2026 is a year of anniversaries, it seems. I’ve been wargaming for 30 years, and it’s been 25 years since The Lord of the Rings came to the cinema, and the accompanying game from Games Workshop came out as well. I still remember my first game in the Friar Lane, Nottingham store on a cold October. Not surprisingly, I lost.
The game itself came out on the third of November, in 2001, and I also remember going to get the game, The Fellowship of the Ring, and Bilbo Baggins on release day. I even painted Gandalf the Grey in store. Good times.
Now with LOTR models taking roughly 25% of my miniature collection, I’m going to try to paint my backlog. Now for me, LOTR is best played using the narrative scenarios. I enjoy the odd matched play game, but for me the best fun is playing the scenarios. In 2005, when GW released the Journey Books, I played through them with some friends, and I considered it to be the pinnacle of the gaming I’ve ever done.
So, to reduce the backlog, I’m going to work through each scenario and paint all of the miniatures I have for each scenario. So, diving into the initial rulebook, there are 8 scenarios. Seven of these cover the events of the Fellowship of the Ring, and we have Scenario 1, Close Encounters which is designed to get you playing and understand the core mechanics.
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| For Gondor. |
Checking my wargaming spreadsheet (of which I’ve got many), I have 33 spearmen, of which 3 are not painted. I’ve also got 33 Swordsmen, of which 21 are not painted. You should see my full Gondorian force in the picture to the left of this bit.
A quick stock take though, and those 21 painted swordsmen need some TLC, having been painted a long time. You can see that there is also a fair bit of basing to be done. I count a model as done when it’s based and has a shield on, so by sorting out my basing. I should add a total of 36 models to my finished count.
Against them are Moria Goblins for the scenario; you need 24 goblins. 8 with bows, 8 with swords and shields, and 8 with spears. As you can see, I have a lot. According to my spreadsheet, I have
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| Goblins, lots of Goblins |
37 with swords and shields, of which 14 are completed
29 with spears, of which 6 are completed
So, once the Goblins are painted up, I’ll have an additional 73 models completed. So with the Gondorians, I’ll have a total of 106 models completed and ready for gaming. A great start to reduce my backlog
My goal is to get these done by the end of November. I’m off work for most of it, on holiday, and so it should be doable. Goblins are easy to paint up, and don’t take long to do. Gondorians are an awful lot of black, but again, won’t take too long to do. I follow the paint guides in White Dwarf 263, and reissued in the best of white dwarf compendium. Instead of taking the simple one-layer approach, as these were starter guides, I do highlight and shade. I also vary the skin tones of the goblins to have a bit of variation.
After this, the next scenario is Weathertop, so we can start on the Fellowship and the Ringwraiths.
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| There coming along |
