. I got rid of most of his highly prized archers over the course of the game with volley fire. Jonathan killed all of my fat guys with arrows, a very disapointing development but well deserved the way I left them hanging out in view.

I pushed my infantry up into the ruins, about twelve inches short of the left objective, and stayed there. This was where Jonathan made the only real mistake of the game. He brought his phalanx up and charged me. Between the wall bonus and some good use of transfix/compel, I kept Glorfindel out of the fight, killed Rumil and managed to bounce the phalanx. Jonathan realized that he didn't need to fight me and pulled back to the objective, still too strong for me to sally out and contest him.

He also shifted his archers and remaining knights to hold the other two objectives. this is when I realized that the reason I was feeling outnumbered was that I had 15 models hiding behind the hill. I marched my archers out to contest the center and right objectives. Killing Rumil had made me a happy little Haradrim. I had also put a wound on Glorfindel with a Black Dart, something generally frowned upon in tournament play. Most players consider it too risky for too little pay off. Now Glorfindel found himself facing down a haradrim gatling gun of fourteen poisoned bow shots. This is where I made mistake number 3. I rolled all the dice at once. I killed the hell out Asfaloth but didn't have enough left to finish off the elf, though I did put another wound on him. I would have been better off taking the individual shots. The reason I did this is becase it was almost 2100 and I had Rhys (7yrs old) with me. I had already gotten a testy phone call from Mama and 2100 is closing time, though Chris very nicely and characteristically offered to keep the store open for us. So I was rushed. I took another turn to kill Glorfindel. Another moral victory in my eyes.

I managed to take the right objective and was one turn away from having more models on the center objective. I had broken but my hornblower more than paid for himself. Jonathan was one model away from breaking. I had moved my Nazgul up so his phalanx would be taking break tests with no heros on a -1 courage. He was moving troops up to the center objective, who would start arriving a turn after I controlled it. We survived the roll on the first turn after I was broken but the second one ended the game.

The history of gaming - my style

I have always loved games. Board games, miniatures even legos. I spent most of my time as a child playing by myself so games were my friends.

When I was young I would save my money up to buy board games. My best friend, Cam, and I loved Axis and Allies. I also bought Shogun, Rome, Fortress America and Broadsides and Boarding Parties. I loved all of these games, though Axis and Allies was always the best to my mind.

Legos were my first miniatures. I got my first set on my sixth birthday, starting a life long love affair. I have hundreds of pounds of legos (how do you measure legos?). In addition to the obvious use of lego people for armies, I wanted to play mass battles. This pre-dated Warhammer and such by a few years, and I was not aware of those games even after they came out.

I did collect the Dungeons & Dragons miniatures game. The cardboard cutouts never thrilled me but they did let me fight out some battles here and there. I also played the rules for armies, making hunrdreds of units out of note cards, playing out battles with the cards representing the units and tracking them through entire campaigns.

There was a period of about seven years, between 1995 when I graduated from college and 2002 when we briefly moved to England, that I did not play any wargames. Then, in 2002 we were in Harrogate. Tracy had gone home for a few weeks and I was wandering down the high street after eating dinner. I walked past the Games Workshop store. I stopped. I stared through the glass at the models. I did not go in. I knew this was a slippery slope. If I went in I was doomed.

For several days I walked past every night and did not go in. Then I crossed the threashold. I looked at the fantasy side of the store. I looked at the Lord of the Rings mini's. I looked at the 40k (Sci-fi) stuff. I walked out. The next night I went in again. The manager asked me which army I was going to play. I didn't know enough to answer him. I fled. The next night I was back. I looked at the books. I was drawn to Empire. I asked the manager questions. He was reasonably helpful.

After a week of going in I bought the starter set. Empire and Orcs. I got it back to the hotel room. I felt that old shiver of anticipation as I got ready to open the box. I pulled off the top and there it was. Sprues of mini's, rule book, quick start rules, templates and dice. I read the whole rule book that night.

I snap fitted the guys I could together. Some of them required glue. The next night I was in the store buying glue, the Empire and Orcs & Goblins army books and a paint set with paints, brush and six Bretonnian archers. (think feudal France). That night I had everything glued and was playing through the rules on the floor of the hotel. It was like I was 12 again. I was hooked.