Silmarillion Gaming Day in Nottingham

Headed up to Nottingham today to join a merry throng of chaps to play a couple of Silmarillion games using two 'work in progress' rule sets. Both games were set during the Fifth Battle of Beleriand, Nirnaeth Arnoediad - 'Unnumbered Tears'. Both scenarios were originally in Miniature Wargames magazine written by Graham Green, rule writer, figure painter/converter/sculptor extraordinaire. Graham ran the Last Stand of Hurin and the Men of Dorlomin using his figures (well, plus my trolls) and his rules, which was basically the last act off the battle. James Morris ran Gwindor's Charge, the opening part of the action. In the real battle, the Elves and men took a complete pasting. Would we repeat 'history' today?

My first game was Hurin's Last Stand. I took the evil force along with a chap called Matt. We took on Tom WD who commanded the Men plus a couple of units of Elves. The scenario was basically that the Elves of Gondolin were retreating from the lost battle and Hurin, his brother Huor and their warriors were to hold off the Orcs to allow their escape. A couple of Elf units were on hand to lend ranged support. The evil army had the option to recycle units to represent the unending stream of troops available. We basically had to control the two fords over the river and as as secondary objective, we had to capture Hurin for Morgoth. If we could get Huor too, so much the better! Everything else had to die!
In the event, Tom threw some shocking dice and the valiant men of Dorlomin died helplessly and very fast, but the Elf archers eventually slowed us down enough so that we couldn't control both fords by the end of turn 8.
Great game and Graham's rules worked pretty well. they are very different to what I'm used to, but I quite enjoyed this, the second time I'd played with them. I only took a handful of pics of this small-scale game. The men in these pics are Graham's conversions of Oathmark humans with greenstuff cloaks, replaced heads and mail armour sculpted from greenstuff over the models' original armour.

After a hearty pub lunch, it was on to the second battle. This was Gwindor's Charge with James Morris' home-brewed rules. The Orcs had been tasked with drawing king Fingon's Elf/Men army out from their position in the wooded hills in order to facilitate their destruction by Morgoth's reserve forces. To do this, they had dragged Elf captives in front of the Elves and decapitated them. Unfortunately, the brother of one of the captives was in the Elf line at this point. Enraged by the murder of his brother, he led a colossal attack with his cavalry, followed by most of the Elves and men. Determined to exact revenge, he headed straight for the Orc leader who had murdered his brother. That was the Elf objective - kill the murdering Orc and get as many units off the table through the Orc lines as possible before one side or other ran out of 'reputation', which is how James' rules determine victory. The Orcs had to stop them! Once again, I fought on the side of evil. A handful of my Orcs were in the horde (we had SO many Orcs that mine, other than heroes and a few archers, weren't needed) but my Elves were in the opposing army. 

In the end, we held the Elf charge, with only King Fingon's cavalry unit looking certain to exit the table before the game ended with us losing our last reputation token. We'd certainly held the Elf onslaught (which is more than what happened in the 'real' battle) so we claimed it as a minor Elf victory - tens of thousands of Orcs and evil men would soon be arriving to reinforce our line and overwhelm the hated Noldor and their allies!

Here are the opposing battle lines at the start of the game...

Gwindor's charge...

...which is eventually held with the destruction of his personal retinue and much of his heavy cavalry.

Here are some more pictures from the battle, including my Elves in the alliance battle line. 

Fantastic day! Really enjoyed both games. We're planning another later in the year and our collections may make an appearance at wargame shows during the year!

More for Morgoth!

The forges of Angband have been busy since Christmas in preparation for a Middle Earth gaming event in Nottingham on Saturday. I painted a second unit of pike-armed Orcs and two units of Orc archers plus an Orc hero. The pike-armed Orcs were tidied up having been bought from EBAY part-painted as per most of my Orc forces. One Uruk-hai scout archer in one of the units was the same. The Mordor Orc archer models and the hero were painted from scratch. I now have 8 combat Orc units - 2 with pike, 2 with spear and the rest with sword, 3 Orc archer units, a unit of trolls, 3 Orc heroes, a Werewolf hero and a firedrake. I have two units of wolf riders in the painting queue. Quite a decent force! Here are pics of the recent additions.

More for Morgoth: Orc Pikes.

More progress on the army of Angband. Some Pike-armed Orcs today. Bought from EBAY with armour neatly drybrushed and flesh base coated. I tidied up the armour, highlighted the flesh and painted all the other bits. It's amazing what you get done with a couple of child-free days!

I have one more unit of these on the painting table, plus 2 units of 4 archers that I want to get done by 11th January... Hope I can make it. I have my lad with me for the next 6 days so will not get so much painting time...

The Forces of Angband Multiply - Trolls

The forges of Angband are working overtime over the holiday period! I finished a unit of trolls... The GW hill troll was painted 6 or 7 years ago and I needed 3 more for a unit so decided to buy a pack of Last Alliance plastics - £10 for 4 soft plastic trolls. 
To be fair, the plastic is kinda 'medium' plastic. It took a bit of work to clean up the flash, etc (possibly because my knife blade needs replacing, possibly because the plastic is a weird consistency - probably a bit of both) but they painted up really well! And I still have one left over if I want a unit of 4 with a Troll leader... 
PS these trolls are from 'War Trolls set 3' - Last Alliance do several troll sets...

The Forges of Angband - Orcs Multiply!!

I've been painting Orcs the past couple of weeks. Like most of the army of Morgoth figures in my collection, these were all purchased part-painted from EBAY and I've tidied them up.

The unit of Morannon Orcs and Uruk Hai swordsmen were a mixed bag. The Morannon Orcs were reasonably neatly basecoated, had been ink washed and highlighted, again quite neatly. I just had to sharpen up the highlights and neaten things up a bit, plus repainting all the tunics which were bright red when they came to me - way too bright for bog standard Orcs so I repainted them in a variety of colours. The Uruk Hai models were a bit of a mess - mostly just badly dry brushed in metallics and some skin tones. To be honest I probably should have started again with them, but figured I could 'lose' them in amongst the rank and file so just fixed them as best I could. They look ok in amongst all the others.

The unit made up from Uruk Hai Scouts were nicely base coated with some decent single highlights. It was an easy job to sharpen the highlights up neatly. However, all the clothing had been painted black and  it was just too much, so I repainted bits of clothing in either Foundry Rawhide or Deep Leather Brown triad to break up the black. Those without shields were given the freebies I received in War-games Illustrated a few months back - a sprue of Warlord Games Veteran Roman Legionaries. I think these look good on these models. I also added a standard (I'm basically doing one standard for every two units) which ended up looking pretty cool, I think.

I now have 6 such units fully painted with two units of Uruk Hai pikemen awaiting my attention. I also have a unit of 4 archers finished and two more units to paint, plus a unit of trolls to finish. I also have enough models for two units of 4 warg riders in my bits box, plus a couple of Orc heroes. A tidy little force for playing James Morris' homespun rules or Dragon Rampant.

Angband Command Base

I managed to complete my Angband Command Base. The Lieutenant of Angband is a metal GW LoTR Morannon Orc commander with a shield from War-games Illustrated's free sprue of Warlord Roman Veteran Legionaries from a few months back and with a wire spear. I painted him from scratch. The GW Uruk-hai banner bearer came from EBAY part-painted. He'd been base-coated, ink-washed and the armour had been dry brushed. I just added some extra highlights and repainted the loin cloth. 

The top of the banner pole is, I think, from an old Gripping Beast Hun standard or maybe a Standard from their Saxon range... I've had it in the bits box for over a decade. 

The GW Uruk Hai and Morannon Orcs largely fit the description of Orcs from the Silmarillion - 'shod with iron, shielded with iron'. Also, we know from the Silmarillion that the Orcs were heavily armoured - I think it's Beleg who pleads with an Elf king (Thingol? Can't remember...) for a new sword because his can't get through Orc armour. To me that suggests armour heavier than simply mail, hence me being happy to use these GW figures. 

Anyway, here is the vignette...

Banner of Angband

Working on a command base for my Silmarillion project evil army at the moment and decided I needed a banner to match that of the Elves.

I had no idea what to do with it... Black? Red? Design?

Then I had a brainwave! What would be the one thing that'd p*ss off the Elves more than anything else (especially if facing the sons of Feanor)? A banner featuring the Silmarils themselves!! So the idea was born - Morgoth's Iron Crown, with the Silmarils floating above it in all their radiance!

Clearly the Orc Chieftain who fights under this banner has many Elven slaves who have worked on this affront to their race.

The base colour is Foundry Madder Red triad with a final highlight of Foundry Bright Red Light.
The crown is Foundry Slate Grey triad, with some highlighting with Foundry Arctic Grey and fine lining with GW Corvus Black. The silmarils are the Foundry Arctic Grey triad, with outlining in GW Corvus Black.

Working on the Chieftain and his banner bearer as we speak - hope to have them done just after Christmas...

Silmarillion Action Shots...

I decided to get all my Middle Earth models out for a photoshoot - some action shots with all my available light sources and a bit of scenery. I'm pleased with how these turned out. The lighting gives you a better idea of the actual colours than my recent pictures of the Elves on a white background. 

The army of Angband is 70% bought off EBAY ready part-painted - I went for models that had been base coated neatly and ink-washed, perhaps with minimal dry brushing or highlights. All I've done is tidy up the highlights and repaint some of the cloth as most people seem to use a bright red that I really hate on Orcs in large numbers... And I based them of course. 

Glaurung, the troll, 12 Orcs, the Orc commander and the werewolf (weird Warhammer bits conversion) all painted from scratch by me. The rest courtesy of EBAY.