Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Battle of Pelennor Fields March 14-15 TA 3019 (War of the Ring)



Before I made Minas Tirith I painted over 3500 approximately 28mm Harlequin LOTR and Mithril LOTR figures to game with. And before that I had made various other models, ships, siege equipment, etc. I also have a Osgilith ruins set that was made by the Art of War Terrain. http://artofwarterrain.com/
I am using the ruins of Osgilith here in the game above as Harlond near Minas Tirith. The harbor where Aragorn entered into the battle along with the Grey Company.

I had made some 20mm scale ships, that turned out to work for 28mm figs, at least I didn't mind. The are about the same size or close enough to use for gaming. I had used them with my 15mm collection previously. I had made about 10 ships for naval combat, so I decided to my them Corsair ships.
I do however want to buy some of the Grand Manner ships that they have. Grand Manner makes very nicely detailed Greek ships and Roman ships. The rivers were made by wargamers terrain. http://wargamersterrain.com/

It took me about a week to set the table up. I still have not started the game. I usually solo game, unless I have some friends over. I use all types of rules that I have read. I have a lot of rules sets that I have read over the years.

The Charge of the Rohirrim using 28mm Harlequin LOTR miniatures now owned by Grendel Scotia.
They have been in the process of re-tooling the molds that they had bought from Black Tree Design, who used to be Harlequin back in the 90's. The figures are true 28mm not 25mm and do not match up to the current Games Workshop LOTR figures.

View from inside the lower level of Minas Tirith.  The battle is just getting started so I will post more later. I plan on using the dead to arrive on ships as in the movie, it makes more sense in a war game. The reserve forces are very large. I painted up my 28mm Assyrian Empire to be used in my Wargods of Olympus games but also as Southrons. I used my 28mm Egyptians and 28mm Babylonians and 28mm Persians for the Haradrim and Variags of Khand. Most of the Southron cavalry are the Black Tree Design Assyrian cavalry, while the foot are mostly made up of Assyrians from Immortal Miniatures aka Warlord Games now and Irregular Miniatures. The Haradrim are mostly made up of Black Tree Design Egyptians. I also used some Newline Design Babylonians for Haradrim as well.


I also use the 30mm Mithril LOTR Mumakil. I use the Mithril Mumakil because the size of the elephaunt is nice. I did not like the howdahs, so I replaced them with the old Vendal elephant howdahs from Sgt Major miniatures. I also made them so that I can use them with Persians or Macedonians, and I have multiple figures that can be placed in them.


The lower level walls will hold close to 400-500 miniatures approx.

I took me about 3 years or so to complete this project, while also at the same time doing other painting projects. I met my wife about 8 years ago, when I met here I converted over from 15mm to 28mm because of Wargods of Aegyptus because she loved Egyptian stuff...and I replaced basically everything from 15mm to 28mm, my entire collection was replaced and painted. So I have been painting for about 8 years, probably about 12,000-15,000 minis painted. This is now the first game I have put on my table in a very long time. I plan on doing a large campaign in middle earth covering different battles in all four ages.



The game will be played in 3 or 4 phases. I will update later on with more photos. The next phase starts with the death of Theoden.  The Rivers are made by Wargamer's Terrain.

The Rohirrim meets the counter charge while Dol Amroth and Gondor face off against the Southron. The ruins are for Osgilith but I am using them in this game for Harlond. The ruins are made by Art of War terrain.


The game ended with Rohan and Gondor as the victor. There were 3400 miniatures used in this epic sized battle. I used my own house rules pulled from various rule books. This was a solo game and took me about 3 weeks to play in my spare time. It was alot of fun, except when I had to put it all back on the shelf.

Here is a great source for Lord of the Rings wargamming. 
http://www.thelastalliance.com/index.php




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