War comes to Rohan

25th March is Tolkien Reading Day, to commemorate the fall of Barad-dûr and the destruction of the One Ring. In my quest for the perfect Lord of the Rings ruleset, I tried Dragon Rampant for the first time. I threw together two forces, we agreed on a rough scenario, and had at it!

Rohan:

30 points; Defending the crossroads on foot with mounted forces to the rescue.

• Royal Guard (Elite Mounted with leader)
• Erkenbrand (Elite Mounted hero)
• Heavy Mounted
• Heavy Mounted
• Light Foot
• Light Foot
• Archers

Evil:

29 points; Attacking the crossroads

• Wargs (Heavy Mounted) with Leader
• Trolls (Bellicose Foot)
• Uruk-Hai (Bellicose Foot)
• Orcs (Heavy Foot)
• Orcs (Heavy Foot)
• Archers

We started with the Rohan foot around the crossroads, and all other units would move on from the short edges.

View from the orcs' deployment edge

The orcs approach

Distant hoofbeats

Orcs advance as his cavalry sweep to my left

Orc spears repulse the first charge

Cavalry take down the arrow-weakened troll

Orc situation is dire

Cavalry mop up the remnants

It was a pretty convincing victory to Rohan. My orcs bounced off his shieldwall and got peppered by bowshot and then mopped up by cavalry. The heroes and freshly painted Royal Guard never got involved, they just hung back failing their activation rolls!

I liked the variable bounds activation and the courage rules weren't too complex either. Leaders never came into it, and I didn't bother with Boasts. Shieldwalls are tough, and I'd probably tweak some of the units- orcs would be light foot, for example, and the trolls should have better armour. It was about the right level of complexity for the game I wanted to play. I thought the recommended 24 points would be too small, but it probably isn't. I'm keen to expand my experience with Dragon Rampant.

Nazgûl on fell beast

And behold! it was a winged creature: if bird, then greater than all other birds, and it was naked, and neither quill nor feather did it bear, and its vast pinions were as webs of hide between horned fingers; and it stank. A creature of an older world maybe it was, whose kind, lingering in forgotten mountains cold beneath the Moon, outstayed their day, and in hideous eyrie bred this last untimely brood, apt to evil.

JRR Tolkien, The Return of the King (1955)

And behold! I have painted a fell beast.

Lord of the Nazgûl on armoured fell beast

I did some dark magic with magnets which allows a choice of rider. I also made a base with four 25mm washers buried within, for added heft and to drop the centre of gravity.

Nazgûl on fell beast

I snapped the clear flight stand during priming- some rather colourful colloquialisms were voiced- and had to trim it shorter and angled down more. Taking advantage of advice from AHPC XI Challengers a few weeks ago I repainted it flat black.

Théoden and Snowmane for scale

I started from a pale grey undercoat and added thin coats of dark greyish browns to taste. I'm not entirely happy with the wings- I'd prefer them to be a bit more tan.

Now to work out how to store and transport this...

Journeys in Middle-earth: Shadowed Paths monsters

I've finished off the assorted monsters from JiME: Shadowed Paths. I rebased the bigger figures on 40mm MDF.

Balrog

The Balrog was featured last month, and I'm still really happy with him.

A Balrog of Morgoth

Cave Trolls

I used a dark blue-grey for the scaly bits, which I quite like.

I have two Cave Trolls

Orc Taskmasters

"Where there's a whip, there's a way!" Orc Taskmasters

Pit Goblins

Pit Goblins

Shadow-men

I think they've named these after a throwaway line in Return of the King about the oathbreaking Dead of Dunharrow:

None of the people of the valley dared to approach [the Stone of Erech],

nor would they dwell near;

for they said that it was a trysting-place of the Shadow-men...

Shadow-men

Nameless Things

Similarly, from The Two Towers:

Far, far below the deepest delving of the Dwarves, the world is gnawed by nameless things.

Whilst painting the Nameless Things, I thought they looked like an a cappella trio, and now I cannot un-see this.

Nameless Things

I'm not inspired by the concept, but I think they're handy generic monster models for other scales and settings. May their painting cleanse the world.

Giant Spiders

I was inspired by Mr Hunt's spiders. All the lines on the legs were more frustrating to paint than I expected!

Giant Spiders

Spawn of Ungoliant

Another oddly fiddly model to paint. Pretty satisfied with the final outcome.

Spawn of Ungoliant

Not a huge fan of the egg sacs

On the slopes of Mount Doom

I beheld the last combat on the slopes of Orodruin, where Gil-Galad died, and Elendil fell, and Narsil broke beneath him; but Sauron himself was overthrown, and Isildur cut the Ring from his hand with the hilt-shaft of his father's sword, and took it for his own.

JRR Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring (1954)

The opening scene of Jackson's Fellowship absolutely blew my mind and sucked me in to hours of films, and later countless hours of toy soldiery.

These are Perry brothers sculpts. I painted Sauron and the standing Elendil and Isildur many years ago, but they have not previously graced this blog. For the 'last stand' and 'geology' challenges in AHPC X, I painted the prone Númenóreans and made a scenic base.

Sauron

Isildur and Elendil

Isildur

Elendil

Isildur & Elendil

Magnetized base

I used a rocky outcrop from Gale Force 9 to bulk up the Renedra base, to provide a visual balance to Sauron, and to reinforce the idea that their backs are against the wall. These outcrops are lovely durable resin pieces, and I strongly recommend them. I 3D printed a ring (!) to contain Sauron's 40mm base. I built up the groundwork with plaster, bark, and model railway ballast. I added some brown tones during the painting, since grey is boring and doesn't look right.

Early planning

Groundwork for sealing and painting

Painted

I added a flower in a rocky cleft, since hope blooms even in the darkest moments.

War of the Ring epic game report with photos

I dusted off War of the Ring last weekend- I hadn't played it in three years. I printed out some excellent aide-memoirs from Universal Head as well as a 3D Mount Doom from Thingiverse, and set it up. I was The Shadow, Amnese was the Free Peoples.

The Shadow has to crush Middle Earth militarily or corrupt the Ringbearer, whilst the Free Peoples have to endure as the Ringbearer creeps to Mount Doom. It is an engrossing race against time, as concentrating on one aspect allows your opponent to get ahead in the other.

The pressure was on the Fellowship as the Nazgûl found them early, having taken the High Pass. Strider died protecting the hobbits.

Fellowship tries to sneak over the High Pass.

Saruman declared his allegiance with a successful assault at the Fords of Isen, following up with a siege at Helm's Deep.

Saruman seizes the Fords of Isen.

The Fellowship remained in dire straits, as both Boromir and Gandalf the Grey died. However, Gandalf the White then appeared in Lórien. Meanwhile, an evil army marched north from Dol Guldur to threaten the Woodland Realm.

Fellowship limps past Lórien.

The Fellowship broke, and Gollum led Frodo and Sam towards Gondor...

Breaking of the Fellowship.

... where a mighty horde bore down upon Minas Tirith. After a devastating journey, the Ringbearer rested here for several turns, giving The Shadow time to manoeuvre his armies.

Hobbits get only brief respite in Minas Tirith.

Helm's Deep finally falls after a bloody siege.

Saruman gloats as Helm's Deep is his.

Osgiliath falls, and Minas Tirith is besieged as Gandalf commands the defenders.

The hammer falls on Gondor.

Minas Tirith falls to the Witch King and Gandalf the White perishes.

Minas Tirith under siege.

But the hobbits sneak through the encircling armies...

Taking the Morgul path.

...and begin to climb Mount Doom.

On the slopes of Orodruin.

The Shadow pushes the Gondor remnants back to Dol Amroth.

Fall back to Dol Amroth!

Capitalising on a tactical error, Southrons seize Lórien. Edoras falls to Isengard. Shadow Victory is imminent!

Lórien is ravaged.

And then Frodo, aided by Samwise and Gollum, destroys the Ring of Power. Middle-earth is saved!

It is done.

Cue stirring music! I really like this game, and it is a pleasure to play with painted figures. Inspired, I went home and slapped paint on Mount Doom.

As the Shadow, I'm always aware that I can have certain victory ripped away from me by insignificant Shirefolk. I built up some big armies that took terrible losses as I drove them across Middle-earth. I put great pressure on the Fellowship, killing Gandalf and Strider and Boromir. The winning action was statistically unlikely but thematic- we worked out afterwards there was a 10% chance of Free People victory and a 90% chance of Shadow victory, hanging on a chit draw from a cup.

The unsung heroes were the defenders of Dol Amroth. They blunted the Witch King's offensive which, if successful, would have won me the game whilst Frodo was only halfway up the mountain.

The game took three hours. I didn't add in the expansions, because I'm not really familiar with the new rules. 

Highly recommended.