Friday, March 27, 2009

More Battle of Five Armies goodness


While writing my recent post on J.R.R. Tolkien's Battle of Five Armies I spent some time googling for a few accompanying photos. In so doing I stumbled across a few related items that I felt compared to share. These include:

A Battle of Five Armies live-action role-playing event. I personally have never LARPed, nor really felt the urge to do so (except after several drinks). I'm not going to sit here and ridicule LARP, since I play tabletop RPGs and that would be more than a little hypocritical on my part. But something about LARP just rubs me as ... going too far. It's just not my thing.

But you know what? This event (to be held August 14-16, 2009) looks pretty cool. I'm impressed that five individual units, each with their own Web site and forum, have agreed to meet up and participate. I just might get in on this event. Put me in the vanguard of Dain's army, or let me play one of the bodyguard of Bolg. All that I need are a foam sword and cardboard armor and shield. And a few stiff drinks.

On second thought, I'd be willing to watch this, perhaps.

The Battle of Five Armies boardgame by Games Workshop. Now this is more my speed. Tell me that the cover of this game does not rock.

I'm not a big wargamer but I used to play Axis and Allies quite a bit, which come to think of it was a battle of five armies of sorts (albeit those of Germany, Japan, Great Britain, Russia, and the U.S.). But I would definitely be willing to take this game for a spin. These painted miniatures and terrain look pretty groovy, too.

7 comments:

Chad Thorson said...

I've got this game, it's awesome. It's based on the Warmaster rules. I've yet to play it though (being a dad and a working stiff cuts into gaming time). But it's definitely worth buying!

Brian Murphy said...

I demand you play it and give a full report on your blog!

... but seriously, I know all about the demands of fatherhood and work.

Anonymous said...

TSR also published a game based on the Battle of the Five Armies way back 'in the day' (1976).

http://www.freewebs.com/tolkienboardgamecollecting/battleof5armiestsr.htm

I used to own a copy (boxed) until I Ebayyed it a couple of years back.

Carl

Chad Thorson said...

The moment I play it, I promise I'll blog about it. I'm one of those weirdos who has to paint all the minis before I can play the game. I've got 3 stands of elf infantry painted and one stand of goblin infantry and one stand of goblin warg riders. That's about it so far.

Coppelstone Casting made some great miniatures that can be used with this game also.

http://www.copplestonecastings.co.uk/range.php?range=FAN

I also seem to remember that ICE made a pretty good version of Battle of Five Armies, as well.

Falze said...

"Put me in the vanguard of Dain's army"

Methinks thou wouldst be a most overtall dwarf ;)

Brian Murphy said...

Anonymous and Atom Kid: Thanks for pointing those other Battle of Five Armies games/miniatures. They look pretty sweet too. I have an old issue of White Dwarf that acutally provides rules for running the Battle of the Pelennor Fields using warhammer rules. I can dream about running this some day.

Falze: That's (one of the) problems I have with LARP as opposed to tabletop RPGs. It's a lot more difficult to maintain a suspension of disbelief when the guy playing the dwarf (or elf) is 6-2, 250 pounds.

Mythopoeia said...

What I would want to see is the group who are going to RP the army of the Eagles . . .