Angmar Army Board

I have finished my display board for my Lord of the Ring Angmar army. I will be playing in the Gathering in the Desert independent Lord of the Rings Grand Tournament at the end of the month. My painting scores in the last couple of events I have attended have been very close to the top but I need a little something more if I will have a chance a best painted. A display board is a must.


Angmar is described as a broken and dieing land. It is not the total wasteland like Mordor but that is the direction it is going. With this in mind I wanted a rocky and barren board with only slight amounts of vegetation. Naturally the board would need to match the basing of the army so the color selection was easy - just use what I used for the figure bases.



A lot of army boards will have holes cut so that the figure bases sit flush with the board surface. This generally looks very nice BUT if you change the army you might not be able to reuse the board. I put too much work into this to risk having to junk it if the army changed. I elected to take the approach of building it like a piece of gaming terrain.

The base of the army board is a framed bulletin board from Walmart. It cost about $7. For most of the build I had the frame taped off because I wanted to preserve the fake wood finish. The hills are made of cork tiles with a very coarse texture - basically the stuff that people in the '70s put on the wall between the mirrors...you remember, the dark brown stuff. Anyway the stuff break apart easily to make very nice and large rocky formations. The rest is the usual rock, sand, gravel with some model railroad flocking.

For those who will be at the event look closely. This is the actual army I will be playing. This is the only hint you will get.

Samurai

Ha! I tricked you! This isn't a picture a painted miniature.

This is my first serious drawing. This is an ink over pencil drawing of a Samurai. I have always enjoyed drawing but I have not done anything serious for MANY years. Back at the beginning of December I started going through my daughter's art supplies (she was an avid artist who created lots drawings and paintings). Seeing the huge amount of stuff she had got me thinking about it all going to waste...then I starting thinkung about all the drawings she left. I could hear myself telling her that if she really enjoyed something she should just do it and worry about it. Inspiration hit and I decided to follow my own advice. For the last couple of months I have been drawing almost daily and going through various books I have aquired.

Don't worry, this new interset is not going to replace my miniatures...but I think that in time it will prove to be very helpful. I have already learned a lot about how to SEE things. From time to time I will be posting up one of my works, if I feel it is worthy.

Sherman IC Firefly

Here we have the Tamiya Sherman IC Firefly model in 1/48th scale. This is the third tank in my 1 Troop, A squadron, 4th County of London Yeomanry. This model was painted and weathered with the same colors and techniques as with the Cromwells, 1 and 2.

On this tank I did a little more chipped paint and added some rust streaks. I did not want to over do it. I think that many tank models really do too much of this sort of thing. If it is overdone then the tank looks like it is 50 years old rather than in service for 6 months.

Now I just need to get another Cromwell and the British figure set so that I can do the Platoon command tank.

Cromwell Mk.IV #2

Here is the second of the British Cromwell tanks. The model is a Tamiya 1/48th scale kit. This one is part of the same unit as the first, and is painted in the same colors.

This tank was built without the front and rear fenders and without the side skirts. I added some stowage pieces from Games Workshop and Tamiya 1/35th scale. The mud is done with Liquitex resin sand texture gel with some ground foam flocking mashed in. Once it is set I paint it with Americana Mississippi Mud. The entire tank is then washed in very thin black acrylic paint wash.

Cromwell Mk. IV

This is the first tank in what will be a very large game project. This is a Tamiya 1/48th scale British Cromwell Mk. IV tank. This is the first tank in the first armored platoon (1st Troop) for A squadron of the 4th County of London Yeomanry.

This model was built straight from the box. The color is Testors FS 34079 Dark Green. Weathering is a light dry-brush of Vallejo 924 Russian Uniform and then a black wash of very thin acrylic craft paint.

Saxon Army Restoration Part 3

Just a quick update on my Saxon army restoration project. I completed these archers a couple of weeks ago but I had a little trouble with my Vista computer...and...well, I lost the before pictures. No worries, they looked pretty much like the other two units.

I have started on the first formed unit for this army, but I have been a little distracted with other projects lately. I am not sure when I will get back to this but I will.

Completed Beast Herds

Ha! I bet you thought the Tale of More than Four Gamers was dead...well it is actually, but I am still working on my Beasts of Chaos army. I have finally completed the first two Beast Herds. Each of these represents the contents of a single regiment box.

The first unit is hand weapon and sheilds. Why? Well...because I got the models already built and I didn't feel like tearing them apart...and I didn't have the bits to make them into a two hand weapon unit.

The second unit is more properly equipped as a two hand weapon unit. Having never played the game I was still able to figure out that a shield is a waste of time for these guys.

These two units put me at about 750 points painted and ready to go. The movement trays are actually borrowed from the Chaos Hounds units. I will be making new trays for the Beast Herds that will be 7 figures wide by 3 ranks deep. Each unit will then have a character attached to help with the poor leadership.