Axes of the Dwarves!

   Today Jay Griffiths and I had a chance to play a game of The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game -- my first in almost a decade! It was great fun, and my mighty dwarves squared off against his elvish, umm... hordes? Whatever -- they were the bad guys. In any case we fought to a draw, which is typical elf sneakiness, but I thought this would be a great time to showcase my dwarf force.

 

   Jay gave me these two dwarf ballistae a few years ago, so I painted them up and used one of them against him in our game. What else are friends for?

Ballistae - rock out!!

   Drar is not only the only dwarf character with a bow, but you can't even give bows to dwarf captains. Probably due to some long-forgotten arms limitation treaty with the elves.

Murin, Gimli and Drar.




   If you look closely you can see the 'gold crazy' gleaming in the eyes of these kings.



Kings of the dwarves.

   Old school dwarves. I love the way these two look.


Dain and Balin -- Lords Under the Mountain.

   In our battle I used volley fire to great effect, even though half of Jay's elves were wearing sneaky elven 'can't-see-me!' cloaks.



Warriors with dwarf bows - volley fire!!

   In updating and adding to my older miniatures I realised I had too many Gimlis. Two too many, in fact. Taking a chance I painted them up in the colours of my dwarf army and gave them blonde beards, and I think they make great dwarf captains. 

Standard bearer and two Gimlis captains.

  In the battle my Khazad guard, lead by one of my two captains, did a great job of chopping up elves in a tough melee. To his credit, though, Jay had one elf captain who just would not die, no matter how many dwarves I piled on top of him. More sneakiness, to be sure. 


Khazad guard - tough and (mostly) fearless!

   My warriors did yeoman service screening the archers as inviso-elves fired arrow after arrow into my main formation. 


Dwarf warriors with shields.

   My two-handed axe troops didn't see any action today, but they're patient. Sooner or later those elves are going to show up with an ent or two -- Chop!!


Warriors with two-handed axes.







   So there's my force - 1400 points of bearded glory. Jay and I are looking at fighting through the Shadow and Flame scenarios, so next up I'll be working on some appropriate scenery.

Thank you again for stopping by! See you soon...
-Andrew