2012 Gathering in the Desert Armies

For this installment of my GiTD coverage I want to chat about the armies. The Gathering is an event that prides itself on great looking games. We have already look at the first half of the great looking game equation - the tables. Now it is time for the armies. The Gathering has a full painted army requirement which you just don't see very much. In addition the armies are graded on theme. Because appearance and theme actually entail significant points for the overall score you see some really amazing armies and stunning painting.

The appearance standards are so high that my Dwarf army I painted last summer for this event, and I am very proud of how it turned out, scored an average score for appearance. The level of detail on the top armies was really stunning. The really sad thing is that I only managed a few crappy cellphone pictures of a few of the armies and I completely missed some of the best. (Hopefully Tim will post some better pictures of all the armies)







This year had a very diverse array of armies. The format for this year was Good vs. Evil with each player choosing to play Good or Evil and bringing one 600 point army. Match-ups were all Good vs Evil regardless of the overall standings. I think this really helped inspire people to build and play interesting armies.

Here are a few of the Good armies:

Erebor
Durin's Folk
High Elves
Galadhrim Elves
Army of the Dead
Gondor
Dol Amroth
Arnor
Woses

For Evil we had:

White Hand
Urak Hai Scouts
Mordor
Far Harad (all mounted)
Corsairs
Moria (with Cave Drake)
Moria (Gundabad)

With this variety of armies, combined with the themed tables and Good vs Evil match-ups resulted in some really great games. Next up I will discuss my games. Stay tuned.

2012 Gathering in the Desert Tables

This past weekend was the Gathering in the Desert Independent GT for Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game. It was the fifth year of the event and it was held at Imperial Outpost Games in Glendale AZ. One of the great things about this event are the tables and terrain. Lots of work has gone into making this a great looking event. Here are some shots of each table.

Osgiliath


The Prancing Pony


Mordor


Isengard Pits


Generic



Balin's Tomb


Amon Sul


Amon Hen


I will have a few more posts about the event so stay tuned.

Dwarf Display Board

The last thing I needed for the GiTD was a display board for my army. I painted the army a few months ago but I total forgot the display board. Naturally I remembered last night. So I whipped this one up today and I think it will get the job done.

The Witchking on a Dark Steed

I needed one more figure for a game tonight so I pulled out my Witchking on a Dark Steed. I painted this guy this morning in a little more than an hour. As usual, it looks better in person.

Lord of the Rings Khandish King

This weekend is the Gathering in the Desert Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game independent grant tournament (sounds impressive). Each year there is a painting competition and I try to have at least a couple of entries. Usually I have something already painted that I can just touch up and enter. This year I started with a couple of fresh models and spent more than a week painting them up. I wanted a model that would really be unusual and stand out. My Khandish King on a chariot would be perfect. You just don't see too much Khandish stuff around.

I must say I was really pleased with how this turned out. And then I too high resolution pictures. I have come to the conclusion that I have 2 megapixel eyes, which is not good with 8 megapixel photos. It blows me away how many things jump out at me in these pictures that I literally cannot see in person. I really hope the judges don't look at these pictures before the judging. Oh well, maybe there won't be too many entries.







I really hate the way GW painted this model for the box. They took an amazing sculpt and then painted it in a generic black and red scheme. For my model I wanted to really bring out the Asian influences in the sculpt. There really are a lot of different Asian influences here from the Mongol, to the Chinese and the finally Japanese. To me the Chinese and Japanese influences were strongest. I wanted the cloth to be more elaborate than just a solid color but I did not want to get too bogged down in an intricate pattern. I think I pulled that off. The Samurai inspired armor needed to be more subdued to keep the model from being too busy. I went with a simple red-brown color which ties the model to the chariot but still allows the colorful fabrics to stand out.

It was a really fun model to build and paint and makes a nice addition to the collection.

Old School Stuff - Battle Honors 25mm Italian Alpini

It is time to dig out some of my older WW2 collection and get it documented. This is my Italian Alpini army. I acquired this army, just as you see it pictured below, several years ago from my friend Tom. He, in turn, purchased it just as you see it from a guy on eBay. The infantry are all 25mm/28mm Battle Honors. They are actually not bad figures and where sculpted by some of the same people sculpting other modern figure lines. They are a little small but I have had them on the table with modern 28mm stuff and they looked fine.


You must forgive the crappy photos. I had to switch back to my old camera and it doesn't do macro very well.


The two tanks are Semovente 75/18 from Army Group North and are the best part of the army. One of these models has a number 6 engraved into the bottom. I have always wondered if that means something. I have actually been trying to sell these figures for a few years with no takers. I planned to keep the semoventes to use with my Fallschirmjagers in Italy.


Above is the command team. You can see that the paint is not very good and it is showing its age. I had thought about stripping and repainting but that seem like a lot of work.



Anyway, these are back in the box. Who knows when they will see the table again.

Stuck in a Fallschirmjager Rut

I have come to the conclusion that I am stuck in a bit of a rut when it comes to my World War II projects. It seems that I am painting the same Fallschirmjager force, for the same period of the war, in 15mm and 28mm. I am not sure how that happened.

he good news is I have added a fourth manufacturer to the collection - Artizan. I only have the four figures with MP44 pictured below. Artizan makes very nice figures and I know lots of people who really love them but for me there is something a little off with them. I am not sure what it is.


Next is a batch of the old Foundry Fallschirmjagers by the Perry brothers. The are nice figures but are showing their age.


I have added a bunch more Black Tree Designs Fallschirmjagers to the collection. These are mostly pioneers. This is another line of figures that is nice but a little off. The faces are scary.


Finally we have some Crusader Miniatures Fallschirmjagers. These are probably my favorite FJ figures so far. I am really going to miss adding these to the collection. With the closure of Crusader USA there is very little chance that I will be adding many more of these to the collection.

In all I have added another 45 figures to this army. Not too bad. I still have about 25 figures left to paint so keep your eyes open for more.