Golden King of Abrakhan

Another great eBay find before the world shut down due to COVID-19!
I've ordered lots of single miniatures on eBay, though many of them have not showed up, I'm sure there are transport difficulties in lots of places at the moment.
One that did show up was the Golden King of Abrakhan for my Harad army.
I'm also making him a "tough girl" harem using miniatures from other ranges (because there are almost no female LotR models.

So far I've got two, I carved off their hair and added some turbans.

I figured the Abrakhan Guard are ridiculously cartoony with their huge swords and huger guts so why not make my own Abrakhan Guard that are similarly silly.

So here you can see the King himself, flanked by two of his Harem (I haven't done any others yet) and some Watchers of Karna so you can see the same colour scheme I've used across the board for my Harad.

I tried to paint the flat sides and back as though they were wooden vertical planks. The lava base was fun, I put a stepping stone in the middle so that the poor guy at the back at least has something to try and step to! That amused me a lot =) The light is a bit bright on these photos!

So there you go, not a big deal, but a nice little project that I have spent a few minutes on here and there and a couple of weeks later it's done! 

Battle Companies: Harad vs Dwarves pony express

Our next game was the one where one team has to lead five baggage ponies across the map.

My son was using his dwarves and I was using my Harad.

I had the ponies and thought, no worries, I can just outrun the stumpy legged dwarves!

First, though, I had to get across the river!

Here's the Hasharin taking on way too many dwarves and not doing so well!

Here's the two commanders facing off. I was using some horses without riders for some of the ponies and I also have some (shockingly unpainted) ponies somewhere too. I split the force in two, one heading towards each of the two fords across the river.

This was actually just a set-up shot as I forgot to take many photos during the game! So this bit never actually happened =) 

This half happened, the fight at the ford didn't occur, but the dwarf on the hill did a great job, you can see a treasure chest dropped where he shot one of the ponies (sounds cruel, doesn't it!!)

So in the actual game I managed to get my ponies across the fords, while tying up most of the dwarves in combat. However, his dwarves totally mashed my Harad troops, they almost all have throwing axes and wow did they destroy me!

In the end he managed to get my forces below a quarter before I got any ponies off the board, but he hadn't got any treasure either so it was a draw!

I had to roll injuries for all but one of my guys and I only knocked out one dwarf!

Harad Army

I finally finished my raiders and watchers of karna so put all my Harad army on the board for a happy snap or two (or ten)!

This post is just a whole lot of photos of the army, so bear with me =)

From a lower angle you can really see the height of the Mumak!

On this side we have all the normal foot soldiers.

Then there are the new raiders galloping along near the Mumak.

And the fell beast swoops over the lava near the Hasharin and Watchers.

And the blue dragon perched on the other flank.

Here I tried to get the raptor riding king more visible.

And looking down the line...

And from the other side...

So there you go, I started these guys years ago and wasn't going to have any cavalry, but then I got started on battle companies and these guys with their low defense really need the horses to help win!

I don't have any abrakhan guard, but do have some conversion ideas for them at some stage, maybe when I've finished my Far Harad battle company =)

One day I'll have to find enough time to do a bigger scale battle, I'm really pleased with how the colour scheme has matched and worked through all the miniatures. They look really nice on the table.

Just for fun (and probably not competitive, but just for ideas) here are some army lists I can do with these models:

300 Points:
Chieftain with horse and war spear accompanied by 6 raiders with war spear, 5 raiders with bow.
Chieftain accompanied by 4 warriors with spear, 4 with bow.

500 Points:
King with horse and war spear accompanied by 6 raiders with war spear, 6 with bow.
Chieftain accompanied by 12 warriors with spear.
Hasharin accompanied by 6 watchers of karna and 2 warriors with bow.

750 Points:
Chieftain with horse and war spear accompanied by 6 raiders with war spear, 2 with bow.
Hasharin accompanied by 4 watchers of karna and 8 warriors with spear.
War Mumak of Harad with Gnarled Hide, Rapelling Lines and Rocks and 12 warriors with bow.

Everything I have...
1156 Points:
King with horse and war spear accompanied by 6 raiders with war spear, 6 with bow
Hasharin accompanied by 6 watchers of karna, 7 warriors with spear, 1 warrior with banner
War Mumak with all upgrades and 12 warriors with bow
Betrayer on Fell Beast accompanied by 5 warriors with spear and 1 warrior with banner.

Note that when using the raiders I have to leave some of my miniatures off to one side to use as dismounts, hence there are more minis in the photos than in the lists.

And, of course, for just fun value you could add the dragon as a cave drake for 150 points or a dragon from 250-450 points depending on which upgrades you use!

Harad Battle Company

My son is now 8 year old, can you believe it?!

As such he can play now though we have to limit our opportunities given the general busy lives we lead.

He's also not super patient and very scared of losing guys in battle so we've adjusted how we play slightly.

I no longer take notes or many pictures and his heroes can't die (they can be injured and if they roll the death roll we just play the rescue mission rather than have them actually die).

Anyway, I did take a couple pictures still.

The first mission was out of White Dwarf and involved my Harad battle company taking on five Mirkwood Rangers. Oh... my... goodness! That stupid knife fighter rule, coupled with their excellent archery meant that this was a really close game. This picture shows the elf who single handedly ended up killing 6 of my Haradrim!!!

The next mission was my Harad company against my son's dwarves and a cave troll!
Like on the very excellent OSBGL channel, which I super highly recommend: OSBGL Battle Company vs Troll we added some goblins to the mix to make it more of a challenge.

I charged right in, expecting lots of spear support to help carry the battle my way. I took out five goblins! Unfortunately, the cave troll just kept rolling at least one six in the fight to roll off and took out five of my Haradrim - including my leader!

I'll take a better shot at some stage, but my son is currently reading The Fellowship of the Ring and has read The Hobbit, so we made him a battle company of Dwarf Rangers coloured in the ways that they're told in the book - quite bright colours some of them! 

Anyway, he stood back and used throwing axes, dwarven longbows and one hobbit stone every turn and eventually he took down the troll that way! He was so very, very excited, it was really awesome, we had high-fives and he ran screaming out to tell my wife every time he scored a wound on the troll - very cute!

Post game he expanded his company further and I upgraded two leaders to ride - one on horse, one on raptor =) Balin was a casualty hit by a troll-thrown stone, but he fully recovered. My leader took an arm wound and two of my archers will be out for the next game!

Here the two companies are...

It's such a great, fun, quick game when you're not recording every move!

You may also spot some of the scenery I've put together, a couple of hills with rocky faces and a board with some ruined tiles on it to sit the osgiliath ruins on (they're not glued down, so can still be used elsewhere). Also some rough terrain templates with room for trees or rocks on them.

Anyway, that's it for now!

Serpent Rider - Haradrim on Raptor

Random post!

I've been doing a lot of scenery and miniature painting, but with time being so tight I haven't (obviously) been posting.

One conversion I just did was on a box of Haradrim Raiders that I got (I know, I know) last Christmas - still, better late than never!

You may recall the blue dragon I painted to match my Harad colour scheme? Well, I figured that the leader of that band of Haradrim would similarly need to have something reptilian to set him apart from the others. I toyed with banners, helmets and the like but when I was cleaning up an old box of miniatures I found some sort of elf sorceress or something riding a raptor that I'd obviously got from eBay or something just because it looked cool.

Well, a hack and slash later and my Serpent Rider is more like a Raptor Rider!

Here's the front view.

And he's leading 6 more raiders through the dangerous lava fields.

I also painted up a trio of Watchers of Karna. 

I've just purchased another 6 riders and another 3 watchers so that I'll be all set for some fun battle company action when they're painted up!

Battle Company - Defeat Druzhag!

With their main leaders resting after the previous battle, The Falcon's Honour (minus the Falcon) hear word that an evil goblin who can control beasts is terrorizing the locals and seems to be consolidating a base in some ruins nearby. Eager to prove their worth, the company sets off without The Falcon, The Fang, The Tiger or The Wolf!

I also have a new, very bright, lightbulb which I think has made the colours all a bit funny and for some reason the photos seem a little bit fuzzy, but at least we can see things!

Here is Druzhag, surrounded by evil monsters, two giant spiders and a swarm of giant bats!

And the slightly depleted Falcon's Honour battle company enters only to find that there are some goblins lurking at the top of the way up to the ruins.

The humans all charge forward!

The Haradrim are excellent horseriders and The Hawk spurs his steed up the stony steps and takes on four goblins at once! Rolling double 6s he wins the combat, knocks two to the ground and slays a goblin!

Meanwhile, "The Serpent" trades bowshot with three goblin archers who have scrambled up to the top of the ruins. He misses and their arrows scatter around, one thunking into the statue he is taking refuge behind.

Druzhag lurks around the back of the ruins, biding his time.

The Blademaster climbs up behind the goblins while The Hawk charges forward again and kills two more green goblins!

The goblins all miss their shots at The Blademaster, but The Serpent makes his shot and takes out the first of the goblin archers!

The Hawk and The Blademaster take out the last of the goblins guarding the bridge with ease! My brother rolled sixes in just about every battle of the game!

The bats swarm forward to attack The Serpent, but he beats them back!

Now the bridge is wide open and The Pincer uses his double-shot to hit the two goblin archers at long range, one of them is slain!

The Pincer takes aim and two arrows thunk into the last remaining goblin archer as the humans start to step carefully onto the rickety bridge!

Druzhag casts enrage beast on the green spider as it scurries forward, eyes glowing a menacing red! It paralyses The Hawk and takes him out, then the spider suffers a wound from the after effects of the spell (a strength 10 hit)! The orange spider scurries up The Blademaster and brings his time in this battle to an end as well!

Here you can see Druzhag lurking in the background and The Serpent riding his white horse around towards the back steps.

Druzhag then enrages the bats and they swirl up, flying over to attack the Bearer of the Sunstone and The Fox, enraged by the evil spell the bats win the fight and wound both Harad fighters! The Talon, further along the bridge, uses both of his points of might to take out the green spider.

The Serpent has now galloped around to the back of the ruins, seeing Druzhag hiding up above.

The orange spider has scurried back to keep out of bowshot of the human archers.

Druzhag uses the last of his magic power to enrage the orange spider! It scurries forward, but The Fox takes out the enraged beast with a lot of 6s! Meanwhile, the bats have charged at The Panther. The Pincer shoots into the combat, hits both the bats AND The Panther with his double shot but even with the poison arrows, no wounds are made. The Panther, an arrow now sticking out of the back of his cloak, wins his melee combat, but fails to wound any of the bats.

The Serpent dismounts and tries to climb the rocky slope, but slips back down!

The bats swarm forward over The Panther and this time take him out of the fight! Around the back of the ruins, Ibrahim rolled a one again and still fails to climb the rocky outcrop!

Druzhag is set upon now, but manages to beat back his foe, while The Pincer wounds the bats, shooting into combat again and using his lethal aim and master of poisons the bats are left with just one more wound. The Fox stabs his spear into them and the bats are no more!

Finally Ibrahim walks a little further around the base of the outcrop so he can just walk up instead of trying to climb! He arrives just in time to trap Druzhag from the rear and between the rest of them The Talon and The Fox strike the final blows to clear the evil goblin shaman from the ruins!

Druzhag and his band scurry away to maybe find somewhere else to cause mischief!

And after the battle The Talon gains the Hero Slayer special rule, The Pincer obtains the Fell Sight special rule and everybody is all healed up (except for The Sparrow who is going to miss the next match). Most importantly, The Fang's arm is healed up and he'll be able to use his bow again!

Another Watcher of Karna, impressed by The Blademaster's efforts in this battle, has joined the Company!

Battle Companies Battle Report - Hold the Line

This week we were back to The Falcon’s Honour, who were trying to break through a narrow mountain pass held by Etako’s Expeditionaries. We each had one normal troop sitting out so had the same points.

The objective is for the attacker to get a third of their army from one end of the board to the other. The defender has to stop them!

We rolled to see... and the Harad force got to be attackers! Uh-oh, dwarves are a bit slow. But if I could engage them my combat skills might help, and I have three archers now!

We started off quite close to one another, with the dwarves deploying in the center. Arrows and throwing axes all missed until we were quite close to one another in turn 3 when Archie finally got an arrow into The Fox. Etako’s force were concentrating all fire on the horses, knowing that they held the best chance of escaping.

In turn four the dwarves get priority and go to charge at the horses within reach, but The Falcon calls a heroic move! Etako’s also calls one... the die is cast... Etako wins out! The dwarves charge as many horsemen as they can.

As arrows and axes fly, The Fang takes out Archie while Loki perforates the Watcher of Karna!

Coming down the hill, Boggle throws an axe, takes out The Hawk's horse, then he and Diva send the Haradrim out of the fight too. The Falcon is surrounded by Etako, Skodi and Rocky and Skodi hits the man on the horse, but fate is with the human and no damage is done! Freya, the Iron Guard launches an assault at The Pincer and only a lucky fate roll saves him from her flashing blades!

In round 5 the Haradrim take priority! Some begin running (or galloping) away from the dwarves towards the far end of the mountain pass.

Thanks to his special archery skills, The Fang gallops along AND looses a shot that takes out Loki! Rhoda (the elf) misses yet again!

The Falcon shows why he's in charge of an elite battle company as he uses all his skills (including deadly poison) to knock down four dwarves and remove both Rocky and Skodi from the mission!

In round six, priority was key, as the Harad force really needed to break away further. Dwarves won priority! The Falcon uses his second point of might to call another heroic move, this time Boggle counters it... the die rolls... the dwarves win again! 

Rhoda finally finds her elven archery skills and shoots The Sparrow in the back!

Kara Longspear skewers The Wolf over Hilda Trollslayer's shield.

 Meanwhile Freya takes out The Wolf. Boggle dodges the horse hooves and gets a strike in on The Falcon, who has managed to tie up quite a number of dwarves!

In round 7 the Haradrim get the priority, but nothing can save The Falcon who is completely surrounded and falls to Diva after sacrificing himself for the rest of his team.

And the rest of the game plays out as a bizarre chase scene as Brynmor chases after Black Cloak across a board and a half! Finally he manages to both catch up AND wound the Harad archer. All the other Harad force have made it to the board's edge... but did they get four there?

Yes! Each of them gains a bonus point of xp! Yet another Harad victory! We think next time we might play the same mission, but with the opposite roles, just to see if the dwarves can walk that far!

So at the end of the game The Falcon's Honour rolled on the various tables and...
The Falcon gained Terror.
The Talon gained an extra point of might.
The Fang increased his shooting to 3+
The Pincer rolled a 12 on his injury chart, gaining a point of fate and also gained Expert Shot.
The watcher of Karna will miss the next game due to injury.

And here's a photo of the current dwarven battle company. From left to right we have Loki Lightfingers, Mighty Monty, Rocky, Archie Longsight, Brynmor Deepminer, Freya, Etako Ironfist, Skodi Strongarm, Rhoda, Boggle Bootmire, Mighty Monty, Kara Longspear and Hilda Trollslayer.

Etako's Expeditionaries...
Etako gained the special rule for Dwarves (which is useless!)
Brynmor gained an extra point of might.
Boggle gained Parry.
Skodi will miss the next game due to injury but has been promoted to Iron Guard.
Hilda Trollslayer gained an extra attack!