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Author Topic: A miniature journey through Middle Earth  (Read 29678 times)

Undercovergeek

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on: July 26, 2021, 04:20:49 AM
A place to empty my mind, and phone of Middle Earth plans, painting, and club meeting spectacular defeats and victories

Firstly my 'armies' - it is a skirmish game after all, there will be no Pelennor Fields or Helms Deep style collections here - the club i go to generally play at 800 points which varies in figures from 1 (Smaug) to about 80 if you're taking a goblin horde.

The history behind my army choices has many twists and turns - i originally started with an Azog Legion force, a small 500 pointer that was the man himself, a couple of beserkers and some gundabad orcs - in the mists of time and the passing of one club to another these guys were sold and the game was never more

A friend from the old club contacted me to say hed found a new club and would i like to come down, we'd always played Bolt Action but he was getting back into LoTR and he was a keen tournament player - after a couple of visits i started collecting a force again.

Its baddies, its always baddies, Bolt Action - the Germans, the Empire in Star Wars, the Orks in 40k, the Skaven in Blood Bowl, i cant help myself. So, the epitome of all that is bad in Middle Earth - Angmar - demons, spirits, orcs, trolls, ghosts - this was the one for me. So after a couple of months the Angmar force is mostly done, a few additions to make, therell be a 'holy crap, i really needed a XXX here' emergency, there always is, but in essence 1000 points is finished

Theres the management -



We have here Gulavhar the Terror of Arnor and Burdhur the Troll Chieftan - the entire army is in effect the anvil that these two hammers can be used upon - stop the enemy, fly over the top and eat them from behind while Burdhur smashes through from the front



The Barrow Wights - these guys can lead men, but theyre special ability is the spell Paralyse - unavoidable as a standard model, can be dispelled as a hero but at a cost - take enough wights and you can chew through the enemies dispel ability and leave them open to attack - the idea been to get the Wights within range of the enemy heroes, paralyse them, hop Gulavhar over the top of any defences and drop down to devour the defenceless Aragorns and Theodens of the world




The bread and butter of the army - the angmar orcs, and the dead marsh spectres. I have these arranged as 5 swordsmen at the front, with 5 spearmen at the back - this allows an extra dice roll in an attack as the spearmen support the swords, and then a dead marsh spectre on either end of the front rank of 5. These spectres, if successful grant you control of an enemy model if they fail a courage test, this lets you move them around the field, into the line of sight of bows or into the range of a baddie, say Burdhur. I have 3 groups of these






And lastly, the mobile force - the Warg Riders - these guys have throwing spears, so just before they hit they throw in a spear for an extra attack. I have two groups, one of seven led by a captain - theres 5 here, and two on the painting desk, and another group of just 7 yet to be bought

On club night, before understanding Angmar I was suffering terribly. The main part of MESBG is a feature known as heroic actions, each hero figure has a stat line above vanilla troops granting them might, will and fate - a way to avoid Gimli getting killed by a goblin on the first turn of the game i suppose - and heroic actions are paid for using might, the more heroes you have the more might you can use. My regular opponent has a lot of cheap heroes so has a lot of might - the most effective use of this he uses is in movement - in MESBG you roll for priority at the start of each turn, this isnt simply you go, i go - now imagine i have a line of orcs within charge range of his army, I NEED to go first on the next turn to get my charge bonus and decide who fights who

i roll a 5, he rolls a 4 - YES...... BUT, he now declares a heroic move using a point of might on the nearest hero, meaning that group of figures of his can go first, before mine SO i call a heroic action on the orcs leader using a point of might - now because weve both called the action it simply comes down to a dice roll again of who goes first 1-3 for evil, 4-6 for good

would you believe in the last 17 dice rolls ive won one of these decisions!!!!!   >:( >:( >:(

Too much text here so ill carry on in a bit





bob48

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Reply #1 on: July 26, 2021, 06:42:41 AM
Wonderful stuff, 'geek  :bigthumb:

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bayonetbrant

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Reply #2 on: July 26, 2021, 07:49:14 AM
those are pretty incredible

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bbmike

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Reply #3 on: July 26, 2021, 08:32:17 AM
Can you bring those over when my copy of The One Ring Roleplaying Game Second Edition arrives?  :whistle:

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Martok

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Reply #4 on: July 26, 2021, 03:36:19 PM
Fantastic as usual, 'geek

Although I feel you on losing 16 out of 17 dice rolls; ouch. :( 



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mcguire

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Reply #5 on: July 26, 2021, 03:49:12 PM
Wonderful stuff, 'geek  :bigthumb:

Yes!

But I find your choice of backdrop....disturbing.

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thecommandtent

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Reply #6 on: July 26, 2021, 08:00:29 PM
Wow those are impressive. Hope you post some pictures when you get them into action!



Staggerwing

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Reply #7 on: July 27, 2021, 06:46:28 AM
Amazing stuff as usual 'Geek!

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Barthheart

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Reply #8 on: July 27, 2021, 07:28:04 AM
Really great work 'Geek!  :applause:

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Undercovergeek

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Reply #9 on: July 27, 2021, 08:06:58 AM
Thanks chaps

......the strategy for Angmar then is to cast as many annoying spells against the enemy as possible with the barrow wights, the witch king, the spectres and wear down his might and will - and then when theres none left, you bring out the big guns he cant resist and wipe the field. Its a difficult balance of combat and magic that ive almost got together - the issue been you cant cast whilst youre in combat so you have to keep your best guys out of the fight to just the right time - its coming together

However, my friend also has a Rohan army - Angmars success has so far come against his Easterlings force. Now, Rohan, whilst he only has 19 models to my 38 its is overflowing with might, at least 5 heroes with more might than i have spells - its fearsome - he knows the force intimately and all its nuances - its a running joke that there are so many 'ah but because Theoden is doing this, whilst that, and is in range of that and so i have double attacks' that its become 'well.... its tuesday, and its raining, and the news is on TV so Theoden gets to kill 10 of your orcs for no reason' - honestly there are so many bonuses to Rohan its unbelievable. Compounding this is he has chosen an all cavalry force, double attacks against infantry, if you get knocked down, its quadruple attacks, no defence - uuuuuuuugh the list goes on - the last fight against Rohan ended in an inglorious 'tabling' - nothing of Angmar left on the table

Back to the drawing board - i cant explain how many hours have been sunk into researching countering all cavalry armies, Youtube, books, videos, podcasts - after weeks, one thing stood out - take your own cavalry army - it immediately negates the double attack bonus and at least levels the playing field and the loss comes down to bad tactics and dice rolls and not a bad force choice

So - our own all cavalry army ay???  ??? ???

Mordor Knights - cause terror, look hard as nails and are mainly black or rust - SOLD




This particular band are led by The Dark Marshal - i mean come on, you can keep your Legolas, and Bilbos - THE DARK MARSHAL!!




The next group of 6 will be led by the big boy himself - The Witch King



and the third group will be led by The Mouth of Sauron - im at least going to win the best named baddies competition



in a stroke of marketing genius the rules for cavalry dictate you must have a mounted and a dismounted figure in case the horse gets killed - bravo GW, bravo - so a 18 horse army now needs 18 knights on foot in case the horses go - ill get prob 50% for the knights and see if thats enough - all the characters have foot and mount

I still have 12 mounted knights to paint for these guys and their pet monster.....................



Martok

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Reply #10 on: July 28, 2021, 04:18:47 AM
Man, those figures look incredible.  Fingers crossed they get the job done! 


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Undercovergeek

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Reply #11 on: July 28, 2021, 04:19:44 AM
Cheers martok - like board games I’m afraid sometimes it’s difficult to know when to stop - there’s more to come!



Steelie

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Reply #12 on: July 28, 2021, 09:47:33 AM
Serious "WOW" factor happening here! Great stuff!

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Doctor Quest

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Reply #13 on: July 28, 2021, 10:39:44 AM
Those are fantastic minis.  :notworthy:

More pix! More pix!

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Tolstoi

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Reply #14 on: July 29, 2021, 11:04:47 AM
I want to add my appreciation for your magnificent LoTR figs. Your painting skills are amazing!   :2thumbs: