Birdie num num

We wanted to get some ravens for the dwarven battle company, but I couldn't find any good ones anywhere. Then I was watching my favourite youtube channel (Ontario Strategy Battle Game League OSBGL)and Don mentioned that the razorwing flock would work well for his Dunlending army.

I figured that they would just as well work for individual birds too. My son thought that since we are Australian that the birds should be themed more appropriately. So with a bit of painting and greenstuff we now have a magpie, hawk and cockatoo.

The cockie is for the elves...

The hawk for humans...

And the maggie for the dwarves...

So that was a fun little project for the weekend!

Battle Company Battle Report - Far Harad vs Dwarves

My brother was up our neck of the woods so popped over for a quick Battle Company game. He used my Far Harad troops and I used my new Dwarves. My son rolled dice for me and the first roll was for scenario - Claim the Treasure!

Tricky one as I'm slower, but pretty solid. We each had eight figures so it could really go either way.

We played on the ash wastelands board and set up a river down the middle with two main crossings as well as a whole heap of ruins, rocky outcrops and the like.

On the north side of the board, the Mahud King on War Camel charged right into battle, taking out two of my dwarves and leaving just two archers, though I did manage to remove his camel!

Then at the other river crossing my Vault Warden team and Boggle charged across to clash in the centre of the river! There was a bit of back and forth here and I took out one of his guys.

He then sprinted away from my guys there to bring his whole force to bear on the other crossing. This was a bold move, but unfortunately the dice rolled my way, he managed to roll a two to wound almost every time! In the end my other dwarves caught up and sandwiched him with dwarven shields. If he'd killed just one of my dwarves before the reinforcements arrived he'd probably have won the game, but that's the way the dice roll sometimes!

At the end of the match all of my dwarves made full recoveries, Boggle gained an extra point of fight value, Brynmor gained an extra point of might and two more dwarves with shields joined the company.

With quite a few casualties the injuries rolls were actually pretty lucky, two miss next games and the rest made full recoveries. With the influence saved from last time we got one more camel upgrade and a warrior with shield. 

All done and dusted including finding the guys, setting up the board, playing the game and doing the post-match stuff in under an hour. Battle companies are so great for quick games!

Nazgul - the Nine

Due to some sort of system glitch or perhaps just great timing, I managed to get The Nine really cheaply. It took me some time to get them all put together and undercoated, but finally put in some effort and managed to do one a day last week. They're pretty easy, really, as there's not a lot of colour and most of the detail is black cloth or armour.

Anyway, it's something I've wanted for ages! Some were metal, some were finecast. I really prefer the metal. Scary if you drop them, but the sculpts were really nice.

First some group shots, here they are all on horseback.

And if, for some reason, their horses are dispatched of, they look pretty cool on foot too!

The Betrayer - I painted him in the same colours as my Haradrim, but muted with lots of black wash. I quite like the wicker armour on the horse too. 

The Dark Marshal - A straightforward very dark paint scheme with a hint of gold on some parts of the armour. I've tried to keep the armour pretty muted so it's still dark.

The Dwimmerlaik - Just lots of darkness and a hint of a metal mask. 

Khamul the Easterling - I've made sure that there are hints of golden armour amongst the darkness. The horse I have really low to the ground, charging forward.

The Knight of Umbar - I've added just a hint of dark blue to some of the trappings on the horse.

The Shadow Lord - I used a slightly browner highlight here. I'm not a fan of the on foot version, my son and I think it looks like he's in the middle of a dance party - put your hands in the air!

The Tainted - with a greenish tint and I used some watered down glue to make the dry grass on the base wilted and bent away from him.

The Undying One - Given his wizardliness I added a dark purple scarf. I quite like the on foot pose, I aimed the staff in line with his outstretched hand to make it look like he's casting a spell right at someone in front of him.

The Witch King of Angmar - last and far from least, he's got just a slight hint of purple, a flaming sword and plenty of dark metal. The flaming sword looks much nicer in real life, much redder. The blade snapped (stupid finecast) so I had to reattach it but just added a bit of flame and it's all good.

Dead of Dunharrow

Well, the next battle company is ready to go!

Some Dead of Dunharrow! Found a cheap ebay sprue and added the King and a couple of cheap metal miniatures too.

Super quick and easy to paint up. Went with the green glowy look with rusty metal and old wood. I have shields ready to go too, but will be adding them as my company actually gets them. Probably not enough spears, but they're a ridiculously overpowered battle company so I'm sure nobody will mind.

I hadn't painted rust before, but just used some Typhus Corrosion and Ryza Rust over a dark metal undercoat and black wash.

In the first mission, the three heroes have to rescue the fourth member of the company from a small group of Haradrim.

Three heroes head towards the town...

And some excited dice rolling later (ask my son, he'll tell you how many 1s I rolled - it was LOTS) two manage to exit!

I forgot that my guys with shields got +1 defence and also forgot that they caused terror! Fortunately on the first mission there's no rolling after battle for permanent wounds, so it's not a big deal, but boy it was close!

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!

Battle Companies: Karna vs Wanderers in the Wild

We had a public holiday today, so found time to squeeze in another game! This was super evenly matched points-wise. The Karna list at 149 points, the Wanderers in the Wild with 150 points!

We set up a super terrain dense map so that my Wanderers couldn't just shoot everything to death!

With a river down the middle of the map, trees everywhere, some rocks, some ruins, couple of hills...

The Karna list has a Mirkwood Spider AND a spectral warrior in their midst!

The first few turns went really well for me, my shooting took out two of his commanders and another couple of troops! But then we hit some close combat! The spider took out my snipers, one of his commanders took out my leader and the spectral warrior slashed a dwarven ranger!

Then, just to be mean, one of his warriors won the fight against my other ranger and hobbit... and chose to take out the hobbit! Nooooo! My mission every game is to try and keep him alive and I thought he was pretty safe out of the way!

We were down to 3 guys each, the game would be over when either of us went down to two remaining!

In the very last turn, my elf sniped out his bowman, but then his spearman took out my hero! Two guys each - a tie!!!

This was a super fun match, so even the whole time, it kept swinging one way or the other! However, the post-game really sucked! 

My brother's team rolled terribly, one warrior dead, one hero with an arm wound and half his team are to miss the next match - giving them a rating of only 79!!!

I rolled much better and my rating is now up with an extra dwarven ranger joining the company!

If you've not played a game with tons of scenery, you really should try sometime, it's really fun having to break up groups of guys, really work to get archery shots in, jump tests etc. very different from battle lines and marching in formation!

Dwarf Battle Company Stuff

Today is just some battle company shot of dwarves =)

Here is my starting battle company for my "normal" dwarves. Boggle with his massive shield is the leader, Brynmor with his shovel is second in command and Bluey (the archer with red hair) is the third in command. Joining them are Rocky (two handed standing on a rock), Hornstriker (with the radioactive shield) and Loki Longshot with the bow.

These dwarves are great for a battle company, especially near the start as they have good defence and strength 3 bows. However, they are slow and miss out on cavalry, so some missions are harder than others.

Here's the battle company I made for my son, it's Thorin Oakenshield (the old Balin model, but I've added a piece of wood from the garden to his non-axe arm for a shield) and they're all wearing the colours that are indicated in the book (including Dwalin's blue beard!). It's not a proper out of the book battle company because they're rangers, but Thorin is a warrior and, of course, they have a hobbit =) My son likes the brighter colours and boy, the throwing axes are just nuts in battle companies! All of the heroes are given throwing axes and against some low defence armies in particular they can just be devastating given the low model count of battle companies.

I haven't unlocked any Iron Guard yet, but I've got the models ready to go! I plan on using the King's Champion model for any Iron Guard that become heroes in the making. Strength 4 with 2 attacks, defence 6 and throwing axes! Yes please! 

I've unlocked one Vault Warden team, we decided that they counted as two individuals, the spear guy worth 10 points and the shield guy worth 15 points (to keep the 25 total points). Defence 9 in battle companies is just nuts, and getting a spear in a dwarven battle company can be really useful. I'm not convinced of their use in battle companies yet, it's a lot of points for slow moving, low attack models, but they're strength 4 and high defence, so we'll wait and see how they go. 

The other guys I haven't got any of yet are the Khazad Guard. Automatically passing courage tests while the hero they're bodyguarding is alive when that hero is a dwarf hero with a shield is pretty fun, I reckon! Strength 4, defence 7 looks good too (particularly against pesky armies with strength 2 bows). Also, I love the models =) 

So those are some of the miniatures I'm hoping will hit the table with a bit more levelling up of my companies! Would love to hear any comments from more experienced players as to which options tend to work out better in the long run!