Gondor! I finally given in to Lord of the Rings.

Here are some mediocre pictures of a sample of my Gondor forces for Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle games. This is the last of the GW "big games" that I haven't yet invested in. (I include Battlefleet Gothic in this, even though it's a specialist range game. It still seems there are a lot of players for BFG. Someday I'll post pics of my fleet.)

I am sorry that I have taken this long to discover this game. It's probably GW's best game all around. All the models are beautiful. The rules are easy to learn. The strategic element is deep. And my most recent, but now most important, criteria: you don't need 150+ models to play a game that will last an evening. This game 100% rocks!

So, I got the Gondor battle host boxed set to start and got a few heroes to lead the army (Boromir is my star leader these days, though I have Faramir as well.) I've assembled all of them and began playing immediately. I broke my vow to never play with unpainted models. But there's a Grand Tournament in July and I want to be ready for it. I don't want to show up having only every played three games.

So, while the pictures don't show it, I think I did a good job with these models. Of course, they don't really compare to many of the other great painters out there. But compared to my own progress, these are way above what I was doing this time last year. I find that the better I get a painting, the longer it takes! Weird! These pictures are a sample of 4 of the 12 that I have completed. They all look about the same.

In the wings, I've got 8 spearmen, 8 bowmen, 6 knights, 6 fountain court guard, a Standard Bearer, Beregond, and Boromir (on foot and mounted). That will complete the force for the GT, but not all the models I have. Needless to say, the Gondor boxed set is an insane value for what you get. I've put my Ogres on hold while I finish off these models. From now until the GT in July, it's basically going to be only LotR for me.

Project: Ogre Kingdoms -- Gorger

So it has been a while. My Ogre Kingdoms project was derailed by my recent "discovery" of Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game. Now Games Workshop completely owns my soul (not to mention wallet). I've been working on assembling and playing with my Gondor force rather than painting.

But I've gotten back on track. I've got only six more Ogres to go, 3 Maneaters, 2 Butchers, and the Tyrant. I've been saving the best for last, so that I'd be inspired to complete them. As for this Gorger, it was my first time painting anything "white." Hopefully, you like it.

Project: Ogre Kingdoms -- Ironguts

Last update today. Here are my Ironguts. I started them and then stopped them to work on Pirates for Legends of the High Seas. I'll probably go back to painting Pirates now that these are done. They came out pretty good. The pants took forever to do... I used GW Vomit Brown and it doesn't cover as well as I thought. Well, enjoy the fat boys.....

Why I Played Hordes: The Carnivean

Just looking at this guy (and his little buddy) makes me want to play Hordes again. Big scary warbeasts was the whole deal for me. This Carnivean was may favorite model to paint, and I'll probably just have to get another one to experience the fun all over again!

More Hordes

Here's a Totem Hunter minion I ran with my Everblight force. At the time everyone had this model. So, it just basically fought itself in every game. That's my beef with Hordes and Warhmachine..... there's so much duplication of models, particularly heroes and other individuals. It irked me to no end to see the exact same models on the other side of the table as the ones I had. How were there always two of the same person hanging around? Killed my imagination factor, which is huge for me in any game I play.

Some Older Models: Seraphim

I realized that I had never taken any photos of my modest Hordes collection. I started Hordes a few years ago, and began with Legion of Everblight. The game was pretty cool, but sorta complicated to learn. I think I can deal with it at small points levels. Everything has it's own rules and abilities. Blah, blah, blah..... And every enemy model has a skill that lets it ignore your ability... blah, blah, blah.... and you really need to play with 10,000 models to appreciate the game, blah, blah, blah.....

Despite all that bitchiness of mine, I'll probably pick this up again with my newfound love of skirmish level games. Here's a Seraphim, at one time I guess it ruled the Hordes world. Never did much for me because it's special rule was debated by so many that I never really used it right. Well.... there it is.

New Look for the Blog

With all the spring cleaning going on, I've decided to update the look of my blog. I think the old template I used to get started was looking a little drab for me. So, here are the new colors, fonts, etc. I think this is easier to read than white on black and that weird font I had before. Also, I deleted a few old posts that were not related to miniatures. I updated my profile with a new picture too.

This blog has basically become my miniature and war gaming blog. I might pepper in a few personal things here and there. But overall, I think the theme over the last year has been miniatures. So I cleaned up things to reflect that. Anyway, not much new to report.

On the mini painting work table I've got:

1. Bunch of pirates, about 14 more
2. 4 Ogre Ironguts
3. 2 Ogre Butchers
4. 3 Ogre Maneaters
5. 1 Ogre Gorger
6. 1 Ogre Tyrant
7. 10 Tyranid Gargoyles (I might use these for a different Hive Fleet)

So I've got plenty of posts to keep this going for the near term, as long as I can paint these. I'm getting more and more interested in doing LotR as well. So maybe an entire new army is on the horizon that is not on my plan! Thank goodness I hate plans!