Riders in Black: Part 3

A recent comment from one of the admins here at TMAT asked me why a certain Ringwraith scored so low in my first Riders in Black post. While the Riders in Black army that I'm building focuses on using only Ringwraiths, most armies that field a Ringwraith (or two) will be conventional armies looking for a spell-caster to support dozens of grunts or elite warriors. In this post, I want to go through a couple of teams that you can build using all 10 of the Nazgul and present a sample army list that conforms to the warband rules from the new sourcebooks and allows your Ringwraiths to maximize their potential. For commentaries on what spells Ringwraiths should cast an when, look at Part 2 here.

Urban Combat Scenery: What Do You Think?

Dear Reader,

First of all, a major shout out to our loyal fans who have now pushed us over 18,000 views! :)  Seeing the interest you all are generating in our site keeps us going, so thank you for that, :)  I thought about not doing another scenery post (as I'm badly wanting to get some battle reports in), but as we head into 10 days before the TMAT Grand Tournament, I thought it would help you all (and the other competitors) to see some of my ideas for an urban combat board.  After hours of painting, lots of shuffling things around, and carefully measuring out parameters for how the scenery would work, I came up with a rough sketch that will serve as a guide for how the field could be setup for a tournament game.

For the walkthrough today, Captain Terrek and his troop of Osgiliath Veterans have graciously allowed me to use them for demo purposes, and they will be joined by random members of my Chill of Angmar list (just to spice things up).  I hope that you find this walkthrough helpful for how I'm envisioning the dynamics of the board to work.

Riders in Black: Part 2

EDIT: If you found this page, you should know we've posted an update for the new MESBG rules (2018)! You can find the updated page here.

As promised, the second post in this series is going to be a magical tactica post. To be clear, most of this post is going to focus on what spells should be used by Ringwraiths in all-hero games. The end of this post will discuss how the spells can be used to assist conventional armies that have a Ringwraith or two in them (for those who don't want to count the number of units you field on one or two hands).

Scenery Update 2

Dear Reader,

Greetings again from the Forge!  Scenery pieces are pouring out of my ears over here, and the creative juices have been flowing like the Brandywine River (which flows pretty swiftly, in case you haven't seen it for yourself).  Today's post will examine three pieces I've designed from scratch, which may or may not make an appearance at the upcoming TMAT Grand Tournament this March, as well as an update on two of the pieces that was still "In Progress" from my last post.

Dol Amroth for Gondor!

"Nahhh... I don't want Amroth. I don't like their goofy looking helmets." *facepalm*

So after acquiring a box of mounted Dol Amroth knights, I threw my current plans for my Gondor army completely out the window. And now? Oh-ho-ho, am I glad I did! Why? Cuz they are fun and awesome, thats why!

Actually a very good pack. With some attention paid, you can easily make each model unique using only the materials that comes in the set. (and still have some leftover goodies for fun elsewhere)

Harad update: Corsairs, Watchers, Serpents and more!

So with TMAT GT 2013 just three short weeks away, the crafting benches have been in a flurry to get my army ready for the battlefield. My force contains a mixture of Corsair Reavers, Serpent Guard, Watchers of Karna, and warriors with both bows and spears. Guess how many of those my collection supported before posting my army? =P

As you can see from my post here, the Corsair Reavers had been converted, but that is about it. But now, after a couple weeks of effort, they stand ready to take the field!

The Riders in Black: Part 1

EDIT: If you found this page, you should know we've posted an update for the new MESBG rules (2018)! You can find the updated page here.

So, the faithful readers of this blog will know that I am a huge fan of spell-casters (I spent a whole month talking about Radagast, Saruman, Gandalf, Ringwraiths, and other random spell-casters). They can be really expensive, but can also help you deal (unconventionally) with the monsters and bruisers of the enemy. This months' focus is going to be on a very particular type of spell-caster: the Ringwraith. Why?...

...because I'm working on my third all-hero army, and have chosen the Riders in Black, the famed and iconic Nazgul. One of the models you might recognize from some of my Moria posts, but the others are all new acquisitions. I want to talk about what challenges and advantages an all-Nazgul force has on the field as well as what Nazgul I believe are valuable for an all-hero Nazgul army.

Scenery Update 1

Dear Reader,

It's good to be home!  I've been out on the road for work (the joys of being one of those young-traveling-professional types, :) ), and it's good to be back with you all and resuming projects at the How.  Now that the TMAT Tournament has been announced, I'm working not only on polishing touches for my tournament list, but also on a number of new scenery pieces that I'll test out there as well.  A number of the players that I know will be there have mentioned that they'd be open to an urban map, and I have taken it on myself to provide the terrain for such an engagement.  What follows below are some of the pieces that all of us at the How are working on to make that map possible.  In this post, we'll be looking at the pieces that I have from GW, and some of the conversions that I've made.  In the next post, we'll look at some of the pieces I've created from raw materials lying around the How, and an update on some of the GW pieces that are still in progress.

Announcing: TMAT GT 2013!

Alright blogosphere, it's that time of year again!

Time to announce the opening of registration for the second annual Tell Me A Tale Grand Tournament! This tournament is a small 1-day independent tournament for the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game and will be played on Saturday, March 09, 2012 in Purcellville, Virginia starting at 10am (players are asked to arrive 20-30 min early for check-in and setup). LOTR SBG players in the greater D.C. area and beyond are welcome to attend, but are asked to register NLT Feb 28. The tournament is free to play and the rules for the tournament are provided below.

This year's tournament rules are designed to encourage creativity (both strategic and artistic) over sheer (mere?) "my army can roll better than yours." So please read tournament rules carefully as there are numerous scoring opportunities (win records accounting for only about 60% of the total potential points).