Games Workshop wouldn't, so we did

 “I don’t want to be in a battle. But waiting on the edge of one I can’t escape is even worse.”

Its been a while since Games Workshop produced any meaningful new releases for MESBG and we're all getting fed up with waiting. However, towards the start of the year I was approached by a shady YouTuber asking if I wanted to take part in a collaboration with other content creators to address this lack of new stuff. Naturally, I jumped at the opportunity without having a clue what I was getting myself into. Then Benji of Benji's Hobbies told us what the challenge was thus:

"The aim is that we each create a profile for use in game for on our our favourite factions. You can tie in some lore, make up stat lines and special rules and obviously create the models as well - these can be either conversions or 3D prints, whatever you like!"

Naturally, Thorin's Company is my favourite faction, but it's already perfect and I couldn't possibly create anything that could improve on perfection.

Perfection 😍

So the hunt was on to find something new I could create and I quickly settled on a historical force that has never been touched upon within the game despite having a fairly prominent role within the Appendices and a key role in shaping Middle Earth politics at the time of the War of the Ring. 

This force is the Wain Riders.

The Wain Riders are described as a confederation of people's who appeared from the East of Middle Earth and fought a series of wars against the Kingdom of Gondor (and their Northmen allies) over a period of about 100 years. This series of wars represented one of the greatest threats to the Gondorian Kingdom and resulted in the death of 2 Kings and the near extinction of the line of Kings. 

Not a huge amount of description is given of the Wain Riders beyond the points that they were better armed than earlier Easterlings, "they journeyed in great wains, and their chieftains fought in chariots" and that they utilized" fortified camps of wagons". Not a lot to go on, but based on that I knew I needed a Wain (or Wagon) as that was their defining characteristic and gave them their name. Based on what little we have to go on they seem to be semi-nomadic people akin to the Steppe tribes of our world (they have been described by some commentators as the Huns of Middle Earth), so that is where I started looking for models to base these conversions off. Unfortunately, historically most of the Steppe tribes of our world made extensive use of cavalry and the model ranges reflect that. I wanted this to be an infantry force outside of the chieftains in their chariots and the Wains because cavalry typically completely replaced chariots and the only mention of horse cavalry comes in the final campaign when the Wain Riders were accompanied by Khandish allies and had "a force of cavalry far greater than any that had been expected," alongside the"War-Chariots of the Wain Riders". This suggests that the cavalry was provided by the Khandish allies and that the Wain Riders themselves used little cavalry. Luckily Fireforge Games sell a box of Steppe Warriors that perfectly fit with what I wanted. 

These, combined with bits from my bits box (primarily from Warlord Games Celts and Victrix Libyans) provided me with perfect Wain Rider warriors.

Now, as far as the actual Wain for these guys to ride I found an excellent War Wagon for sale from 1st Corps that fit the bill. The 4 oxen pulling the Wagon would suit well as the Wild White Kine that famously lived in the area (and from one of which the Horn of Gondor was cut) and it would easily accommodate several Riders upon it.

Now invariably real life got in the way, and so my plans for the chariot riding Chieftains (and fully finishing the paint job on these) didn't make it in time for this challenge but here's the current state of the Wainrider Horde.

And as far as profiles go did create a full army lists worth but  I'll just focus on the 2 for now. I wanted the Warriors to be a fairly basic option because I wanted the focus to be on the Chariots and Wains, although they have some flavour with their Chariot Runner special rule which allows them to keep up with and support their faster brethren.

The War Wain was a little more complex. I based the main rules for it off the Iron Hills chariot but included the option for up to 6 infantry models to ride it and attempt to leap off and into the fighting (at the risk of leaping to their demise.

I'll come back to this project and keep you all updated on its progress but until then what profiles would you like to add to the game if you had the opportunity? And don't forget to check out the other participants entries with their ideas over here:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVGrfW126UEj5vzmnc0WwmWqEBJDffVcI&si=_r2wkpGD27Wwzsra

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/17-jTlbkI-0NBofw-d3CC8OHF7h19Hoq2