Army Blog -- On the Road to Angmar

Erunion · **Posted:** Wed Dec 10, 2008 2:40 am

Greetings, everyone.

With my Dwarf army nearing completion (I'm lacking the motivation to finish it off at the moment), I am beginning a new army. After recently completing Gûlavhar for the latest One Ring awards, I've decided to tackle the realm of Angmar. The purpose of this thread will be to track my progress on this project. The first step is to decide what I should collect. As I enjoy playing the scenarios, I usually collect enough miniatures to play the ones listed in the Sourcebook and then expand my collection from there if I feel the need. Therefore, my planned Angmar army will look like the following:

Epic Heroes
The Witch-King of Angmar, foot & mounted — Complete!
The Tainted, foot & mounted — Need to purchase
The Dwimmerlaik, foot & mounted — Need to purchase

Legendary Formations
Gûlavhar, the Terror of Arnor — Complete!
Bûhrdur — Complete!

Rare Formations
Shade — Complete!
The Court of Fallen Kings — Complete!
Werewolves — Need to purchase/convert
Ghorge, Cave Troll with hammer, chain — Complete!
Dink, Cave Troll with spear, chain — Complete!

Common Formations
Orc Warband -- Ettenmoor Orcs — Need to expand, 2 companies complete
9 Companies w/shields, Captain, Banner, Drummer, Taskmaster, Shaman

Orc Warband -- Felldale Orcs — Need to expand
2 Companies w/2-handed weapons

Orc Warband -- Cargash Orcs — Need to expand
2 Companies w/Bows

Barbarians of Carn Dûm -- Fard's Raiders — Need to expand
3 Companies w/Chieftain, Banner, Hornblower

Ghostly Legion -- The Fallen — Need to paint
6 Companies w/Captain, Banner

Ghostly Riders -- The Wind of Death — Need to paint
6 Companies w/Captain, Banner

Spectral Host -- The Drowned — Need to expand
2 Companies

Warg Pack -- The Wolves of Evendim — Complete!
6 Companies w/Chieftain

I will update the listing as I complete the various stages, and I plan on including pictures as I go along. I'll try and get pictures up of the stuff that is already done as soon as possible.

Edit -- With the release of WotR, I have changed my list to reflect what I will be collecting.

MardukLegion · **Joined:** Fri Oct 31, 2008 5:54 pm **Posts:** 7

I have a similar list/model selection as this which I got myself for christmas, I am interested on seeing how you paint these up.

I am debating about doing snow/winter or autumn like bases for mine, however I will probably keep to the typical gw paint schemes, only a bit more darker in highlights etc.

BrentS · **Posted:** Wed Dec 10, 2008 5:14 am

Looks like a fun army. Spectres and Barrow Wights can be nasty indeed. How many points are you aiming for? It looks like you get close to a 1000 on this list.

Erunion · **Posted:** Wed Dec 10, 2008 8:08 am

I hadn't really thought about the army in terms of how many points I wanted to collect. I figured that if I had all the miniatures for the scenarios it would be more than enough for anything I would ever want to play. A quick calculation puts this list at 1,359 points, which is over twice our usual points-match range of 500-750 points.

Tonight's progress: Started painting my Wild Wargs and Chieftain.

lorderkenbrand · **Posted:** Wed Dec 10, 2008 4:13 pm

Angmar is a fun army to play, however it is even more enjoyable to paint, all those evil beasts! Looking forward to seeing some pics!

Amarthadan · **Posted:** Wed Dec 10, 2008 6:21 pm

Angmar does seem like a fun army, only, i recently started repainting Ghûlavhar, and I totally failed.

And now I am never motivated enough to try again...

I have two barrow-wights myself, but haven't bought a shade, I lack a good amount of orcs and wargs, and don't have any spectres, but apart from that, I have a really cool angmar army.

Any pictures perhaps?^^

Rueben

Erunion · **Posted:** Wed Dec 10, 2008 6:53 pm

If the smallfolk demand photos, then photos they shall have! Here is what I have completed so far, minus Dink the Cave Troll (who seems to have gone on holiday).

First, my Witch-King on Foot (painted several years ago):

The Orcs of Felldale, part one:

The Orcs of Felldale, part two:

I know these orcs aren't the greatest, but who needs perfect orcs anyway? With three billion of them on the table they look great!

And of course, my Gulavhar, from the One Ring Awards:

I will continue to post updates as I get more stuff completed. Also, I've tried not to make these latest pictures as washed out as my Gulavhar pic was, so forgive me if they don't look quite right. My old monitor is quite dim.

Lord_Cicapha · **Posted:** Wed Dec 10, 2008 7:46 pm

Very nice! :-D

I really like the Gulhavars base and the overall paint job is spectacular.

Can we see a pic of them all together?

Chris

Erunion · **Posted:** Wed Dec 10, 2008 8:26 pm

I don't have any group shots at the moment, but I'll snap one the next time I have my photography stuff set up.

Amarthadan · **Posted:** Wed Dec 10, 2008 8:50 pm

I suppose you painted the orcs really fast, cause though they still look good, they are nowhere near the quality of Ghûlavhar (paintjob).

What is the drawing on the second orc's shield, the second from the left in the first pic?^^

Oh, and what does that little green emoticon mean?(this one :mrgreen:

)

Rueben

Erunion · **Posted:** Wed Dec 10, 2008 8:55 pm

Yeah, the orcs were painted in sitting because I decided that I wanted to run a Mordor Battle company on the following day. Also, I'd like to think that my painting skills have improved since then as well.

The drawings on the shield...are just random orcish daubs...I couldn't really tell you what it's supposed to be.

I have no idea what the green happy face means.

DurinsBane · **Posted:** Thu Dec 11, 2008 7:12 am

Your Ringwraith needs repainting, you hyave obviously progressed to a much greater level !
The Orcs look great, but Gulavhar is the best by far...very nice paint job Jonathon

WanderingDunedain · **Posted:** Thu Dec 11, 2008 4:46 pm

yeh i like the red colour sceme for them especialy Gulavhar he looks realy deamon like

Joansean · **Joined:** Mon Feb 19, 2007 12:23 pm **Posts:** 760

I love the little motif on the orc's shield. Great job!

lorderkenbrand · **Posted:** Thu Dec 11, 2008 10:48 pm

Those orcs are brilliant, the bases are uniform which helps them blend like a regiment and Gulavhar looks ace! Nuf said :yay:

Erunion · **Posted:** Fri Dec 12, 2008 8:21 am

Thanks for the kind remarks, everyone.

@Durinsbane: I agree that my Witch-King looks a bit...lackluster. Since I'm going to have to buy a blister with both foot and mounted models, I will probably take another crack at the foot version.

Progress for tonight: I completed dry/overbrushing the bases of the Wargs and Chieftain, and then painted the rims. Next, it's time to tackle some fur.

Dylan · **Posted:** Fri Dec 12, 2008 3:59 pm

Wow looking awesome! How did you paint Gulavhar's base? Whenever I try to paint brown ground it always comes out more greyish after the bleached bone drybrush.

Erunion · **Posted:** Fri Dec 12, 2008 7:02 pm

My basic earthen bases are painted as follows:

Basecoat -- Chaos Black
1st Heavy Drybrush -- Scorched Brown
2nd Medium Drybrush -- Graveyard Earth
3rd Light Drybrush -- Bleach Bone

Edit: Warg fur finished...Time to finish of the heads/legs.

gaarew · **Posted:** Tue Dec 30, 2008 7:14 am

Erunion wrote:

Edit: Warg fur finished...Time to finish of the heads/legs.

Edit - time to add more pics. All the kewl kidz know that a successful WIP has at least one post per page demanding pics.

:-D

Nice Gulavhar. Very original. Can't wait to see how you tackle Burhdur and his hulking cronies.

Erunion · **Posted:** Tue Dec 30, 2008 4:11 pm

Thanks for the kick in the pants, John.

I don't have any more pictures...yet, but I'll get some for you by the end of the week at least. I should have the Wargs done by then. I took them with me when I went to my parents' house for Christmas, but couldn't get anyone to leave me alone long enough to get any painting done. :shock:

Anyway, to hold you over, I will give a short battle report instead. My buddy is in the process of building a Wood Elves army and I'm working on the Angmar stuff, so we decided to get a game in (with unpainted miniatures, no less. Aaah!), so that we could start learning how to play them properly.

Scenario -- A Clash of Pickets
Points -- 500
Board -- 6x4, set up using the LoME terrain generator for Angmar.

His list:
Legolas
3x Wood Elf Sentinels
24x Wood Elves with various gear
Allied Hero -- Haldir with armor

My list:
Allied Hero -- Witch-king of Angmar with mount & 3/13/3 M/W/F
Wild Warg Chieftain
8x Wild Wargs
25 Orcs, one with banner
6x Spectres

The game began with us holing up in our respective corners, and picking of stragglers as they came onto the board. Then, once everyone was on the board, I formed my guys up and started marching them across to his corner. I knew I was going to take a lot of bowfire going in, but what else can you do. I didn't have much ranged stuff myself and what I did have was unreliable. Well, due to the scenario, the game ended as soon as I was broken, which occurred on the turn that I finally managed to charge his line of warriors, so we fought one round of close combat and that was it. His Strength 3 bows had carved me up on the way in, and he was rolling a lot of 5s that day. I would have probably been able to win the game in the long run, but the scenario objective wouldn't allow it.

Lessons learned:
--Be aggressive with Angmar. Not enough ranged firepower to hang back.
--Use the speed of my Wargs to get in the mix early and tie up enemy archers.
--Use a 4x4 table for 500 point games.

That's enough for now...and as I said earlier, I'll have the Wargs done this week.

Army Blog -- On the Road to Angmar

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