Workbench Update: What Do You Do With 60 Morannons?

Good morning gamers,

Today we're answering that age old sailor's shanty:

What do you do with 60 Morannons?

What do you do with 60 Morannons?

What do you do with 60 Morannons early in the morning?

When the Pelennor Fields box set dropped, Centaur got a copy and sold me his Morannons (36 in total). I went in with him last December on the new Battle of Osgiliath box set and picked up 24 more. With a whopping 60 Morannon Orcs at my command . . . what do I do with them all? In most Matched Play games, you'll never have this many - with over 500pts of warriors that require 4-5 heroes to field, you'd need to be playing at the 750-800 point level at a minimum. So what do you do? Well, you get your conversion hat on and try to (at least temporarily) save yourself some money. Let's see what we're doing!

Level 1: 48 Morannon Orcs

This part is easy - and by "easy," I mean you have to batch paint 48 Orcs (in my case, 2-5 of each sculpt). This can be really monotonous, so it's "easy" from a conversion point of view (read, you don't need to convert anything), but drudging up the will to do it is hard. Because I need 12 of each type of Morannon for Fantasy Fellowships (no gear, shield only, spear only, spear and shield), I need to keep 48 Morannons as-is - you could probably get by with less if scenarios aren't your thing (but if you plan to run the Army of Gothmog or the Black Gate Opens, you should at least consider keeping 48 of them as-is).

These guys are very much still in progress . . . but they're pretty impressive, huh? My daughter painted the wildly colorful one . . .

Hobbit Smials Update

Hey Reader!

Been a crazy several months for me, but wanted to do a quick Shire Board update, as we finished a few more pieces for it.

ForgeWorld has a hobbit hole (or smial) set out, and my wife was so cool and got it for me for my birthday! The set comes with two windows and two chimneys, but the most interesting thing is the double-sided door/entryway:

So I decided to try my hand at cutting the double-sided entryway into two usable entryways, starting with a guiding line that would miss the inset details on either side, and then shaving down: 

And let me tell you, it was really hard because of how the resin piece is designed, but I made it through! Not super pretty, but it will do the job. And the back will be up against the polystyrene, so who cares what the back looks like, :P

So, with our ForgeWorld pieces ready, it was time to cut some polystyrene!

Workbench Update: Kingdom of Moria

Good morning gamers,

So, the Dwarves were one of my first armies to collect – and by far have been one of the most fun to use. I’ve played many games on this blog with my Dwarves against all kinds of foes and was the first of our players to bring Dwarves to the attention of the group (where they’ve received much criticism for being “overpowered” ever since). While Dwarves certainly have their weaknesses, conventional charge-the-battle-lines-and-hack-them-down strategies aren’t one of them – Dwarves excel at getting their units locked in combat (especially their heroes) and cleaving enemy units quickly. Banners are great for these guys (and King’s Champion banners are the best way to get them) and since any Dwarf Warrior can carry a banner, keeping banners alive is actually quite easy (be it equipped on a bowman or a warrior with a shield).

Today we’re looking at two critical changes that happened around the time of the new rules release: first, without the rules for volley fire, I don’t need 10 Dwarf Warriors with Dwarf bows anymore to hail down S3 arrows on people 18-36” away (so the two guys I converted are becoming melee guys again, but we’re giving them shields this time), and second, we’re repainting our converted Thorin’s Company rangers because … we bought Thorin’s Company (more on them next week).

Workbench Update: HORSES! (Minas Tirith & Numenor, Part II)

Good morning gamers,

So, let's begin by acknowledging that today in the US is Veterans Day - thanks vets!

Let's also acknowledge that despite a holiday weekend, my fellow admins are busy, so our collaboration post on skirmishers is slipping a week. Instead, we're doing next week's workbench update today (and, coincidentally, it's about Veterans of the Osgiliath variety).

In June/July of this year, we did two workbench updates on Minas Tirith and Numenor, showcasing some of the basing, painting, and converting we’ve been doing on the models I own. Today, we continue that work by looking at a few new acquisitions: painting up 8 more Warriors of Minas Tirith, further conversions on Osgiliath Veterans, adding spears and shields to some of my bowmen, purchasing six Knights of Minas Tirith, and painting up two Rangers of Gondor (and painting up two Aragorns and two spare Numenoreans - but we're getting ahead of ourselves).

Workbench Update: Isengard

Good morning gamers,

Over the past few months, we’ve been working through our workbench projects on the Forces of Evil I own (since they don’t get their own time in the sun much). With recent journeys to Angmar, Mordor, and Moria, our current travels take us to the tower of Orthanc where Saruman and his minions see some minor repairs and some new arrivals.

Last Month on TMAT... (September 2019 Edition)

It's been a busy September here at TMAT. After kicking off with a workbench update on converting Morgul Stalkers and Black Numenoreans, we jumped straight into reviews of more factions who fought at Pelennor Fields (the Fiefdoms, the Dead of Dunharrow, the Easterlings, Khand, and the Serpent Horde), returned to the Fellowship of the Ring for an advanced look at how to get the most out of the Fellowship's unique units (tactical units, the hobbits, and its big beatsticks), introduced a new series ("Fly you Fools!") dedicated to exploring formation and maneuvering options for our beloved and beautiful (if not always overly-bright) models, and capped it off with a descent into Moria.

Workbench Updates

Profile discussions are fun and all, but they're even more fun when you're converting models! Here are some list building thoughts, tactical musings, and craft ideas as we try to clear our own workbenches. Maybe something will speak to you!

• Angmar (August 2019)
• Isengard (October 2019)
• Lothlorien (October 2017)
• Minas Tirith (March 2019, June 2019)
• Mordor (August 2015, October 2015, August 2019, September 2019)
• Moria (September 2019)
• Numenor (July 2019)
• Rivendell (October 2015, July 2019)