Dori

Completing my mini project is Dori. The reds took a bit long to paint but pleased with that and the hair in particular.

The brothers unite.

Not a bad likeness?

Nori

Another quick update. Nori is now finished. Ive got to say i'm enjoying hero painting much more than army painting.

Nori

And next on the bloc is good old Dori

Ori

Today I completed the forgeworld version of Ori. Here is a comparison to the plastic one from back in 2014. Both painted using taleofpainters tutorial. The details are better defined in the resin especially the face. Although I prefer the more action pose of the plastic one . At least my painting is slightly better for the skin and eyes at least. Next up will be Nori and Dori.

May and June

Welcome back. A bit of a delay in the usual schedule but here is my finally finished Dunland section. Along with some wargs painted for a tournament  this weekend. Interestingly i have now reached 1022 points within 6 months
, although that does include saruman and Sharkey. So mission accompished to an extent but i do still have around 30 uruk warriors and some orc allies to do before the Isenguard force is truly finished.

So thats all for now. I will do another post with the whole Tale of gamers army as well as choose something new to work on.

April

A wizard is never late. Disappointingly i only finished one model this month. I have been finding the dunland warriors quite tricky to paint with lots of overlapping fur, cloth and armour details so they have been postponed briefly.

Last week, and heralding the end of april, was the Seven Stones tournament. I teamed up with Kieran and we used a Dol Guldur all hero army (all villain!?). I have taken a few pictures of tne games so will endeavour to do a post dedicated to it soon. To round out the army i had one model to paint up which was the intimidating Keeper of the Dungeon...

I really enjoyed focusing in on this model, there is lots of nice detail and despite being resin the sculpt had reallly sharp detail. I found a nice blood effect can be found by mixing the technical blood paint with carroburg crimson wash which i used on the beard. 

I also created 7 palantir style objectives, nothing too elaboratd but they do the job.

More to follow, there may also be some forces of good...(elves!)

Wildmen and April wip

A week later than planned, i have finished my Dunlending wild men. It is pretty rare to see these guys on the battlefield so i am pleased to have done an atleast a decent paint job. They are a cheap choice in the game at just 5 points each and will help offset the more expensive uruks. We will have to see if there defense 3 is too much of a weakness!

 

We will fight for Saruman

Burn every village!

And for this month, fingers crossed, there will be more Dunland joining the army to bring it up to 750 points.

March

The target for march was to add another warband. For the hero i choose the dubious duo of sharkey and worm. Quite different poses from usual and i am pleased how they turned out.

The second half of the month didnt go so well. I am still working on 12x dunland wildmen. I have the basecoats down but still need to add some more washes and highlights, at my usual speed about another week to finish!

To get the force up to 750 points for april i am going to continue the dunland theme with Trydan and a band of warriors. So more dunland on the way soon.

Work in Progress

The half way point for this month has come around really quickly. Here is what I've done so far. Not much progress on the March goal of adding another warband so hopefully  writing this will get me motivated to speed up! 

I've finished frodo and sam if I ever need them for a Mt doom scenario. Hopefully looking less like a boyband than last time. Painting unarmoured hobbits is a nice change after the uruks. 

Part of the delay in this month's painting has been these new arrivals. Most importantly the Dunland banner to add to my warriors probably for next month.

last weekend I use the ballista for the first time. Only managed to kill one dwarf but I think it still might have potential in game as it forces your opponents to act, especially in the new GT scenarios. I have since added a 60mm Base and think it will fit in better next to the crew as well as if it ever needs to move around the table.

I got some positive feedback on my uruk banner from last month, I think this was my first real bit of freehand so here is how I did it, from an old white dwarf:

I might add a few of the smaller white hands once I am done with the Dunland.  Speaking of which here is what I am aiming to do, Sharkey and Worm with 12 wildmen. So fingers crossed these will be ready by the end of the month.

400pts Isenguard vs Lake town

Welcome back reader. Last week I got a game in vs Chris Dan's Lake Town Militia. Here is the bat rep.

For my Isenguard force I had Saruman and a Captain leading a mix of bezerkers and warriors. Advantages: magic, S4, D6, Disadvantage: low numbers.

 

Chris' Lake Town including Bardon horse, Bilbo and Alfred in drag (!). It is cool to play a different army and the first time I would face the new Bard and Lake town. Chris' Alfred model has a great paint job so look out for it on his next post, we also used the scenic Base he comes with asome invisible bilbo, (great idea I think). Laketown advantages: bows, might and numbers. Disadvantages: weak troops and reliant on Bard.

Place your bets then read on...

Our mission is recon and we're using the new GT scenario. Here is the board some ruins on the outskirts of Gondor.

                                 

My first roll of the game, failing to enter the Board! 

Bard also fails to arrive.

Next turn everyone arrives and square off for a show down.

Alfred's council was almost too dubious for Bard but he successful goes to 6 Might! 

First blood goes to the bowmen, bringing down a bezerker and wounding the captain.

Sarum an strikes back blasting an archer to knock Bard off his horse.

The lines clash even Bilbo gets stuck in. Bards banner effect helps the Lake town win the fights.

Saruman fails a blast spell but the the uruk hai claim some kills most importantly taking Alfred out. However  Bard shoots down two from the flank. 

The Lake town archers and Bard move to surround Saruman.

A successful heroic combat by Bard  leaves Saruman surrounded. Curtains for Isenguard! 

Remember we were playing recon? Away from the main fight 4 lake towers made it off. 

I believe it was 12-0 to Lake town. Well played to Chris.  

I think the deciding factor in the game can be seen in comparing the two leaders. For 170 points Sarum an didn't have enough impact on the game, failing a lot of spells. As good as the uruks are it was an uphill battle when outnumbered. Bard was a very strong hero this game with his great bow shooting and combined might from Alfred giving him combat power.

Thanks to Chris for hosting our game. We also played some other games and tried out Dainty vs Thrandrs which was cool.

  

I will be adding some Dunland to my Tale army next. More to come soon.