Fantastic Battles 500 point armies

I always like to have two opposing armies for any game, it helps when demonstrating a game to potential new players.  So it's time I got two forces ready for our 10mm Lord of the Rings Fantastic Battles project (Fantastic Battles in Middle Earth?).

The Gondor army was already nearly there, and I've shown it off before, I just needed an extra company of spearman and some characters. 

The whole 500 point force

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Warlord, Rogue and two Captains

The Rogue was one of the characters from the Heroes and Halflings pack.  The Rogue role in Fantastic Battle makes an ideal leader for a small unit, and I use the same idea with the Warg Chieftain in the Mordor army.  I give the army the Ambush strategy as well, so the rangers can set up in a wood or similar and harass the enemy from a forward position.

The Warlord and Captains (I made a spare) are simply taken from the Spearmen strips.  The new banners are made from the foil from wine bottles.

Mordor needed a little more painting, as I wanted to avoid using the Nazgul. Partly because I don't see The Nine taking part in every battle, and partly because we haven't quite worked out how to represent them in the game yet.

I've added another four companies of orc warriors, and another company of warg riders.  I also rebased some of the characters.

Many more troops for the Mordor 500

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The new warrior companies

The new warg rider company

I tried some new ideas with these minis.  The wargs are all grey, as Tolkien describes them.  Previously I decided against this, as I thought they would blend too much into the colours of the riders, when I look at them here, I really like the effect.  I also chose a slightly different shield design.  This one is a nod to the cover of my copy of the books, designed by Tolkien himself. Another success I feel.

I have ditched the previous red skin and replaced it with a base coat of Vallejo Model Color Mahogany with highlights of Vallejo Extra Opaque Dark Skintone.  I think it looks less garish, yet another win.  I've also replaced the yellow skin colour with, well, nothing.  I still want to have some yellowish skin, but I don't think the previous two versions really worked, so I'll continue to experiment.

Here are the stats we currently use, they may change as we develop our vision of Middle Earth further.

GONDOR CHARACTERS
CHARACTER/COMPANY	RES	MOV	MEL	SHT	DEF	TRAITS	PTS
Lord Astorgwest Warlord	2	4	1	-/-	6+	-	60
Captain of Gondor Captain	1	4	1	-/-	5+	-	25
Ranger Captain Rogue	1	4	1	-/-	6+	-	25

GONDOR COMPANIES
3 Men of Minas Tirith Formed company	4	2	3	-/-	5+	Reliable; Drilled, Long spears	37
	12						111
3 Men of Minas Tirith Formed company	4	2	3	-/-	5+	Reliable; Drilled, Long spears	37
	12						111
3 Archers Formed company	4	2	2	3/2	5+	Reliable; Shooting	38
	12						114
1 Rangers of Ithilien Formed company	4	2	2	3/3	5+	Reliable; Foresters, Shooting (skilled)	44
							44

The Gondorians have the Ambush strategy.

MORDOR CHARACTERS
CHARACTER	RES	MOV	MEL	SHT	DEF	NOTES	PTS
Boldog Warlord	2	4	2	-/-	6+	-	60
2 Orc Captains Captains	1	4	1	-/-	5+	-	25
							50
Warg Chieftain Rogue	1	4	1	-/-	6+	-	25

MORDOR COMPANIES
COMPANY	RES	MOV	MEL	SHT	DEF	TRAITS	PTS
1 Mordor Trolls Elite company	7	2	6	-/-	5+	Monstrous, Furious charge, Heavy melee weapons	54
4 Orc Warriors Irregular company	3	3	3	1/-	4+	Unreliable; Furious charge	21
	12						84
4 Orc Warriors Irregular company	3	3	3	1/-	4+	Unreliable; Furious charge	21
	12						84
2 Orc Archers Irregular company	3	3	2	3/2	4+	Unreliable; Shooting	23
	6						46
2 Warg Riders Irregular company	4	5	5	1/-	4+	Unreliable; Mounted, Furious charge	29
	8						58
1 Wild Wargs Fantastic beasts	5	4	4	-/-	4+	Berserk, Fast , Foresters	38

The Third International Townscape Challenge

We thought it was about time to launch another Townscape Challenge.  Actually, as we are moving away from basing models on the old Warhammer card buildings, perhaps we should change the name?

Anyway, the theme this time is ruins.  So here's the brief:

THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL TOWNSCAPE CHALLENGE – ALL IN RUINS

 AIM

 To build a ruined ‘Warhammer’ terrain piece.

  

RULES (more sort of guidelines really)

The building may be based on one of the Warhammer Townscape models or may be designed from scratch.

It can be fantasy or SF in style.

It can be in any scale.

You have until the end of April 2022 to complete the model.

You must post one blog post before the end of February demonstrating progress.  Otherwise blog your progress however often you feel appropriate and link to each other’s blogs.

  

The challenge is designed to inspire and encourage.  There is no prize apart from the congratulations of your peers, both in the challenge and on our blogs and as many pats on the back (self-administered) as is deemed appropriate.

 
 
GOOD LUCK

Apart from myself, Bodvoc  from The War Crow and Merijn  from Another Wargaming Blog are taking part, and we are inviting more participants, so if this appeals to you, please drop me a message, and it would be great to have you onboard.

I've had a couple of ideas what to build.  Either the ruined Monastery of La Maisontaal from the Lichemaster bonus scenario in an old Citadel Journal, or the ruined farmstead from the Battle At The Farm scenario from the original Rogue Trader rulebook.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the others produce, it should be fun.

 

10mm 3D Printed Low Ruined Walls and Statues

I was very impressed with the Ruined Tower printed by Telford3dprinting so I ordered a few more bits which arrived recently.

Again, everything was well packaged. My main purchase was a large ruined house and a pack of statues, but he included an advanced sample of some ruined walls as well. 

The walls and statues seem to be printed in a different material, it's bluer and has even fewer print layers, very smooth. Apparently, its resin, as the detail is too fine for conventional 3D printers (I hope I got this right, I know nothing about 3D printing).

*EDIT* I've heard from David at Telford 3D Printing; they were printed on an SLA printer. It's more expensive, but far better at achieving the finer detail.

After washing I undercoated them in black rather than giving them a black wash as I did with the Ruined Tower.  The bluish tint to the material suggested a more traditional black drybrushed up to light method.

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The ruins of Osgiliath with some orcs for scale.

Drybrushing up through Vallejo Game Color Cold Grey, VGC Fortress Grey, VGC Wolf Grey to VGC Off White gave the result I wanted.  Then its simply a case of defining the ground with VMC Burnt Umber with random VC Earth blotches as highlights, then adding some vegetation and weathering in the same way as the Ruined Tower.

Ruined walls and statues

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Men of Minas Tirith march through the ruins of Osgiliath

The statues were painted in exactly the same way, though I was tempted to paint them as though they had been painted, in proper Roman or Greek style (when we see them now, most of the paint has worn away, minute traces remain on some examples.  Renaissance artists got it wrong when they were copying).  They are another nice set that add atmosphere to a game and would look good added to other scenery pieces or even on bases with minis.

The actual models of the walls work well for gaming.  They are nicely sized to fit with 10mm minis, most pieces matching the standard 40mm base width for most games systems.  They could be scattered around to represent difficult terrain, or placed in a line to show an old fortification and present a linear barrier.  A couple of sets could easily be placed to show a street of ruined houses.  As with the statues, they would add to mini bases.  I think something like this on the base of my Fellbeast would be great.

I'll post the large ruined house when I get it done.  The scatter ruins are now available here.

*EDIT*

Bodvoc points out that they are not that tall.  Bear in mind that they come on integral bases about 0.5mm thick, whereas the Gondorians, for example, are on 2mm thick integral bases, which are in turn stuck onto 1mm thick plastic and 1mm of magnetic sheet.

Basing the pieces on something else would give them more height, an especially good idea if you were putting several pieces together as a ruin.

Rogue Trader Crimson Fists

And now for something completely different.

Me, painting Space Marines.  Whatever next?

For reasons I don't fully understand, I have started putting together the forces to play Battle At The Farm from the original Rogue Trader Warhammer 40 000 rulebook.  I still have a lot of the original plastic Space Marines from the RTB01 box, many of them very badly painted. A dunk in Dettol stripped the paint off, and I was ready to paint.

As in the original (hideously unbalanced) scenario, the Marines are going to be the Crimson Fists.  It's certainly a chapter worth collecting, as there are only a handful left.  The battle requires fifteen ordinary marines, including one with a missile launcher, and the Chapter Master, Pedro Cantor, equipped with two bolt pistols and a power fist.  All doable from the original box set of plastics (though I believe a special Pedro Cantor model was made, he is the Chapter Master after all).  If I ever actually play the game I might reduce this to ten marines, in two squads of five, with Cantor to lead them.  I'll begin with a test mini  to see if I can do any better than I did nearly 35 years ago.

I've watched many YouTube videos showing different painting methods.  All agree that the blue needs to be darker than Ultramarines.  There is even a GW paint colour especially for the Crimson Fists, Kantor Blue, but I'm using Vallejo Model Color Prussian Dark Blue as a close enough match.

The mini was primed black (Vallejo Surface Primer, brushed on).  Once cured, I drybrushed the mini in white, paying especial attention to the upper portions, to give a zenithal effect.  

Zenithal highlights, honest (not a statue used by many pigeons)

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Then I gave the armour a heavy drybrush of VMC Prussian Dark Blue.  With the zenithal highlights this gave a good effect, but I want the armour to have more definition, so next I used Vallejo Game Color Ultramarine to edge highlight the armour.  The original style of armour is more smooth flowing; there are some sharp edges, but far fewer than on more recent Marine armour types.

Then it's on to the details.  The left hand was painted in VGC Gory Red and highlighted with VGC Bloody Red.  The boltgun was painted in VGC Gunmetal Metal, given a black wash and then an edge highlight with VGC Chainmail.  A mix of black wash and VGC Gunmetal Metal was used for the pipework on the front of the armour (not easy to see with the gun held in front, but it's there), details on the backpack and the belt. The eye lenses were VGC Livery Green.  I tried painting the studs on the left shoulder pad in VGC Glacier Blue, but it looked scrappy, so I repainted them in black and then dotted in the studs with the Glacier Blue, which was better, but the model itself isn't great with the studs; I can see why later armour models lost this feature.

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Once painted, I gloss varnished the marine, prior to trying to paint the various insignia.  I then painted the right shoulder pad again and decided to resort to a sheet of Space Marine decals I found.  I'm waiting for some Microsol/set to do the job properly.  I think I'll widen the red stripe on the helmet a bit too.

The final varnish was a thin coat of satin.  Basing was using Geek Gaming's Patchy Plains Base Ready mix and I added a tuft for interest.

My phone camera has given the mini a brighter look than in real life (I tried to correct it on one of the photos).  Also the edge highlighting has been partly lost, mostly in the drybrushing stage.  The zenithal highlights work better with inks, but they have had some effect, and I'll continue to do this step with the rest of the marines, probably more so.  I'll also exaggerate the edge highlights on future models.

This has been fun, mostly from a nostalgia point of view.  If I'm being honest, this is the only marine I've ever painted to completion.  Using the above method I can paint more and I'll be happy with the results.  Now all I need is some micro sol and micro set to make a good job of the transfers, and find whatever box my RTB01 missile launchers are in.

I will do another post about the Orks.