Without a doubt, 2025 has been the biggest year of MESBG for me. Finally taking the plunge and entering the competitive scene was the main catalyst, attending six events across the year, a number of friendly games, a doubles tournament and a battle companies campaign. This all necessarily led to the painting and assembling of hundreds of miniatures, expanding my collection from a small Rohan force and a smattering of random other models to me being able to field some 20 lists easily.
It's been a hell of year, so let's get into it.
The Tournaments
I joined the GBHL via Board in Brum's A Ranger Caught off his Guard event (see here) with my beloved Riders of Theoden. For my first event it was a hell of an experience, and the locals were so lovely that it became my local club despite being a little out of my way. If you get a chance to attend the club for an event, I'd recommend it heartily.
I attended 3 more events here across the year, and whilst my skills never got me above the lower half of the field, I was not without wins or otherwise close and educational losses. Every event continued to be great fun and taught me a lot. I'll be hoping to focus in on a couple of lists, as I never ran the same list twice over the year, but the point was experience and I certainly gained a bunch of that.
I unfortunately only did one other event roundup post in the year, despite best intentions, but here is what I ran:
- Nobody Tosses a Dwarf: Defenders of Helm's Deep
- It Comes in Pints: Army of Carn Dum
- A Burnt Hand Teaches Best: Army of Edoras
- Great Deeds of War: Defenders of the Pelennor
- Always Follow Your Nose: Army of the Great Eye
With 2026 looming, I've joined one of BiB's Teams, Brumdabad and intend to improve on my 600-ish rank in the league whilst still aiming to have fun. I'm planning to run Grey Company and Army of Carn Dum again and finally a Doubles List pairing Riders of Eomer and Fangorn in a bit of a "What If?" situation. It kinda means that I'm tossing out the list focus rule, but that can come later.
The Models
One stat I'm quite proud of is painting up some 185 models this year, leagues above what I've ever done before and more than likely literally doubling my entire life's output. With 25 more assembled and in various stages of partially painted, that's 210 total.
The Army of the Great Eye (Bandit not included)
This output has really helped me to hone my painting and sculpting skills as an awful lot of those 200 models have also been converted in one way of another as I refuse to ever field the same sculpt twice.
The majority of this painting has gone into the various lists I've used above, and several more besides that I've yet to bring to the tabletop. It's nice to have a solid core of troops and heroes that I can expand on.
2026 so far
January has been a slow start, but I think that's more than ok. I kicked off with painting up my Breaking of the Fellowship Legolas so he could join my Grey Company list. I coupled this with a display board I'm incredibly proud of; a rendering of the Stone of Erech and a couple of objective markers. I experimented on this one with some tea-leaf flocking. My girlfriend has built up a fair collection of various teas, which really helped to vary the textures. I think it worked out fairly well.
Of course, a finished army and a display board means one thing! Tournament time!
A Pull of the Old Toby is a fantastic 500pt tournament at Board in Brum that includes the special flair of giving each list a free Gimli who's smoked too much pipeweed. This is represented by giving him a reduced stat-line and special rules similar to Thrain the Broken. Each scenario also gave adjustments to VPs based around Gimli either surviving or sitting on objectives.
The Grey Company really did amazing work, and considering I'm an advocate for buffing the Rangers (slightly) I was surprised by how well they performed. In some cases they were even carrying Aragorn's dead weight (he had a few fits of triple 1's or 2's). Gimli, possibly predictably, did little of anything and often got killed, whilst Legolas did Legolas things.
I was paired up against, in order; Khazad-Dum (Loss), Defenders of the Pelennor built as Return of the King (Win), Buhrdur's Horde (Win) and Radagast's Alliance (Win). 3-1 for the day is by far my best performance at any event to date and netted me a solid 7th place. A great day for one of my favourite factions.
I'll likely be taking them again to A Ranger caught off of his Guard to see it wasn't just a lightning in a bottle moment.
What's Next
Aside from the above, I've booked in to play at a Doubles event with my girlfriend in April and a teams event in June. For the former we'll be running a Riders of Eomer and Fangorn alliance to represent a kind-of "What if" scenario of the Ents joining the slaughter of Ugluk's scouts. (Possible lists below). It'll be fantastic to have her there with me for that event, as she's been nothing but fully supportive of my hobby, and is involved enough to own her own army of Ents and play games with me at home. She could win a little less though...
On the hobby side of things my plan at the moment is to increase my options for existing lists. With many of them already having a solid core of troops, it will be good to add the more elite or support pieces. I'm starting this off with some Westfold Redshields (not the most competitive option, but a good way to fill in some spare points and re-rolls never hurt) and a Shade and some spectres for my Angmar forces, as at the moment I mostly just have Orcs and a few Carn Dum men to follow the Witch King into battle, and Angmar is a faction that needs it's ghosties.
Halbarad is on the wishlist also, when I can source him. I want the older sculpt though, as I really don't like the newer version from GW.
A Siege Bow for my Mordor forces is on the to-do list. Aside from that I really need to get my Fell Beast and Morannon Drummer painted up. The Spectres will be useful should I want to run Minas Morgul.
The last thing on the list is the WIP custom Ent for my girlfriend, made from 100% real trees!
It's should be a good year for creativity, but that's all for now. Thanks for reading.
If you want to follow my hobby progress, Instagram is always the best shout where I can be found at @Manic.Hobbying, but I'd be remiss not to include some of my favourites here.
No comments:
Post a Comment