The Grumpy Gnome‘s Fantasy Projects Blog (latest update on page 61)

[Launets]

Ah! What a genius move by Arnakhor!
I'm glad he survived And finally Azgarzir gets an horse, hopefully he'll be a bigger threat in the following battles.
Also the Elves are really nasty, they seem to be so much stronger...it's possibly because of bad rolls but man..
Rip Radgaz the archer

[Grumpy Gnome]

I suppose it is in large part the probabilities inherent in the stats. The better fight value means a natural six dice roll is incredibly powerful, add in great archery skill and courage and you have tough individual minis. Not to mention “woodland creature” is much more powerful than my wife and I realized on the heavily wooded tables we like.

It helps for me to think of my wife’s Elves as the protagonists of the Story despite how it may come across in my writing on the blog.

[Sunjester]

An excellent report. It sounds like you are both having a lot of fun.

[Grumpy Gnome]

Thanks! We are having a great time. That is something that makes this hobby so much better for me than the computer gaming I gave up on... sharing it with my wife! I can only hope my son will one day enjoy it when he is old enough.

I did manage to get some work done between games as well...

https://thegrumpygnome.home.blog/2020/05/21/working-between-games/

[mirjeki]

Excellent terrain as always! I love the mossy rocks. I assume that was done to cover up the weird blemish on the rocks as you got them, but it really makes it feel more natural as a result.

Keep the battle reports coming. I'm invested in the story now!

Is this a fixed set of missions you're running from a campaign book, or have you crafted your own narrative?

[Grumpy Gnome]

The moss was my wife’s idea. All the moss on the various rocks on the various pieces were her idea. Most are done just for the look but yeah on that piece it was done to cover the blemish, which I think is glue residue from a piece that broke off at some point.

I am glad some folks enjoy the story with the battle reports.

The scenarios are basically the five narrative missions in the Second Edition of the Battle Companies book. It recommends 1-3 normal scenarios between each narrative one. So we are going with 3. Originally my plan was to go in order of the normal scenarios rather than random but decided that instead we would select scenarios that we fancied, had the required bits for and fit the forming overall narrative of the campaign.

The final scenario is to face a Cave Drake and some Goblins. As it is a Good focused campaign my wife will get first crack at it, if she fails then I will have a go.... if not then the first stage of our larger campaign idea will be complete.

We will then look at the Good campaign from the First Edition of Battle Companies and the Evil campaign in the White Dwarf magazines.

We will also look at adapting scenarios from other sources such as Mantic Vanguard.

When we are ready we will start doing SBG games with our Battle Companies forming warbands in the larger battles.

We also have an idea to run an alternative Fellowship mini-Campaign as part of this with the Fellowship rules in the soon to be released Quest with the Ringbearer. The idea being the my Taken are joining the Nine Riders to stop the Ringbearer whilst my wife's Lothlórien Elves seek to assist the Fellowship. I expect my wife to add Faramir, Galadriel and Eowyn to the Fellowship if she can.

https://www.beastsofwar.com/news/quest-ringbearer-new-middle-earth-book/

[Grumpy Gnome]

Battle report for Ruins of Annuminas, where my wife's Elves encounter an ancient Evil...

https://thegrumpygnome.home.blog/2020/05/24/ruins-of-annuminas-an-elven-battle-report/

A tough fight with a tragic result.

[Launets]

That was a really hard battle for the poor elves.
I'm sorry for Fingaerion, he was a cool guy, hopefully Cailon will lead them as well as he did until now.
As always my compliments for the excellent photos terrain and minis.

P.S. Where's the Wight mini coming from??

[Grumpy Gnome]

Thanks for the compliments, the sentiment has been passed on to my wife who deserves much of the credit.

The Wight is a Kickstarter only piece I think from Warploque. Like most of our stuff though we got it inexpensively on EBay.

https://thegrumpygnome.home.blog/2019/08/05/down-in-the-barrows/amp/

[Grumpy Gnome]

And our sixth battle report! This time the Taken of Minas Morgul attempt the Ruins of Annuminas scenario... it did not go well!

https://thegrumpygnome.home.blog/2020/05/25/the-ruins-of-annuminas-ii-a-taken-of-minas-morgul-battle-report/

Orc archers are incredibly underwhelming. Poor accuracy, short range and only Strength 2. Maybe it would not feel so bad fighting Men but compared to Elven archers it is laughable. Might as well use the bows as two handed clubs in melee.... oh wait, that would give them a -1 duel roll... not something you want against a higher fight value opponent!

Originally my plan was to use skeletons as Dead Marcsh Spectres but now I am not so sure. In addition to the profile only listing sword, requiring a house rule for some diversity, it says heavy armor. I used an Army of the Dead mini, which I normally use for Black Numenoreans but I painted it differently from the Black Numenoreans. I think that worked well. In the future though I am considering using some Fireforge undead as Dead Marsh Spectres.

[Grumpy Gnome]

Seems my wife has been enjoying the scenarios, she treated me to a magnificent haul of sprues of various makes for our Middle Earth project from Rich Severn of Creative Painting & Models in the UK. He goes by slogger777 on eBay.co.uk and we highly recommend him. He is fast, efficient and very helpful.  If you are looking for multipart plastic sprue kits he is the guy to talk to.

So... much... kitbashing... to.... do!

[Grumpy Gnome]

Some scatter terrain from me and a Perry Miniatures cottage from my wife....

As always feedback appreciated!

https://thegrumpygnome.home.blog/2020/05/28/no-place-like-home/

[Sunjester]

Superb bits of scenery you have there.

[Grumpy Gnome]

Thanks! It takes quite a bit of time and effort but the end result is worth it we believe for a more immersive gaming experience.

[CookAndrewB]

I'm playing catch up from several posts, but the tree clusters look great, as does the rest of the terrain. The nice thing with sprues of body parts is that you can build what you need a little at a time. I have dozens of partially used sprues just waiting to get combined into a new character figure needed for a new game. Those are really valuable.