Shopping for a troll-ey

More news from the front. Having converted and uindercoated a group of orcs, the "Shiny! Shiny! syndrome" (SSS) kicked in again and I found myself buying a Mordor troll... in an actual Games Workshop store... Yup. It's getting serious.

A quick side-note to point out that, while converting said Troll, I got SSS again and bidded for a load of LotR characters on fleaBay. But it was worth it!

Anyhoo! Back to the troll. I wanted to go for something slightly different, a nice centre-piece (mehopes) for my army. A Mordor troll? Who can forget Aragorn being crushing under foot by a troll in front of the Black Gate? I decided to adapt that to fit in my other LotR force; Rohan. So a poor Rohirrim got knocked off his horse and is struggling to keep the troll's foot from crushing him, while his dead horse lies beside him.

These are very W.i.P. shots, just to show the general idea. The fallen rider is not sculpted yet -cloak, armour, arms, hands and beard need doing- nor is the troll finished. The foot, neck, helmet, and scales are not yet finished, and the loin cloth needs doing. And, of course, all those mould joints need seeing to.

Any thoughts?

Joe the "Rosbif" Barbarian

Empirical truth

A slight aparte from our usual posts; I couldn't resist posting this link to this superb Empire army by GMM Studios.
A beautiful centre-piece, massive units and a strong colour theme; magnificent!

Check out the link; it's well worth it!

Joe the Barbarian

Getting straight to the pointy ears: 2nd LotR battle of the Ouestfolde Tourney

Battle 2: “Take & hold!”

Main objective: capture 3 fixed objectives and control them undisputedly.
Secondary objective: keep the general near the central objective.

After having psychologically blocked-out the memories of the Ouestfolde (sic) Tourney for over a month, I think it’s about time I carried on the tale of this great clash of armies.

As you’ll remember, after much frustration at not being able to get at the objective due to a corner section of wall and a particularly tenacious troll, I managed to just scrape a minor victory in the first battle by successfully getting half my army –not one man more, not one man fewer- across the enemy’s table edge. I was therefore eager to get stuck into the next battle, in order to gain extra tourney points; I had come to win.

The second battle pitched my valiant Rohirrim against the pointy-eared skirt-wearing tree-hugging eco-warriors known as the Galadhrim of Lothlorien. I hope my opponent will forgive me; so much time has past that I can’t remember anyone’s name.

Unluckily for me, the battle took place at night, so my riders would only have half their movement rate. Unluckily for him, fighting in the dark meant that his archers would only have the same range as my javelins.

Out of the night, they came!

The battlefield was littered with several large dragon bones, which made forming a single battle line impossible. I split my force into 3 divisions; the first, led by the King, would go straight up the centre and secure the objective in the middle of the battlefield. The second would take the objective on my right, anchoring its flank against a massive dragon’s skull. The third, my cavalry and a couple of javelins, would go around the skull and take the enemy in the rear. The elves would thus be caught up in a firmly established killing ground (area marked in black on the first image), between the King’s men, the captain’s unit and the flanking cavalry to the rear. Once I had dealt with his main body of men, I would then send a few warriors to capture the final objective.My adversary had a large mass of dragon bones on his left, which meant that his only way of sending a large squad to hold the objective on my left would mean putting them way out of his right, away from all the fighting. He therefore decided to concentrate all his forces in one area, mirroring to some extent my own deployment. I was feeling pretty confident; all those points he’d spent on bows for those expert elf archers would be pretty much useless, whereas my javelins would still have all their potential. On top of that, during a test game 3 days earlier, my Rohirrim had completely trounced the Frog (Shas’El’Hek’Tryk) using Limey’s elves, so I knew that my warriors could hold their own against elves.

Take out their archers and meet me in the middle!

I sent my men forwards and they duly took up their positions. Of course, the objectives being equidistant between my lines and the enemy’s, we both got to the central objective at the same time. I just managed to get to the objective on my right slightly ahead of my opponent, but his troops were so close that that objective was obviously being contested. He sent 2 men to the objective on my left. I had plenty of time and decided to deal with them later, want wanted to spread the fighting to a third place, as that would dilute the effect of my killing ground.
The elven archers stayed slightly behind, either to serve as a tactical reserve or to deal with my cavalry. Unfortunately for them, it was my cavalry which dealt with them, taking them out relatively easily, before falling on the rear of his army, as planned.

Despite my javelins in the centre managing to disrupt his lines quite effectively, the rest of my warriors were simply failing to make any real impact. The fight was set to last quite a while yet.

And then came the shout I least wanted to hear…”Last turn!”

What??? The organisers, naturally having to juggle with the lunch break, decided to cut the battle short, by at least half an hour.

Result of the battle: the central and right objectives were being contested. I hadn’t had time to get a detachment over to deal with the 2 elves at the objective on my left. Both generals had stayed in the centre, so my adversary won 1-0.

That’ll teach me to deal with all objectives right away. Time is a variable which could have gone either way.

Primary objective Rohan: 0 objectives. Elves: 1 objective.
Secondary objective Rohan: success. Elves: success.
RESULT: Minor victory for the Elves

Mordor bangs for your Bucks!

Before I post part 2 of the LotR Ouestfolde campaign, here are the first 4 finished Mordor Uruk-Hai. I'm rather pleased with the result, especially as I managed to get them painted pretty quickly... O.K., they had ben sitting on my shelf for ages, but the painting itself was quick.

Joe the Barbarian

So it begins… [LotR Battle Rep!]

After much dithering, I’ve finally led my men through a tourney; the Ouestfolde (sic) Lord of the Rings Tourney in Brittany!

Some frantic painting at Midnight on the eve of battle allowed me to field my planned list in full; I don’t think too many people noticed the missing details on several of the models, given how many tactics and strategies were going through our minds. Note that I've named my captain Hygbeorn.

This was my first tourney, but I took great pleasure in beating the Frog, who usually bests me, during a practice run 4 days before the tourney; both of us used our tourney lists.

After sallying forth to Rennes from our stronghold in Nantes, city of the Dukes of Brittany, the Frog, his cousin (King in the Moria) and I arrived to press our rights through military strength on the local populace. We were greeted by a room full of nicely decorated tables, enthusiastic enemies and the sound of “Waaaarrgh!!!” cries as Warhammer 40K players battled it out beside us. A cup of coffee, a can of energy drink and I was ready to take on my foe.

What follows is my account of the first of the four battles.

Battle 1: “Bring him to me!”

Main objective: Capture a spy and take him across the enemy’s table edge. The spy moves randomly (2D6 & dispersion die).
Secondary objective: Get half your men across the enemy’s table edge.

In this battle, my valiant Rohirrim fittingly came up against Valentin’s Uruk-Hai of Isengard. The spy was placed in the centre of the table, in some ruins which had 2 walls; one closed corner facing towards one table edge, one open corner facing the other edge. My opponent won the roll to choose sides and wisely decided to take the side with open access to the ruins.

I formed by battle line up so as to send one of my wedges around each side of the ruins. He placed his main battle –a troll and a solid line of pikes- out on my right, a group of 6 warg riders in the centre, a captain and 3 beserkers just to my left and a small group of crossbows way out on my left. To war!
I moved my line up and, rather predictably, split it into 2 army corps; Théoden on the left, Hygbeorn on the right. My enemy sent a troll to block access from my right side of the ruins. His next actions took my by surprise; he split his riders into 2 groups of 3. One group sensibly went to knock out the spy and capture him... The other charged straight at Théoden and his group of guards! They were swiftly dispatched.

His second unorthodox move was to send his whole army corps even further out on my right, rather than set up a defensive cordon around the spy. Perhaps he intended to secure a passage along my right flank or to guarantee that he would achieve the secondary objective.

Sound the charge!
Whatever his logic of thinking, I was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth, and duly sent Hygbeorn’s whole army corps to take out the troll and smash my way through to the spy, while Théoden took his men around the left side of the ruins to annihilate the same party of beserkers, dodging crossbow bolts along the way.

What happened next vexed me greatly. On the left flank, all went perfectly to plan. On the right, I successfully help off his whole army corps with a handful of men and my cavalry, with only minor losses. Having attacked the troll, I was unable to inflict anything move than a flesh wound on him, and was forced to slip a few troops past him to take control of the spy.

Breaking the stalemate
My opponent decided to dodge my pincer movement by going up the steps of the ruins, in an attempt to jump down on my side and run for the edge of the battlefield. I countered by sending the King and 4 men to await them.

On the right flank, I took all of my men out of the fight with his main corps… all but one man. One valiant Royal Guard stayed and did his duty by giving his life to delay the Uruks. His comrades rushed on the troll, in a last ditch attempt to secure the spy.

Cutting losses
With time running short, I realised that it would be mathematically impossible to kill the troll, take the captive and make it across the board. I decided to cut my losses and secure the secondary objective. My enemy came to the same conclusion, but a few lucky arrow shots, along with previously inflicted damage, had whittled down his numbers too much for him to achieve it.

I needed to get 19 men off the board. The turn before last, 18 had got across, and a rider, last man near the edge, was about to cross the board… Wham! A crossbow bolt shot his horse from under him! If I rolled anything but a 6 on the last turn, then he would be unable to make it across the edge in time and the result would be a draw. I rolled the die… and got a 6!

Primary objective Rohan: not achieved. Isengard: not achieved.
Secondary objective Rohan: achieved. Isengard: not achieved.
RESULT: Minor victory for Rohan

Not a bad start, though I had hoped for better. Damn that troll!

"Ouestfolde" breton LotR tourney: D-4

So, with just 4 days to go before the LotR tourney near Rennes, Brittany, I realised that I miscalculated my list. Having dropped 6 archers from the roster, I then didn't use all the points I'd freed up. The consequence is that I'd got 3 plastic-grey models among a virtually finished company.

Here's the list I've (pretty much) decided to run with:
Théoden, King; heavy armour, shield_ 75pts
Captain; heavy armour, shield_ 55pts
1 Banner_ 31pts
9 Royal Guards_ 90pts
3 Warriors; shields_ 21pts
16 Warriors; javelins, shields_ 144pts
6 Riders; 3 javelins_ 84pts
---------TOTAL: 500pts on the nose!---------

As you can see from this photo, I've got a fair amount of mending to do; my two banes are javelin hands breaking and horses legs snapping... not exactly ideal when your army is a javelin-armed cavalry-supported force. This afternoon, I'm planning on doing all the repair work, and hopefully undercoating the 3 extra javelin warriors. I'll give all my horses some Green Stuff to prevent further breaking. Carry case my ar...

My command group: Théoden and the captain will each lead a prong of the attack. As decorum dictates, the banner sticks close to the King and the three warriors stick close to the banner, to avoid any nasty accidents. Behind these two wedges, my cavalry will wait for the right moment to strike at any juicy exposed flanks, careless heroes or downright stupid standard-bearers who don't know how to do there job.

So much for the plan, any way. No real surprise for my usual opponents. And if any of the others aren't aware of the basic tactics, then it'll serve them right for not reading my blog!

Joe the Barbarian

A Harad day's night

He who sews little will reap little, and it is in good rich earth that I sew the seed of this army. My esteemed master, and Nemesis, the Frog, has done me the great honour of condescending to aquiescing to my painting a company for him to more rightously thrash me across the table. I'm starting with a test figurine for a Harad force. My one instruction:" do whatever you like."

In order to have a change from more conventional LotR Harad colour schemes, I decided, with the approval of my collaborator (frog... collaborator... haha... Ahem.), to opt for more Arab colours, if you'll pardon the vulgarisation. i.e. Pastel green, turquoise and... orange. My benefactor was somewhat sceptical about this latter tone. I pointed out that orange is the perfect complimentary colour to turquoise and yellow-green. I hope that this model will convince him of my genious. In this first test, as rank increases, so does the proportion of black. On common soldiers, the turban and belt are black. On captains, the cape would be black, and so on until having an entirely black and gold Suladân. I decided to forego silver, usng bronze for all metal part.

So much for the first test. Let's see what the second's like.


BarbarianJ

Don't bite off Mordor you can chew.

A couple of W.i.P. Mordor orc captains. I couldn't resist getting them, given how awesome the models look and that I had plenty of money-back on my Maelstrom Games account. I've continued to paint just über-basic highlights, followed by the beautifully contradictory "brush-on-dipping". The aim is really to get a quick Mordor force up and running (preferably in the direction of the enemy) at battletop standard. Mordor is ideal for this as orcs look filthy and are essentially brown, with various items of brown clothing, with dirty armour. These guys just need a coat of matt varnish and the odd detail here and there, namely on the shields.

Of course, I've gone for Cirith Ungol, but these chaps had the Eye of Sauron on their shields. Out came the industrial scale round file, followed by a spot of Green Stuff and that was that poblem sorted. 've decided to go with a blue colour scheme, which is somewhat unorthodox for evil forces in the L.o.t.R. game, but I felt like a change. After all, the films used a great deal of blue and green lighting to portray Mordor as a cold, dead place.

The force as it currently stands.

5 more spears on their way

So that's 186 points almost done... just 314 to go.

Joe the Barbarian, eager to bring night onto the world of men.

Cirith Ungol Uruks... no pun, alas!

Here we are then; the first converted Uruks for Cirith Ungol. A few minor touches still required, but they've got the overall look I was going for.

What won't be so easy is converting the ones which hold Isengard shields against their bodies.

I shalln't waste words when pictures can do the talking.

Joe the Barbarian, the pace on the road to war is quickening!

Russian around Mordor

Having recently croosed swords on the battlefield with 2 of m fellow bloggers, I was soon bent upon taking up work on my 2 companies once more.

My Cirith Ungol force being mainly composed of orcs and Morder Uruk-Hai, I was intent on differentiating the one filthy breed from the other, yet without clashing (pardon the pun) the styles. Another factor to take into account: a gauntelet thrown down by the Frog in the form of a box of plastic Isengard Uruk scouts with a "here, I think you'll be able to do something decent with them".

First on the agenda would be to replace the swords, shields and helmets of the White Hand with something a bit more rabble-like. I therefore set out on a search for nasty-looking weapons and shields. It was at that point that I came accross an army of medieval Russians... and WHAM! Lighting struck!

The orcs of Mordor are often represented with crescent-shaped shields which, as a humble neophyte, I would term as "a bit Turco-Persian"... After all, as anyone who's ever seen 300 will tell you (not the least Ahmadinejad), the Persians were basically represented as orcs.
"Now this is all fine and dandy", I hear you say, "but what's it got to do with Uruks and Russia?" This is where a scandinavian people of the VIIth-IXth centuries, known as the "Volga Vinkingr" or "Rus' " comes, both figuratively and literally, into play.

These ferocious warriors came from the North and occupied the lands around the Volga river, right down to modern day Iraq. Having besieged Constantinople in 860A.D., they then returned to the city in the XIth century to form the Varangian Guard, the elite force of the Byzantine army [Grant, R.G. (2007) Grandes Batailles: Les Plus Grands Combats de l'Antiquité à Nos Jours. Ed: France Loisirs]. So you've got XIth century Russian vikingr fighting along side bythantine troops against Muslim nations.

This may be stretching it a bit, granted, but it was sufficient to persuade me of the style I wanted to adopt for my Uruks; early-medieval Russian weapons, helmets and shields (perfect for fighting opposite my Saxon-style Rohirrim) , draped in plenty of scandinavian fur!

The order was soon put in with Gripping Beast: packs of Russian Medieval Weapons and Saxon bucklers (with nice pointy bosses). I took the opportunity to order a pack of Roman Gladius, too finish my converted mounted Rohan Royal Guards (I still haven't got the hang of scuplting swords from Green Stuff).

Some nice vicious weapons!

Un drawing of my vision of their helmets, conical, with spiky points and possible a bit of fur around the crest.

The type of shield I was looking for...

...and found!

Joe the Barbarian, glad to have found a new barbarian force to field!