State of Lord of the Rings Game in Phoenix

So,

If you have not guessed yet I have been a bit busy this month, hence the lack of posts.

So lets see, if you have not heard, Gathering in the Desert 2011 happened last weekend. We had 22 players signed up this year with only 2 not being able to make it and it was a blast. Gathering in the Desert is a Lord of the Rings Independent Grand Tournament that is on the Games Workshop Circuit.

As readers of this blog know, I am a big fan and champion of this game and have been running this GT for the last 4 years. Wow, 4 years now and I am pleased to announce that Gathering in the Desert will be back next year in 2012.

And that fact got me thinking about the local tournament scene here in Phoenix AZ. A friend pointed out that this is in his recollection, the longest running tournament and to boot it is the Lord of the Rings game! Now granted, I am not sure if this is the longest running tournament here in the valley, but ever since I have been here in the valley, it is. I could be wrong and if you know of another event here in Phoenix let me know. I know for sure that this is the longest running LotR tournament here in the valley (in fact the only one!).

So I was wondering why is that? Maybe it is because LotR is such a small part of the GW family. I know that most folks either play Warhammer Fantasy Battle or Warhammer 40K but it has been hard to find LotR players here in the valley. This year at GitD, we had a equal split of players being local and from out of state. It seems that Phoenix is not much different from other parts of the country in the fact that there is not a lot of LotR players. That is why most folks travel all over the country to play LotR. I am hopefully that the Hobbit movies will breath a new breath of life into the LotR game, in fact Games Workshop signed a 6 year deal to produce miniatures for the game, which is a great sign for the game.

So with that being said, it is time for the LotRSBG community to start to stepping it up. If we want more players to play this awesome game, we need to get out there and start playing the game. I will admit that I have been bad at this. In fact I have not really done a very good job of promoting LotR SBG in Phoenix. My good buddy Drunkensamurai and I were talking about this just today. We need to do a better job at this and if I want to see LotR grow (as well as GitD) I need to do more. Hell I even did a post on this, but I have not really done anything except run a practice event as well as GitD.

Now I heard that there was a LotR league being run out of Empire Games, but sadly the person running it has lost interest in LotR. From what I have heard, there was something like 14 players in the league and most lived in the east side of the valley. So it seems that there are more LotR players here in the valley, it just means that someone needs to rally them all together.

So I guess that means I need to get off of my butt and start doing more things for LotR here in the valley. I have tried (and failed miserably) at running a map based campaign (don't remind me Howard!). I have also talked about doing something with the Battle Companies stuff that GW put out for LotR, but once again it was nothing but talk.

So where does this leave me? Well it means I need to step up and do more for the game I love. So my plan is to try to get something going like my buddy Keith is doing up in Colorado. He is running a quarterly series of mini one day events that will track the best player and eventually will crown one person as the Champion of the series. So I am planning to get this going within the next few weeks, with GitD being the one for the first quarter with three others happening throughout the year.

So there you have it, stay tuned for more info on the Phoenix LotR Championship...

TK

Moria Table Done!

So,

Khazad - Dum, 'the Dwarrowdelf or Mines of Moria, this is the second new board for Gathering in the Desert 2011. Here is an overall shot of the new board.


It may seem that the board is pretty open and lite on terrain, but it is rather a tough board to play on. First up is the main road that runs down the middle of the board. It has no few than 12 pillars running down each side of the road, giving you 24 total pillars. Were this may seem like a no big deal, if you try to get line of sight for shooting it starts to become a mess. Also would like to thank Mike from Da Green Skins blog for helping me lay all the tiles on the road and gluing down the pillars.


I also include this hallway that has dwarven doors on both ends of it, which once again creates either a great place to hide or chock points to defend. Nice things is that I it is removable and I can use it for other projects.


On the other side of the board is Balins Tomb, which I followed the plans loosely from the Fellowship of the Rings Journey book. The pillars have enough room for a single 25mm based figure to hid behind (from a troll perhaps?) as well as having a ledge that runs around the inside of the tomb. The only thing that is different came from Drunkensamurai, that there is no back door to get out. In the journey book there is a collapsed exit that you can leave from. But in the movie I swore that the Fellowship leaves from the main door! Anyway, this will make an interesting feature on the board with only one way in. Do you hold up and defend or pass it by, hmm the decisions.


Also on the board are a few rock castings from a Woodland Scenic mold set that I have. Once again Mike from Da Green Skins stepped up to help me cast these bad boys. The are made with dental plaster castings and blue foam for the backing. Than they are mounted on Masonite and painted, so that means they have a pretty good weight to them.


I also made them to go in he corners and the edge of the table. This was done to give the feeling of being in an underground environment like in the movie.


So there you have it, another board for GitD 2011, if you are in town, stop by to see these in person...

TK

Isengard Finished

Well,

It has been a few days since the last post, been busy working on two new tables for Gathering in the Desert. You may remember the an older post that showed the basic construction of the new boards.

Well as of today one board is just about ready to go, here is a overall shot of the board. This board was inspired by a board that one of the local guys did up in Colorado. I had a chance to play on it and it was a blast, so I molded it after that one.

I did two towers or scaffolding's but i wanted one to extend out into one of the pits. It is a separate piece and gives more playability to the board.

Besides the pits and the scaffolding's I also did a few pieces to block line of sight. So there is a few lumber piles, a Loose dirt pile, as well as a pile of boulders. I am also finishing up three rock piles to throw onto the board.



Here is a shot to show you just how much the lumber piles block line of sight. This is a standard two handed orc hiding behind the lumber pile.

Also with the pits there is a inner ledge that models can stand on to get more cover, here you see a two handed orc standing on the lower edge. An just an FYI, one of the pits has a ledge big enough for at least a 40mm base, so that means mounted models will fit.

The only thing missing are the smoke plumes that DrunkenSamurai built, so those will add to the line of sight blockage. So there you go, a new board for Gathering in the Desert 2011...

TK

Small is Big This year

So,

It's about the ninth of January now and I have been thinking about what 2011 will hold for me in the new year for gaming. Well after some thought I think I may have narrowed down what I will be working on. As some may know, I am still searching for regular work, so finances are tight and there is no room for any expenses on the gaming front.

So with that I have decided that this year will be the Year of the Skirmish game. You see my interest in gaming has always been in skirmishing style games (Necromunda, Mordheim, LotR SBG, LotOW, LotHS). The nice thing about skirmish games is that you do not need a ton of figures to play and I happen to have more than enough figures for this sort of gaming.

So here are the games I am thinking about focusing on this year.

Lord of the Rings SBG
Well this one is a no brainer, with Gathering in the Desert just around the corner, the next month will be focused on finishing up terrain and models. I have decided that I will be giving away an 600 point Easterling army to on of my friends son. He has taken an interest in gaming and he played in the practice LotR event and had a great time. So that means that I need to finish up painting the army, it is currently around 500 points and I have about 500 more points to paint up.

Legends of the Old West
As with DrunkenSamurai, I played a few games of LotOW at a friends house. It was a good time and really made me miss this game. So I think it is about time to bust out all the Old West terrain I have sitting in the closet and get to making a proper town. Also DrunkenSamurai has peeked my interest with the idea of doing the Wild Bunch idea based on the movie. So I think I will be joining DrunkenSamurai on this venture.

Warhammer 40Kmunda
Well, I have had this idea floating around my head for awhile now about playing smaller games of 40K. Last year I found a few guys doing ]I[munda stuff on the web and DrunkenSamurai and I found it very interesting. Well this year I would like to get back to playing smaller games of 40K and blending it with the Necromunda campaign stuff. I am talking about doing Kill teams, Kill Zone and 40K in 40 minutes (or Combat Patrol) stuff with 40K. Another friend is trying to talk me into running a 40K Combat/Kill Mission tourney and this may happen with a select set of people. I also started acquiring 40K Orks and would love to try out some old Gorka Morka stuff for this game.

Legends of the High Seas
Well, I have not had much interest in my own game of late, but after seeing the trailer to the next Pirates of the Caribbean movie, the pirate spark is back in me. Also with me working on my Wicked Wench ship model I see myself getting back into my own game. I think I will invite a few select folks over for a Campaign day at the end of February, so stay tuned for more on that.

Gothic Horror/ Pulp
For awhile now I have had an interest in doing something with the Horror/Pulp setting. I have even started collecting up stuff for a Pulp game in the desert with mummies. I hopefully will get something to the table this year. The owner of my local game store is also interested in this and has purchased a bunch of terrain that I may be painting up for him, this will feed the Pulp idea further, so we shall see. I also have another friend that purchased some stuff for Chaos in Carpathia and that may hit the table as well.

Other Gaming
I will also keep working on my 28mm WWII stuff as well as my Flames of War project and I am sure other games will creep in from time to time.

So there you go, Small is Big this year, it will be interesting to see how the year pans out so stay tuned...

TK

Rocks and Passageways

Okay,

To go along with the Osgiliath revamp I did a few rock piles for the table at GitD. Nothing special just a few rocks on some bases painted to match the rest of the terrain. So here are a few shots of them.









Here is a group shots of the piles, each piece is about 4" to 6" long and they will provide line of sight blockers for the table.


Also to go along with the Osgiliath table I decided to build a quick fountain for the the center of the table. It is made out of PVC plastic sheeting, 4 3/4" wood blocks and 5 statues from the GW kit. I also used Liqutex to add texture to the fountain. The inside of the fountain has a simple cobblestone sheeting and I poured some Gloss varnish into the fountain (it is still wet in the pictures).





Also for a couple of friends across the pound I have a few shots from some old passageway boards for the old GW Warhammer Quest game. First up is a picture of the original stairway tile that came with the game.


Here is the replacement tile that I made out of cork and matte board. The cork is great to work with since it has a natural rock look and it is easy to add cracks to it.


Here is another Objective room tile (the Tomb room).


And here is my replacement, once again it is cork and matte board. The coffin is made out of foam core and matte board. I was going to add a dead knight to the top but never got around to it.


Here is another shot with two sections together. Warhammer Quest is a great game and I only bust it out when either my son is home (he grew up watching us play until he learned how) or when my brother visits.

So there you go...

TK

Osgiliath Revamped

So,

The New Year and the first post for 2011 and it is a terrain post. As loyal readers are aware, I run Gathering in the Desert, a Lord of the Rings Independent Grand Tournament. We are going on our 4th year and in a manner to bring some awesome terrain to the event I started to revamp some of the terrain. The past two years Tom O supplied the terrain for the Osgiliath table which was greeted with some interesting comments (From we love it to I hate that table!). Tom is looking at selling off his terrain so it was up to me to re-do the table.

Well I started with 8 of the Osgiliath terrain kits from Gamesworkshop. here are a few of the completed terrain pieces for the table.












DrunkenSamurai is working on at least two other sections for this table, so the table looks a little bare in the below picture.

I also have a fountain and a few rubble piles to finish up but all in all the table looks good. Now I just have to finish a few other tables before GitD 2011. So stay tuned...

TK

Top Eleven in 2010

Well it that time of year again, that's right, time for the Top Eleven count down of what I did for the year. So here is what I wanted to do starting with number 11.

#11 To Document My Games - I have done a lot of things that never make it to the Blog. I get lazy about getting things up, sorry no better excuse. So I want to be able to bring folks more in 2010 about what I am doing & playing, so hopefully I will get over being lazy and document what I am doing.

Well it looks like I did not do a great job, I only had 50 posts this year compared to last year with 72 posts. Although I think I did do a better job on the post that I did (they were not all over the place and stayed on topic). Also 50 posts means that I averaged about two post a month which was one of my goals. So not all bad.

#10 To Play More! - Pretty simple really, I need to play more games. DrunkenSamurai and I only get to play once a month if that, but I want to increase that this year. I have all these games, if they are not getting played than why did I buy them?? So I want to increase my game playing this year. So I guess I will be throwing the doors open at the old SPL (Secret Pirate Lair) more often for games.

Well this looks like another miss, since time has always been an issue for gaming. I think I averaged one day a month for gaming, not good. I did open the SPL doors but life has a way of getting in the way. Hopefully this will change in the new coming year.

#9 No New Game Systems! - With me still out of work, I do not have much of a income, so I want to use 2010 to focus on the games I already have. You see I am like most gamers and when the newest thing comes out I want it, but I need to have some self control. I guess that's the sign of maturity, when you see something you can say no. So I will not get into any new game systems this year.

Well this one was easy, I did not get into any new games at all this year. With my work situation it was rather easy. Trust me it was tough to do since there were all kinds of games I wanted to start, but not having any extra income helped. So I would say this one was a huge success!

#8 To grow Gathering in the Desert - My idea for GitD started a few years ago and I would like to expand it from LotR to other systems of 40K & WHFB. I am not looking at running the other two systems, but to find people who share the vision of GitD which is to have the very best events we can run. I have spoken to a few people for both 40K & WHFB and I think we can grow GitD into a big 3 event. So 2010 will be about expanding GitD.

Well I had hopes for growing GitD to add the other game systems, but plans fell through for this. And to be honest, I think I will keep GitD just to Lord of the Rings. So GitD will happen in 2011 and it will be the best that it can be and we will see how well it goes after 2011.

#7 To Run a successful Campaign - In years past I have tried to run many game campaigns but have always either bit of more than I can chew, or participation waned. This year I would like to run a simple WHFB & a narrative 40K Campaign. I am very interested in both but 40K seems to be taking the lead, I love the Inquisition stuff and I would love to develop a nice storyline campaign for a few friends.

Well this was a complete failure! I had plans but life kept getting in the way. Also finding people that wanted to play and be able to play was tough. I still have plans for a cool ongoing campaign so perhaps in 2011 you will see something here.

#6 To Attend Adepticon - This is really a no brainier, but with me still out of work, it is hard to justify making the trip again to Chicago. All I have to do is cover the airfare and spending money, but with me not working it is starting to stress me out a bit about going. I love the event and have made some great friends in Chi Town, but need to find the funds to make the trip. So I add this to the list for 2010.
Well as luck would have it I was able to make Adepticon thanks in part to my parents. Had a blast with friends there and made some new ones. But sadly I will not be going in 2011, it looks like the next Adepticon I get to go to will be in 2012 on there 10 year anniversary. So this up coming year I will be enjoying Adepticon like most readers of my blog, from the Internet!

#5 To write up Articles for LotHS - Ever since I wrote Legends of the High Seas, I wanted to add more to the game. I thought that Warhammer historical would want another book since the first did so well and I have a ton of ideas for a second book. But when Warhammer Historical went over to the guys doing Forgeworld, there has been no talk of another book. So because of this and a few other issues, I have not been overly excited about writing lately. But I would like to get a few articles out there in 2010, I just need to buckle down and write.

Well, this never happened and I can tell you I have not been excited to do anything for LotHS. This feeling comes from the sure lack of anything coming out of the Forgeworld crew as well and just not wanting to work on anything for it. I am proud of LotHS and still have a ton of other ideas, but I can't get excited about writing anything. Maybe I will get bitten by the "writing bug" in 2011, who knows.

#4 To add more Units to my 40K armies - This one is interesting, you see both of my armies are at the level of being done to me. The IG army has about 3000 points painted and the Sisters of Battle are at 2000 points of painted stuff. I still have a ton of SoB stuff left(about 3000 more points unpainted) and a ton of Armour for the IG unpainted. But I have this mental block about painting up more stuff. In my mind I think the armies are done, so why do I need to add to them, but in reality both armies could use more different troop choices. So starting with 2010, I plan to add more units to both armies.

Well this is a hit and a miss, I did add new units to my Sisters of Battle army with getting a few new Rhinos and Immolaters as well as painted up a few more troops. But I did nothing with the Imperial Guard except take out the armour units and look at them. So not too bad at least I added units to one new army.

#3 To Play in Some Local Tourneys - For the last two years now I have been running Gathering in the Desert, a LotR Independent GT style tourney. This takes up a lot of time with planning and such and I never get to play in the tournament since I am running it. In fact, I have not played in many tourneys because I was the guy running them. Well this year I want to be able to play in a few of the local events, so this year I would like to enter at least one WHFB and one 40K tourney held here in the valley. This should be pretty easy since there are a bunch of local events here in the valley of the sunstroke.

This one is a utter fail! I think the problem is that I hold other local tourneys up to what I do for GitD and in my mind they all fall short. Not saying that GitD is done better, it is just my own issues is all. As Drunkensamurai has said, "how will I know if I don't play in them?" I did make a trip to Colorado to play in a local LotR tourney (Mayhem in the Mountains) up there, does this count???

#2 To play Warhammer Fantasy - I used to play WHFB about ten years ago, but left it for Warhammer Historical. I had about 6 different armies of various sizes, but sold them all off to get into other things. As some will know, I had a huge Tomb Kings army that I had acquired a few years ago, but could not get excited about it. Well thanks to Rob (aka DrunkenSamurai) he planted the seed in my head to play WHFB since he has been building a beautiful Beastman army. So I made a deal with another friend and I am now the proud owner of a 2500+ point Orc & Goblin army.

Well this one went down in flames! Not only did I get a 2500 Orc & Goblin army, but after only a few months I sold it off! You see I got the army and had the current rules (7th at that time) and army book and was all ready to play. Then the 8th edition came out and I was stuck with having to buy another set of rules. Couple that with the fact that the local AZ forum I was on had a ton of WHFB players on it and they all basically soured my mood on playing WHFB. All they did was seem to bitch about the rules and how this is broken and that is wrong, it just turned me off even before I played a game. I also came to the realization that LotR was my Fantasy game and that was all it took.

And now for the number One out of the Top Eleven...

#1 To play more 40K - Hmm, this seems interesting since it looks like I played a lot of 40K last year. My goal is to be as comfortable with 40K rules as I am with the LotR rules. The only way this will happen is if I play more 40K. I have two armies already (Imperial Guard & Sisters of Battle) so there is no reason why I can't play more games. So we hopefully 40K will hit the table more often in 2010.

Well, I think I only got in 6 to 8 games this year of 40K, so it looks like I failed here again. I had thought 2010 would be the year for 40K, but once again life had interesting things to throw at me and I just never got this game out that often. All the times I had 40K on the table, I had a blast, but it just never got out much. This in itself is funny because Drunken Samurai and I both wanted to play but just could not find the time.

So there you go, I have 7 1/2 failures out of eleven. Not too good really but that's how things work out I guess. I think some of this happens to be because of the work thing and struggling to pay bills. On a more positive note, Saguaro Painting Service is doing well and business is starting to pick up. This month alone I have painted well over 500+ figures and the money has all gone to the household budget. So even though I may not be playing games and doing my own hobby thing, at least I am making some money doing hobby related work.

So stay tuned for whats coming in the new year, all I can say now is it is looking to be a very Orky New Year around here...

TK

Merry Christmas

Well,

Hobby stuff has slowed down due to the Holidays, will be back in 2011 with more fun posts.

So Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night, see you in 2011...

TK

World War II with Legends

So,

Last weekend Drunkensamurai and I got together over at his place to play some WWII in 28mm. We have both been in the mood to bust out our collections of stuff and play some games, but there is one problem, what rules to use?

Drunken & I have been on a quest for finding a good set of WWII rules for 28mm for years now. We have tried many rules but there was always something that was not just right with them. Heck we even collaborated on writing a set of rules using 40K 5th edition to pitch to Warhammer Historical which they choose not to pursue. (Hmm sound familiar for Flames of War???) Anyhow the rules we worked on (Called Hammer & Anvil) work rather well, but Drunken wanted a rule set that was commercially sold to the public.

Basically we did not want to be "those Old Guys" playing with their own rules, you know who I am talking about, we have all seen them in our local game stores. The have their huge 3 ring binders with poorly hand written rules that only they can explain.

So the search goes on for a good set of WWII rules. Now the other day Drunken calls me and states he has an idea, since we both love playing Lord of the Rings from Games Workshop, why don't we use the Legends (the LotR rule set for Old West and my High Seas game) for WWII? Well it could work I thought as long as we thought out a few things (like vehicles!).

So with us coming up with a few simple conversions and stats for guns, we busted out the collections and some terrain and went for it.

We each took about 45 models, Drunken using his British Commandos and me taking a German force. Here are the basic stats we came up for the troops (using the LotR/Legends stat line).

F3/5+, S 3, D 3, A 3, W 1, C 3, M 0/F 0/W 0

We also came up with some basic weapon stats:
Kar 98 24"range, Strength 3, Half Move Penalty, RoF 1
SLR 24" range, Strength 3, Half Move Penalty, RoF 1, May Reroll Miss's
LMG 30" range, Strength 3, Half Move Penalty, RoF 3, Cause Terror
HMG 36" range, Strength 4, Full Movement Penalty, RoF 6, Cause Terror

The game played rather well and we only had a few issues come up, like how to deal with weapon teams and such (Can you target the gunner of a HMG and stop it from shooting that turn?) but other wise it worked very well.

We set the objective as the Crossroads in the center of the table which was a modified King of the hill scenario from the Legions of Middle earth scenario for LotR. So basically you had to have more troops within a few inches of the crossroads in order to win.

Anyway we called it a Draw since Drunken had more Commandos moving towards the crossroads than I had Germans left. All in all it was a great game. As you may notice there was a large amount of terrain on the table and for the first half of the game we used the standard In the Way rules from LotR. Meaning that if your shot passed over any sort of obstacle that you had to make a separate roll of 4+ to clear the obstacle and your shot would go on to the next obstacle or target. If you rolled 3 or less than your shot hit the obstacle.

The second half of the game (we broke for lunch) we tried the modified In the Way rules from the Legends rules that assign a different value to the obstacle, from a bush being a 3+ to a brick wall being 5+. This seemed to work better than the LotR In the Way rules and we saw more troops being taken out of action and seemed to have a better feel for the game.

All in all it was a good game and we are now both thinking about how to incorporate armoured vehicles into the rules. This can be easy or tough depending on how we approach tanks and we are still kicking some ideas around. So stay tuned for more thoughts and ideas of using the Legend rules for WWII.



One last thing I will leave you with today, while scrolling through my usual Blogs and websites, I found a new Blog dealing with some awesome Flames of War Terrain, called TheTerrainguys I was totally blown away by this site and this guys You Tube channel, finally someone doing awesome terrain for war gaming that reviles model railroad terrain. Here is a shot of his terrain from his blog.
This is the sort of stuff that really makes a game come alive! Needless to say I wasted about 2 hours this morning watching his videos and going through his blog. If you have a weakness for nice looking games, than don't look at this stuff, it will blow your mind away! Like a bad train wreck, I keep going back for inspiration, so be warned!

TK