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Planning my To the Strongest Battle.  The forces of Umbar are advancing towards Pelargir having joined up with the Haradrim and Southrons.  Joining them is an advanced force from Mordor.  Ranged against them is a force from Dol Amroth and the Fiefdoms.

I have created some army lists ideas people are welcome to adapt.

lotrarmies

Dalamyr leads his force of arbelestiers, corsairs archers and warriors on a raid into Gondor.

Bruce introduced Phil, Alex, Mike and Darryl to his Legendary Buffy game.  Our first attempt ended rapidly in disaster against the Master.  Second time round we managed to scrape through to victory which was lots of fun.  We played co-cooperatively and 3 players ended up with 14 VP.  I think it would be tough as a none co-operative game.  I think it was very different to and perhaps better than the other Buffy game.  Again it is probably even more fun for Buffy fans like Bruce and Darryl with all the great photos on the cards.

Current project is a Corsairs of Umbar Army led by the Fleetmaster himself.  I already have some Black Numenoreans and have an assassin from my Harad force but have never got round to collecting Corsairs before.  So I purchased a plastic box set with the Fleetmaster and 3 arbelestiers to join them.  As usual when I wanted a Bosun and Captain they were out of stock.

For colour scheme I have chosen to go with dark muted colours.  All black seemed too bland especially with my Nazgul and Numenoreans so I wanted something similar.  I definitely wanted a look like those in the films rather than the gaudy pirates I have sometimes seen done.  After all this is Lord of the Rings not pirates of the caribbean.  If I want bright coloured pirates I can paint up my Conan figures.  Any way I have chosen black base coat and then highlighted with dark grey, dark grey-blue and dark blue.  I have done dark brown for the leather.  I might add some lighter leather too as per the images from the films.  I will use the same for the Fleetmaster but he can have some dark red reminiscent of Harad (read his profile).  So far I have done block colours and applied flesh wash to talarn flesh areas.  For the bases I changed my mind away from planks and have gone for seaborne raiders landing on slightly sandy grasslands/ shores ready to fight Gondor.  So I have chosen graveyard earth with a light dry brush of bone white.  I will apply grass and some tufts later.  Maybe more vigorous greener grass than the wastelands though.

Grey for roof,  Light brown and Bone white for nets.  Various browns.  Dark Army painter wash watered down liberally applied.  Reapplied base colours.  Lighter greys dry/ wet brushed to roof.

Tin bitz or gunbolt metal for lanterns.  Black or yellow to glass of lanterns.  Red, Green or Blue applied to coloured areas of wooden buildings including signs.  Then a red, green or blue wash applied.  Finally in order to give the effect of aged wood, peeling paint the base colour brown was dry/ wet brushed over the wood areas.  Quite effective compared to the original neatly painted originals in giving that aged, slightly neglected, run down Lake Town look as opposed to neat Swiss chalet cottages.

Michael, Bruce, Darryl and Phil got together for a great game of Gloomhaven.  Michael used the Cragheart for his first game ever and pretty much aced it and learnt the rules in record time (as usual).  This was a tough one with narrow corridors and lots of monsters. Things seemed to be going reasonably well as we reached the last door but lots of healing had been needed to overcome the poison and damage from the first two rooms.  The summons (Cragheart’s skeleton from ring and Spellweaver’s ethereal aid) had a tough time keeping up.  Though not entirely useless they were not so much use in the final room even with the Spellweaver resummoning to try and bring it closer to the action for the final room.   Lots of good attacks from the Scoundrel, Spellweaver and Vermling backed up by the Cragheart made advancing and attacking quickly a success with healing support from the casters and self healing from some too.

The problem we had was that as soon as we opened the door all 5 ooze monsters took 2 hits and spawned a second ooze.  They did this immediately and being at the far end of the room there was nothing at all we could do this time to stop them.  Then on the next turn all 10 oozes healed 2 hit points (20 in total).  So we had 10 fully healed ooze ready to fight after we cleared out the vermlings.  Then even worse they had two ranged attacks each.  This pretty much wiped out our heroic vermling Ratfiend (Darryl) who narrowly escaped exhaustion due to Stun from the Spellweavr and Muddle from the Cragheart.  Then finally the Cragheart leapt forward with an amazing attack to finish off quite a few ooze already damaged by the spellweavers attack and we soon had things under control once more.  Then it was a matter of grabbing the chest and finishing off the last couple of oozes thanks partly to the arrival of the summons at last.  This was a very close call and would have been impossible without some good play from everyone I think after those oozes spawned.

Post game was very exciting as we were able to find a pattern for a new item and retire the spellweaver who had completed her goal of slaying 20 elite monsters.  This also caused prosperity to rise to two unlocking the town records and the Vermling Beast Tyrant.  This new character looks quite fun to play and will be a nice change from the Spellweaver.  Different tactics will be required as all the Muddle and Stun from the Spellweaver had proved quite crucial in our last encounter.  We are also close to unlocking the Sacred Oak envelope as well.

I went through the finished quests to tidy things up on our map and create a flow chart.  It looks like our best bet to forward the main quest line is to go through the cistern for which we would need water breathing.  Hail has already hinted at the Drake’s Nest which we have now discovered at last.  The alternative could be some side quests including the Sulfur Mine we unlocked from a Treasure Map or going deeper into the sewers or visiting some shrines or an outside temple in the Dagger Forest.

Be interesting to see what the players decide and of course we still have a city event we can do plus explore the new store items.  Ratfiend especially has done quite well with Treasure in the last scenario.

Chaos black undercoat. Gold armour. Dark red base to cloak and dark brown to rest. Face in layers of flesh base, dwarf flesh base, elf flesh highlights. Sepia wash to face and armour. Layers of lighter reds and then red wash to cloak. Mightily silver and gold highlights to armour.

Too bright gold so toned down chain with devlan mud and folds of armour plates too. Eyes done and hair with layers of dark yellow then yellow then pale yellow. Sword chain mail then mithril silver edge.

A new unlocked Gloomhaven character.

Painted with

Vermling

Chaos black undercoat. Layers of grey to the vermling skin and ferris grey to the cloth and fur clothing. Bronze and bone to wristbands and bone necklace, staff and bits. Dark brown or black leather.

Wash of nuln oil to darker body and body clothes and blue to neck fur clothes. Face and skin and cloth all highlighted with grey or shades of blue. Red applied to staff. Red wash applied to fur of face and ears to match the portrait. Eyes orange and yellow.

Bear

Layers of dark brown all over then bestial then vermin brown to fur. A lighter brown to the wood armour. Dark green highlighted with catachan green to the saddle cloth.

Wash with Devlan brown then highlights brought out on fur with two browns above, and wood armour with light brown.

Really looking forwards to getting some gloomhaven done tonight.

Base colour brown then an army painter dark tone watered down wash then highlighted and gaps covered in brown. Used putty to fill gaps. Each house was done to be unique following a slightly different design or adding an outhouse. Some more stages to follow of course.