Jumping back into Lord of the Rings meant once again picking an army to collect. I should point out before I continue that evil is my bag. It didnt even cross my mind that my main force would be a good one. I like my monsters and gribblies too much.

Back in the day I had a fairly sizable Dol Guldur army with a Necromancer led contingent and a Spider Queen force and before that a large Mordor force. I wasn’t looking to revisit any of these and wanted to try something new. I painted a lot for those armies and wanted to get a completely fresh start, although I may revisit these forces in a few months.

All this meant looking away from the Lord of the Rings forces and adventuring into the fairly unfamiliar territory of The Hobbit. I had not kept up with model or rules releases for this, so really had no idea what was out there for it. I had seen the films when they were released, but needed a refresher alongside a read of the Hobbit armies PDF. So got the extended editions out and got my geek on.

Following this epic viewing (I really enjoyed the trilogy. Flawed films but still an awesome adventure)and reading session, I knew exactly what I wanted to collect, both good and evil forces.

I knew I wanted a hoard of orcs, gribblies and massive trolls, led by the big bad himself, Azog. Even though he doesn’t really stick to the Tolkein lore I loved this character. Just a good and proper villain. It really helped that he also came with a great selection of gribblies of all shapes and sizes. As I said earlier this is is right up my street.

I also loved the Dol Guldur fight between the White Council and the Necromancer and fell in love with the White Council. I love this whole story line and the characters involved. It also meant a small collection of key characters, so not much to collect and a great opportunity to really give them some painting love.

Not to mention a mate has a 1000pt army consisting of the Necromancer, the Nine and the Dungeon Master. It’s going to be an epic and beautifully themed game when we get a chance to play it.

I did expect it to take longer for me to get stuck into both forces, but I’ve already painted 800pts of Azog’s Legion alongside 2 members of the White Council. Check them out below…