Ravenfeast Middle-earth

[Mikai]

I played a game today with my brothers. We are using a house rule version of Ravenfeast, to implement this set of rules into Middle-earth. My game was set up to raid with my 1200 point army representing Gondor a village which was about to get pillaged by one of my brothers too, with his Isengard troops. Our other brother played the Orcish civilians there which got some random encounter rules to appear at the houses. Victory points could be gained by controlling the various houses at which one needed at least three more units than the opponent to controll it. That all within 12 turns.

The houses have been spread across the table. Everyone of us set up his army without knowing how the others are placed (wall between us). He got some damn quick trolls across the center and my brave militia archers and farmers did their best to distract them, even managed to wound them once! The left flank has had only a bit action with my skirmishing riders killing two archers only to all flee from the battlefield within four rounds due to Saruman scaring them off with magic. The right flank got very late in action with bigger shieldwalls forming on both sides while my riders quickly took out his flanking force, only loosing two horses and one rider who fell unlucky when his horse got killed. The approach on both sides was very slowly, I tried to get into better position before encountering his more numerous and stronger Uruk-hai forces there.
In the center his trolls hunted down my light troops who tried to slow them down, suppored by my scholar. They did not last long before my left side shield wall with my leader got in contact with them. My troops seemed to be unlucky with their morale this round, a couple of units and my leader refused to attack the troll due to the trait "terrifying". At the end both trolls went down, being however succesful at binding many units at a place. Biggest plus at the left flank have been my longbow archers who did a good job with their captain, pinning down plenty of archers and crumbeling a Dunlending shieldwall. The riders at the right flank at least managed to contest a building to hinder the enemy controlling it, binding however resources there which could perhaps have been of better use at other places. And all the time Orc civilians coming out of the buildings to defend their village, some battles even going on inside the houses.

In the end it was a close battle and victory got taken out of my hands. In the last turn his army leader Lurtz managed to snipe out one of my three militia troops at one house so that I lost the controll there, bringing us on a draw. And then he killed surprisingly many of my brave men at the last big battle spot and managed to get the controll of the big tavern, thus getting the last required victory points. Well, my troops did a good job and I nearly managed to break his army but alas. Perhaps another time 

We discussed later how the scenario my brother drew up could get improved. We all agreed that the table was too big, with single units getting lost in the void between making it difficult to take controll of buildings. And the other problems just came up due to poor strategy on both sides 

Added some pictures too. A lot of unpainted minis, yes. However, we managed at least for the first time to have a nicely looking playing area!

[punkrabbitt]

Added some pictures too. A lot of unpainted minis, yes. However, we managed at least for the first time to have a nicely looking playing area!

I used to be a real paint snob, but now I'm just happy to see people having fun whether stuff is painted or not. Have fun your way!

[Mikai]

No doubt that it will look far better with painted units. It's a bit like it got mentioned at some other thread, once the game gets started many are perfectly capable to blend out the details and concentrate on the story. I am a bit worried that my painting won't end well. I am still fresh back at the hobby and I painted my last miniature twenty years ago I think. It's on my bucket list to paint them all though. There are enough old broken miniatures to get some practice at painting.

For now I am however captured at the kitbashing. It's a bit overhelming on how many options there are, kitbashing together various Victrix sets. There are also Oathmark sets for more options from which my Orcs will surely profit. I however think I bought far too much stuff

For now I first try to finish the Gondorian units. I decided to use the Late Roman sets by Victrix, giving me the options to have light and medium armoured troops. Some units from the Normans set will then complete on the heavily armoured units. Below some images on Militia Pikemen and a bowmen command unit. The Late Roman archer set is a perfect fit with the Dark Age archer set. Many posses are similar, so bows can simply get exchanged between both sets. That gives me the possibilities to differentiate visually units with a regular bow from units with a longbow. And using some bodies of the other Late Roman kits gave some interesting results like the captain and hornblower of the archers. And some more pictures of a medium infantry command unit on horse and at foot. Shields are all missing since I have read at the forum a couple of times that the figures are easier to paint if I glue on the shields at the end. I have had luck at finding some Games Workshop Gondorian Knights spear bits for the flag pennants   

[Pattus Magnus]

Your conversions look great to me!

[Aethelflaeda was framed]

No doubt that it will look far better with painted units. It's a bit like it got mentioned at some other thread, once the game gets started many are perfectly capable to blend out the details and concentrate on the story. I am a bit worried that my painting won't end well. I am still fresh back at the hobby and I painted my last miniature twenty years ago I think. It's on my bucket list to paint them all though. There are enough old broken miniatures to get some practice at painting.

Even the most amateur of first efforts will look better than unpainted figs. Embrace the challenge and have no fear of failing.  You cannot fail.

[Pattus Magnus]

I’ll add, with basic paint jobs and consistent looking basing the figures will look good. A fancy paint job is not needed. As Aethelflaeda was framed says, you cannot fail with painting figures. Later, if you enjoy painting, you can expand your skills. Or not, if you don’t enjoy painting- a friend who I game with has used basic painting on his collection for the past 15 years and we always have fun with his figures during games!

[Kitsune]

No doubt that it will look far better with painted units. It's a bit like it got mentioned at some other thread, once the game gets started many are perfectly capable to blend out the details and concentrate on the story. I am a bit worried that my painting won't end well. I am still fresh back at the hobby and I painted my last miniature twenty years ago I think. It's on my bucket list to paint them all though. There are enough old broken miniatures to get some practice at painting.

It doesn’t matter. Really doesn’t.

1. Painted, no matter what level, is always better than unpainted
2. A table full of painted models and scenery collectively lift one another to raise the level as a whole
3. You get better as you go
4. You can always come back and improve the paint jobs later.


Just go for it. 90% of painting is just doing it.

[Little Odo]

Just go for it with the painting. It is better to get started than to procrastinate and get nothing done (my problem in the main - I am hoping to take my own advice very soon with my plastic and lead mountains  ). As mentioned above, even the most basic of paint jobs will bring the figures to life.

[Frugalmax]

Looks like a really fun battle!

Of course do whatever you like to your miniatures, they are yours, but here's a thought: One fun and very easy way of getting a coherently painted force is to just do a two-step paint job over the whole army and then do something on the base to help sell the "done-ness" (sand or flock or both), and then you are done and can just go further as you wish and as time permits.

Here's what I mean by that:

Step one: Spray paint the whole army a dark color such as black or dark brown, being sure to get all of the angles from below.

Step two: Lightly spray from above or dry brush from the top down a lighter color such as gray or light tan (the "bleached bone" type colors look good over dark brown and give it a sepia-like look).

That's all. And I say this as a guy who really likes to fully paint his miniatures (to varying results)- what is for many people a simple two-step undercoat often brings out all the great detail in the miniatures, and if the whole army looks this way, they look like great gaming pieces. To my eye, this is a really easy "stylized" approach to getting an army to look good quickly and it also pairs well with terrain that is more "stylistically suggestive" than "realistic" looking. I think just seeing the detail better than with bare plastic, especially on your cool conversions, would be worth it. Then of course you can add some more color (colored banners are a good first step to identify units) or try fully painting miniatures as you wish. Anyway- just a thought... maybe I should go do that myself, as it seems there are more unpainted miniatures than ever in the cue...

[Mikai]

Thanks for all the encouragement and suggestions. Will try to follow them up at my vacations in summer. Until then it's kitbashing the units together to "finish" the army in regard to the amount. And will look to get them primed.