Defence of the ford

Got a small game in on my refurbished terrain boards (more on those later) in which the forces of Saruman are probing the defences of Rohan in preparation for an all out attack.

All is quiet in the Westfold and a small patrol of Rohirrim are checking the fords to make sure all is secure.

Unfortunately, this is not the case and some roving bands of warg riders are looking for a way further into the Westfold without being discovered.

Also, unbeknownst to the Rohirrim a small group of warg riders had already crossed the river and were trying to sneak up upon them.

The warg riders began to swarm across the river but were met by the charging knights of Rohan!

Alas! One group of Rohirrim have been caught between two bands of warg riders and it doesn't look good

The fighting at the first ford is bitter with neither group giving ground.

The group in the centre are eventually cut down to almost a man...

But the fervent defence of the standard bearer wins out and he sees off the warg riders.

With the wargs at the first ford cut down the remaining rohirrim come to the aid of their standard and chase the wargs across the river and see them off with some final marksmanship.

So, a victory for Rohan, but a costly one.

What evils is Saruman brewing away in the tower of Orthanc and will the stout men of Rohan be able to stop him...


The rules used were a fantasy mod of M&T which is still having a bit of work done to it. No magic was used but we have a provision for it. The only change for the next game is to swap the movements of the animals round making he wargs faster than the horses.

For Gondor!

Our little gaming group occasionally do some Lord of the Rings gaming (home brew rules) and if course it's down to me to make the terrain...

I do sometimes hate getting all excited about a new project as it's always me that makes almost everything we fight on lol although to be fair, I'm possibly one of the worst for starting new things.

Anyway, for the LotR games I thought a bit of unseen Gondorian architecture might be nice so I went for a lighthouse or watchtower. I do like the Gondorian style that is seen in the Peter Jackson films and I went down that route.

The watchtower was a fairly generic piece of terrain that wouldn't be to big and could have other buildings added around if needed at a later date.

The base was round and about 150mm in diameter and I ha the crazy idea of building it from individual blocks...

 The blocks were cut from 10mm thick blue foam into 20mm lengths and then rolled in my hands to get a worn texture on them. Various different types were arranged into boxes and then the construction began. The last photo above is of the engineering blocks I use to keep everything straight and perpendicular.

 The walls and buttresses were made in separate sections as it was easier, they were then stuck together to make the basic building shape. Things like the arches were made to suit using the same hand rolling technique to help them fit in with the rest of the blocks.

I had to do a paint test to make surethe colours for the blocks were going to be ok and I got it right first time (with being slightly colour blind this is a good thing). The walls were covered in a simple textured paint first before the colours went on. A very light grey for the base and then a brown/green ink for the wash brought up by a white drybrush. Various shades of ink were used for the weathering.

With the bottom completed I painted it and sorted the base out (impatient I know) and used a few old trees from work, one of which was a poplar which seemed to fit quite well. I put on a few different types of flock and growies for the base to make it look a bit more rugged.

With the bottom done it was time to work on the top. A lift off roof was the order of the day and I thought a little modularity would go down well so the bit that goes on the top could be changed if necessary. Just a simple card construction and a few roof tiles with a wooden floor and a trapdoor. The tiles were painted a dark grey and the wood was done in a grey/brown.

With the roof done it was time to work on the first top portion. As it was supposed to be a watchtower the top needed to be tall but I also thought that a beacon would be quite suitable and so the build got taller...

Quite a simple construction but suited for purpose I think. The top of the tower was quite a simple choice, just a cut stone dome (plastic hemisphere really) stuck on top but the brazier inside took a little more thought and work. It's an acrylic disc at the bottom with styrene strips to form the sides and also styrene around the top to keep it together. Three chains were attached to a hook under the dome at the top. I was tempted to light it with a flickering LED but thought better of it as everything was already built and there would've been nowhere to hide the batteries.

I will still make a couple of extra tops for it, one as a plain battlement and a shorter one than above with a tiled roof and smaller windows.

The only slightly annoying thing is that it hasn't been used yet lol

ttfn