Sunday, February 1, 2009

Fiefdoms Update - Ready for GitD

Gathering in the Desert, or GitD, is the first tournament circuit event for Lord of the Rings this year. This is a premier event drawing players literally from across the country. I have the honor to get to play in this tournament and pit my skills against the best players of the last few years in Lord of the Rings.

As such, I wanted to bring a beautifully painted army to compete against these experts and as last year I played a Grey Company army, I wanted something different this go around. Over the last few months those of you familiar with my blog has seen my Dol Amroth army grow. In November I played them(Granted a smaller force) in the primer event, and have since been able to play them a few additional times against local friends. I hope this will be a force that will provide fun and strategy to my games in the GitD tournament.

Above is a full army shot off my Fiefdoms army complete with their display case. I had fun building my display as this was my first attempt and modeling rocks from foam. I think I did an adequate job and the painting came out much better than I expected. I decided to design my display board off of a charge of the Dol Amroth knights through a valley into the open battle field. I modeled the clifftops to hold my Rangers of Gondor and then designed a charging layout which has Imrahil on horseback as the lead of the charge.

Some items of note is the display board grass, which was modelled off my actual models to make it look as if the grass on the models is actually part of the display, providing a more seamless design to the overall layout.

Here in my closeup of Imrahil you get an idea of the grass effect on the display board. Also you get a sense of the scope of the army with the additional knights behind Imrahil charging forward.

Here is another shot of the army from the side. It gives a bit of a closer view of the gorge that the army seems to be erupting from. Also you get additional ideas of how the grass on the model bases and display board flow together to provide a full battlefield.

Above the battlefield you get a glimpse of the Rangers of Morthond Vale, which act as my advance scouts, rangers and archery support. With their solid fight values of 4 and their ability to shoot with a 3+ I look toward them to quell many a charge from my enemies during the tournament.

Last through the gorge are my secret weapon. The elite Axemen of Lossarnach. These mighty warriors are great as they provide needed spear support for my Knights, but also can move forward and battle side by side with the knights bringing their axes into the fray as mighty 2-handed weapons.

Watch for a future update at the end of the month to detail my exploits during the tournament! If you are planning to attend I would love to hear what you are bringing, additionally, I look forward to comments and criticisms, so please let me know what you think of my army.

6 comments:

azem02 said...

Wow...this is something..Had no idea you were into this! Very Cool!

jlong05 said...

Yeah, I started playing LotR around March of last year. Since that start though, I have built 2 complete armies myself, purchased another that is close to being completely painted, and have the beginning work done on another 4 armies. Hopefully I will get sometime to work on some of them in the near future.

Robert said...

Looking good! I will be posting some LOTR stuff soon so keep and eye out. You might be able to get a preview of what I will be bringing.

jlong05 said...

Looking forward to it. I am now working out the arrangements for my 'Evil' armies. So far I have good work towards a complete White Hand army, the start of a Mordor Orc list, Mora Goblins(Need a crap load more of them though) and finally, Corsairs. Yes, look forward to seeing the Pirate bands of LotR making a timely arrival on my blog(Maybe they will be my Vegas army if I go).

Tim Kulinski said...

Looks good man, you did a great job. Now just watch out for those hoards & stealth goblins!

jlong05 said...

Eeash.. 'Stealth Goblins'... Still makes my feel creepy and stuff inside. ;)

Anyway, thanks for the comments. Hopefully I will be getting the model I plan to enter in the Red Dragon Comp this week. It got back ordered. :( But it did ship Saturday USPS, so hopefully by Wednesday. That will give me just slightly more than a week to get a expert paint job completed on the model. No pressure.