Clearing the Backlog, Part 13 – Hobby Problems

I've mentioned in a previous blog post how dealing with burnout can be a challenge for hobbyists. Well, recently I've been dealing with another problem that hobbyists can also face from time to time, and that’s procrastination.

I've been working on my Men of Dale since the start of the year, and for the last few… weeks… alright, months, they've been nearly finished. And now all I had left to paint was some Knights of Dale, and here's where we run into the problems. The Knights of Dale are some of the nicest models in the range, simply because of the sheer amount of detail they have. However, this also means that they can be a bit of a chore to paint. I took six Knights to the Warhammer World Grand Tournament back in February, and it took me so long to paint them that I ended up finishing them in the hotel room at 1:45am the night before the tournament, so you might start to see why I was a bit hesitant to paint some more of them…

I made a start on painting the Knights, working on them using the batch painting method, with the idea being that it would make it quicker to paint them all. And that idea turned out to be… completely wrong. The problem with there being so much detail on the models is that painting the same details over and over again quickly got unbearable – to the point where I started painting other models to avoid painting them – I would literally dive into my pile of shame and pull out random models – I would happily paint anything other than the Knights!

However, I didn’t want them to be sitting half painted on my desk for ages, so I picked one up and just focused on painting that single Knight, and as I did, my enjoyment of painting them came back – by focusing on the one model, I could appreciate all the details, rather than painting it and then thinking I still had to paint the same details five more times. Using the one by one method, I quickly got through the remaining Knights, and my Dale army was done!

Well, actually, not quite done. There was one last model I needed to paint, and that was Girion, the Lord of Dale himself – he was much easier to paint than the Knights, and with him done the Army of Dale was finally, finally finished! It has been a bit of a slog getting through them, but I'm very happy with them – from an aesthetic point, the Men of Dale are in my opinion the best looking models in the range. They have lots of lovely details, but they are a pain to paint, although at the same time painting the cloak trim was good practice for my freehanding skills.

So, what else did I paint around the Knights of Dale and Girion? Well, one of the things I'd been working my way through were the Middle Earth hobby bingo challenges. I'd been getting through these at quite a brisk pace, although one box I'd not yet ticked off was "Paint a Monster / Siege Engine". Fortunately, I had an Ent sitting in my backlog – I used Cygor Brown contrast over Wraithbone spray, before applying drybrushes of Steel Legion Drab and Baneblade Brown. I then picked out the leaves with green paints, and the Ent was done in just a few hours. For the base, I wanted to make it look like an overgrown forest, like Fangorn appears in the film, so I added grass tufts, clump foliage and static grass, and was really pleased with the results. 

I also had a number of Ringwraiths sitting on my desk – I painted these up several years ago but recently decided I wanted to give them a better paint job, so I stripped them down and re-primed them. For the metal parts, I used two different metallic shades on their gauntlets and swords, before applying a wash and drybrush. For the robes, I used a black basecoat and then applied progressive highlights using various shades of grey. Given that their robes have multiple layers, I tried to give them zenithal highlights, meaning that each layer got more highlights than the previous one – so, the lowest layer of the robes only got highlighted in my darkest grey colour, and then I added an extra highlight of a lighter grey on each layer of the robes – the end result turned out great. As I had a few duplicate poses, one got based to match my Mordor forces, whilst the models that would form my Black Riders force got a different basing scheme.

Next up was one of the named Ringwraiths – The Dark Marshal. I painted the armour and robes in the same way as my regular wraiths, but added a green glaze, given that in the official paint scheme the armour does appear to have a greenish tinge to it. He was then based to match the Mordor force. Ringwraiths are models that can be painted up fairly quickly, so they worked as a nice interlude in between Knights of Dale. 

In between wraiths and knights, I also tuned in to the latest Battle Streams in Middle Earth episodes, and this time the models in the backlog were Gollum and Eomer. Gollum is an unusual model to paint, given that he's so small. In this case, the majority of the model is the large rock he's climbing down. I painted this grey, before giving it a brown wash and then various grey drybrushes. For Gollum himself, I used mostly pale flesh colours, before picking out his hair with thinned down black – I was quite pleased with how he came out. Given that the model is supposed to represent Gollum in Mordor, I based him to match my Mordor force. 

For Eomer, I'd already painted up the plastic model to go in my Pelennor Fields force, but I still had the old metal mounted model sitting in my backlog. Given I had plans to collect the Eomer's Riders Legendary Legion at some point, I decided to make a start by painting up the leader of the force. Eomer is also a particularly tricky model to paint due to the intricacy of his red armour, but after being both patient and careful, he was soon ready to come to the relief of Helm's Deep – I then re-based the metal foot model to match my Helm's Deep forces. 

Next up were my usual "dive into the backlog and pull one out at random" models, and this time it was Erkenbrand and Lindir. Erkenbrand is covered with lots of lovely little details – I think the shield was my favourite thing to paint, although I did enjoy painting up the cloak too, as I was able to use various different highlights to make it stand out from regular warriors of Rohan – he’ll go into my planned Theodred's Guard Legion – as you can see, I've got a few Rohan lists planned for the future! Lindir was a much more simple paint job, but I was still pleased with how he came out - he goes into my growing Rivendell force.

So, with all of those models painted, I'd now passed the 100 mark for models painted this year, with the actual count at 103. It feels good to pass the 100 model mark, although I'm still not trying to beat last year's total. The best way to look at it is that it's still progress, and it's more models taken out of the backlog. Next up is my Army of Thror project – stay tuned to see how I got on with those!

Tournament Report- Eastfarthing Knockout: Part 2 (24th Aug-7th Sept)

 This is a continuation of the report of the Eastfarthing Knockout, part 1 is here:

 https://eastangliasbg.blogspot.com/2023/08/tournament-report-eastfarthing-knockout.html

Game 3- Destroy the Supplies (Vs. Tom (Fiefdoms))

Opponent's Heroes: Prince Imrahil, Forlong the Fat and Duinhir

Opponent's warriors: Knights of Dol Amroth, Clansmen of Lamedon, Axemen of Lossanarch and Blackroot Vale Archers

Our veto pool for this one was; Lords of Battle, Destroy the Supplies, and Capture and Control. I knew immediately that against a strong elite army such as this, I did not want a wounding contest, so I'd be vetoing that, unless for some bizarre reason he did that for me.

Obviously, he didn't, he decided first that he didn't want Capture and Control, this meant that we would be attempting to destroy each others supplies.

I deployed first with my whole army centred around the Captain ready to march. Tom deployed Forlong and Duinhir in the centre and Imrahil with his knights to my right.

I called my Heroic March and moved sharply forwards to the right, towards Prince Imrahil. In the third turn, Tom was within charge range to the right of the building that I was skirting around and had priority. I called a second March, figuring that this would either bait him into attacking. Hoping that he would forget that I could still charge as long as I do so before the March, or I could just keep pace with him. He didn't fall for the former and rushed towards the centre. I moved up the Drake and a unit of goblins, to push on his objectives and anchor his infantry from assisting the cavalry. While the Captain marched with the rest towards the central corridor.

Two turns later, Tom got priority and attempted a gamble, charging my frontline. I managed to do some shifting around and get Durburz into a combat with a Knight, alongside some bats, trapping him. I had to put my second batswarm into combat with Forlong, who had joined the horsemen, to shut down his control zone for my next step. I also threw two dice with my Shaman at transfixing Imrahil and successfully did so.

Durburz called a Heroic Combat and killed the Knight before he and the bats pounced on Imrahil and slew his horse. Down the line, several goblins were lost but a couple of knights were killed in return.

The following turn, Tom got the move off and Forlong led a knight into one of my bats, Imrahil engaged Durburz and a goblin, while the other knights piled into my horde again. In the combat phase, Forlong called a combat and Durburz a Strike, Groblog did the same to overcome a knight before him. Forlong and his companion destroyed my batswarm and both charged Durburz. Fortunately for me, I had sounded the drum, which combined with the Strike, was enough for Durburz to fend off the attack and kill Forlong’s horse. The other batswarm managed to kill a knight’s horse, while my captain slew a second knight, as did Groblog. The other gained another couple of kills, but I was thinning them out. 

On the other side of the house, 3 knights had moved into the gap between it and a tree the turn prior, presumably to attempt to flank my goblins if they engage the clansmen and axemen near their objective. Since I had moved second, I instead pulled heavily towards them, realising that I could reach them without their infantry being able to assist quickly. In the same turn as Forlong’s Heroic Combat, I called a Heroic move with the Drake’s might and barrelled her into two knights. The other was engaged by a prowler and spear. While the latter pair failed to defeat their opponent, the Drake did what she does and killed both.

In the next turn, her infantry rushed into the clansmen and axemen, to slow them down as I saw that they could potentially get down the board and threaten an objective. The Drake meanwhile, wheeled around two Blackroot Vale archers and in range of her nest. In the combat phase, she barged them both and charged the incoming infantry (a mix of Clansmen, axemen and archers). She ended up killing 3. Many of her goblins fell but stopped the infantry from moving far.

In the other big fight, I used priority to pin Imrahil as Durburz and his goblins joined a batswarm in combat with Forlong, who took 2 wounds in the melee. Another knight was felled by my Captain, who had now freed his unit to help against the dismounted knights and Imrahil. 

The turn after, I lost the move off but luckily had pinned both heroes with a ring of goblins. I managed to kill Forlong with Durburz. However, Imrahil had got ahold of Groblog and landed a wound. Another knight fell leaving just 1/2 dismounted/mounted ones left.

Up at the top, the Drake had charged again and this time killed a massive 5 men! This was huge, as we had checked break points at the start of the turn and while I had been 6 away from breaking, Tom had been 13 off, suddenly that wave of death had massively closed the gap! The infantry fight off to the side cost me a few goblins however, and by the end of the turn, we were both ~3 off breaking each!

I lost this priority and Imrahil charged Durburz, a knight charged Groblog (who was out of might now) and the other knight pinned some goblins. The Drake was charged by several men up top and the infantry fight to the right was swinging heavily in Tom’s favour. We both knew he’d then begin moving down to my supplies, so I needed to finish the fight against the knights in the middle to free up some defensive troops. However, there was a mounted knight in the centre, still fighting prowlers. And he was being joined by some clansmen, axemen and archers. 

My Drake lost a fight, but I was lucky as the men didn’t land a single wound with their 6~ blows. In the infantry fight to the right, I lost more goblins but managed to kill a man. Down at the bottom, Durburz and his goblins had Imrahil trapped with the Bats, but failed to land a single wound! The other goblins did however manage to kill the two knights with him and so we both broke.

Up at the top, I desperately tried to get the Drake to kill the high courage men, hoping that the archers  would either flee or fail to charge her. I also intended to try and kill Imrahil quickly, so that I could fly a batswarm to my left hand objective and destroy that too, in case Tom got mine. As his now free infantry were rushing towards my right hand one. I pulled a small group of goblins down towards it and sent a few others to the centre to stop assistance coming for Imrahil. This was all complicated by Groblog fleeing for his life.

In the last three turns, I’ll split this into the three parts that mattered. First, my Drake was sitting on her objective, but each time she had at least two men make it into combat with her. She was safe from running because of her nest beside her. However, she never managed to destroy it, nor did the bats ever get to come and destroy the other as you’ll hear below.

On my right hand objective, I got the vital priority that meant I could jump on top of it and stop the Fiefs from blockading me to destroy it. My captain fled, who had been moving down to help with that fight. But luckily, the goblins held firm and saved it, thanks to the stand fast of Durburz.

Finally, over the last three turns, Durburz passed all his courage tests, allowing the Drum to come under his stand fast and sound their drum, giving the courage bonus to far off goblins, also the negative effect to the Fiefs and give me important rerolls to win fights. 

In the last turn, Tom won priority and I worried as my Shaman had also fled the turn before, meaning that if he charged Durburz, I would have to hope a drummer passes their courage test to sound the drum and give me a fighting chance at not fleeing so that I could trap Imrahil and attempt to kill him. Tom charged him into two goblins, I’m assuming that he hoped Durburz would fail his courage and flee, giving the VPs for free and bringing Imrahil closer to my central objective. 

Luckily for me, Durburz passed and surrounded Imrahil, who was on 1w, 0f after taking many trapped beatings. I brought in the batswarm and it would all come down to me not fluffing my last combat to win. I didn’t, and Durburz managed to land the killing blow.

It had been the toughest and closest game of the knockout for me. We had not destroyed any supplies, despite the bitter struggle to do so, we had broken each other but I had killed his leader, giving a very squeaky 3-1 victory, edging me into the final! Phew!

Game 4- Domination (Vs. Jason (The Beornings LL))

Opponent's Heroes- Beorn and Grimbeorn

Opponent's warriors- Beornings

In the final round, I was up against bears! The scenarios in play were Command the Battlefield, Seize the Prize and Domination. I rolled lowest and opted to pack in Seize the Prize, as I didn't like how luck based the outcome could be. I could end up getting it with my bats and escaping, but if a bear takes it, I'd have a very hard time retrieving it. Jason then decided to play Domination. I asked him why not Command the Battlefield afterwards, and he told me it was just the scenario he had opened the book to.

After deployment, I had a wall of goblins with a Cave Drake to one side, Durburz was to the far right across from Grimbeorn and the rest were before Beorn. I called a Heroic March with my Captain, intending to move up and try to pressure Grimbeorn early, ideally also keeping the fight in his board half so that I can hold objectives. Beorn moved towards the trees between us and Grimbeorn held firm, intending to allow his archers to fire. Both had gone into bear form. The captain led a push to the right to get pressure on Grimbeorn.

I had seen an opportunity, that was risky, but had a potentially huge pay off. I attempted to charge Grimbeorn with my batswarm, and passed the courage test. I then charged a Beorning with my Cave Drake. Seeing the danger, Jason called a Heroic Combat with Grimbeorn, as did I with the Drake. She went first and killed the Beorning archer, before swinging around them all and charging Grimbeorn from behind!

I now had Grimbeorn sandwiched between the two and the fight value superiority. I confidently rolled  my dice and was horrified when I saw a 5 high! Grimbeorn naturally rolled a 6. This was gutting, I could have dealt an early blow to a bear, outside chance of even killing him. But never mind after all, the most he can do is give me 3 wounds...right?

Jason elected to bearhug (I forget the official name), and to my horror then rolled 4 wounds on the trot, before stopping on a 2. Then he mighted it, and I fated the wound away. He caused a 5th wound and then rolled another 2, before committing his last might and slaying the Cave Drake in turn 1!

That was a massive backfire, but I went for the optimistic approach and focused on the fact that it left him with one bear on no might. In the next move, Beorn called a Heroic Move and after some thought, I allowed it as I couldn't see any meaningful way of stopping him, without exposing my troops to big danger.

Beorn led a bloothirsty charge into my frontline with many Beornings in tow. I did my best to swing fights into my favour in the centre and on the left, the Shaman threw up a Fury to help with engaging bears. Then on the right, Durburz ordered the goblins forward. In a brutal turn of fighting, I lost around 10 goblins, killing a Beorning in return and wounding another two (one survived as my Captain failed to finish them off while they were trapped after the bats wounded and blew a Heroic Combat. I also lost the bats that had attempted to assassinate Grimbeorn as three Beornings trapped and chopped them up. However, one useful moment was when 5 goblins had Beorn beat and he spent his second might point to win the fight, before killing 3.

What followed was a meatgrinder of vicious combats for several turns. In the first, I managed to win a lot of fights but only wounded, if anything, while a few more goblins fell. Durburz got stuck in and narrowly avoided an axe to the head and a small group of goblins flanked around the left. The turn after, Beorn used his final might to try and barrel into the front and break through. But, I managed to kill 3 Beornings. However, I lost my Captain to an angry wounded woodsman. Two Blackshields, seeing that I was close to breaking (I got the wrong idea and thought this was a 50%, 1/2 ending scenario, rather than 25% as it was) and they rushed towards the top left objective. Durburz, grabbed Groblog and several goblins and they surrounded Grimbeorn. I had a really stupid moment here, and forgot to call the Heroic Strike...Grimbeorn won the fight and Durburz was very lucky to be alive on 1w, 0f.

The following turn, I went for it again. And there will be people here who will want to kill me, but I forgot to call the Strike...again! Jason was a good sport though and allowed me to call it as it had clearly been my intention. Durburz got them up to F10 and they won. Grimbeorn was trapped and the prowlers went up first with their 2h piercing strikes, wounding on 4s! They scored 3 wounds, that went through the 'bear saves' and 1 went through all 3 fate too. The goblins failed to wound, so Durburz went up and spent his last might to cause 1. Finally, Groblog went up and spent 2 might to confirm the kill, in case bear saves stopped it dead in its tracks!

This was a big kill, but things had gone direly elsewhere as I lost almost every other fight. On the top right objective, a Beorning had approached the Blackshields so I charged him. He not only won against them, but killed both and seized it! On the central objective meanwhile, my 6 goblins was reduced to 1 in seconds as 3 Beornings ripped them apart!

In what would become the final turn, I got priority and decided to go for broke (I was still under the impression that the game ended on a 1/2), I passed the courage tests on BOTH drummers and they pulled back to my rear left objective. Groblog got his stand fast from the Fury of the Shaman and allowed the goblin left on the centre to charge the wounded Beorning. Groblog had engaged another and Durburz threw himself at a third. The Beorning still somehow alive (having taken 8 strikes the previous turn) beside the top right objective was surrounded again. The surviving batswarm flew back to my rear right objective and made it in by a fraction of an inch. 

Jason took the other two Beornings on the centre and rushed them towards my rear objectives.

In the combats, I once again beat the surrounded Beorning, but only did a single wound. Beorn fluffed his attempt to kill the lone goblin he fought, Groblog one shotted a Beorning and th goblin fighting the wounded Beorning, won the combat and then killed him, claiming the centre! By the end of the turn, as I prepared to roll for the game's end, we realised it was a 25% scenario. I was down to 14 goblins and the game had ended.

(Objectives below marked red) I held my two rear objectives and the centre, Jason held the top left one and I held the top right that was contested by the Beorning. Jason had wounded Durburz and broken me, while I was one off breaking him back! The game had ended in a very close 7-4 win to me. Credit to Jason for being very sporting in his approach to it!

With that, I had managed to win the knockout! But with 4 tough games and a generous helping of luck in the right places! Thanks goes to Richard and Tom for hosting this, it was a lot of fun and great to have each round to look forward to!

I have one more outing planned for Moria for the year, which will be at Lord of the Imps in October, where I'll be trying one more new angle that I haven't yet had a go with...

Clearing the Backlog (July-Aug ‘23)

Continuing from where I left off at the end of June, where I painted my giant spiders, I decided to finish off the pack of spiders that I had got from my secret Santa last year and sorted out my Mirkwood ones. I decided to do these ones in a black widow style as their anatomy fitted the colourings well.

Next up, I had only two Moria models left to have completely painted up my entire collection of them. I began with Ashrak as I, mistakenly, thought that he would be quicker than Druzhag. Then I realised that he was covered in spiders. He was still fun to paint and I was happy with the end result.

And naturally, next up was Druzhag. I quietly dreaded it with how many bats he had on his model, but once underway, he basically painted himself. And with him done, my entire goblin horde was finished!

If you read my posts last year, you may remember that I converted up a mounted Thorin on goat. Well I finally chose to take him to a tournament in Sept and decided to get him painted. There was a lot of metal to do and I noticed some imperfections with my conversion as I went along, but never mind, each attempt will learn me lessons. Either way, I thought he looked close enough to what I was going for in the end.

After doing several heroes and beasties, I decided to do some nice, easy troops. With nothing in particular lined up, I saw the uruk engineers. Who must have been sitting, half painted, for at least 7yrs, likely a lot longer, I can’t remember. Well I decided that they deserved to finally be finished. Here’s a before and after.

After a cheeky boost in numbers of what I had painted with that, I decided to push on with the remaining Rivendell models. (These include; Cirdan, Erestor, 4 elven spears and 6 Rivendell Knights.) I started with Cirdan as he was a very simple looking job and had him done in an evening.

Then in a matching style to my warriors done for Seven Stones earlier in the year, I slapped out the spearmen.

Quickly followed by Erestor, but wanting him to stand out more, I changed up the palette for him.

We move into August, where I realised that I could use the battle of Dale version of Erebor reclaimed for an EAHC event in early September, if I painted up the two heroes. So, not wanting to be rushed, I kicked off the month with them. Thorin III was first and relatively straightforward, he had a lot of metal, but it was just a matter of patience and correcting to get him done. With him and Dain, I wanted a strong but muted gold so went for my personal favourite look, which takes a little more effect but works nicely. It’s simply Balthasar Gold with Griffon Gold heavily drybrushed on top and washed with Agrax to fire it up a bit.

Next up was Dain, he was a lot tougher, with so much hair blending into his fur coat and several metal plates tucked into it around the shoulders. But eventually, I felt like I could call him done. This was one time, I spent the painting time cursing myself for going with white hair.

In the final job of this post, I got out the Rivendell Knights, who I checked the buy date, out of curiosity, and found that I got them in November 2016! They took a long time, as I decided to separate the cloaks out into different colours, but felt it was worth it in the end.

You may notice that I said 6 Rivendell knights earlier, but then there’s 5 painted. This was because, as I prepared them off the sprue, I realised that I doubt that I will field 6, and this could be a good chance to make a mounted Gil Galad for myself. I began by clipping off the quiver from the feet (the High King of the Elves is above such things as bows, after all). And then the bow off of his back. I then used green stuff to cover the, now unnatural, indentation in his cloak and hood. I also used a couple of small bits to give Aeglos some decorative details (not a lot, but something). I blue stuff moulded a spearman's shield to use on Gil Galad, to give him something more distinctive.

I painted him up using the same gold as the dwarven heroes, to make him stick out and also used purple shades on his clothes, as a more regal looking colour scheme to elevate him above his subjects. I also painted his shield in silver as described in the books, but with golden detail and a large, central, blue gem

So at the end of these two months, I am now sitting on 145 painted so far this year, and 2911pts of models done! This means that in model counts, I am currently having my second best year since I began counting in 2018. Which at 144, I just overtook! My current best was 184 in 2019, and I’m hoping I could smash that with over 200 by new year.

As for the grey mountain, it’s now been reduced down to 307, from 385 at the beginning of the year! All is going well so far, and hoping I can continue the pace.

In September, I’m intending to do up 12 locally sourced Mordor orcs that I grabbed in case I fancy trying Razgush’s legion again, followed by also locally sourced Dunlendings, that I may take to Throne of Skulls in Dec. A shout out to Phil Beale, who helped me get a ticket for that by the way, the man is greatness personified!