Correspondence From Limbo

Welcome back to Year of the Horse, my semi-regular feature where I write about my journey to learn the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game and raise an army of Rohan worthy of the horse lords.

Last time I introduced the feature, as well as the goals I am aiming to achieve over the year.

It’s been a while since the first part of this series; I unfortunately had to take a hiatus due to a combination of personal circumstances and other projects getting in the way (it turns out that painting a warband for Mordheim takes a shockingly long time, especially when your mental health has gone down the toilet).

Regardless, let’s crack on with this update.

Hobby Progress

Progress is going slowly but surely. I’ve almost finished four warriors of Rohan with shields and hand weapons, as well as a horn-blower with shield and throwing spears. The models are all painted, I just need to finish their bases and then they will be ready to defend the realm from Uruks, Easterlings, Hill Tribesmen and more. It’s not bad going (especially since I was distracted with my Mordheim weirdos) and the models paint up quickly for the most part, but I need to pick up the pace. As I write this, we’re halfway through February, and the Year of the Horse is about to begin in earnest. In fact, the day this gets published (Tuesday, February 17) will be the first day of the year of the Horse. It’s almost like I planned all this…

Regardless, I still have a long way to go before I can field a full army of painted models, so I need to get cracking.

Since the last update, I assembled Theoden on foot to lead my army, and also picked up an old metal sculpt of Aragorn at Helm’s Deep, along with the new Eowyn and Merry model, which my parents very kindly gave me for my birthday.

They will all go towards my next project, a slow-grow league with the Hampshire Hammerers in Winchester. This league requires us to build and paint a 350 point list and then expand it up to 800 points over the course of four months. I’ve decided to go with a Defenders of Helm’s Deep list; this will allow me to make a pretty solid Rohan force without having to dip into buying cavalry, and also means that I can get away with mostly using models I already have without having to buy new ones.

My 350 point list is below…

I’ve probably made a load of mistakes in the list building process, but I’m looking forward to learning and seeing how things go. I especially cannot wait to see how the league goes; there’s about 16 of us overall, and everyone seems to be really nice so far.

Fingers crossed I can win a game or two!

Stats

Models assembled (total): 16

Models painted: 0

Horses painted: 0

Games played: 0

Total points assembled: 454

Thanks for reading, and I will see you next time!