Monday, January 19, 2015

Fire and silk


One of the things I am REALLY hoping to do is play some Lord of the Rings at Adepticon.  I am also very eager to try out a new army that I have never played.  It's a combination of spiders and Morgul Knights.

The Spider Queen is a big part of that mix.


As with my other 'Evil' army, speed is the key.  Horses and spiders crawling and running everywhere!


The advantage of the spiders is that they are not slowed down by terrain, so I can keep them hidden in forests to ambush enemy units that are attempting to engage the heavily armored Morgul Knights.


Those Morgul Knights also cause fear, which means that there is a possibility the enemy won't even be able to engage them.  I know this from experience, having fought against them!

The spiders also have multiple wounds, so I can artificially increase my numbers simply by doubling the wounds.  Factor in the horse and rider separation of the mounted Knights, and 20 guys are effectively 20 when it comes to wounds from shooting.


Finally, the Spider Queen has the ability to put out swarms of her young'uns in key situations.  I could toss them out as a screen to prevent enemy heroes from joining existing scrums, or even keep them from using might to move their own units around.


I don't know if this will work or not, but I am certainly eager to try!


With the value of each individual figure in LOTR, it's important to consider multiple roles for everything you include in your army.


I have to worry about fighting high fight skill things like elves, so for than instance, I am also working on a Wraith on a Fell Beast.


He's not a 'named' character, but at least it will be able to toss out some high fight skill in that all important situation where the Spider Queen can't block out enemy characters from a fight.

Plus, it will be able to hop over terrain and get into areas the Knights cannot.  It could also fly over a combat and hit things like spearmen and pikemen from behind, negating their extra attacks.  Obviously, this idea comes from my Eagles!


12 comments:

  1. I love the spiders but I am not bought by bases..
    Very nice, but totaly unspidery !

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    Replies
    1. Thanks :-) The firey bases are meant to indicate the Mordor connection. When you see the rest of the army in full, it will all reveal itself.

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    2. That was my thought, but .. well you have to show some :P

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  2. Lovely job on these James. I just love your glows!

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  3. I like your spiders and especially the queen very much. Beautiful source lighting too.
    But like AWu I'm not really overly fond of the bases.
    I understand the bases are going to be what your army ties together, right?

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    1. Yes indeed! All the Morgul Knights are based the same way, even Sauron himself!! The idea was to combine the dark blue marble basing of my Easterling army with the fires of Mordor. This way I could add the Easterlings and have some similarities.

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    2. Nice idea, excited to see how it works out

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  4. the source lighting is amazing, these things are literally glowing!

    brilliant effect

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    Replies
    1. Thanks! The Vallejo fluorescent paints are the key! I have a number of basing articles showing how they were done... ;-)

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  5. MY GOD BLOWN AWAY...

    Amazed people still play LOTR. Its actually a really good ruleset and range, it just never caught on. I think the models are a little smallish for my tastes but still very good.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for the kind words! What I really loved about it was the fact that no single thing could dominate the game... everything had weaknesses or limitations. When I created my armies, I was just clicking on army builder to see what stuff was. Those turned out to be my tournament armies!

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