THE MOUNTAIN GROWS HIGHER...
It's early 2025, and the mountain proves it's challenge, as ever, by increasing it's height.
I've been on holiday over the 2024/25 Christmas/New Year's period, a much needed break from my day job as a University Researcher in Palaeolithic Archaeology. The last term was taken up mostly with teaching, admin and the grant application that I am desperately cobbling together in the hopes of continuing my academic employment into 2026. Such is academic life...
As is my want when feeling the pressure, I indulge in my hobbies buy purchasing more stuff. Yes, perhaps not a sensible reaction for someone who is already facing an overwhelming pile of grey plastic that needs a good lick of paint, but here we are. And, with the release of the War of the Rohirrim movie at the start of December and undertaking my traditional Yuletide viewing of the Lord of the Rings, I have been bitten by the Tolkien bug. Games Workshop helpfully dropped their new version of the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game at the same time and...here we are. I picked up a Rohan battleforce and added more minis onto the pile.
However, I've been cracking through them at pace using the latest craze – double slapchop. The riders are already done (though as I write this I will note that I just dropped a craft knife on them this morning and added a broken bow to the list of injuries they've already suffered while building them — at least one other broken spear! Oh, well, an easy fix with some glue). The warriors are coming along too, just needing a few more highlights and some basing before they're finished. I am pretty happy with the progress so far this year after only a couple of weeks!
Not particularly happy with GW's eye-watering prices for some of the LotR's stuff, I have made matters worse though by going and buying a bunch of Victrix Early Saxons and Late Roman Cavalry to convert into more Rohirrim, as well as a load of Normans that I'll be painting up as Gondorians in a style much closer to that evoked by John Howe's beautiful illustrations.
The climb continues...