War of the Ring (LOTR) - Quarantine Painting

I hope everyone is staying safe, healthy and sane during these exceptional times.

I'm heads down on LOTR projects at the moment.  My AWI project is in project - but I'm leaving that in the capable hands of my painters - the first wave of that stuff was shipped off for painting.

While that is going on, I decided to dive head first into my Isengard forces for LOTR.  Specifically, I'm going to be using all this for the GW War of the Ring (WotR) rules (yes, one of my QRS for this system is nearly done).

So, this past weekend I started painting my Uruk-hai ... and I finished a couple of companies (took me a 1/2 day of futzing around to get the process/result down that I liked ... involved some repainting).  Phone pictures below of the completed companies ...

I'm using a mix of GW and Wargames Foundry paints for these guys.

The 12 step painting process is as follows:

1. Armour - gw Iron Warriors
2. Belts - gw Steel Legion Drab
3. Hair - gw Rhinox Hide
4. Skin - Foundry Red Oxide 102C
5. Shoes/Gloves - gw Mournfang Brown
6. Wash everything with gw Agrax Earthshade
7. Cloth - Foundry Charcoal Black 34B
8. Metal Highlights/Buckels - Foundry Metal 35B
9. Belt Highlight - Foundry Rawhide 11B
10. Teeth/White Hand - gw Ceramite White
11. Hair Highlight - gw Mournfang Brown
12. Pike Pole - gw Abaddon Black

Some additional pictures below.  I'm happy with the results.

I have *a lot* more to do.  I'm planning on pulling in the amazingly talented Steve Dake in the future to help with this project once he becomes free again.

In other news, I've mustered my Rohirrum and found I can field 8 full units of mounted Rohirrum --- that is 1 x 18 figure Royal Guard (mounted) and 7 x Riders of Rohan Eoreds.  I have lots/tons of dismounted Rohan troops as well ... essentially everything I'll ever need.  That means my Rohan army is done.  I'm very close on my Mordor army from a painting perspective - but I'm currently short of clear bases - so waiting for Litko to reopen for production so I can order more.

I'm working with Litko to get my clear movement trays for WotR ... you can see the results of using clear bases and movement trays below ... I'm sold (note, those are 3mm thickness, which is important IMO for LOTR - I used 1.5mm thickness for my Star Wars Legion stuff - but these LOTR figures in many cases need pins - so the extra thickness is important for that)!

Finally, while not LOTR related, I've very close to being completely/entirely done with my ACW collection.  The most excellent Steve Dake took care of the last wave of ACW painting - all cav - mostly Confederate.  I got these on their bases and just need to finish the basing process.  Quick pic below of the in progress basing ...

While I've been busy with work - this pandemic has certainly given me a new focus and time to work on projects.  In fact, proper massed battle LOTR (ala WotR rules) has been long overdue for me.

General Update - New Stuff

Well, despite all the work to get Vicksburg on the table, lots of other stuff has been going on as well.

The excellent Mark Brooks has been picking away at a range of new LOTR stuff for me.  I'm focused on the War in Rohan right now and as such have him working to complete lots of odds and ends for my Rohan army.  I need to start into the vast number of Uruk-Hai I have.  Mark also has Warg Riders to do which will be the start into the bad guys of Isengard.

Additionally, I want to do a table for Escape from Goblin Town.  So he also has done up Thorin's company for me.  Pictures below.

To jump start my AWI efforts, I saw these three units below on Ebay and decided to pick them up.  I will of course re-base them and fix them up a bit, but very nice!  Looking forward to getting this in hand.

Finally, KublaCon approaches this coming may.  I'll be running my expanded Vicksburg scenario (with full naval action) and my Assault on Echo Base (Hoth) Star Wars game.  We have a very busy line up of convention games for the group.

Friday at 1PM:  Assault on Echo Base
Saturday at 9AM:  Siege of Vicksburg
Saturday at 4PM:  Orcs vs Humans (Adam Clark)
Sunday at 9AM:  Shaggy Ridge (John Lantz)
Sunday at 2PM:  Breed's Hill (Matt Hilzendrager)

Between the miniatures games and our regular assortment of board games we will get some serious gaming in over that weekend.

A great start to 2020 --- more to come so stay tuned!

Happy New Year

Happy new year to all my followers around the world!  Wow, 2020 - I wish you all the very best for this next year and beyond.  While my blogging and slowed down my projects and gaming have not.  This past year saw some great gaming on the tabletop - Hoth/Assult on Echo Base (Star Wars), Quatre Bras (Napoleonic), Charge of the Mumaks (LOTR), Toulon Harbor (1:300 Napoleonic naval), ACW games, new rules (Star Wars Bolt Action) and rules updates/refinements.  Wow.  Crazy when I think back about it all.  Much more to come in 2020 so stay tuned.

Dan Kerrick hosted a modern game this last weekend.  We've been playing some games and I've been derelict in my posting battle reports - primarily because this time of year is just crazy, and a little extra so because the Vicksburg project is a lot of work.

Some pictures of that game below.  I played Russians - it was a meeting engagement.  My dice were on fire for once.  Everyone had a great time.

I also hosted a game of Dead Man's Hand a couple of weeks ago ... always a great game.

Looking forward to 2020 and all the games coming to the tabletop!