It struck me the other day that I've now been collecting, painting and playing the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game for a little over half my life. From those early days as a teenager just slathering paint on models, to now being part of a huge MESBG community and regularly attending events with other people who share a similar love of Middle Earth and collecting toy soldiers. It's been one heck of a journey…
It all started way back in 2006 (yes, I'm that old) when I first saw the Mumak sitting in the window of a Games Workshop store. At the time it was the largest plastic model GW made – a record now surpassed by several other kits, but it still remains as imposing as ever, and makes a fantastic centrepiece on the tabletop. It was also only a few years since the film trilogy had come out, so I was quite excited to see anything related to Lord of the Rings. Giving in to curiosity, I went in, had a chat with the staff and played my first ever game of SBG, which was a very simplified version of the Ambush in Ithilien scenario. Unfortunately, the Mumakil stomped all over the Rangers I was controlling, and I lost the game (the first defeat of what would become many, many more!). However, I was immediately hooked!
My collection started out with the Return of the King starter set – 24 Warriors of Minas Tirith, 24 Mordor Orcs, and a set of scenery. Whilst I still have the original models, sadly no pictures of my original paint schemes have survived (although that's probably a good thing!). Over the next few years, my collection slowly expanded to include Rohan, Isengard, some dwarves, goblins – pretty much anything I could get my hands on (pocket money allowing of course!). Then came the day when I bought myself the Mumak – I finally had the model that got me into the game in my collection. It's had a couple of paint jobs in its time, but it still sits in pride of place on the shelf!
The biggest problem I had was finding people to play with – I was playing the odd game at my local GW, but not very regularly. I also had some lean years whilst I was at university – everyone played Warhammer 40,000, so I switched game systems for a while. Whilst I liked the models, and indeed still collect some to this day, the mentality of the game simply wasn’t as fun. Playing Middle Earth SBG, you get to play with and against armies themed on events from the books, films, or the greatest question – "What if?". In 40K, it was simply about destroying your opponent as quickly as possible – not a lot of fun for a casual gamer like me.
Fortunately, about 8 years ago, I found both the GBHL and the East Anglia Hobbit Community on Facebook – it was great to be back playing Middle Earth games again, and over the years I've met some really great people and made really great friends. There are GBHL events I now try to get to every year, simply because I know it will be an amazing experience. The EAHC however, is something I'm the most proud of. We started out as a small group of about a dozen of us getting together every now and then to play games, and we've grown into a community that is now over 500 members strong and hosts tournaments on an almost monthly basis – it's great to see just how much we've grown, and wonderful to see so many new hobbyists joining the communities.
So, back to business – it has been a wonderful few years playing and collecting, but it's also led to me having a huge backlog of either unpainted or unfinished models! In my latest efforts to reduce things, I’ve been slowly working towards finishing my remaining Men of Dale, meaning my Dale army is nearly complete.
In between the Men of Dale, I turned to some more models that had been sitting in my backlog for a while – I recently painted up a small contingent of Easterling cavalry – 6 Kataphracts and a mounted Dragon Knight, so I painted up some dismounts for them – Easterlings are lovely models to paint, and their red and gold colour scheme really helps them stand out on the tabletop. I also added a Warpriest and a banner bearer to their ranks.
As I've done in previous months, the next step was to dive into the pile of random models on the desk, and this time I pulled out a Gandalf who'd been sitting in there for a while. Gandalf the Grey has to be one of the most sculpted models in the range – I think there's at least a dozen different versions. I tried to use various different shades of grey for the different parts of Gandalf's robes and cloak – the end result came out great, and the Grey Pilgrim was ready to join my forces on the tabletop.
During May, my attention turned to one of my favourite events on the GBHL calendar – Seven Stones. A weekend filled with nothing but fun themes and fluff – not a single legendary legion in sight! My teammate and I settled on an elvish theme, recreating the time when Elrond first met Celebrian in the Second Age.
To start, I painted her father, Celeborn. I tried doing something different with his armour, applying sepia washes over silver to give it an aged gold look – I figured his armour would be different from the rest of the Lothlorien elves, so it made sense to make it stand out on the tabletop.
Next up was Galadriel. She's a very tricky model to paint as the majority of the model consists of her white robes, and white is probably one of the hardest colours to paint. I started out with a basecoat of Corax White, then applied thinned down layers of Apothecary White contrast, before using thinned down Ulthuan Grey and White Scar to build up the highlights. I used Grey Seer to emphasise the deepest shadows, and with a bit of patience she was done. For the hair I also tried something different, using a yellow wash over Zandri Dust, rather than just painting it yellow, and it worked really well – the Lady of Light was ready!
Next, of course, was Elrond himself. His armour posed a challenge originally given that it appears to be a red metallic colour, and mixing the right shade would be difficult. However, after some experimenting, I found that thinned down Carroburg Crimson over silver worked really well – I then applied gold to the edges of the armour. With the armour problem solved, I painted the rest of him and he was done too!
Lastly, my attention turned to the display board for our army – I wanted to try and recreate a scene from Rivendell, and decided I needed some elven statues for the board. Fortunately I had a couple of spare high elves – I painted them by drybrushing them with stone colours, before stippling on greens to simulate moss. And best of all, they technically count as models being painted! Here's a few work in progress pictures, along with the finished board.
Next was another couple of random miniatures out of the pile, chosen mostly because they featured in Battlestreams in Middle Earth - this time it was Aragorn and everyone’s favourite hobbit, Bilbo Baggins! I painted them up over the course of the streams, and also managed to paint a Ringwraith at the same time. I tried a layered approach with the Ringwraith, using lighter greys on each layer of the robes - the end result came out looking great!
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