The Gathering of the Clouds, Part 1.

I mentioned a big new painting project in my last Post- this will be a Middle Earth collection, based on Tolkien's stories and the imagery in Cubicle 7's outstanding The One Ring RPG sourcebooks rather than the movies. This is something I've always wanted to do, and it seems like the time is now right!

So, throughout this Post you will see my collection so far- Men of Esgaroth plus Beorn, versus Goblins from Gundabad and a Troll. Following closely behind these in a later Post you will see my Iron Hills Dwarves and Wargs.

*The forces clash over an outpost on the shores of the Long Lake!

Apart from the Old West, the Dark Ages is my favourite historical period to game in- so for figures I will be mainly looking at ranges from this era (plus a few Ancients where applicable!).
Apart from this, I'll also be using Northstar's Oathmark plastic fantasy figures for much of the 'non-human' stuff, amongst others- in short, this will be an opportunity to pick and choose all kinds of interesting minis to suit the needs of the project!

*Bard and his Bowmen hold the hill (Gripping Beast plastic Late Romans)...

I had a good think about scale and also which rules I would use- after much deliberation, I settled on 28mm (though 10 and 15mm were in the running) as the extra detail and character were a no-brainer! Rules-wise I will be using Dragon Rampant (with a couple of 'tweaks' for extra flavour) as it's fun and quick to play, while being sufficiently open-ended when it comes to designing units. As the figures are mainly individually based, I could also branch out into Saga, Open Combat, Song of Blades and Heroes or even GW's Strategy Battle Game!

*...While a Goblin Shaman and his minions storm the lower slopes (Oathmark plastic Goblin Infantry)!

The downside of choosing DR is that it's not really intended to represent 'mass battles'- I reasoned that I could look at a given battle as described by Tolkien and break it down into several separate scenarios, with each being just one 'snapshot' of the larger battle- of course, a little gamer's licence could also come to the fore as required... For example each individual figure could actually represent several warriors. Broad brush-strokes will be the order of the day!

*A clash of the titans (Reaper Bones Ogre, and a DeeZee- I think- cave bear).

To kick off the collection, I decided to focus on the Battle of Five Armies from The Hobbit- this would give me a nice spread of interesting troop types and characters as a foundation for later. I will also be looking at the wars between Arnor and Angmar, the Battles of the Fords of Isen and eventually work my way up to the 'big daddy'- Pelennor Fields!

*Another shot of the forces of the Shadow...

 

*...And another of the brave Men of Esgaroth (plus friend!).

 

Finally, I'll leave you with a quick question about Beorn- I like the model I'm using right now, but I wonder if he could be bigger still? Most of the artwork I've seen seems to shows Beorn towering over the other fighters- to this end, I picked up a pre-painted variant from Ebay. What do you think- is this fellow too big, or more appropriate?

 

 

Cheers!