The Hills are alive!

OWhat an unproductive month! I've managed to snatch small spells at the desk and done bits on the hills. They are pretty much done now and look good, although there are small gaps between the bark sections that I just can't get a brush to. With hindsight I would have painted them before putting the bark on. Next time...

Anyway, here are some of the photos of the project. First up the rock faces having been dry rushed with layers of browns.

And the nearly finished pieces:

Finally I finished Saruman off. I'm still playing with different methods of painting whites. This one used a grey base coat. I think I prefer a slightly browner base, but it depends on the model I guess. I haven't flocked the base yet as the wash on the beard was wet.

I haven't quite managed to finish Tauriel off, just some details on the tree stump on the base to do, like the fungus and the vines.

So Saruman puts my painting output at 8 for the month, with none purchased. My backlog is slowly decreasing. I have bought the Imperial Aces set for X-Wing though, which I'm looking forward to flying at some point soon.

Painting update

Sorry I've not updated for a few days. It's been busy round here and I've not got round to updating the blog.

I've finished 7 dwarves - 4 Iron Guard and 3 dwarven warriors.

Tauriel now has arms. I'm struggling with her as she's been a bit fiddly, but I'm nearly there.

Also Josh popped round for a game of something and instead we started making some new hills using pink foam and bark.

I'm hoping they don't join the pile of unfinished projects! 

I've also done a bit more on the X Men and the Warg Riders, but no pictures at the moment.

I actually played a game!

Josh and I finally managed to get together for a game of LOTR/ Hobbit! We played 1500 points fighting out over a mining town in the misty mountains. Josh brought his dwarves and I fielded an alliance of goblins and hunter orcs led by Bolg, with the three trolls along for the LOLs.

We determined objectives by dice roll, with three common objectives and one each that was secret to the other. The common objectives were a victory point for the first kill, 1 for holding the large she'd by the road and 3 for holding the tower in the middle of the board. My secret one was to capture the treasure chest in the village square.

Set up:

Dwarves got priority the first two turns and advanced at "full speed". The evil alliance also charged forward, and the Scribe managed to summon 6 more goblins in the first turn. Josh wised up to this and in the second turn "turned off" the Scribe's ability.

Turn 3 saw the dwarves pick off two hunter orcs picked off to bow fire. 1 point to the dwarves! The goblin shooting was typical and therefore all missed or failed to wound!

Turn four and Floi again disabled the scribe.

The goblin hoard advances on the treasure (top right, behind the cart).

I lost track of turns at this point. Suffice to say that the dwarves continued to win priority. Dain called a heroic combat to rescue one of his captains. He then inflicted 3 wounds on the chieftain, one of which the chieftain saved with his fate roll. The dwarves then started to make off with the treasure. Were they after the gold too? Or are they just greedy? Or is that a silly question? Drar took out 2 Fell Wargs, and the spider queen rended a Khazad guard. At this point evil had taken 8 casualties to good's 3.

Turn 5? Spider queen called a heroic move and charged into the Khazad guard. The other fell Wargs cowered in the village away from Drar, warg's bane. The scribe brought on 5 more goblins behind the dwarf line to try and distract the archers. A whole warband of dwarves ran away from Bolg.

A hunter Orc managed to pick off an iron guard from bow fire. In combat the warg chieftain took a wound off a dwarf captain who failed his fate roll. In the square the cowardly dwarves shielded lots and own combats easily. By the shed 6 goblins teamed up on Balin and inflicted one wound on him, also burning his fate and a might.

Turn 6 saw a few more casualties due to shooting. The dwarf captain got revenge and killed the limping warg chieftain. Bolg got into combat and bashed a dwarf into the ground, and Tom rended another one.

Turn 7 was priority for evil at last. Bill lumbered into view of the dwarf archers who loosed a volley of arrows inflicting one wound. Five dwarves failed their courage checks to charge Tom in combat.  A misty mountains goblin beat Dain in combat, Dain needed a fate roll to avoid being wounded! The spider queen chomped Balin up in combat. Bolg was surrounded and needed to use all three might to survive, he does now cause terror. The flank by the shed was now collapsing for the dwarves, but they definitely had the upper hand in the square and had dragged off the treasure despite the best efforts of the warg pack.

Turn 8. Good priority. Heroic move from Bill the troll caused havoc in the centre. Floi had regained a might so switched off the scribe again. One dwarf archer failed his courage check for the second time running against a troll. In the square the dwarf dominance continued. In the centre clever heroic strikes from the dwarf captains were burning off might from the trolls, but the flank by the shed had completely collapsed, the dwarves losing double figures in combat in total for that round. However, the dwarves had done enough and broken the evil army.

Turn 9. Evil priority. Break tests aplenty, with a few cowardly scum running. The orcs made a dash for the tower, and brought on reinforcements to try and capture the treasure. Drar shot the shaman in the square, no more fury saves. Bert lumbered into the square, lost combat but the dwarves failed to wound him. Dain dispatched yet more goblins. In the middle the trolls and Bolg failed to wound, lots of goblins died. 

Turn 10, only 5 more casualties needed to end the game. Tom the troll and Bolg pulled scary faces and the dwarves failed their courage checks to charge them. The dwarves charged for the shed, but it was too late for it was already swarming with goblins. Hunter orcs led by Narzug and Bolg held the tower. Gimli failed again to kill the goblins surrounding him.

So despite being broken I had 6 victory points for holding the two objectives. I had failed to capture the treasure though. Josh had one point for the first kill, and revealed his mission to be one point for each quarter of the board controlled. Three were contested, and even if he won all four he couldn't have won so we didn't bother checking. It was close though and I'm not sure I deserved to win.

I was impressed with my new units. The hunter orcs were good, and I need to see them more. The trolls were excellent. I do love rend! The best troops though were the misty mountains goblins and the scribe, totally unexpected. They won combat so many times and killed more than their fair share of dwarves.

For the dwarves, Dain was a monster and the Iron guard are always a nuisance. Gimli was unspectacular, and Murin and Drar were hit and miss.

Overall a fun game, hoping to get some more in soon.

Vapnartak Haul

I managed to get to Vapnartak this afternoon, but had less than an hour to get round due to the poxed child number 2. Still, I managed to see some mates (albeit very briefly) and pick up some stuff. I was keen to see the Garrison boys doing X Wing, but just a chance to say hello. Hope they managed to convert some people.

Anyway, here is the haul:

Some more details. First off more LOTR figures in form of Corsairs, Watchers of Karna and Half Trolls. Thanks to Doug for the "trade", will have to work out my side of the deal soon.

Secondly some 6mm terrain from Irregular miniatures.

I thought I'd try some Warbases terrain, so I picked the barn, outhouse and stables. I'll do a review at some point.

Some boxes and sacks from Ainsty. This is another company I've been looking at for a while.

I also picked up an A Wing, some brushes and some dice.

The bad news is that with 27 more models bought, February is going to be hard work to stay ahead of the game in the Backlog Reduction Oath. Can I get 28 models done? Maybe if I'm tactical about my choices!

Making Asteroids part 2

It's been a busy weekend, but I've managed to make progress on the asteroids, mainly because they could be worked on in short spells in between doing jobs around the house.

First off I painted each rock with textured masonry paint.

Once this was done it was a simple matter of successive layers of browns to drybrush onto them. I managed to destroy a brush with all the dry brushing.

For those who are interested I use cheap acrylic paints from the Range for all my terrain.

No major updates on the Elves other than I changed my mind on the base coat for their boots.

Hedge wedge ledge barge

First off sorry for the indulgent title. It's a reference to The Day Today, a satirical news show from the 90s. Also important as the starting point for Alan Partridge.

Anyway, I thought I would share how I plan to make hedges for 6mm games. Bocage was a major terrain feature for WW2 and so hedges are important.

I'm still playing with the method, and may actually make terrain features with hedges attached.

Starting point was lolly sticks and pipe cleaners:

After trimming the pipe cleaner to fit the stick I stuck it on with a hot glue gun. I find the glue gun great for sticking terrain down as it dries instantly and forms a really strong bond. This was then sprayed black.

Next I used PVA to glue sand to the base, then used my usual method of brown ink and dry brushing with bone to finish the sand.

Finally with slightly watered down PVA I glued flock to the hedge. In this case it was GW flock because I got it in a lot of miniatures I was given.

Here you can see a Panther hiding behind a hedge:

Finally a teaser for one of my next projects:

Mirkwood Rangers from the new Hobbit range. Fantastic sculpts, full of life and I'm looking forward to painting them up. I was annoyed by the poor use of space on the sprue though. Particularly top right.

I would like to big up JT from Orc-Ward Battles in the UK who is a great supplier for Hobbit minis and offers a discount. Search for Orc-ward Battles on Facebook. I've also got Tauriel to lead them and may paint up my old Thranduil, and possibly another Legolas to go along side them.

Wow - 2 updates in 2 days!

Having completed the Great Beast, the crew are next. These orcs are fantastic sculpts, using bits of the previous plastic and metal orcs and even the helmet that Frodo wears through Mordor. I'm tempted to swap 2 of them for plastic archers just to give some variation to my orc infantry.
I'm also contemplating some sort of pinning system so that they can be removed from the Beast when dead. That may be a while off though.

It looks as though one of the crew has sneaked into both photos!

In other news Josh and I have recently finished off some rocky outcrops to use in the Fellowship of the Ring scenarios. Really simple stuff - just chunks of slate on bases, but they look good. One of them is bark instead of slate as a test. I think it makes a great rock substitute, and is a whole lot lighter and less likely to chip.