Descent Lieutenants

Here are the Lieutenants (villains) our heroes must overcome in the first wave of Descent second edition releases. My understanding is that these are plastic recasts of first edition metal figures, and are closer to 25mm. There is certainly some scale creep going on in later Lieutenant sculpts! Contrast Flesh Tearers Red has a good showing here.

Descent Lieutenants

Belthir, mercenary dragon hybrid

Sir Alric Farrow

Lord Merick Farrow

Lady Eliza Farrow

Baron Zachareth

Splig, self-declared King of All Goblins

Descent monsters

Following on from the Heroes, here are the monsters from the core Descent boardgame. I've been dabbling with Citadel Contrast, and the range of browns is very handy. The Shadow Dragons and Merriods were a bit challenging to shade and highlight.

Shadow Dragons

Merriods

Elementals

Ettins

Barghests

Zombies

Goblin Archers

Cave Spiders

Flesh Moulders

Battle of Five Armies- photo battle report!

I dusted off The Battle of Five Armies after a six year gap. This is a boardgame from Ares Games about the climactic battle of The Hobbit. The Shadow forces are sweeping down onto an alliance of Men, Elves, and Dwarves at the foot of the Lonely Mountain. There are a number of key areas to be controlled, but they are too far apart to support each other. If the Free Peoples can hold on, more help will arrive. Bolg, the leader of the Shadow force, must press the attack in a battle of attrition...

Read on, and click to embiggen! The vantage point is from over the Eastern Spur looking south across the valley, as the Shadow (played by yours truly) sets its eyes on the Front Gate to the west...

The Shadow vanguard pours towards the Running River from the broken lands.

Warg riders sweep towards the lightly-held fords.

The Lakemen are pushed back towards the ruins of Dale.

Dale is captured but a force including Dain counterattacks.

The counterattack is successful but costly as Dain falls.

Dale falls to the orc vanguard a second time.

\

Gandalf and Thranduil attack from the south and retake Dale.

The next orc wave threatens Bard's position on the Eastern Spur.

Can Gandalf's blast of magic save Bard and Bilbo?

Bard dies at his post after inflicting heavy casualties. Bilbo escapes using his Ring.

The Free people regroup at the Camp, and Dale is threatened again.

The ruins of Dale fall to the Shadow a third time.

Gandalf and Thranduil sally forth to save Dale again.

A desperate new wave of orcs approach.

Bolg himself attacks Dale as a splinter group take the Lower Slopes.

The southernmost orcs take Ravenhill.

The strong elf counterattack is temporarily repulsed.

Bold manoeuvers on the Eastern Spur as Gandalf
retakes the position and the Camp is threatened.
Dale has fallen to the Shadow a fourth time!

Thranduil dies but saves the Camp.

Gandalf retakes Dale as the last orc assault runs out of steam. The Shadow loses!

Having not played this for many years, I was impressed with how much fun we had. The clashes are many and mostly predictable with enough room for chance, while cards and action dice add thematic events and uncertainty as to your opponent's options. Combined arms attacks and choice of terrain give you a slight advantage. Meanwhile, reinforcing an area or pressing an attack leaves other areas denuded and inviting for counterattacks. The ruins of Dale exchanged hands so many times!

As the Shadow player, I was hoping to get goblins pouring out of hidden mountain passes in a bold flanking manoeuvre, but this never eventuated. I was keenly aware that if I dilly-dallied, powerful allies like the Lord of the Eagles, Beorn and Thorin Oakenshield would absolutely ruin my day. This meant that I had to press the attack rather than build up my forces. The outcome was never certain, and we both thought the other would prevail at different times in this desperate battle.

The Shadow's brief high-water mark was at 12 Victory Points after the taking of Ravenhill, but this was reduced to 4VPs at game's end. Holding 10VPs at the end of a turn will win the Shadow the game.

I hope you can appreciate what a fun story this refight told!

Postscript:

My opponent, Amnese, has published a 20 minute comparison of Battle of Five Armies and War of the Ring on his YouTube channel:

Check it out!

Journeys in Middle-earth: Shadowed Paths monsters

I've finished off the assorted monsters from JiME: Shadowed Paths. I rebased the bigger figures on 40mm MDF.

Balrog

The Balrog was featured last month, and I'm still really happy with him.

A Balrog of Morgoth

Cave Trolls

I used a dark blue-grey for the scaly bits, which I quite like.

I have two Cave Trolls

Orc Taskmasters

"Where there's a whip, there's a way!" Orc Taskmasters

Pit Goblins

Pit Goblins

Shadow-men

I think they've named these after a throwaway line in Return of the King about the oathbreaking Dead of Dunharrow:

None of the people of the valley dared to approach [the Stone of Erech],

nor would they dwell near;

for they said that it was a trysting-place of the Shadow-men...

Shadow-men

Nameless Things

Similarly, from The Two Towers:

Far, far below the deepest delving of the Dwarves, the world is gnawed by nameless things.

Whilst painting the Nameless Things, I thought they looked like an a cappella trio, and now I cannot un-see this.

Nameless Things

I'm not inspired by the concept, but I think they're handy generic monster models for other scales and settings. May their painting cleanse the world.

Giant Spiders

I was inspired by Mr Hunt's spiders. All the lines on the legs were more frustrating to paint than I expected!

Giant Spiders

Spawn of Ungoliant

Another oddly fiddly model to paint. Pretty satisfied with the final outcome.

Spawn of Ungoliant

Not a huge fan of the egg sacs

Eucalyptus Bowl 2019

I took my Slann team to Eucalyptus Bowl 2019 last weekend. This was the 15th Euc Bowl, and there were 61 coaches over the weekend.

The Dunwich Hoppers

Details: 125kGp including skills, 6 matches, resurrection, 2 days, Swiss format. My team: 4 catchers, 8 linefrogs, 4 rerolls.

The winner's trophy has been reimagined in this spectacular shield. The logo is fully 3D. Spoiler- I didn't win.

Day 1.
Match 1. Redcard's Undead.

Redcard is a strong player, with a strong team, and I wasn't surprised at taking a 2-0 loss. I finished with only two players on the pitch... I did kill a Mummy, but it regenerated.

Frogs try to stem the Undead advance

Match 2. Gergiy's Vampires.

Gergiy flew his nerd flag high, dressing as a vampire in evening wear with a white bowtie and cape. His team was a mixture of manufacturers, with some old-school vampires and victims. Vampires can be challenging to coach (as I found at Euc Bowl 2013) and I was a little bit surprised to lose 3-0.

Vampires and Thralls and Frogs, oh my!

In these first two games I just couldn't seem to succeed in any of my dice rolls, which happens occasionally.

Match 3. Luis' Slann.

It's a frogathon! I was looking forwards to this frog-on-frog action, but again, the dice seemed to betray me. I hesitate to blame the dice, as to an extent you place yourself in positions where you need to roll them, but compared to the ease with which Luis was hopping about and hurting me, I was just tripping over and hurting myself. Despite the 4-3 scoreline, it felt a lot more one-sided. I hadn't met Luis before, but he was a good bloke. After three losses, roll on Day 2 and a reversal of dice karma!

It's a Frog-Off!

Day 2.
Match 4. Rabid's Goblins.

Rabid is a very strong coach, and was running the tournament. He had a lovely pirate-theme goblin team. He gets to play the poor inexperienced sap at the bottom of the rankings if noone else is available- and that poor sap was me! He asked me what had gone wrong for me, and I shrugged that the dice weren't really working. Then he watched amazed as I then failed at least half a dozen basic dice rolls... and he took me apart. I suffered a crippling ten casualties... another 3-0 loss.

Arrr! Pirate goblins against all four remaining players on my team...

Match 5. Hypnotoad's Khemri.

Finally, the dice gods got bored with me and wandered off. I had a much more 'as expected' game against Hypnotoad, which was very enjoyable. It was a good match between his slow but strong team against my faster but weak side, and I pulled out a 3-1 win with a cheeky two touchdowns in the final two turns.

Mummies surround the ball

Match 6. Pronax's Humans.

Like the previous match, my dice behaved in a more average fashion and I had the kind of game I had been expecting. I was 3-2 up and got a bit overconfident at the end, and almost gave away a touchdown. I was very relieved to pull out a second win.

Sharknado!

So, two wins and four losses. Overall, I came equal 40th out of 61 coaches. I would have expected better but was relieved it wasn't worse! I don't like blaming dice, but when you literally fail everything you try to do on a 3+ over and over, you get a little demoralised...

It was great to see old friends again. I haven't played Blood Bowl since last Euc Bowl, and was a bit rusty. I'd consider Slann again with some changes- in particular, taking a Blitzer with the Guard skill. I really needed all four rerolls.