tisdag 18 december 2012

"You've gotta turn over a new leaf...


,
...'Cause that old one's turning on you.
We've gotta turn over a new leaf.
If the future's only hoped for, we are doomed."
-Bad Religion, "New Leaf"

With the new year approaching, I will not be making any promises, because I know I can never keep them. Instead, I will present a goal that I hope to have achieved by this time next year. It is simply this: that none of these figures, vehicles and terrain pieces are still on my painting table, but instead are painted, based, varnished and given a place in the storage system. For bonus points, they should all (except Rommel) have seen the elephant as well.



The gang's all here!

With these last four figures my Dux starting armies are complete. It's the last three Uruk Warriors and the Champion of Gondor.



The Uruks are metal Uruk Hai Scouts, very quickly painted, but they still look OK on the table, especially when they are among a bunch of their friends.


The Champion of Gondor is the Gripping Beast figure that I got free with the SAGA rules. I did my best, but a figure of this quality really reveals the limits of my skill when compared to some of the examples on the SAGA forum. Still, I'm happy with it and it will look nice on the table next to Boromir.


I also have two volunteers lined up ready to try out the Dux campaign rules after Christmas. Their tales will be told on my Dux Gondorum blog.

tisdag 30 oktober 2012

Dux Britanniarum, the first attempt

Last Saturday we played our first games of Dux Britanniarum. I had tried it once solo and knew that it was a good system, but I was less sure that I could teach it to the rest of the crew, one of whom was completely new to TFL games. It turns out my worries were unfounded. I had five guys playing and we ran through two complete games in less than five hours. Silly amounts of fun was had and at least three promised to buy the rules and asked me to start a campaign! I forgot to take any pics during game two, but below is a short report from game one.

We played using GWs LOTR figures with Uruks as Saxon and Gondorians as British. The scenario was to raid a village, straight out of the rulebook. The Uruks had to enter on the short end, search through the houses, nick anything of value and get back out. The Gondorians had to stop them.


The game starts with the raiders getting 1D3 free turns of movement. Some awesome dice rolling saw them sweep across the table like a wave of rusty swords, bad breath and blood lust. The poor Gondorians, focussing on the fact that they were playing the proto-Welsh, sat back playing the Men of Harlech-scene from Zulu on a smartphone!


First actual game turn and time to roll for the Briton/Gondorian entry point. The uruks had assumed that the Gondorians would be in the village. The surprise when they showed up in the uruk flank was complete!

A quick charge and a first use of a Fate card, Carpe Diem, sent the Warg Riders back unhurt but with five points of Shock. The Warriors pulled back behind the creek and lined up to defend themselves and hold the Gondorians back while the rest of their war band raided the village.
 As this was the first time we ever played the game, we had no idea what various troops could do to each other. Six Gondorians rushed forward to find out...

...and one Gondorian was left to fight the second round of combat.

...and then there were none.
The uruks realised that the fight would be decided on the flank and turned around.

And not before time! The rest of the Gondorians, led by their Lord, came smashing into the uruk line, hoping to destroy the uruks piecemeal.

It was too late for the uruks. The Gondorians used their superior numbers to cut up the uruk line and attack the re-grouping cavalry.

The uruks in a desperate last gamble, for both sides were low on Force Morale, decided to go all out in a display of bravery: one of their Nobles challenged one of the Gondor leaders to single combat.


It was a good idea and it lead to a nail-biting final combat (we used the Champion rules from the pre-battle phase),  but in the end it did not pay off as the death of the Noble and his units pushed the Force Morale below 0 and the uruks broke and ran.

At this time we realised that the whole affair had taken just under two hours and we could fit in another game  today. We re-arranged the table and mixed up the teams before going at it again in the same scenario.


 I did not take any pictures of the second fight, but it was just as fun. The uruks came up the centre in massed formation and the Gondorias came in opposite them, down the road. The Gondorians lined up in defensive formation but the uruks simply overwhelmed them and smashed through the line, breaking the defenders up and routing the Lords bodyguard.

I am currently pondering a mechanism for running campaign games where each player runs a company/horde of uruks or Gondorians but we are still able to get everyone present playing in each game. More to come on that.
To sum up, then: buy Dux! It's that simple.

onsdag 17 oktober 2012

lördag 13 oktober 2012

The Usual Suspects

More evil lads for my Dux Gondorum campaign. Six plastic Uruk-hai. Quick paint job;GW Tin Bitz and a Vallejo Oily Steel drybrush, skin in Vallejo Mahogany, clothing and hair Panzer Grau, leather straps and gloves English Uniform, the whole lot washed in Army Painter Strong Tone and Vallejo Matte. Base Vallejo US Field Drab.


tisdag 25 september 2012

The Champion of Evil and some riders

Latest additions to my Dux Gondorum project are a new Champion and two Warg riders.
The Champion is a metal Mordor Uruk-hai, the riders are plastic, all from GW.



torsdag 6 september 2012

Companion Troop

These lads are newly painted plastic Gondorians intended to join up with the metal Gondorians I already had  and become the Elite unit in my Gondorian unit for my Dux Gondorum project.

Here is the full six man unit:
Now I just need to get some games in so that my Lord gets a chance to recruit some more lads, as I have about a dozen more figures ready to paint.

tisdag 24 juli 2012

Plastic Soldier Company MG42

A gift from friend and fellow Lardie Zippee who had accidentally bought them in 20mm instead of the intended 15mm. Button-counters, please don't ask me what cammo scheme this is supposed to be. It's a late war German cammo, ok?



Men of Gondor

The guys my Uruks will be taking on, the Men of Gondor. Nice, shiny armour on some, rather more "lived in" armour on others. There is a set of Mir Bros to lead them too, but they are apparently in a different box in a different part of my basement, I'll post pics of them when I find them.


And some others that I found while digging out the ones above.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly!

torsdag 19 juli 2012

Uruks, sir, fhaasands of 'em!

All painted uruk-hai have now been given nice, uniform basing. Next up:men of Gondor. Meanwhile, I am painting Warg Riders as doing bases gives a very nice end result, but it is bloody boooooring work and some distraction is needed.


onsdag 18 juli 2012

Getting your Dux in a row

It's finally time! Dux Britanniarum from TooFatLardies is here, or at least pre-orders are being taken. I have been waiting for these rules since before Rich knew he was writing them, when my group was using the Lardy card-activation system to give some randomness to the GW LOTR game. Dux is really a game about post-Roman Britain, but since much of Middle Earth was lifted straight out of that time and place, they should work for LOTR games with very few adjustments. These adjustments are being done by one of the playtesters as I write this.
Me, I'm busy sorting out bunches of LOTR figures that have been in my basement for years and getting them neatly based and organised to be ready to play once I get my paws on the rules. First out are a section of uruk-hai pike-men. These are the first LOTR figures I ever painted, some I know I did during lunch breaks at work in 2003.


torsdag 31 maj 2012

I have a house, and it looks like crap! Did not turn out well at all, but after a season of stress at work and record-high pollen count it will just have to do. I can't be arsed to redo it. Instead, I'll get the next one out of the basement and try to do a better job on that. It has a crashed Me262 in it, by the way, looking forward to that!


onsdag 16 maj 2012

Shelfville, the project continues

Next terrain piece for Shelfville, also from the Baccus/Timecast ACW set. Purchase of the actual book case where Shelfville will reside has been moved forward and the entire project is faaaar behind schedule, but it is not standing completely still.




Even more Soviets

More Winter War Soviets from Sgts Mess. As with all the figures in this set, they are no very impressive at all up close, but they do paint up well and look good on the table.


söndag 6 maj 2012

Crap pics of cool minis

I set up a scene with all my Dust minis in front of the house from Cerberus to take some pics. Did not work out at all, light was completely off and I don't know how to compensate for that with the settings on my camera so I'll do it again when I have more painted stuff. In the mean time, this will have to do.

The whole gang

The Death Dealers

The Grenadiers


And a bit of a late edit: the light of my life took a few pics with her camera. More skill, better camera, better picture!