Rohirrim in Triumph!

[Piyan Glupak]

Just as a matter of interest, do people see the mounted component of the army of Rohan as being mainly Elite Cavalry, or a mixture of Knights and Horse Bow? I ask because I have used one of the Horse Bow elements of my legacy rules Rohan army to bring my Later Bulgar army up to 48 points. (I reduced the amount of green clothing and adjusted skin complexion and hair colour.) The Rohan project has been a bit of a slow, stop, stop a bit longer, forget about it even though the mounted are done and the infantry has mainly been prepped and undercoated. It occurs to me that my 15mm Rohirrim will either be used in Hordes of the Things or Triumph!, and not the legacy ancients and medieval rules.

[David Kuijt]

Straight-up Knights with just a smidgey of Horsebow.

When I base the Knights, I put one bow figure per stand, but that's because I'm using GW plastic Rohirrim, and there are 5 poses, 2 with bow, so I sorta have to.

The army list is mostly Knights (with the mid-battle dismounting battle card, to reflect the battle at the Fords of Isen (which might have been deployment dismounting) and Pelennor Field), with 0-2 Horsebow. No Elite Cavalry.

The Haradrim are Elite Cavalry or Javelin Cavalry, like the Saracen armies that are their genesis. Doing the armies for Pelennor Field I made one Southron command with Heavy Foot and Javelin Cavalry (the Black Serpent overthrown by Theoden), and the big Haradrim command had three Elite Cavalry, three Mumak (Elephants), a couple of Horsebow, and a bunch of Heavy Foot.

Tolkein uses Southron and Haradrim more or less interchangeably, but describes two distinct groups of them with different makeups, so I used the first term for the one group and the second term for the other. Given the breadth of geography covered by those terms, there certainly are more than one culture/nation involved.

[Piyan Glupak]

Thank you David. Next time I do a Donnington Miniatures order I will get some suitable knights to replace the Horse Bow unit I used for the Bulgarians. At the moment, I have one Horse Bow unit with 10 Knight units. My gut feeling is to go for another unit of Knights.

I was interested to hear about your ideas for Southrons and Haradrim. At some point I will be looking to do some more Middle Earth armies, although at the moment, I am concentrating on my historical armies.

[David Kuijt]

Thank you David. Next time I do a Donnington Miniatures order I will get some suitable knights to replace the Horse Bow unit I used for the Bulgarians. At the moment, I have one Horse Bow unit with 10 Knight units. My gut feeling is to go for another unit of Knights.

At Pelennor Field the army is three commands each with 9 knights and one Horse Bow. (Theoden's command has 10 knights).

When you get the "Mid-battle Dismounting" battle card you pay another 6 pts (+1 pt per stand, capped at 6pts even if more can dismount), so that's 46 / 46 / 50 points for the three commands.

I was interested to hear about your ideas for Southrons and Haradrim. At some point I will be looking to do some more Middle Earth armies, although at the moment, I am concentrating on my historical armies.

I've got a dozen Middle Earth army lists set up in Meshwesh (inaccessible to others) for Middle Earth army lists (Third Age lists), although I need to revisit them. They haven't been modified in a year or so, and so the final year's changes to Triumph before publication aren't reflected in the army lists.

[Bill Hupp]

DK,

I am in the process of putting together armies to be painted for Triumph! using the Vendel Fantasy (LOTR) figures we acquired from SMM earlier in the year. I could very much use those army lists.

Would Dwarves follow historic Vikings?

Bill

[David Kuijt]

DK,

I am in the process of putting together armies to be painted for Triumph! using the Vendel Fantasy (LOTR) figures we acquired from SMM earlier in the year. I could very much use those army lists.

Would Dwarves follow historic Vikings?

Bill

That's great news, Bill. I'll write you (email separately) to give you as much information as possible proceeding forwards.

Dwarves actually look quite a bit like historic Vikings, although not completely the same. The main basis of the army is Elite Foot or Raider; most of their armies in Tolkien would be all Elite Foot and the heavily armored Vendel figures are absolutely perfect for that. The Vendel Crossbow figures sadly aren't appropriate for a pure Tolkien army, but if I were you I'd have two stands of Archers painted up for them anyway just because they'd be a good addition to the army in Fantasy Triumph. I'd paint up the unarmored bowmen as Skirmishers or Bow Levy; 0-2 of them each.

So that's something like this:

• 10-12x Elite Foot, including the General
• 0-1x Spear using the guys with long polearms (you can also use them for Elite Foot, but if you group the polearm guys that will differentiate them and give you the option of calling them Spear)
• 0-2x Archers (the armored Crossbow figures. Not for Tolkien battles, but a very nice addition for Fantasy Triumph otherwise)
• 0-2x Bow Levy (the unarmored guys with simple bows)
• 0-2x Skirmishers (the same unarmored guys with simple bows)
• 0-2x Light Foot (using Dwaven Fyrd guys with spear and shield)

If I recall correctly, the Vendel Dwarves have like 40 different armored foot poses (all with different helmets), eight different crossbow poses, and I'm not certain about the unarmored bowmen (I've got eight but I haven't painted them) or the polearm guys (I've got eight painted, but I don't recall if there are slight differences between the figs or not).

For the Raiders I'd use mostly the same figures as the Elite Foot, but maybe add one or two of the Dwarven Fyrd figures per stand to help differentiate them.

For Tolkien the army list is something like:

• General: Elite Foot or Raider
• 8-12x Elite Foot (armored dwarves fighting in close formation)
• 0-1x Spear (armored dwarves with long spears or polearms)
• 0-4x Raider (dwarves fighting in open formation for mobility)
• 0-2x Skirmisher or Bow Levy (dwarf bowmen)
• 0-1x Light Foot (lightly armed dwarves)

But as I say, for Fantasy Triumph you'll probably want Paul to put together the other options so you can go with an army that still is obviously Dwarves, but uses some of the other stuff that your range provides.

And congratulations on acquiring the Vendel Dwarves -- they are the most superb range of 25/28mm dwarves ever produced. I've got nearly a full range painted myself. When you get in production, I'll want to get a few dozen figs to complete my current army to Tolkien standards (like 10 Fyrd figures, 2 Bowmen figures, and 12 armored dwarves).

I was going to attach an image of my Durin Dwarf army, but I can't find any online -- later.

[Bill Hupp]

DK,

Thanks very much.

Being similarly inclined as Tolkien geeks, Brian and I couldn’t pass up the chance to keep the range in the US. The question: what do we do with all that lovely GW stuff we bought and have half painted.

Of course, now i’ve moved on to Elves and Goblins (although you already gave us goblins.) Since we also have the Ancients line of Indians, Persians, and Greeks, I’ve started to review that line for Eastterlings and Haradrim. The books are pretty thin on guidance and our elephants are very very nice.

I have personally decided to only play fantasy games that are based on literature, There is more than enough of good quality lit.

Our plans do include trying to get the sculptor to do more figures for us.

Bill

[David Kuijt]

Of course, now i’ve moved on to Elves and Goblins (although you already gave us goblins.) Since we also have the Ancients line of Indians, Persians, and Greeks, I’ve started to review that line for Eastterlings and Haradrim. The books are pretty thin on guidance and our elephants are very very nice.

Yes, I liked the Vendel Persians and Indians a lot.

I think the Persians would work really well as Haradrim, especially if you had Paul paint them up with blacks and reds as the primary colors. Should have all the stuff you need -- pop me an email and I'll send you the specs for the Haradrim and Southron armies in the Pelennor Field battle I ran at Historicon. Both of them need heavy foot; southrons need lots of JavCav (representing the scimitar-armed southron cavalry, who were clearly threatening to the Rohirrim but were overthrown by them -- JavCav matches that performance nicely). Haradrim get Elite Cavalry (double-armed with bow and spear and good armor on the riders) and Elephants and a few Horsebow in addition to the Heavy Foot. There are also Bow Levy in the Haradrim reserves that come on.

I have personally decided to only play fantasy games that are based on literature, There is more than enough of good quality lit.

True dat!