'Fellowship' from PaulOG: Find the Halfling!

I thought I would address this bonus round from the opposite side of the Fellowship theme, while also completing my Season IX Curtgeld.

This is Lurtz, Saruman's first Uruk-Hai Commander - destroyer of the Fellowship of the Ring.  Leading a small warparty of Uruks, Lurtz tracked and attacked the Fellowship in the ruins of Amon Hen.  While Lurtz was both defeated in his mission to capture Frodo and the ring, and killed in encounter, the Gondorian hero Boromir was slain and the Fellowship was broken.

This is a 28mm GW fig in their smaller (and nicer IMO) LOTR proportions.  I have used Vallejo Mahogany Brown as the base for the skin to fit with his dark tone in the movie.  As a Curtgeld figure I have refrained from the basing so that it can match the rest of the horde when it arrives.

Points wise that is 5 points for 28mm fig, plus 20 points for Curtgeld an adding the bonus round 50 points - that's a high yield 75 points for a single figure! :-)

'Fellowship' from PaulSS: Richard de Vere the 11th Earl of Oxford

I don't think that the theme of fellowship is better summed up in literature than by William Shakespeare in Henry V:

This day is called the feast of Crispian: 

He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, 

Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named, 

And rouse him at the name of Crispian. 

He that shall live this day, and see old age, 

Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours, 

And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:' 

Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars. 

And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.' 

Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot, 

But he'll remember with advantages 

What feats he did that day: then shall our names. 

Familiar in his mouth as household words 

Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter, 

Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester, 

Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd. 

This story shall the good man teach his son; 

And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, 

From this day to the ending of the world, 

But we in it shall be remember'd; 

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; 

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me 

Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile, 

This day shall gentle his condition: 

And gentlemen in England now a-bed 

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, 

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks 

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Richard de Vere the 11th Earl of Oxford was commander of the English rear-guard at Agincourt and one of those 'happy few'.

The figures are all from the Perry plastics range, mainly the 'English Army' set, but Oxfords sword arm is from the 'Agincourt Knights' set.

I made a simple sabot command stand as a test piece, 50mm MDF circle made up with DAS clay to 'socket' the bases. Not that happy with the result but it shall suffice, maybe another custom order to Warbases is needed.

'Fellowship' from PeterA: "We Are Your Friends, Frodo"

It didn't take much thought to decide on my entry for the final Bonus Theme. Although I had painted up Boromir, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimili some time ago, I had never got around to painting up the remaining five members of the Fellowship, so this was the perfect opportunity to get them done.

All of these are GW metal figures sourced from Ebay, as I never bought the original Fellowship boxed set, and I have no love for the more recent plastic version.

First up we have Gandalf the Grey. I do like this sculpt, the dynamic pose is really characterful. I did try to do a glowing effect from the crystal at the top of his staff, but it looked absolutely pony, so re-painted the top brown.

Next we have Merry (on the left) and Pippin (right). I have painted these as if they are wearing Elven cloaks, although I think the sculpts are based on their appearance from earlier in the movie. Pippin has a red cloak at that point, so I did his scarf red as a nod to that.

Next are Sam and Frodo. Again, very characterful. I can imagine Sam charging off to Frodo's defense, whilst Frodo himself leans back, clutching the Precious Ring. I tried to give Frodo's sword, Sting, a blue glaze to represent what happens when enemies are near but I need more practice I think! I also love the fact that they come with packs, with Sam's being suitably larger than Frodo's (it even has a spoon and small pot sculpted on).

And here they are all together. 

And here is the now complete Fellowship of the Ring!

The quote from the top comes from this passage in The Lord of the Rings:

"You can trust us to stick with you through thick and thin - to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours - closer than you keep it yourself. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word. We are your friends, Frodo"

Seems like a pretty decent definition of Fellowship to me!

'Fellowship' from PeterD: Mice and Mystics

My submission for the fellowship round is a band of nine intrepid fantasy adventurers - three fighters, an archer, a mage, a healer two thieves and a ranger.  Oh and they are also seven mice, a shrew and a gecko!

Here's the full set, although a couple of the shy ones are hiding in the back row.  I'll see if I can draw them forth shortly.  These miniatures come in Red Hat's board game Mice & Mystics and its expansion Downwood Tales.  The game features a royal (Human) household that overtaken by an evil sorceress and the heroes change themselves into mice to escape.    long the way they battle cockroaches, rats, centipedes and spiders (including their human enemies who also morph themselves).  It is a surprising good play, with simple rules,  great story line scenarios, a good challenge and lots of nice colour.  The currency is cheese, there's a ring of cat strength magic item and triggering a mouse trap means that your mouse both takes a hit and gets a cheese.  Better yet you can find a dinner fork and mouse-a-pult yourself over danger.

Tilda, Colin, Maginose

First up we have the leader, Price Colin in his red cloak flanked by his counsellors Tilda the healer and Maginos the mystic.  Tilda also fights with a nasty mace and gets more deadly if she's defending wounded comrades.  Maginos has his familiar wyvern Meeps who's been transformed into a lady bug.

Filch, Nez, Lily

Next up we have the royal armourer Nez, flanked by Filch the scamp and Lily the archer. Nez is a tinkerer (which is sometimes useful) and a warrior which is always useful especially when he uses his Thundersqueak ability.  Lily has always been a mouse and is a member of a local mouse clan that Colin befriends.  We meet her in one of the early scenarios when they rescue her from a mousetrap.

Jakobe, Ansel, Ditty

The last set of three are characters that we will meet in the expansion game as Colin and fiends venture into Downwood.  As with Lily, these characters have always been critters.  Jakobe the gecko is their guide and carries a boomerang.  He looks chatty and may try and sell us car insurance.  Ansel is a valiant mouse warrior and wears a serpent scale breastplate.  Ditty the shrew is a scamp.  She carries a peppercorn sling and a fiddle.

I'm not sure if Sarah's Challenge includes only human characters.  But there are three female anthropomorphic rodents in this groups so I've tagged them any way.  Here are the three ladies in question, Mother Hen Tilda, Adventurous Lily and well keep a hand on your valuables Ditty.

Final group shot.

FYI when we play M&M, I play Tilda, Curt plays Filch, Sylvain is Nez, Jeremey is Maginos and Stacey is Colin.

Points wise these figures are shorter than 28s and taller than 20s.  I'll leave it to the gods and GMs to work out my points.

'Fellowship' from PhilH: Minimoto Clan for Bushido

Howdy everybody,

For this theme, I offer a fellowship from the Minimoto Clan. A new project debuting. Bushido by GCT Studios has been around for a good few years and offers a fair range of factions in their fantastical Samurai setting of the Jwar Isles. As a skirmish game of about half a dozen figures a side, most of the minis are named characters with unique stat lines and abilities.

A new faction released in 2018, I couldn’t resist their armoured Ashigaru and massive tetsubo maces. I settled on a grey-blue as clan colour to tie all of the different miniatures together and grey armour. This is in contrast to the studio examples, which use red.

Yoshinobu Masaema

An ashigaru, the core fighters of the Minimoto faction, Yoshinobu Masaema is, apparently, a more experienced and capable example. I really dig this sculpt, in his relaxed but menacing pose.

Raiko

A young ashigaru, Raiko fights without armour, and with a staff rather than tetsubo. In game, he's a low points (or "rice") cost character in a faction which tend towards the pricey.

Hauru

Hauru is a blacksmith, which is one of the Minimoto faction’s things: these guys go to war, which does feel a little impractical, even with a tiny anvil nestled out of shot behind his leg. The pose is him offering up a large, freshly-forged tetsubo for his fellows to use.

Tetsu

Tetsu is a bear. A small, angry armoured bear, in fact. Nice sculpt, but I feel he should have been cast in resin and a fair bit larger, for more intimidation factor.

Confession: two were painted pre-challenge to test the colour scheme, so shouldn’t be scored. In penance, I hope to have one or more of these done before challenge end, but wanted to bank these points (though I did just notice that I've already hit my target...)

Oh, and one more squirrel here. 

I've only had one intro game of Bushido so far, but it is a nice little system. The rules are available for free download, though they're working on a revised edition of the rules, called Bushido: Risen Sun.

'Fellowship' from RayR: Gandulf

Can't believe the Challenge is nearly over for another year???

This being the final Bonus Round " Fellowship"

As soon as I read the name Fellowship I knew my entry would have to be from

Lord of the Rings. I've got a box with all sorts of odds and ends from Games Workshop's range.

Gandulf here was at the bottom still sitting in his red backed blister pack begging to be painted up!

To be honest he was originally bought to be painted up and sold on ebay

many years ago, but I never got around to it.

Another reason for painting up Gandulf was he was quite an easy paint, being all white!!

But the most important was Gandulf was the defacto leader of the "Fellowship" in LotR, not Frodo

and if our defacto leader the SnowLord, Curt himself put on a white wig, he could be Gandulf!!

This entry will be winging its way over the Atlantic soon as my Curtgeld

so a few more points will come my way, only if Curt laughed at my Gandulf/Curt pun that is.

'Fellowship' from SanderS: Kal Jerico

Hoi There,

There's a real load of figures I own that I could have used for this theme round. The knights of the round table from Monthy Phyton's movie (made by studio miniatures) or the Antediluvian Miniatures Adventurers team and even Gaunt's Ghosts. Yet in the end I settled for more Necromunda figures: Kal Jerico and his faithful sidekick Scabs. Why? Well perhaps we all are a Scabs to the greater glory that is our Snowlord who always strikes the right pose at the right moment and always knows how to come up with a  truly erudite remark! Enough sucking up yet? On to the figures then!

While I only recently jumped into the game full throttle, I had been well aware of the game and it's miniatures for quite a while. As such I jumped at an opportunity  to get the duo in an Ebay offering and have been rearing at the bit to get some paint on them, so here they are.

Kal has made a lot of enemies over time and none more fanatical than the Brotherhood of the Redemption (see? Another "fellowship" thingy) so I included five of them here as well.

Most of the Redemptionist figures you see around have red, black or white robes, many of which are decorated with flame motives. I wanted to go a bit less conspicuous and did them up in mostly brown robes, with only the Zealot with eviscerator (a huge chainsword with attached mini-flamer) and the brother with the duo of pistols in a different robe. The guy in the blue hood clearly shows allegiance  to his old Cawdor gang who, according to some novels I've read, don blue hoods.

Oh and someclose ups of the Eviscerator, I like playing with the rust effects a lot:

Some characterful figures to enter in this last of theme rounds. These 7 guys in 28mm scale should gain me 35 points.

'Fellowship' from ScottM: Genestealer Cult

For the last bonus round of this year's challenge I went with a group of Genestealer Cultists. Not your happy-cheery fellowship types but more of a creepy twisted variety. These figures are obviously from Games Workshop and are plastic. I don't play 40K but I plan on using these for Space Hulk.

So that should be 7 28mm figs for 35 points.