18mm 2nd Age WIP

Here are a few quick photos of the Eureka 18mm figures I'm using for this project. They are Warg Riders, Man-Orcs and Orcs. I'm not that fond of the plain Jane Eureka Orcs they just aren't sexy enough for me. I do love the Man-Orcs and Warg Riders so I'll be ordering a bunch of them soon. They are all mounted on standard 20x40mm warmaster sized bases. The bases themselves are Rendra 40mm bases cut in half. You can find these figures here or if you are in the US here.

Man-Orcs

Orcs

 Warg Riders

 

Characters

 

Characters: BOFA divides characters into two categories Heroes & Wizards. Heroes are well heroes sword waving chaps who issue orders to units and provide an attack bonus represented as a +1, +2, +3, etc... to a unit they join in close combat. Wizards as defined in BOFA as anyone who casts spells i.e. shamans, true wizards and elves. Elves as Gollum would say are "tricksy" when creating an elf character like Elrond you have to deiced if this character will cast spells or not. Sometimes a hard choice when you consider that all great Tolkien elves can work magic of some sort or another. Wizards also add a +1, +2, +3, etc... to the combat value of a unit they join in close combat like Heroes but they can also cast spells in the Shooting phase.

What about the General you ask? Here is where the two systems diverge, in BOFA you nominate anyone of your characters as the Army General for that battle this grants the nominated character a +1 to command and the ability to issue orders to units anywhere on the battlefield. This also means that when the nominated character fails a command roll that players Order Phase ends and if the general is killed the battle is over.

Otherwise characters in BOFA follow all the rules for characters in Warmaster. (Now for all the kids who want to follow along at home download the warmaster rules for the link in the previous post and make a record of these notes at the end of all future 18mm 2nd Age posts.)

An Apology and a New Direction

Battle of the Five Armies Rule Book

I began this blog with every intention of painting up my Lord of the Rings armies for SBG but I've lost focus on that. It happened slowly but surely I couldn't understand why at first I'm all set to complete the Witchking's army a project I've been collecting figures for for nearly a decade. Then I realized it was GW, specifically their decision to make collecting their Hobbit miniatures an exclusive pastime for the idle rich. I know I want some of those Hobbit figures but I can't afford GW's ridiculous prices and then it him me they are simply waiting out their Hobbit contract now and I should be able to get some of the figures I wanted after the last movie when they finally go on a discontinued sale. So I'm putting aside 28mm LOTR until then.

There is another LOTR that I have long wanted to do and now seems the perfect time. That project is Warmaster LOTR or more specifically Warmaster 2nd Age in 15/18mm. Yes ever since GW released Warmaster in 2000 I knew it would be the perfect system for playing the large scale battles of the first and 2nd ages. I had a n inkling that it would be impossible for me to recreate them in 28mm. Then Battle of the Five Armies was released by GW in 2004 that confirmed my theory.

 

Back of the BFOA box.

Battle of the Five Armies or BOFA was a stand alone box set. It was quite literally a battle in a box. Its very clear from the rule book, (a modified version of Warmaster) that this was to be the first in a series title "Great Battles of Middle Earth" but like all great ideas it was quickly abandoned by GW. GW may have abandoned this idea but I haven't. I didn't like the 10mm figures that came in the box set at all so I cast around for alternatives and found a large selection of 15/18mm figures that I liked. I'll start posting pictures of my choices next Wednesday.

Warmaster Rule Book

Warmaster and BFOA are now OOP but anyone interested in getting a copy of the rules can find them on the author Rick Priestley's website.