Seeing Red

"Eärnur brought an army of power, with munition and provision for a war of great kings. Or so it seemed to the people of the North, though this was but a small sending-force of the whole might of Gondor. Most of all, the horses were praised, for many of them came from the Vales of Anduin, and with them were riders tall and fair, and proud princes of Rhovanion.

Then Círdan summoned all who would come to him, from Lindon or Arnor, and when all was ready the host crossed the Lune and marched north to challenge the Witch-king of Angmar."

When the latest edition of SBG was launched many players were happy to see the introduction of the Alliance Matrix, which is intended to give an advantage to players who played thematic armies from the lore of Middle Earth, as opposed to power gaming the most powerful combos regardless of lore. It did this by army bonuses to the historical allies and penalties to the impossible allies. But what about those thematic armies that fell between the cracks and don't fit perfectly within the new alliance rules?

Middle Earth lore is filled with examples of various alliances that would fall foul of the allies matrix. Whether it's the host of Gondor under Eärnur leading a force of Elves, Northmen and Arnorians as quoted above, or the tribes of evil men fighting for Angmar on the other side of the battlefield, or Durin III leading the dwarves of Khazad Dum to support the armies of Gil Glad and Elendil in the Last Alliance. All of these so called impossible alliances are lifted directly from Tolkein's writing yet will suffer penalties for sticking to the letter of the lore.

Although it is still possible to run these type of lists, is it fair that players who are already potentially disadvantaged by choosing to use a themed army to then have additional disadvantages applied on top or even barred from entering an event? And, more importantly, is it possible to overcome these challenges and create a thematic competitive army that uses a red alliance?

Battle of Fornost by Tulikoura on DeviantArt

Happy birthday Bilbo!

"Today is my one hundred and eleventh birthday! Alas, eleventy-one years is far too short a time to live among such excellent and admirable hobbits. I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."

In celebration of Bilbo's birthday today I decided to finally paint up the adventurous little Hobbit after he has sat in the painting queue since Escape from Goblin Town was released.

To Kill a King

"Arvedui was indeed the last king, as his name signifies. It is said that this name was given to him at his birth by Malbeth the Seer, who said to his father: 'Arvedui you shall call him, for he will be the last in Arthedain.'"

Last weekend, myself and a friend (who is still a relatively newbie to the game) decided to run the To Kill a King scenario from the Ruin of Arnor sourcebook. This mission saw him trying to get past the last defenders of Fornost to kill either Arvedui or Malbeth with his force of undead spirits.

A note on proxies. Unfortunately we didn't have many of the models available but didn't want to let that stop us from playing what looked like a fun scenario, so we proxied most of the models. On the Good side; Boromir represented Arvedui, Gandalf was Malbeth and the Arnorian warriors were represented by Gondorians (the guy with the sword being the captain). And on the Evil side; Army of the Dead stood in for Spectres, and a banner bearer standing on a 40mm base represented the Shade. The Barrow Wights played themselves.

The Arnorian defenders set up a loose perimeter around the ruins of the Royal Palace while the spirits of Angmar prepared to assault the side closest to Malbeth the Seer, deeming him to be an easier target than the King. Upon seeing which direction the attack would come from the Arnorians raced to form a defensive line, although a few of them were led astray by the fell light of their foes. Arvedui also suffered from the effects of the Paralyse spell in the early turns, but managed to shrug it off fairly quickly each time.

Several Arnorians were lured into traps and killed by the Spectres, while the Arnor Captain led a sortie aimed at reducing the threat of the Barrow Wights and Shade. Ultimately, he failed to bring down any of these threats, but did knock a wound off the Shade and brought down a couple of Spectres.

After trading kills for a couple of turns, eventually the Arnorian defensive perimeter started to show some holes and offer opportunity to the Angmar spirits to charge their targets. Unfortunately for Angmar it proved too little too late as the defenders killed off the last few spirits, with King Arvedui chasing down the final Barrow Wight to win the game.

Overall a good game that felt in the balance right up to the last couple of turns. Man of the Match performance by the Arnor Captain for slaying several Spectres and putting the Barrow Wights and Shade under pressure. Because I enjoyed playing the Arnorians I'm now sorely tempted to start painting an Arnor army, although it may have to wait a while until I get some other projects off the to do list (*coughKhandcough*).

The Ulstermen WIP

"The soldiers of Ulster naturally accustomed to suffering, and habituated to the frosts of that northern climate, have few wishes and few wants... Provided they have shoes and a few utensils, a woollen cloak serves for their covering — more zealously careful of their axe and bow than of their personal comfort."

Over the last while I have been working away at painting the Khandish models for my Ardacon 2020 army, so I thought I would share a quick WIP post. So far I've been working though the counties of Ulster with 6 of the 9 completed; Antrim, Derry, Donegal, Down, Fermanagh and Tyrone. 

Be Excellent to each other

"Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer." Samwise the Brave

This post requires a bit of context. Ok maybe a lot of context. Recently I got involved in a discussion regarding an attitude within the GBHL community and the Facebook page that I feel is off putting for new players and during this debate I mentioned a conversion I started several years ago and never finished due in large part to a critical comment from a very well known GBHL TO and group admin.

This conversion was based off the fan film Born of Hope, which inspired me to start a new Grey Company army, so I had to have a model for Elgarain, the heroine of the film. A lot of effort went into this model and while I finished and painted the foot model, the horse remained unfinished in my bits box, a reminder of that criticism.

Now comes the context (and trust me when I say this isn't easy to put out in the open).

I have a history of suffering with depression. It's waxed and waned over the years since my early 20s. It has left me contemplating the value of my life at times, came very close to cancelling my wedding, I've been on anti-depressants, in counseling etc. The depression meant I struggled with confidence and was generally unwilling to put myself out there, so those few of critisim words probably hit me much harder than they should have done.

Now, however, instead of it remaining unfinished and a reminder those bad times, I decided to finish it and let it be a symbol of supportive of others and not critical. Because you never know the story on the other side of the computer screen, or what impact those few little words might have. Luckily now I have largely left those dark days behind and can look forward to the future with hope.

So here she is, finally (nearly) finished 3 1/2 years later. Unfortunately, due a hopefully impending house move my basing supplies are packed away in storage so I'll have to come back to finish the basing at a later day.