Primed and Prepped: The Dwarf Hold and its Denizens

So, here we are again, looking at the board, which is white with primer. You'll see some WIP shots as we go through, to give you a feel for how the project has advanced.

A month ago, I sprayed a small block of polystyrene as a test to see how much damage the propellant does to this stuff. The block shrank to half its normal size. This made me think, "Hey, I can use this tactic to form my chasm on two of my game boards and what you see was the result...anti-climactic, right? Some bubbling, but no deterioration. So...I'm just going to paint over it and  call it good. We'll see what happens when the paint is sprayed on in a few weeks.

Thorin's Company has gone through a few edits after watching the new movie. Ori no longer "shoots his throwing axe" but now shoots a slingshot. I haven't decided if he counts as using a Dwarf longbow or throwing axes, but right now, I'm leaning towards the axes just because I like throwing axes more (though the longbow gives a few more options to the army as far as range goes).

Here is Groblog in all his splendor. He sports Bestigor-like horns and an impressive hammer-shaped royal staff to command his minions with. I'm planning on giving him an advanced bodyguard of Prowlers with shields. These guys not only are the only Moria units that can wield throwing weapons (yes, I'm obsessed with these things), but they also sport Fight 3/4+, Defense 5 (thanks to the shields), and gain a +1 to wound bonus if their foe is trapped. Perfect for adding a little extra oomph to a select number of battles and making fights more fair against armies from Rohan and Gondor (thanks to the Fight value).

...aaaaand, that's not all. My wife, Ellyriana, got me a bunch of supplies for hobbying from a dollar store for my Christmas stocking, and among those were coffee stirrers that will be used to make my first piece of Goblin terrain. This will not only be my attempt at providing a cheaper alternative to the Escape From Goblin-Town scenery set, but also pursues my hope of being able to make my battle board cross-cultural between Dwarves and Goblins, so when that's ready, I'll get some pictures up.

We're going to be leaving Hobbit month (though work on the board will continue in a few weeks when my wife and son are out of town), so starting now, we will be venturing back into the realm of spell-casters with Flight to the Ford month, as we welcome into the collection a host of new Ringwraiths for my first all-hero Evil army (which I hope is capable of going toe-to-toe with the White Council and the Fellowship) and an Arwen model for the White Council (after she did such an awesome job in a recent battle report). Keep watching this space and we here at TMAT look forward to providing you with more projects, tactica, and battle reports in 2013!