Mordor reinforcements

I have to admit that I neither play nor paint that much these days. I think it was late summer or autumn of last year when the dice were last rolled. On the painting side, it’s very infrequent and sporadic. Having said that, I did manage recently to knock out this troll, which I had converted some months back. 

For the palette, I ignored any film references and went to the original source, the books. Trolls are described as black skinned with red eyes, so that was my main aim. I did consider black armour too, but thought it might look too much against the skin, so settled on a dark metallic look. 

I have also cobbled together a unit that will play as linebreakers in games of Oathmark, if we ever return to it. These are troops that are heavily armoured and typically armed with double handed weapons. The models are old metal orcs that I picked up on a forum marketplace I think. They have been lying in my cupboard for a good while, I had intended to strip them and repaint them to fit in with my style, but in the end I glazed over a few washes to remove the zingy colours of the previous owner. They fit in well enough, the front and centre figure is the orc commander that I painted years ago. The rear rank is plastic Mordor orcs, armed with great weapons they make decent enough rear rank filler fodder. They will, of course, be useful in games of Erehwon, Rampant and other skirmish system.

Here’s a head on photo of the troll, you might be able to make out the red gleam of his eyes under that helmet. Let’s hope he gets to lumber on to a battlefield at some point.

Hammer time

It’s been such a long time since I played or painted any Lord of the Rings, but having recently got a copy of Oathmark, I have been dusting off my Mordor collection. We have played just one game so far, using basic blocks of troops to get a handle on the rules. The next step is to introduce characters and more specialised units, which for Mordor means trolls. 

I only have one painted troll, so it was the perfect time to dig out that plastic troll languishing in a cave somewhere at the back of the drawer. I made it straight from the sprue to begin with, but decided it looked a bit similar to my old metal figure. So I changed the helmet a little by chopping off the horns and putting one back in the centre, rhino style. Then I replaced the plastic hammer head with a metal bit, from an ogre butcher I think. Two small changes which make a nice, unique model.

I must have painted the first troll about 15 years ago. At the time I made some changes to the pose, to calm it down a little, rather than wildly swinging the hammer. I entered this figure in Golden Daemon, and though it made the final cut, it was easily vanquished. It’s not hard to see why. It’s a brown blob with very little contrast. I always said I would remedy this at some time, it’s only taken 15 years or so to get round to it.

At the time I was influenced by the film palette, but this time around I want to go back to the original source. In the books, trolls are usually described as black or dark skinned, so that’s a potential palette. I will probably go for a grey skin with blackened  armour, but am still pondering. It’s good to be back in Middle Earth again, with the fire of Morgoth in my belly!

Hobgrot Slitta Conversions

It’s summer time, so there’s a new Warhammer box set in town. I thought that the new hobgrot slittas looked promising as conversion fodder, so I grabbed a set of ten from eBay. I wasn’t sure on the size, from the pictures online they looked bigger, but they are a perfect match for my Lord of the Rings collection. 

Here’s a picture of a converted hobgrot alongside a Mordor orc and a Morannon orc. As you can see they are a perfect match to the Morannon figure, or could easily be played as a Mordor orc. Or you could paint them in dark armour and use them as black orcs. I would think you could easily fit them into a Uruk hai tribe too. Good news if you are looking for some variety to your collection.

The conversions were relatively easy. I used plastic bits from the oathmark goblins set, with a few random historical plastic shields too, probably viking  in origin. You could swap with Lord of the Rings bits too I would guess. On the hobgrots, I trimmed away a lot of the extra bits, especially the ropes dangling from their armour, and I removed as many of the “grenades” as was easy to do, though I did keep one as a club. 

There were a fair few options available on the hobgrot figures. They are obviously a new incarnation of the old hobgoblin figures, and there are options to give them all helmets or keep them bare headed. The latter, in conjunction with the two dagger options, would give you a reasonable version of the old hobgoblin sneaky gits.

I originally bought the figures thinking they would make a good addition to my Warhammer goblins force, and I might still do this. But seeing them next to the LotR figures has given me a dilemma. One to ponder for a couple of months, as the annual summer hobby hibernation begins.

Remote Wargaming

Now you really can become an armchair general. If you are confined to barracks but would love to wargame, try this. You need two (or more) gamers. The main player sets up a battlefield in their location, with a camera/phone/ipad to view the action. They use the zoom app to create a conference call, inviting other gamer(s). The main player takes all the moves, rolls dice for themselves, removes casualties, etc. The secondary player(s) talk to them, directing them - move the second unit forward eight inches, shoot at those cavalry, etc. The secondary players can roll their own dice if they choose.

I tried it last night with gaming buddy Matt. He set up the battlefield in his gaming dungeon. I simply had to get some dice, I had them on a tray in my chair. I also had the rulebook to hand, and an ipad to view the game. We stuck to the simple to play Dragon Rampant, about half a dozen units each on a 4x4 tabletop. It worked well, after I learned how to hold the ipad without covering the microphone - I blame the wine.

Here's my view in game. After some input from a technical expert, I propped the ipad up on a cushion, leaving me hands free to expertly shout out my orders, point at the screen (not that Matt could see where I was pointing), and roll some dice, usually badly. A good way to spend an evening if you crave a wargame. Not as good as the real thing obviously, but it works, it's free (if there's just two of you), and it's easy if you are the secondary player.

I won't attempt to describe the ingame action, I'm sure Matt will produce a battle report at some stage (edit - he sure did). Suffice to say that the uruk hai are well fed now, Samwise will be taking part in the trilogy no more, and we'll get you next time Frodo, you slippery little hobbit.

Dwarf Kings of Middle Earth

We three kings of Moria are
Seeking orcs we travel afar
Dales and mountain, further and near
Tired now, let's go for a beer

- well known dwarf hunting song 

Apart from being a terrible rendition of the original song, there are actually four dwarfs here. However, I tend to think of the ginger-haired dwarf raising his axe as a dwarf champion, with the three more regally posed being the true kings.

These are nice figures, all metal, true 25mm scale so some of the details are very, very small and a real challenge to paint. Unfortunately, they are no longer offered for sale, so if you want them you have to hunt them down on ebay. I have these painted figures up for sale on my etsy shop if you are interested. The ideal gift for the discerning wargamer in your life.

A kingly trio

Mordor Orc Archers

I picked these up online recently, in a GW made to order week for some old Lord of the Rings metals. Let me get a grumble out of the way first - I do wish they would run the made to order for longer periods than one week.There was a good number of items I would have liked which all came up together, if you have a limited budget like me it would be impossible to get all of them in one week. With the funds I had I bought the Mordor orcs and some dwarfs.

Back in the day, when Lord of the Rings was first released (2001?), I was a Warhammer player - I played that one game and that one game only, so while I quite liked the range at the time it was not on my radar. Nowadays my tastes have changed and my gaming worlds have expanded to encompass Mordor, Rohan, and many others. I have picked up a few plastics from forum sales mostly, but the long out of production metals are quite hard to obtain for a reasonable price. So I was pretty happy when these orcs were made available (subject to the above grumble).

I thought they would add some variety to the plastic archer poses, but in truth they are all quite similar - I guess this is fairly inevitable in archers. Still, as luck would have it, the number of the unit is now up to 12, which is ideal for games of Dragon Rampant and Saga.

It felt a bit wrong speedpainting them, I would usually lavish time on figures that were hard to come by and relatively expensive - £3 per figure is expensive in my book. However, having painted the plastics up in one way, it would be foolish to paint up the newcomers in a different way, so I blasted through them in a couple of hours. The end result blends in and is good enough for gaming I think. More Mordor orcs to come at some point, though it could well be next year before I get a time slot.

Rohan In Flames

Orcs bearing the red eye have been seen wandering the furthest fringes of the Eastfold. How they managed to cross the river undetected is a mystery, but they must be stopped, driven back and destroyed. A couple of remote farms have already been pillaged and now they are making their way westward to bigger settlements. A small contingent of Rohan troops have set up defences to try to hold them back, a messenger rushing west to raise the alarm and muster reinforcements. 

This was a clash we played in Matt's dungeon using Dragon Rampant rules, which is designed for smaller games than ours, so we add a few tweaks to make it workable. When a unit fails to activate, the player turn usually ends, but we allow three failures before passing over to the opponent. This allows the ten or so units per side to be involved in most turns, turning a scrappy stop-start skirmish into something a little bit more epic.

Orcs trample crops as they press forward

They close in on the hastily erected defences

The bulk of the orcs push forward on the right

Reinforcements arrive for Rohan

The troll slaughters the archers in his path and lumbers on, orcs pouring into the gap in the defences

Fierce fighting in the farmstead sees the brave Rohan defenders slowly pushed back

The troll is peppered with arrows from all directions and staggers around in confusion

Orcs torch a farm building and are then thrown into the conflagration by enraged defenders!

Another building goes up in flames before the orcs are finally pushed back

A most enjoyable battle, Dragon Rampant really works well in games like this. The orcs made most progress on the right flank, the troll punched through the light defences easily enough, but then was the sole target for a lot of Rohan archers. More orcs tried to follow through but were hampered by rough terrain and harassing archery. In the centre, a single unit of Rohan defenders did well to hold out for so long, finally falling back as the orc leader and his troops rushed over the barricades. With the central farm undefended, it was soon roaring in flames. On the left flank, a unit of warg riders and a couple of light orc units struggled to push back a fairly meagre force of Rohan archers. As their numbers depleted, the orcs finally lost impetus and pulled back from the attack.

Two out of five building were destroyed, so technically it was probably the forces of  Rohan that won the day. But the orcs are many and slunk back into the marshlands, no doubt planning to return and wreak havoc again another day. It might be interesting to fight the next battle using a different ruleset, to see how they compare, maybe Erehwon or perhaps Saga. It would certainly be interesting to continue the tale.

Coming Soon? The Orcs Strike Back

The real Mines of Moria

I have recently returned from a holiday in the wonderful city of Krakow, Poland - well worth a visit if you ever get the chance. One of the things we did while there was to visit the salt mines of Wieliczka. As usual when sightseeing, I slipped into nerdy mode and explained to my wife (in my best Gimli voice) that we would soon be treated to a "right royal welcome by my cousin Balin" as we entered Moria. As usual she rolled her eyes and we joined the tour. Of course I had just been joking, but when we finally made it down the 350 steps to a depth of 135 metres below ground, we really were in a dwarf mine.....

And here is the entrance, the dwarf statues here are a little tall, but check out the hammer above the entrance and those distinctive dwarf like columns. Note also the salt in the rock. Salt was a precious commodity in the days before canning and refrigeration, for thousands of years it was used in food preservation, and some historians believe that the first city in Europe developed around a salt mine. Food for thought. But enough of that, let's take a look at the dwarfy bits of the mines.

Dwarf Royal Guard

Balin's Tomb

Dwarfs read from the Book of Grudges

Anvil of Power

Dwarf apprentice (no beard!)

Dwarf treasure pouch

That's me sorted for salt for the next few years, I brought this 1kg bag up from the depths. It was a fantastic day out, interesting in a historical and a nerdy way. It's given me lots of ideas on how to develop the Oakenhammer dwarf story and collection. The next unit to be painted will definitely be the salt miners. After the goblins of course.........

Saruman and uruk hai

Saruman the White, an old metal figure I have had lying around for years, I thought it was time he was painted. I really enjoyed painting the face and hair, it's a very good likeness for the actor. I was tempted to add some variation to the robes, but in the end I stuck with the film look. I am going to try my luck selling him in the etsy shop.

And bringing him a powerful weapon, these two uruk hai carrying Merry and Pippin were the first figures I primed this year. So it's taken seven months to finish them off. That's enough time to run to Isengard and back a few times. I just get distracted by so many other things in my collection, but I do get back to them eventually. There are items in my stash that have been part painted for years, so these two were technically quite hasty. Next time we play Lord of the Rings, it could well be a rescue the halfling style scenario. The three hunters tracking them down, you can see here.

Victrix Vikings as fantasy figures

Following on from the previous post, a review of the new Victrix vikings, I thought that some gamers might be interested in seeing how the new figures compare with some fantasy figures. Clearly, the scale is nearer to 28mm or 30mm than some of the bigger fantasy offerings, which makes them a good match to systems like Lord of the Rings.

From this first photo you can see that they are a very good match to plastic uruk hai, while the Gondorian looks small featured. Bear in mind the slight difference made by the different bases.

In the second photo, the Mordor orc (left) looks quite a bit smaller, while the Morannon orc (right) is a far closer match in height and head size.

In this final photo, the vikings are up against Oathmark goblins, which are plastic and scale well with Mordor orcs. The vikings are slightly taller, though the goblins do have hunched over poses - they are fairly similar in height if you look to the shoulders.

Hopefully that will be useful to some players. Perhaps they could be used as wildmen of Dunland, or the armoured figures used as Rohan or Dunlendings? And of course, they could also be used in any of the many games rules available these days, such as Frostgrave, Erewhon and others.

The Three Hunters

It's sheer coincidence that I have painted these metal versions of the Three Hunters, just as a new set in plastic has been released. I have had metal figures representing the members of the Fellowship of the Ring for a long time, just never got round to painting them. As interest in the Tolkien stories has risen recently in the Nord household, I dug out these three figures to make a start on painting all nine.

I wanted three running figures, to replay the hunt scenes from the tale. Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas pursue a host of uruk hai across the plains of Rohan, knowing that they have captured the hobbits Merry and Pippin. In the book (and film) they meet Eomer and his riders, discovering that the uruks have been destroyed, thus ending the chase. But imagine if that had not been the case and the hunters had finally caught up with their prey. That would make an interesting scenario to play out.

With the Lord of the Rings range, I am aiming for fast but decent painting - they are an antidote to the painstaking, careful stuff of late. They were completed quite rapidly, one session to get some base colours and metals on them, a second session to work the detail into the faces and slap on the bases, then a third session to complete the clothing and belts. Given the time spent on them, I am reasonably happy with them. It's a shame that Aragorn has lost some of his clothing in the chase, but I did not have a cloaked running figure. Now, all that remains is to paint the prey.....

Lake Town Fun

As you can probably see from this photo, one of my gifts this year was a Lake Town House from the Lord of the Rings range. I had thought it had good potential, as the architecture style was generic enough to be used as a Rohan, Viking, Victorian era or general fantasy building. The walkways could be used as in the box, as a harbour side, or in a muddy village setting as pathways (I got this idea in a recreated Danelaw village in Yorkshire). The boat would have lots of uses and there are quite a few little extras like baskets, barrels and such like. Here you can see the house built, with the square wooden platform intended as the house base, instead used as a dock/jetty.

As I was building the couple of barrels I remembered I had a set of Renedra barrels squirreled away and cracked them open too. My dock area quickly filled up and I was just about to throw away the used sprue, when it occurred to me that it could be a useful frame. A little bit of work cutting and glueing coffee stirrers to the used sprue and I had a second dock area. They could also be used to make elementary shapes, to make planked buildings like small sheds or animal shelters. Fun times.

Mordor Marches Out

Finally. After a very long summer and numerous other distractions -  ten weeks after the last game - dice have been rolling again in Matt's dungeon. I wanted to play with my newly painted Mordor orcs, so we decided on a nice and easy game of Dragon Rampant. The game is really designed for smaller forces than we were using, so we added a few tweaks to accommodate the larger number of units - allowing a commander to fail three activation tests before ending his turn. We also relaxed the three inch rule for friendly units. And we just lined up our armies for a good old pitched battle rather than play one of the wacky scenarios from the booklet. Sometimes, especially as a Mordor orc, you just want to get stuck in and smash some bones. This photo shows most of my force deployed for the battle, just out of frame were a unit of six cowardly warg riders who behaved so badly in game they do not deserve to appear in this post!

Across the table were Faramir's brave men of Gondor. A lot less bodies than the orcs, though as you might expect, considerably more skilled in combat. And with both forces lined up and ready, we started playing. Dragon Rampant is a nice system for quick and easy games. Our tweaks worked well and we found that in most turns both players were able to activate most of their units. It wouldn't be Dragon Rampant without those infuriating (at times) activation fails, but the three fail rule cushioned the blow for the most part and it felt more like a conventional wargame to me.

Most of the fighting took place in the centre of the table, with the orcs rushing forward to a more conservative Gondor force. I made a deployment error, the troll hidden in the woods seemed like a good idea when I saw all the archers across the board, but three consecutive activation fails and then a slow slog through the woods meant he was wasted in game terms. Only towards the end of the game did the troll manage to finally smash some Gondor skulls.

The rest of the battle ebbed and flowed nicely, first one side seeming to have the upper hand, then the other seeming to take control. Pictures speak volumes, so here's a few to give a flavour of the action.

By the end of the battle, both sides had taken a considerable beating and fought to a stalemate. I think in terms of a "result" it was most likely a draw. But gaming is not about winning or losing, it's about getting your lovingly painted toys out of their box for a couple of hours to run round on some nice terrain.

I posted a couple of pictures on facebook and got a lot of compliments (and questions) on the terrain, which is nice but totally undeserved as it's all Matt's. The "board" is a faux fur fleece throw or blanket, oversprayed in part with cheap aerosol paints. The terrain is a mix of scratch-built and some items from Thomarillion.

More games to come in the future I hope. I am already thinking about how to beef up my orcs in some way and would like to add some black orcs. And with ONLY 99 DAYS to go until xmas, I may well be adding considerable reinforcements at that time. Faramir, what's that in the sky?