Good morning gamers,
Happy boxing day - I hope your Christmas was enjoyable and fun! 2024 has been VERY busy here at TMAT and despite not getting a lot of hobby releases (and my simultaneous investment in Star Wars Legion), hobby bingo went pretty well! While it's not as complete as last year's run (there were two boxes that just weren't going to be filled in - more on that later), things went pretty well and I got a LOT of models smashed out of my backlog. So without further ado, here's how we did!
Row #1: TV Time, Smials, and Fiefdoms
Column 1 required us to watch the Hobbit Trilogy, which was easy this year because my daughter was reading the Hobbit with her book club and was allowed to watch the films as she finished the relevant chapters. This was completed on May 26th and while the book is superior to the film trilogy, I still like it - very enjoyable.
Column 2 required watching the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, which I did on my own (though my son and daughter made it through Fellowship in book club this year too - and they really enjoyed the extended edition of the first film). I finished watching Fellowship on my own on May 29th, Towers on June 15th, and then because life got busy, I didn't get around to King until September 15th.
Column 3 required painting a model within 48 hours of receiving it - and to meet this requirement, I painted a Rider of Rohan within 48hrs of receiving it from a lovely chap in the UK . . . though most of his companion's horses had broken ankles by the time the package made it to the states:
Column 4 required making a display board for an army or battle company and for this, I'm submitting one of six smials I made for the Scouring of the Shire campaign board that we did this year (more on that later) - at some point, I need to take my Shire boys to a tournament:
Column 5 required starting a new army and though I intend to use these guys exclusively in the Defenders of Erebor LL, I technically didn't have any Dale models finished before the year began . . . so here's some Dale guys.
As we move into Row 2, we start off with an easy one: play a scenario you've never played before. Since all but one of the scenarios in the Scouring of the Shire supplement were new to me (Centaur and I played the Bounders Strike Back with alternate force compositions way back in 2010 when we were just getting started in the game - it turns out Fellowship Merry and Pippin can't stop three times their points values in Orcs from making it off the board edge, no matter how many traps they have), getting this one checked off was easy. While the first scenario that scratched this itch was Ruffians in Bree, I think by far and away the most interesting and engaging of the scenarios was The Arrest of Folco Boffin - golly that scenario is fun (so is Attack on Tuckburough, which we accidentally had to play twice and loved both times)!
Column 2 requires painting a monster or siege engine. For this, I have a proxy miniature for a Cave Troll that I got from Rythbyrt - though if you allow double-counting the "finish an army" boxes with "paint a thing" boxes, then I'll meet this requirement with a GW model in the next row:
Column 3 requires converting a model to look different to how it started - which was easy for me because I took a bunch of neglected Dale swordsmen and gave them all bows - here's an example:
Column 4 requires building and painting a scenery kit, which will be one of the many ruined buildings from the Conquest Creations Kingdom of Tor Ithilas set - didn't buy any GW terrain kits this year . . . again (but when I have enough saved for the new starter set, I'll be making a GW terrain kit . . . when that happens . . .):
Finally, I needed to read or listen to the Hobbit or any book from the Lord of the Rings. I finished re-listening to the Hobbit (this time listening to Andy Serkis's rendition instead of Rob Inglis's version) on January 24th - and as a bonus, I re-listened to the Lord of the Rings (all three by Andy Serkis) over the following three months. Yes, I finished re-listening to all the books well before I watched all the films . . . but that doesn't make the books better than the films per se. :-)
Row #3: More Fiefdoms, Haradrim, and Dale Guys
Column 1 for the third row requires finishing a Good army of at least 600 points - and for this, my choice was simple: the Fiefdoms. Imrahil, Forlong, Angbor, a Captain of Dol Amroth, and a Knight of Dol Amroth are 420pts, which means I only needed ~20 warriors to flesh out the set (6 Clansmen, 5 Axemen, and 8 Men-at-arms of Dol Amroth). Yes, this is a proxy army, so don't count it if you don't think they count:
Column 2 was harder to do because I didn't have a lot of evil models planned for purchase this year. Thanks to a thank-you gift from work, however, I got a 2003 Mumak kit (REALLY old, Haradrim still on sprue, all the old advertisement stuff still in the box) and if you pump it full of upgrades (all but the Mahud Beastmaster Chieftain) and fill the howdah with 12 guys (6 spears, 6 bows), you get to 474 points.
Also, Mumaks are monsters, so I painted a monster this year - see, GW Monster to check the box we proxied earlier.
Column 3 requires every finished model to be based - check, check, check.
Column 4 required finishing a model that's been in my to-do pile for at least a year - so naturally, I chose one of my languishing Dale guys to paint up (along with his buddies):
Column 5 required me to enter a model into a painting competition this year - which meant I needed a painting competition for THRO. Due to various scheduling conflicts, we had to cancel (more accurately, "indefinitely postpone") the event, but here's the model I was going to enter:
Row #4: Playing Lots of Games, Painting Some Good Models
So far we're doing pretty well! Column 1 required me to play a game with a Legendary Legion I've never used before - which proved to be a challenge, since I've played with most Legendary Legions. I talked Centaur into playing an 800-point game so I could try out the new Battle of Fornost Legendary Legion and considering I was up against a HORDE of Uruks and Orcs (Ugluk's Scouts LL) in Retrieval, I'm gonna claim that an 8-3 loss (or something like that) wasn't a bad showing. :)
Column 2 required making scenic bases for one of your armies or battle companies - and that was always going to go to the Fiefdoms, who I wanted to look slightly different from the brick-and-grass motif of my Minas Tirith army, but still blend with them if they're allied together:
Column 3 required applying a new painting technique to one of my models - and to be honest, I struggled with what to do with this one. So I sort of punted on it and made my first attempt at painting tusks with wet-blending (it is, in fact, quite hard to do what the GW pros do on the box art - but hey, I tried a new thing):
Column 4 required painting both a foot and mounted version of the same hero - and since I needed Eowyn and Merry for Fantasy Fellowships and have always thought the profile was awesome, I painted them (this is just Eowyn):
Column 5 required playing with at least ten different armies or Legendary Legions over the course of the year. This . . . was insanely easy. I've been toying with lots of lists for the 400-point doubles event we had late this year, the 350-point Spring Zephyr tournament early this year, and of course the 650-point GT, so this was a walk in the park. The lists I tried out (among a TON of others) included:
- 350-point Rivendell/Fellowship Historical Alliance (Gildor and Noldorin Exiles with the four Hobbits)
- 350-point Pure Rohan (Theoden/Gamling leading a mix of Riders of Rohan and Warriors of Rohan with throwing spears/bows)
- 350-point Pure Minas Tirith (the army I took to the Spring Zephyr tournament)
- 350-point Rohan/Fellowship Convenient Alliance (Gimli with Eomer and lots of Rohan infantry)
- 650-point Defenders of Erebor LL (Thorin III, Bard II, Bifur, Captain, and a surprising number of guys - it's a pretty solid list, in my humble opinion)
- 650-point Kingdom of Moria/Thorin's Company Impossible Alliance (Thorin and Bombur allied with Balin, a King's Champion, Floi, and LOTS of Dwarves - a very solid option for our GT)
- 650-point Kingdom of Moria/Erebor Reclaimed Impossible Alliance (basically the same list as above with slightly fewer numbers, a more survivable Bombur, and faster/more aggressive Thorin)
- 1000-point Minas Tirith/Fiefdoms Historical Alliance (I don't like 1000-points much, but Centaur was testing out his Fords of the Potomac list, so I threw together a list with Denethor, Gandalf, Imrahil, and Forlong and a TON of guys to keep them safe . . . it was very fun)
- 400-point Riders of Theoden LL (I dabbled in this at 350 for the Spring Zephyr as well, but this one was most heavily tested for doubles)
- 400-point Black Gate Opens LL (Uber-chieftain, drummer-Troll, normal Troll, four Morannons - also a very fun list for doubles)
Row #5: Falling Short
As we come to the end, things began to taper out - for Column 1, I needed to paint 9 man models (easily completed with the rest of my Dale guys), 7 Dwarf models (which were Iron Hills Dwarves with crossbows - the one on the far left is a conversion from a Grim Hammer, the other six are 3D-printed proxies), and 3 Elf models . . . but I didn't have any Elves in my painting queue and I didn't buy any. I did paint a Legolas proxy for a Christmas diorama, but otherwise . . . yeah, missed that one. I did, unfortunately, forget to take a photo of it before my friends disappeared for their Christmas holiday trip, so . . . maybe I'll ret-con this post and add a photo later!
Column 2 required me to paint my favorite Good character, which meant I needed a Samwise Gamgee model . . . and I didn't have a GW one on hand to paint. Once again, however, my diorama saved me . . . and you're just going to have to trust that I did it. :)
Column 3 required me to paint my favorite Evil character, which meant I needed a second Balrog model . . . failed that one . . .
Column 4 required me to start a battle company, and while I could have probably cobbled together some Fiefdoms models for that, I didn't feel like it was really in the spirit of box, so I'm not counting this one either.
Finally, I needed to attend a Middle-Earth gaming event - which is really easy when you organize almost all of them for your gaming group. :-) The Spring Zephyr tournament had me check this box off on March 23rd and it was a blast!
Conclusion
All told, not a bad year - and while I didn't get all the boxes checked off (four completely failed, four others required at least some non-GW models/terrain kits), I'm really proud of my work. Here's to 2025 and hopes for new releases for the new edition and enjoyable content! We'll be back on Thursday with more MESBG content (some farewells to the old edition and some stuff for the new edition in the near future) - until then, have a happy new year and happy hobbying!
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