Lord of the Rings 'urban' game

LotR game

It is simply from osmosis that I have any knowledge of the Tolkien worlds as I have never read any of the Hobbit or Lord of the Rings books.  Nor have I watched any of the movies except some random battle scenes so CGI’d and of such ridiculous tactical maneuvers that I could only go ‘pfft’.  This puts me much apart from one of the gaming groups I venture with.  They can happily ramble on about all the details.  When I dare to comment that they could use different colours to paint differently than what either GW or Peter Jackson have envisioned, I am met with such derision I might have said the British Army never wore red in the entirety of its existence! Such is their history of this fantasy world.

Yet I can play in LotR games. Don’t particularly like the rules, but an armoured guy with a spear is basically the same whether Orc, Gondorian or even a Medieval Yeoman for all that.

In this, once again with a “go and kill” scenario idea ….sigh ….I was one of the “good guys” against the bad guys.  It was ‘the army loses at 50%’ victory idea with both sides close to that at the end of evening.  However it was a nice looking and, for this fantasy world, a different urban environment set up by ChrisO.  

The figures and terrain are theirs (a collaborative effort). 

 

a Roman Fantasy

Purist historical players specially followers of Napoleonics, ACW, War of 1812, English Civil War, …well, all except perhaps those for the love of anything Roman, please look away now as I introduce my second only fantasy army…converted skeletons.

Frankly, the only fantasy army I can really tolerate are skeletons; probably because they are still human, albeit without flesh.  (Yes, yes, so some may consider zombies, but have they not essentially become a different species?? And they are more apocalyptic than classic fantasy anyway) 

Sitting in a box for years has been a Warlord plastic Early Imperial Roman collection together with accompanying Foundry metals (nice match those), but having already seven other Roman armies which I don’t play with, so it sat.

The idea started thumbing through an old war-game magazine had an article on “Broken Legions” showing skeleton/zombie Romans which looked interesting.  I had just a couple of old skeletons of unknown providence which were made as a ballista crew for fun. (see  previous post)

Anyway, one thought leads to another and so sorted through the box of plastics and metals to divide between those who should go to perhaps (??) a new “Infamy, Infamy” Roman army and those plastic types I could “sacrifice” for conversion into skeletons and for their equipment.

Careful counts were made to insure I had enough shields and heads (!) for the I,I Romans should I do those later.  

New Wargames Atlantic Skeletons were selected for the fantasy Romans (*)

I suppose with Jason and the Argonauts old movie skeleton scene in my head (see: short YouTube  ) with the remaining pile I went to work carving, gouging, removing, adding…

Used old wood dowels I had around for years to create a ruined temple.  Originally made for just one of the units but liked it so much I spread the wealth so having each unit have a bit of temple for its bases.  I found I could stretch the numbers a bit for a fourth unit.  Running out of dowel pieces for columns, I made "more temple" with a spare metal Foundry Roman officer becoming a statue atop a cork stopper with its head toppled to the ground.  ( …return of the Legions after the fall of Empire?…)  

The emerging legionaries is again inspired by the movie scene.  The four units are supported by a battery of ballista.  Surprisingly had two more ballista in metal in the box thus the other army has enough and so could use all the plastics for this contingent. 

As is becoming usual with my recent endeavours,  no idea when I might employ this new army, but, and while my wife hates this expression, it is not the destination but the journey is the true purpose of life’s travels. I had much fun (and time!) doing up this collection. However the more I look at it the less skellie and more Roman it becomes.

---------

(*) Timing is everything.  I mentioned my interest in this to my buddy WillB, who offered a bunch of half-done Warlord plastic types (nee-Wargames Factory) but then immediately thereafter the LFGS contacted me that the long awaited product ‘I ordered’ finally came in.  The two brands I consider not compatible so WillB’s have become medieval versions some with new 12th Century helmets/heads attached to be done later. A more traditional skeletal force to be sure. 

( Although two of the emerging legionaries are indeed originally his creations as he was inspired by the movie and lead me in that direction.)

a 20th C. Roman infantryman....

Inspired by a friend’s inventive mashup of Landsknecht armed with a MG34 WW2 machine gun (!) and images of modern soldiers with very Imperial Roman looking armour of which I have always wanted to create,  I have done my own plastics mashup of a Imperial Roman (c. 100 AD and an Imperial Japanese infantryman WW2 (c. 1940) both by Warlord Games.

Obviously the armour - the famous Lorica Segmentata must be shown - heck, not Imperial Roman without it - as would the helmet which I smoothed of details to get a slightly more modern look.  Steel colour was used but a more modern dull green could be effective for more current looking soldiers.  Two more quintessential Roman items are the ‘caligae’ [army sandals] and the ‘baltea’ [ the dangly straps in front of, well, the dangly bits ]. Both these were kept, but the main uniform is early 20th century.  The Japanese uniform has a long tunic covering the rump which was about the same length as the Roman one thus I painted in a dull red which is over the long sleeves and trousers painted a modern dull colour. As this uniform is from the 1930’s/WW2, I did not go for a baggier camouflaged version and so left the puttees which are painted in buff so giving a leather bound look instead (something picked up from the barbarians in the intervening years?).

Fun little project.

The large amount of plastic Romans I have might still be “amended”.  Looking toward making them the “Lost IX Legio”.  Lots of skeletons, mangled limbs, dead flesh and rusted armour. That could be an army.  Now to get some bits and parts.

I have cheated a bit and already created a ballista crew from the few skellie bits I had at the very bottom of a box for some reason….

Medieval artillery

The ballpoint pen ran out of ink.  Of course I did not throw it away but I looked at it, took it apart and used the parts.  Hey, it is still part of the recycle, reuse, repurpose phrase is it not?  :)

The main "chassis" on this particular pen is quite thick and the inner dimension of the tube not so large.  Medieval casting of a cannon sized actually, and needing a cannon for my crew I set to work cutting the plastic tube after removing the inner ink tube (that to be used to allow me to envelope with a flag thus allowing it to be slipped over an existing standard-bearer wire pole to have different flags for the same unit).

The cut tube was placed within a balsa wood frame, itself reinforced by additional bits to handle the cannon's recoil.  Metal straps were of paper softened by a water and PVA(white glue) mixture.  The whole was then primed and painted.  A very quick, easy project which I "needed" to do.

While that is the medieval 'modern' version of artillery, they still had the old-fashioned weapon very much still in vogue (at least for a couple more years) in the shape of the catapult.  Here is one I came across in the fantasy section.  It comes already primed.  While the wood is probably a bit rough and weathered for realism,  I will be using it for objective purposes for scenarios (I don't have any figures suitable as crew at present).

Just piddling away at the many diverse projects I have on the go....

LotR bash - Fight for the temple

I am not a Lord of the Rings type of follower. I do not have any of the figures or such (the ones in this game are from a group effort using the Game Workshop minis).   The fellows at the game almost kicked me out upon my declaration that I have not seen any of the films…. However, a tabletop miniatures battle is a universal thing and so I was not out of my element.  I took a bunch of orcs, some with bow - who I subsequently demoted to mere warriors upon their distinct lack of hitting/killing anything!

The main target was the temple building which was defended by ChrisO and his Gondor heavy armour chaps who I wore down until Kev’s goblins could swarm up the walls and, ahem, overwhelm the defenders. It came to the last turn and the ‘end of the game’ roll which came just before the collapse of both sides (depending upon morale tests) as both sides were on their very last legs. All very nail-biting....

Of particular note was the newly painted Ent (a living, moving and fighting tree) who, while falling to the efforts of two trolls, did last much longer than expected - being fresh to the tabletop and all…

Dragon Rampant game

WillB claimed first dibs on hosting at the club's Friday Bonsor game night.  Jim and I offered our long dormant collections to the cause and I also offered to bring some additional terrain pieces.
As it were, he was late in arriving so I spread my desert type mat. This is a Hotz 'Wild West' mat showing roads in a darker colour which we would incorporate by placing walls and buildings in the corners to hide these darker areas; creating "corners" to which we each would place our retinues.  Having arrived, Will offered his very old fantasy catapult as the objective; the winner having moved it off his corner of the table by placing a unit onto and using that unit's move activation to maneuver it.  Only Will finally made an effort at it, as the rest of us were simply attacking each other made interesting as we rolled for allied-manship and had each friendly retinue kitty-corner to each other.

the overall game with 28mm-ish figures and a real mix of miniatures.  

In typical Rampant style, luck, dice and maybe good tactics produced an entertaining game.  You can read more about it at Will's blog ( link ) as I will not bore you with a blow by blow.

My purple cloaked heavy foot in a staring contest with Jim's Skinks.

On my part, my heavies had apparently armour the quality of tinfoil and swords made of wood.  And my dice rolling...well..... The following photo speaks volumes .....

My lone Heavy Horse Tekon rider battered and my usual dubious dice rolling......

Nevertheless had fun which is the point.

Been a while...

While I blog only to keep a record of my wargaming activities, I am aware that, to my utter astonishment to be honest, that people follow said activities.  OK, I do try to make the entries somewhat interesting and write in a style, I hope, which are entertaining to read - if only for myself.
The long span in between has been a result of a computer problem, now fixed, and a dearth of anything to write about.  Personally I find this distressing as my hobby is an important part of my activities regardless of its priorities in life.  Or in other words, I rather paint than mow the lawn.  However, being also a rational man (I think so?) I must do the latter before the former.  That being the case, work and life has prevented me from much in the way of hobby activity.  Thus the dearth of posts.
However, last night, I participated in a "Dragon Rampant" game.  Regular readers will no doubt be aware of my current love of the Dan Mersey series of "Rampant" rules having resurrected many of my dormant collections to feasible "armies" of the tabletop.  While I know the basics of the game, the fantasy troop types are beyond my comprehension and so I had a tough time trying to decide "is it better to attack that unit or this one?" or "how tough are those things?"
But the system is fun, if not frustrating if you can't activate, or in my case often, throw my 12 die to get only one hit etc.(the majority of rolls being of the 1 or 2 category!)  But quick and entertaining.  Which is the point.

As I did not bring a camera ( I am that out of practice!) I had the GM forward a couple of shots
ChrisO's figures.  Very well painted I might add.

Chaos 'retinue' for Dragon Rampant

The new job is very much a time-killer.  Now perhaps certainly, ALL careers take one away from the more important wargaming tasks, and I, up till now, have been fortunate to avoid most of that, but now finding that my wargame 'projects' take a lot longer to complete.

There is much "downtime" between drop off and pick up of the bus charters, which can be very boring even with a good book to read; and I miss the wargaming work so I have made it possible to take painting or modelling, to work on during this time.  Not very conducive for detailed painting scrunched as one is required to be, sitting on the bench seats, but I can get 'the basics' done those large surface areas of a miniature - the pants, tunic, spears, cloaks and the like.  Sometimes even more detailed parts can be done.  Depends upon the sculpting of the figure.  And occasionally a whole unit can be completed.  Or even a whole force.  Such was this "army" of Chaos warriors.

The figures are from an old game of BattleMasters.  I bought boxes of them as it was on sale at Toy R Us years ago and I thought it was a good deal. Hmm. Anyway, it was good vs evil.  The good was sorta Renaissance era which I made into a large force ( link ) and much of the evil types I sold, but for whatever reason I retained these. It happened that I had enough to have enough models ( and points ) for a Dragon Rampant force. *  With a need to fill time per mentioned above,  I brought along all the metallic colours I have so to vary the look of these identical models.

I hate painting horses - although they look fine once done.  But for this force - being fantasy and all - I used a blue for the hide and cream for the tail (mimicked on the helmet and spear fringes) and with a natural horn from the front of the head [ this latter appendage is a metal spike but I like the unicorn idea! ] Only after completing the painting did I think the colour scheme I chose has a definite Smurf look, but let us just overlook that shall we......these are imaginary 'Tekoins'!

* the more mathematically astute readers might have counted only 11 models of both mounted and foot types thus coming 1 short of the required amount.  Obviously one of the two groups of each type will be only 5 strong.  Oh my, total chaos!! However I am sure myself and my opponent will remember to note the first casualty of the game - grin -

Lord of the Rings. A four way battle with Trolls!

The boys seemed surprised when I showed up.  "Yeah, you did say you would show and good you did!" Francis the host exclaimed as a couple of the regulars bailed and with me, this four way game was possible.

First things first.  I have not read any of the Middle Earth  books, nor do I know much about the story, nor have I watched any  of the movies   --  probably the only person in the world?   Certainly within the crowd I know in the hobby anyway......   However LotR rule system is well known to the guys and they helped me through it by basically telling me what roll was needed and how many dice to throw. 

What was really interesting was the scenario as it was a token grab, with the winner with the most tokens each having a different amount, but could only be taken by the leader and off the table before his particular Lord of the Rings army melted away.  HOWEVER, two of these desirables could awake a big-ass troll which apparently is not desirable to be around.  On top of that, were the many winding rivers which cut through the battlefield. While there were bridges -- no problem to cross -- and fords -- roll for those too but  a 1 in 3 to only go half speed -- but to cross a river tempts a 1 in 3 chance of dying !!   AND on top of all THAT, was the 'so who goes first ' roll off.  If any players tied on this, a random events chart is consulted with good, bad and ugly results.  With players - example:  the oldest or the tallest - meeting out the targets and the other player rolling for hits/kills.  So some idea of the random chaos of each turn.

part of the contingent of Dwarves under my control

a Troll!

"if I duck and weave..."

From their impressive LotR collective collection, my 'shorties' wandering around to collect tokens - one of which is the white square in the distance.

close-up of the warriors under my control.  What another 6?!  I must admit I had quite a few during the game.

This photo shows some of the dilemmas we all had through out the game.  The green blobs are deadly, impassible swamps which thus restrict movement options and fighting options.  Both Kev's Gondor -top- and Francis' Goblins -bottom- both want the token but know the second troll has not be awoken. Take?  Not take? Let the other guy look, and then if not the Troll, try to steal the darn thing??

Overhead shot demonstrating the terrain broken up by the deadly rivers.  Ask Dave how deadly! 

Dave's warriors still fighting the first Troll - it being under my control for the entire game. He did manage to kill it but he also had the second Troll to deal with!  <grin>

...not my usual wargaming thing, but great fun.