The Fall of Arnor

For the past few months I've been teaching my dad to play 40k. You don't realise how complicated and rules-bloated that game is until you start trying to teach someone the basics. But, after all this time, we decided to try something a little bit different.

The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game... it just rolls off the tongue.

But, rather than stick to the events we all know and love from the books and movies, I instead decided to broaden my Tolkien horizons and do a bit of delving into the background. From what I can gather from my reading on the matter of Arnor, the story goes something like this...

The lands around Arnor were home to people known as the Middle Men. But when the Numenoreans sailed to Middle-Earth, they claimed Arnor for their own, founding it as its own kingdom along with Gondor, which was founded at the same time. The Numenoreans and Middle Men were integrated into the same society. All was well, for a time.
At the beginning of the Third Age, the One Ring was found by Arnor's then-King, Isildur. But as Isildur was betrayed by the ring, his fate was sealed. He, along with his 3 eldest sons, was killed by Orcs at the battle of Gladden Fields, and the Ring was lost. Isildur's youngest and only surviving son and heir did not claim kingship over Gondor, and so Gondor split from Arnor to create its own kingdom.
Earendur, the 10th king of Arnor, died in 861 of the Third Age, and his 3 sons began to squabble. Arnor fell into civil war, and was divided into 3 realms - Arthedain was claimed by the eldest son, and housed the Capital City of Fornost. The other 2 realms were called Cardolan and Rhudaur.

This is when war came to Arnor. Armies of orcs appeared in the north, and the future of the human Kingdom was in the balance. Cardolan pledged its allegiance to Arthedain, but Rhudaur was always at odds with the other two, perhaps its majority Middle Men population still resenting the Numenoreans for taking their land from them in times long past. This is where my campaign begins...

I started writing up scenarios for the campaign, the first being a time when orcs were first spotted south of the Ettenmoors, the Ettenmoors being in Angmar to the north of Arnor. A Rhudaur scouting party is attacked by orcs, a strange move considering Rhudaur itself has shown allegiance to Angmar in the past, but the orcs are being spurred by a foul bargain that is to be struck.

Of course, a lot of this requires a bit of artistic licence, as indeed I, or anybody for that matter, do not know the full story behind these events.

But, what is a wargaming campaign without models? I haven't touched my Lord of the Rings models for years (aside from a few character models several months back). There was much rummaging in bits boxes and repairing of broken swords and spears and bows to be had, but eventually I drummed up enough models to begin the campaign.
You'll also notice they are completely brown. This is just a rough undercoat/basecoat that I give to all my LotR models to make them appear slightly more earthy and realistic in tone. This was also painted over some previous (poor) paint jobs I'd done on certain models.

Rhudaur

For my army of Rhudaur, I used a bunch of Rohirrim models. I figured these guys had a more rugged and wild look compared to men of Gondor, which I always pictured of a realm such as Rhudaur.
The 3 models at the front will be the army's leaders. The one on horseback is an Eomer model, but I will use him as King of Rhudaur. The models to his left and right are Hama and Gamling, but they will be Rhudaurin captains.
Behind them are various men-at-arms, 5 each of swordsmen, spear-men and bowmen.

Sticking with the Rohirrim theme, I thought it would be interesting to give Rhudaur a cavalry regiment, called Outriders. I imagine that horses, however, would be rarer and of slightly lesser breeds than the horses of Rohan, so Rhudaur Outriders would be few in number.
You may also notice that I removed the horse motifs on the majority of their shields. This is an obvious Rohirrim feature that I wanted to take away from the models.

Angmar

The beginnings of my Angmar force. Thus far, it comprises only orcs. I figured a natural choice for a leader would be an orc shaman. Angmar is ruled by the Witch King, so I wanted to give the army a bit of a magical theme.
There is also a captain on the right, and a standard bearer on the left. Behind them are a rabble of orcs, 5 sword-bearing orcs, 5 with great weapons and 5 with bows.
And behind them...

... are the Warg Riders. Untouched by paint, as you can see. Their bases have long since been procured for use in other projects, so I will need to order some more.

And there you have it. I'm a big Tolkien fan, and have always wanted an opportunity to delve into the LotR SBG, but have never had the chance, so my models were all relegated to various bits boxes. Now, though, I'm throwing myself in head first, and hope all this effort actually goes somewhere epic.