I fell in love with middle earth over 40 years ago and although I drifted away for a few years my enthusiasm has returned with a vengeance.
I have been collecting Tolkien related material since the 1980's , my main focus has always been the licensed miniatures ranges produced by several companies over the years but also other forms of gaming the world such as RPGs and board games.
Following the formation of a facebook group on wargaming Middle Earth my interest rekindled and I have decided to blog my activities as it will keep a record of progress
I hope to run a campaign using various rule sets , this will be predominantly be solo games unless I find a kindred spirit. I will discuss rule sets at a later date but Song of Blades and Heroes is where I will start, simple skirmish rules with few miniatures required . Afterwards I plan to use a variety of rule sets leading up to larger games as I get more miniatures painted , however I paint slowly and have a habit , like many others in this hobby , of jumping about on projects.
I am going to set the games between the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings , that's not to say I may not play a occasional game from outside this period but the focus will be during this these times.There are several reasons for the time setting , first of all it will not clash with canon material in the books, secondly the role playing games from Cubicle 7 are set here and that could provide some good resources and inspiration , thirdly is that some of the major characters from the books are alive at this point and they could make a occasional appearance we also know the general politics of the time of the major realms. Lastly Amazon are making a television serial of middle earth and apparently the first series at least will be about a young Aragorn and therefore in my time period, I am sure there will be much discussion on this as there was about the films, more from me at a later date but I am not anti to the films , ok maybe The Hobbit a bit ....actually I only saw them once and really disliked them but I intend to watch them again with a open mind , I did enjoy PJs Lord of the Rings even with the changes. But more about the films at a later date.[Edit , when the Amazon series is set was a bit of a red herring]
Over the last 12 months I have been thinking about how my campaign will run and currently have this as a idea, the main campaign will be a group of adventures starting off from Dale and heading towards Eriador , sort of The Hobbit in reverse , I have been working up some back stories for the characters . I have also decided to add in a few other settings to provide a change from the main campaign , firstly I hope to set a few games around Dunedin rangers protecting the north of Eriador from threats of orcs , trolls and wolves etc , the other setting will be in Gondar and in particular some skirmishes involving forces from the region of Anfalas , early stages in my thinking on both of these.
As far as possible I will stay true to the books, my basis of information for use in the games are as follows and in order of preference - obviously the works by JRRT , Lord of the Rings (LOTR) , The Hobbit (The H) , Silmarillion (Silm.) Unfinished Tales (UT) and to a lesser extent The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (AoTB) and the series of books edited by Christopher Tolkien called History of Middle Earth (HoME) , to be honest I have only dipped into these even though I bought them as they came out as they seem to be mainly about the various drafts JRRT wrote before final publication of his novels , however there are snippets in them and providing it does not go against what was published in the authors life time I will consider it canon . To this I will add information gleaned from role playing games . I only have a few pdfs of the current output from cubicle 7 but do intend when funds are available to buy hard copies , I do however have most of the old Middle Earth Role Playing (merp) modules from Iron Crown Enteprises (ICE) and will use these when I feel it is suitable , also a major part of my collection is from Mithril Miniatures who produced figures to match merp.
I may come back and occasionally edit this intro when I feel it's relevant .
Till next time.. Namarie
I have been collecting Tolkien related material since the 1980's , my main focus has always been the licensed miniatures ranges produced by several companies over the years but also other forms of gaming the world such as RPGs and board games.
Following the formation of a facebook group on wargaming Middle Earth my interest rekindled and I have decided to blog my activities as it will keep a record of progress
I hope to run a campaign using various rule sets , this will be predominantly be solo games unless I find a kindred spirit. I will discuss rule sets at a later date but Song of Blades and Heroes is where I will start, simple skirmish rules with few miniatures required . Afterwards I plan to use a variety of rule sets leading up to larger games as I get more miniatures painted , however I paint slowly and have a habit , like many others in this hobby , of jumping about on projects.
I am going to set the games between the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings , that's not to say I may not play a occasional game from outside this period but the focus will be during this these times.There are several reasons for the time setting , first of all it will not clash with canon material in the books, secondly the role playing games from Cubicle 7 are set here and that could provide some good resources and inspiration , thirdly is that some of the major characters from the books are alive at this point and they could make a occasional appearance we also know the general politics of the time of the major realms. Lastly Amazon are making a television serial of middle earth and apparently the first series at least will be about a young Aragorn and therefore in my time period, I am sure there will be much discussion on this as there was about the films, more from me at a later date but I am not anti to the films , ok maybe The Hobbit a bit ....actually I only saw them once and really disliked them but I intend to watch them again with a open mind , I did enjoy PJs Lord of the Rings even with the changes. But more about the films at a later date.[Edit , when the Amazon series is set was a bit of a red herring]
Over the last 12 months I have been thinking about how my campaign will run and currently have this as a idea, the main campaign will be a group of adventures starting off from Dale and heading towards Eriador , sort of The Hobbit in reverse , I have been working up some back stories for the characters . I have also decided to add in a few other settings to provide a change from the main campaign , firstly I hope to set a few games around Dunedin rangers protecting the north of Eriador from threats of orcs , trolls and wolves etc , the other setting will be in Gondar and in particular some skirmishes involving forces from the region of Anfalas , early stages in my thinking on both of these.
As far as possible I will stay true to the books, my basis of information for use in the games are as follows and in order of preference - obviously the works by JRRT , Lord of the Rings (LOTR) , The Hobbit (The H) , Silmarillion (Silm.) Unfinished Tales (UT) and to a lesser extent The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (AoTB) and the series of books edited by Christopher Tolkien called History of Middle Earth (HoME) , to be honest I have only dipped into these even though I bought them as they came out as they seem to be mainly about the various drafts JRRT wrote before final publication of his novels , however there are snippets in them and providing it does not go against what was published in the authors life time I will consider it canon . To this I will add information gleaned from role playing games . I only have a few pdfs of the current output from cubicle 7 but do intend when funds are available to buy hard copies , I do however have most of the old Middle Earth Role Playing (merp) modules from Iron Crown Enteprises (ICE) and will use these when I feel it is suitable , also a major part of my collection is from Mithril Miniatures who produced figures to match merp.
I may come back and occasionally edit this intro when I feel it's relevant .
Till next time.. Namarie
