Khazad-Dum

   Here is my collection of the Dwarf Holds Heroes and Warriors:

THE DWARF HOLDS			138
Heroes	10	Warriors	128
Durin Mardin Múrin Drár Balin Dáin Ironfoot  Gimli Flói Stonehand Captains:	2	Dwarves Shield-bearers:    Dwarves:                                           Dwarves 2-handed weapon:         Dwarves bowmen:                           Dwarves Bb:                                     Dwarves Hb:                                     Rangers thrown weapons:              Rangers 2-handed weapon:          Rangers longbow:                           Khazâd Guards:                               Khazâd Guards Bb:                         Khazâd Guards Hb:                         Iron Guards:                                      Vault Warden Teams:                     (8 pikes and 8 tower shields) Dwarf Ballistae:                                Dwarf Ballistae crew:                      Dwarf Ballistae: King’s Champions:	2 15 15 16 2 2 8 8 8 12 1 1 6 16 2 4 2 2

    A few photos of the first five Heroes:

Durin, King of Khazad-dum

Mardin, King Durin's life ward

Múrin

Drár

and Balin, son of Fundin.

Dwarves vs Isengard LotR SBG Battle.

    A few photos of a Lord of the Ring SBG fight between the Dwarf Holds and the evil army of Isengard.

   The Dwarf army consists of four heroes (Balin, Mardin, Murin and Drar), one banner-bearer, Khazad Guards, Iron Guards, Vault Wardens, Warriors, Archers and Rangers. 

      The Isengard army consists of four heroes (Sharku, Gorbag and two Uruk-hai Captains), three banner-bearers, Berserkers, Uruk-hai Warriors, Pikemen, Crossbowmen, Orc Warriors and Warg Riders.

   The fight was a simple 'kill them all' scenario. It was impossible for my Dwarves to have the initiative and attack to such a huge army.  In addition, enemy cavalry was a big problem because there was always a possibility to surround my warriors. What I needed was a tight defensive line. So, I retreated to the corner of the table and my Dwarves formed a ''Γ'' shape line. There, I decided to hold a static position and to wait the waves (black arrows) of the attackers. The two black sides of the hill were impassable terrain.

 

The enemy waves.

Balin's Courage helped a lot during Courage Tests.

The survivors of the battle.

A Pyrrhic victory!

Dunlending Horsemen and Chariots WIP

   The other days I found some pictures of Dunlendings Horsemen and Chariots WIP in my photos folder. So, here they are for everyone to see all the conversions, which I have made.

   And a "green" Grima photo.

   Enjoy!

Dunlending Chariots

   WI issue 276 (Oct '10) main theme "The Chariot Wars. Wargaming at the dawn of history" was a great inspiration for me. Since the moment I read it, I decided to add some chariots to my armies. Unfortunately, the only chariots of LotR middle-earth armies are Khandish Chariots, but I didn't and still don't have any Khandish Warrior. On the other hand, I had plenty of Rohan warriors, whom I had already decided to convert to Dunlending Huscarls to enrich my Isengard army. So, a couple of them became Dunlending charioteers!

Dunlending Chariot 1

Dunlending Chariot 2

   A few words about the conversion. The horses are Rohan Riders' plastic horses without the Riders of course! The harness and the whip came from the type of wire which is covered with green plastic and we use in gardens. The chariot wagon is made of balsa wood. I stuck an orc's quiver on each chariot wagon. Finaly, the wheels came from a 1/72 plastic napoleonic cannon.

   The Dunlending Chariots haven't participated in a game so far, neither in a WotR, nor in a LotR. But, when one fine day I put them on the tabletop I will use the Khandish Charioteer rules. So, no photos with Dunlending Chariots in action at the moment. Be patient!

Dunlending Horsemen

   Another post today about Isengard, this time the Dunlending Horsemen. They cover the Isengard's lack of cavalry. One formation, four companies, eight cavalrymen (one Chieftain, one Banner Bearer and six Horsemen). A nice colourful unit on the tabletop among the dark Uruk-hai Warriors.

 The Dunlending Chieftain

The Dunlending Banner Bearer

The Dunlending Horsemen

   What I did here? I took some Riders of Rohan and painted them with different shadows of red colour. I gave to each one of them an axe exept for the Cheftain who has a sword of a warrior of Minas Tirith. I deleted from the shields surface the Rohan symbols with horses. I kept only the two different types of stars. On the rest shields I painted some Viking style drawings. I put to Captain's helmet a maedate (samurai's helmet crest)  to be recognizable that he is the Captain. The gold horse head of the banner is the 1/72 head of a napoleonic plastic cavalry miniature. The ribbons are alouminium foil.

   Finally, a photo of Dunlending Horsemen in action!

  

WotR Battle (Dwarves vs Isengard)

This is a battle of 1200pts each side. My army, the good forces, consisted of four formations. One formation of Swan Knights of Dol Amroth, a Dwarf King’s Champion, Drar’s Hunters and one Dwarf Warrior Kinband.

Specifically:

Light Infantry

Dwarf Warrior Kinband(6 companies)                                        

Dain                                                                                                  

Banner Bearer                                                                                 

Shieldbearer                                                                                    

Hornblower                                                  515

Heavy Infantry

King’s Champion                                          175

Archers

Drar’s Hunters(3 companies)                                                                   

Drar                                                              200

Heavy Cavalry

Knights of Dol Amroth(4 companies)                                         

Knight Champion                                                                           

Banner Bearer                                                                                 

Hornblower                                                  +300=1190pts.

Number of miniatures:(6x8)+1+(3x8)+(4x2)=48+1+24+8=81.

            My opponent’s army, the evil side, consisted of ten formations! Two formations of Uruk-hai Warriors, two formations of Uruk-hai Pikemen, two formation of Berserkers, one formation of Uruk-hai Crossbowmen, two formations of Uruk-hai Engineers and finally one formation of Warg Riders. I can’t remember more details about this army because we played this game a couple of years ago. Anyway, I lost. It was a massive victory for my friend. My elite force was destroyed under his troops numerical superiority. The aftermath of this game is that the quality is not enough, it is quantity that counts as well. As Napoleon said “Numbers only prevail”.  

 

King’s Champion

            Since the day that WotR rulebook was released, two challenges appeared in front of my eyes. First, to increase the numbers of troops for every army I had (an expensive challenge) and second to fill the blanks of the unreleased characters and heroes (a  creative one). One very interesting character is King’s Champion. I imagined him like a very strong and wild dwarf. I tried to convert a Dwarf Warrior but the result was not exactly what I had in my mind about him. So, I took an old miniature of a Dwarf Slayer and I gave it a touch of LotR to bring it closer to this game.

What I have done? I replaced the banner with a troll’s hand and I set some dead troll’s gear in front of Champion’s feet. To remove the troll’s hand from the battle hammer was easy, on the contrary, to remove the head from the helmet was hard.

 

At the end I was so satisfied about the result that I decided to make another one. Anyway I had a blister with two of them. So, here is the second Champion in all his glory!

              

            For this one I used troll’s drum to give height to my Champion and I cut the Isengard spear in pieces to add battle flavour to my miniature.

Finally, I can say that these two can stand by themselves alone, like small size dioramas.