The Battle Companies Community Creator Project- Clearing the Backlog (March/April '22)

 Hey all

A slightly different spin on the monthly update as I had to hold back for this unveiling, I spent a lot of March and April's hobby time preparing this challenge, organised by Dewi Evans.

The Challenge

We were entered into a pool of 18 participants, each of whom would offer up two colours, whatever combo they choose. I offered up purple and white myself. And we would then get a randomly selected Battle Company from all the options available.

The draw was presented to us as follows. What company did I get? Excellent!

What colours did I get?

Shit...

My approach

I quickly decided that a great theme to go around for this would be the final stand of Balin's Expedition. So a good display board to do would be one based around Balin's tomb, which it just so happened, I had from a MTO from 1yr~ ago. First I had to name, build and paint my company.

The Name

I was toying with something basic such as 'The Last Stand in the Tomb' but then thought if there was a way I could include the colours that had been chosen. Maybe 'the Yellow Brigade' or 'the Purple Ravens'. But then it came to me, many people that I have played will be familiar with my standard luck on the battlefield, with very much unexpected deaths or mass routes upon breaking that cost me a game that was, more or less, in the bag (see Tom Hawker). It was for this reason that I settled upon:

The Yellow Bellies and Purple Hearts

'Flee or die'

The Company

The Leader- Dharin (pron. Dar-in)

Those who have been in the GBHL and have a good memory may recognise this model, as I converted him 4yrs~ back for my Dale/Erebor company. He was built from a plastic Gimli from the Mines of Moria set that was broken, had his arms transplanted from a Dwalin, Champion of Erebor and then was given a Concealing Cloak of green stuff. The only change that I made to his old version, was gluing a shield of Erebor onto his back.

To make him stand out, I painted a little pattern across the bottom of his cloak so that it would display, subtly, a mark of seniority. I also mixed together a thinned down red contrast paint with my blue glaze to give the armour a purple tint, which I repeated across most of the other members.

Dharin, son of Druin (pron. Drew-in), was a low level captain of the Iron Hills as he fought at the Battle of the Five Armies. After which, he steadily gained promotion, until Balin prepared for his expedition, whereupon, Dharin offered to sign up, alongside many other volunteers.

Rori (pron. Roh-Ri)

For Rori, I didn't want to make any alterations to the Captain model as I thought it was a great pose. The only difference seen is that, on the far side of the front of his shield, there was a deformity. I painted this to show the paint of the shield smashed away in a prior fight, showing wear and tear. You'll be able to see this at the end.

Rori, son of Dharin, was still reaching maturity as his father fought for Dain at the Battle of the Five Armies. However, when the time came for Balin's Expedition, he was an up and coming young dwarf warrior, eager to prove himself and so went along with his father.

The Brothers, Brerin (pron. Br-air-in) and Nerin (pron.N-air-in)

I had two of the same posed, old metal dwarf warriors, who had both been sat in the pile of shame for years now. This seemed like a perfect chance to get them done, when there was no plans for them prior. However, leaving them both the same and non distinguishable from the rest of a dwarf army wouldn't do.

For Brerin, I decided that no dwarf force would go without SOMEONE bringing a keg of Dwarven Ale. And he seemed perfect for the job. So I cut his arms off, replacing them with those of a Grim hammer that were spare and green stuffed a tankard into his hand as well as the keg at his feet, knocked over as he knocks back one last gulp before facing his foes, as they storm the tomb.

In Nerin's case, I wanted something more simple and easter-eggy in feel. I had a spare Kili floating about so head swapped them over and built him a beard from green stuff to hide the join. Then I got the idea. Gimli gets his two handed axe in that tomb, what if I gave a name to it's past owner? So I ordered an old metal Gimli and took his axe head for Nerin.

Once they were finally built, I was able to get round to painting them up.

The brothers Brerin and Nerin, were in Dharin's regiment in the Battle of the Five Armies alongside their eldest brother, Brevin (pron. Br-air-vin), who fell outside the gates of Erebor wielding their family heirloom axe. This axe was retrieved after the battle and then wielded by the second brother, Brerin. Nerin, after the recapture of Erebor, found the old weapons of the Grim Hammers to be his preferred choice and had his own made. He also developed a fondness of ale and was often seen being loud and drunk but still friendly. They were still serving under Dharin, when he pledged his troops to Balin's cause.

Kimur (pron. Key-mur)

I was stumped for a while on how to go about doing the archers for a while. My first inspiration was to use the now damaged Gimli, so I did a simple headswap onto a dwarf warrior and then added a coil of rope onto his back out of green stuff.

Kimur was headhunted by Balin as a revered dwarf of the wilds. He had an exceptional shot with his bow and impressive survival skills that could be passed on to others in the expedition to keep themselves fed, once they had a foothold in Khazad-Dum. 

Ori (You know how it's pronounced)

For the last dwarf, I had a facepalm realisation that there was already a named character, who was in this exact scenario, Ori! For him, I took the body of the Gimli and the head of the dwarf warrior and did the exact opposite of Kimur. 

I decided that since he would, in my mind at least, be filthy rich post expedition that he should therefore have more opulent looking equipment. So he has multiple axes, some fancy trim on his cloak and a gold trimmed quiver which says 'AMMO' in dwarven runes, this quiver was simply green stuff with some paperclip pieces as the arrowshafts. 

I also decided that as Ori matured, he would develop his ranged ability from a slingshot to a bow (also made of green stuff) and therefore would be a good second archer. I was also initially going to have my final touch to him be an arrow loading into his bow. When I realised, his skeleton is found with the Book of Mazarbul, as found by the Fellowship, years later. So that should be in his other hand, and brace yourselves, it was made from green stuff! 

After the bittersweet success of the company, Ori settled into a happy and comfortable life for several decades. He grew into adulthood and filled out his beard much more impressively, as is the dwarven way. But with time, the tales of his youth weren't enough, he desired to once again be a part of a big, world changing part in history. So when Balin announced his intentions to reclaim Khazad-Dum for their kin as they had reclaimed Erebor many years earlier, Ori was one of the first to join.

The Display Board

As stated above, the obvious display was to do the final stand of the dwarves in Balin's tomb. My girlfriend's nan had a small photoframe (6"x8")~ that was no longer needed and would be perfect for it.

The first thing that I did was wrap the glass in some newspaper.

I then sprayed it black and covered the upside with sand. Before painting it Mechanicus Standard Grey and drybrushing with Dawnstone then washing it with Nuln Oil. It then went back into the frame.

I then built the four pillars, two trapdoors, well and sarcophagus (without dead dwarves including Ori). I painted these up in the same manner as the base of the display, just painting the trapdoors' wood with Rhinox Hide and Mournfang Brown. The metal was painted Warplock Bronze then Leadbelcher before washing it and the wood with Agrax Earthshade.

I present to you, the completed company. 

The Yellow Bellies and Purple Hearts

Others involved with the project

We had another 17 guys, who all took part in this project, including CJ and James from this blog. The links to the video/blog sites of others are below: 

Dewi Evans - Guardians of Wiltshire - https://youtube.com/c/GuardiansofWiltshire

Steve Crowe - Top Table Gaming - https://www.youtube.com/c/TopTableWargaming

Rob Conroy-Máigheóc - Over the Edge of the Wild - https://edgeofthewildsbg.blogspot.com

Cameron Cochrane - PaintsOnA4Up - https://www.youtube.com/c/PaintsOnA4Up

Dan Slobodian/Steve Thorley/Colm Browne/David Cooper/Dan Stuart - Drawn Combat - https://drawncombat.blogspot.com 

Dene Palmer - Dene Paints Things - 

https://youtube.com/c/Denepaintsthings 

https://www.instagram.com/denepaintsthings/

Damian O'Byrne- Battle Streams in Middle-Earth  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDeTFeeH7jOuwXxmU3aT-_Q

Alex Temple- Battle Camper https://www.youtube.com/c/BattleCamperHome

Ben Bowles- Benji's Hobbies https://www.youtube.com/c/Benji%E2%80%99sHobbies

Harry Parkhill- Battle Games in Middle Earth  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPrQSaLP6TIR1jz4TfIZw1A

Entmoot https://soundcloud.com/entmootpodcast

Some of them have already posted and the rest will come soon(ish).

Helm Hammerhand

The only other project that I completed in this time was the legendary King of Rohan.

I wanted to make him really stand out so I painted all his armour with Ironbreaker, then glazed it with the now discontinued (to my knowledge) Waywatcher Green and finally washed with Agrax Earthshade. I didn't know what to expect with the wash but it came out better than I could have hoped!

For the rest of the month, I did some highlights and corrections onto old models for Seven Stones on the Bank Holiday weekend (Mounted Legolas/Gamling/Royal Guard).

Tournament Report- At Dawn, Look to the East (23rd April)

 The Tournament

This was a single day event of 4 games at 550pts for the EAHC league, hosted by fellow blog writer, Kieran. It was our second event since restrictions were released. There were no list building restrictions, but the matches would use a veto system for choosing scenarios after the pool was rolled. In each match, players would roll off and the highest would veto a scenario, followed by the other player losing another. The remaining scenario would be played.

My Army

I had been waiting a good while to try out Helm's Guard and thought this would be a great time to do so.

Helm Hammerhand w/ Horse

Rohan Royal Guard x5 w/ Horses and Throwing Spears

Rohan warriors x10 w/ 1x Banner/Shield, 5x Shields and 4x Throwing Spears/Shields

Rohan Captain w/ Horse, Shield, Heavy Armour and Throwing Spear

Riders of Rohan x4 w/ Throwing Spears

Rohan warriors x7 w/ 2x Shields, 2x Throwing Spears and 3x Bows

Men: 28

BP:14

25%: 7

Game 1- Command the Battlefield (Vs. Tom (Assault on Helm's Deep LL))

Opponent's Heroes- Uruk-hai Captain x2 and Siege Veteran

Opponent's Warriors- Uruk-hai warriors, Uruk-hai Berserkers and a Siege Ballista

I've played Tom several times before but never managed to succeed before. He is an accomplished player, who won the event that I had hosted back in Feb, while I had only won 1 in my 5 games. I vetoed Heirlooms as I didn't want a dicey game that could go against me on sheer bad luck, he vetoed Hold Ground.

My prayers were answered when we got the maelstrom pool, allowing me the chance to surround the ballista. I got my captain to lead the attack on it as a few warriors crept round a small gap to attack the crew behind the rock. Once, I got Helm in the ballista was quickly destroyed and the crew slain.

Now, I had to try and take the majority of the board. As Helm and the Captain led the march down the board. Most of the Uruks pulled around the opposite side towards my infantry block. 

The Captain charged a few crossbow warriors with two Royal Guard and spent the rest of the game fighting with them and gradually got them down to the last one.

Meanwhile, Helm led a few Royal Guard towards the lead Uruk Captain's warband and hit them hard. Quickly building up a kill count and thinning out the Uruk ranks.

As time was called, the Rohan infantry formed a line to prevent the Uruks entering their quarter, a cheeky throwing spear killed an uruk in one of Tom's quarters, reducing the ratio of troops to 10 of his to 4 of mine. Then Helm managed to slay three more in it to reduce Tom just below the double.

Because of this, I had won by a flukey throwing spear 4-3, but who knows how it could have turned with another few turns.

Game 2- Reconnoitre (Vs. Archie (Moria))

Opponent's Heroes- Druzhag the Beastcaller, Ashrak the Spiderkin, Groblog and Moria Goblin Captain

Opponent's Warriors- Moria Goblins, Goblin Prowlers, Venomback Giant Spiders, Batswarms, Wild wargs and Warg Marauders

I've never played Archie before but looking at his list, knew this would be a tough list, with its bats, spiders and Druzhag i.e. a great counter to Helm. He got rid of Divide and Conquer as I could isolate half his force and I vetoed Storm the Camp as I didn't want to be walking across the board from one corner. 

I went up the centre with Helm, up the right with the Captain and to the left, I sent a unit of infantry to prevent a cheeky escape by a warg and marauder. One makes a break for it but is shot by the Rohan archers. Helm charged a giant spider, while out of sight of any bats and managed to slay it.

On the right, the riders were assaulted by spiders, wargs and goblins. The captain uses both of his might to resist an enraged spider attack, but is slain the following turn as a bat joins in.

In the centre, Helm is trapped by bats, Groblog, prowlers and goblins. Just as his warriors arrive to assist him, he falls. The Rohirrim engage to avenge their king and slay several goblins.

On the right, an unexpected development occurs as one of the three remaining riders spears a spider and pins the warg, allowing the other two to break free towards the edge. The bats give chase but lose the following priority and the horsemen escape.

With the current result sitting at 5-2 and time being called, Archie could only attempt to break me for the draw and he was 4 off. Groblog and the captain managed to slay one and heroic combatted to spread out. An enraged bat tore apart two more and another two were slain in the last few combats. Leaving us at a 5-5 draw.

Game 3- Fog of War (Vs. Sam (Angmar))

Opponent's Heroes- The Witch King, Buhrdur, Barrow-wight and Shade

Opponent's Warriors- Angmar orcs, Angmar Warg Riders and Dead Marsh Spectre

Hoping that a draw would offer me an easier game, I was quite horrified to see that I was up against Angmar with the listed heroes, but then quite relieved to see that they only numbered 21. I have played Sam several times previously with wins and losses, including in a practice game, where Gulavhar had stopped Helm from contributing heavily. However, in his place today was Buhrdur.

My objectives were to kill the Barrow-wight, defend my captain and capture a section of the river.

I deployed centrally and moved slowly forward towards the Angmar army, firing some shots at them as I did so. The Witch King fired a black dart at Helm's horse, forcing him to spend a fate and might point to keep it alive. The following turn, the orc archers managed to shoot over a fence to slay Helm's mount.

The rest of the army, led by the Royal Guard charged into the Orc lines as the Captain hung around at the back. I began whittling down the evil numbers, hindered by Buhrdur and the Shade. 

Helm managed to join in and was promptly immobilised and paralysed but luckily withstood the onslaught of blows on 1w, 0f, before responding by cutting down the spectre and an orc to slip through their lines, pursued by Buhrdur, who failed to wound him.

A couple of warriors sat on the section of river as the fighting intensified, Angmar was broken as the Witch King lined up a heroic combat to attack the Captain...but Sam then completely forgot to call it, allowing him to escape the next turn!

Time was called and Helm fought one last time against the Troll but was finally bested and slain. However, I had captured my terrain piece, defended my target and broken Angmar, while they had kept their Barrow-wight alive and captured my ruins, leaving the score at 9-6. But this could easily have swapped round if Sam hadn't had that vital oversight.

Game 4- Lords of Battle (Vs. Paul (Garrison of Dale))

Opponent's Heroes- King Brand, Bard II and Captain of Dale

Opponent's Warriors- Knights of Dale and Dale warriors

In this final matchup, I drew Paul and his Dale army. I was concerned for my horses, given that I knew the dangers of their bows from my time with them a couple of months ago. Paul, unsurprisingly, didn't like the idea of Contest of Champions between the two kings. And I wasn't sure, how best to proceed, do I go with To The Death and have to walk across the board at their bows, or do I go with Lords of Battle and if they shoot my horses dead, have a lot of making up to do? With a lot of reservations, I chose the latter and prayed.

I put my Captain to the front as Paul deployed at the back and called a march to cover the distance quickly. With priority, I then unleashed a hail of throwing spears that, amazingly, managed to take out two of the nine archers, the survivors of which, failed to land any wounds in return. The next turn, the Rohirrim hit like a freight train!

Helm slammed into the Captain as the Royal Guard and Riders smashed into the lines around him and his Captain. He called a free heroic combat and quickly felled the Dale Captain, before moving more centrally and pulling two warriors off his own Captain's back.

The charge did devastating damage and by the end of the turn, Paul had lost 10 of his starting 29 guys! Over the next turn, Helm then ran down Brand and several more troops. The Captain lost a fight and was dismounted.

Bard took up the leadership of Dale and pushed back, taking Helm's fate but there was simply too much damage done as the Rohan infantry joined and surrounded many of the remaining men, killing in most of their combats.

Paul had had some abysmal luck and hadn't played anything wrong, so I felt pretty bad that it had swung so heavily against him, leaving me on a 12-0 victory.

Results

We are in relatively unchartered territory as, with 3 wins and a draw, I was in the area of a podium finish. It would all come down to how the game between the other two potentials went.

By the end of which, I and one other were on the same results. So it went to tiebreakers...

We had the same VPs scored...(30)

We had the same VP difference...(16)

We had the same number of most sporting votes...(2)

Had we played each other? Yes!

Great! What was the result?? A draw

That's right, Archie and I were dead on tied. So Kieran, after running out of tiebreakers, announced us as joint first. 

(It should be noted that we rolled to decide who chose their prize first, on which I promptly rolled a 1 to Archie's 4, 'I'm back Baby!!')

Future tournaments that I'll attend

The Seven Stones (1/2nd May) w/ James 2x 400pt Doubles

The Sea of Belegaer (28th May) 800pts

The Road goes ever Ardacon (23/24 July) 650pts

Clearing the Backlog, Part 3 - A Battle with Burnout

Welcome to Part Three of our attempts to get through the backlog of unpainted miniatures we've built up over our years of hobbying. January and February were excellent months for me in terms of progress – I painted my good and evil armies for the Warhammer World Grand Tournament, managing to paint 75 models in that two month period. 

March, however, was less successful. Fresh from the GT, I was eager to dive back into my pile of shame and get cracking on some more models. Unfortunately, I then lost all motivation for painting. It wasn't because I didn’t have anything I wanted to paint (there's no shortage of models like that in my pile of shame) – I simply didn’t want to pick up a paintbrush. After two months of solid (sometimes hectic) hobbying, I was suffering from hobby burnout. 

Burnout is something nearly all hobbyists will experience to some extent – you spend ages painting miniatures, and at some point your brain will simply say enough is enough, and you lose all desire to paint. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing – sometimes a break from hobbying can be good as it helps clear your mind, and then you can come back to the painting table refreshed, ready to continue with your hoppy project, or make a start on the next one.

One problem a lot of hobbyists can suffer from is a lack of motivation, something which can also be attributed to being burnt out. There are however some tips that I can suggest that helped me get through my burnout, and back to painting models again. 

1. Take a break. The simplest solution – if you don’t feel like painting, then you don’t have to. If you’re forcing yourself to paint a model, it's going to be a lot less fun, and you may find your not as happy with the paint job, as your focus would have been to just get some paint on the model, rather than giving it the care and attention it would normally get.  

So, put down the paintbrush, and walk away from the hobby area – find something else to do that gets painting off your mind – it could be reading a book, binge-watching a series, listening to an album or podcast, or something else entirely - I spent the time I'd normally be painting in the evenings playing some video games. Our hobby gives us many hours of enjoyment, but sometimes it's ok to step away from it for a while. 

2. Paint something different. Sometimes burnout can come from painting the same model over and over again – especially if you’re working on horde armies, like Moria or Goblin Town, or from always painting the same colours – Minas Tirith players will know full well that painting all that black and silver loses its charm eventually! 

Changing the model you’re painting can help clear your mind as you're thinking differently about how you're painting that model – for example, swap a Moria Goblin for a Hobbit – the change in model, details and colour pallet will help alleviate the monotony of painting goblins. Alternatively, it might be you've spent ages painting the rank and file troops for your army, so why not switch it up and paint a hero? They always have those little extra details that make them stand out from the rest of the army, and they can be really fun to paint. 

Sometimes changing the system the model's from can help – bored with painting SBG models? Maybe paint something from Warhammer 40,000 or Age of Sigmar, or vice versa, or from a different game system? Painting a completely different model helps break the monotony of painting the same thing over and over again - you can then go back to what you were originally painting once you're finished. 

3. Take it slow. If you're suffering from burnout, sometimes a good solution is to only focus on a couple of miniatures, rather than throwing yourself into a huge pile of unpainted models. I was able to paint up some Axemen of Lossarnach as my way of getting back hobbying again. Yes, it was only three models, but I found the desire to paint coming back to me as I was working on them - by the end of the month, I’d painted another half dozen models. Not many, but it’s still progress - my total number of painted models for the year is now 81!

Another solution may be to do some hobbying that isn’t painting – I spent an evening assembling some models, enjoying looking at all the little details they had as I was putting them together. I also spent some time tidying up in my hobby workspace, making it a lot neater, putting away some models into storage (sometimes having all those unpainted models piled up on your desk can be REALLY off-putting!) – coming back to a tidy hobby space can also help your painting motivation – I'm very determined to keep my hobby space tidy and only having a few unpainted models on it, rather than a huge horde!

So hopefully the tips above are useful for you if you ever find yourself struggling to paint your models. It's not the end of the world to step away for a bit and then come back recharged. I’ve certainly come back refreshed and I’m ready to dive back into clearing my backlog - fortunately I’ve got some tournament weekends coming up this month - perfect motivation!