Painting - 12 Riders of Rohan

  My entry for this week continues my work on Rohan. This entry is 12 riders for last week's heroes to command.

They look pretty impressive all ranked up together.

These are the core of my Rohan force.

Painting - Rohan guards and heroes

  This week's entry is Rohan Royal Guards, captains and Eomer. I've had these models bouncing around for about 20 years, so it's good to get them painted and ready to play. 

Eomer, banner bearer, outrider and mounted captain.

Entry 7 - 7th Challenge - Eowyn, Maid of Rohan

This first entry is going to be solo because I don't think this princess deserves to be lumped in with the riff-raff that will be following.

King Theoden of the Riddermark

This entry is King Theoden of Rohan from Games Workshop's Lord of the Rings game.

The king.

Battle Report: 1000 pts of Rohan vs Isengard

Two weeks ago Huntsman came over and played a game of LotR.  The day of the game he suggested that we play a big game, since he wanted to bring out everything he had for his Isengard.  I thought that sounded just grand.  The only army I had that could hit the 1000 points he had was my Rohan, which I haven't played in years.

Eowyn leads seven riders against the Whargs.

More assembly

In my continued efforts to get as much primed as possible before winter hits I assembled another handful of models this weekend.  I had grand plans to get 40 Celts assembled as that will be a major goal for the winter.  Alas, I didn't even get the box opened, spending my time on the table and roads instead.

What I did get done was some LotR Rohan models that I had forgotten I had.  They had been on sale at the local shop and I picked them up for half price.  I then promptly forgot about them until this weekend when I was digging up models to assemble.

Five of the seven models.

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.

The Changing Game

This weekend Games Workshop is finally releasing the stats for all of the LotR SBG models.  Sadly they are doing it in five books.  Happily, from my point of view, they are not changing the main rule book.

The good news is that I no longer have to carry around an arm full of White Dwarfs.  This is an eternal problem, as old as White Dwarf, but at least for awhile we will have everything we need in these five books.  This also means that Legions of Middle Earth is now irrelevant.  It's few uses are superseded by the new books.

Battle Reports

The week ended with a lot of gaming, too many for individual reports.  On Wednesday I got off work early and was able to meet up with Keith for a game.  We played Seize the camp.  Smaug went off on his, sadly, normal, solitary blood lust infused charge and chewed through my troops to get into my camp.  I was finally able to see him off with three Black Darts, after which I had to rush a third of my army across the table to get to the center where the remainder were facing off against the rest of the army, a bunch of Black Shields.  Keith thought the fight was over once the dragon was dead but he managed to drag it out for several turns and limit me to a Minor Victory.  As always against Keith, I had to think fast in this game.  I only win about a third of my games against him, one of the things I'd like to turn around this year.

Smaug Munching on Haradrim warriors

Smaug about to get Black Darted for the third time.  The Nazgul is in the forest, top right.

Current painting

I am currently working on five Rohirrim. One captain, on horse and four riders. Two with bows and two with shields. I am just about done with these five, to table top quality. After that I will paint a whole bunch of horses. I already have quite a few riders done so I need to get the horses caught up.

I am painting these to a very basic level, first go around. My goal is to get them "painted" and on the table. I do play with unpainted models, but it looks SOOOOO much better with painted that it is worth the effort. I especially feel bad putting gray or primer black models on the table when my opponent has painted their army.

Once I have my army painted I will go back and do some more work on them. I am going to go over the browns and greens with a painted on furniture stain. The lighter colors will get a brown wash, as will the armor and weapons. The metal will all get a hightlight. Mithril silver for weapons and armor. Gold of some sort for the bronze.

I will also base the models once they are all painted. I am going to go with a bestial brown base. The top will have sand/gravel PVA'd (elmers) down, then painted bestial, highlighted up to khaki. Stones gray with white highlights. Two colors of static grass will go on, as well as some longer grass if I can find something I like. I always pictured Rohan as endless fields of green grass, not like the New Zealand countryside from the movies.

After that I think this army will be good to go.

Of course I may need to expand it for War of the Ring.

Current project

My current project is Rohirrim for Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game (LOTR, SBG). I have had some of the models for years, I picked up the Two Towers starter set from a friend and it was full of Rohan and Isengard.

Recently a fellow moved here from St. Louis. He is a huge fan of LOTR. He has been working with the local store, Collectormania (CM), and its owner Tim, to get a LOTR group going. Getting a gaming group started, and keeping it alive, are tough work. First you have to get people in to play the game, providing models and such. Then you have to organize enough events that you can keep people interested. Open gaming is fun, but from time to time you have to have tournaments or campaigns.

I have collected a few more models and played a few games. I even played in my first tournament ever, GengisCon. The Warhammer Fantasy was packed, and looked like a lot of fun, but I played LOTR, and had a great time. I have now played seven games. Three against Keith while I was learning, three at the tournament and one at an open gaming day at CM.

I like that the game is a skirmish game. Very different from my beloved Warhammer. I like that it is cheap to start an army and that the rules are both elegant and simple. I love the millieu, Tolkien being the catalyst for my love of fantasy. I love that I can actually find someone to play against from time to time. I hate painting.

I have made a deal with myself. I will paint ten models from the army I played for every game I play. Once the army is done, I can paint whatever I want. I have tried many of these deals over the years. Trying to find the perfect formula to get myself to paint. Nothing has worked up to now. This is actually going all right for me at the moment though, so I am still hopeful.