As many of you may know after the Battle of Five Armies Dale is reforged as a Kingdom and not a Lordship, I am to create an army around the time after the Battle of Five Armies but Pre - War of the Ring, I am still working on an Army list of 500pts and am working out Dale's history and culture. Currently I know i will include Bard the Bowman as he is a lovely model and a great character also will be my first Finecast so want the model to be special. From what I know Dalians are Northmen to the East which i associate with Russia, but Dale was famous for its archers, same as the medieval English also Russia during the Middle Ages for the most part was a Grand Duchy whereas Dale and England were Kingdom's, also if anyone has played Third Age Total War some of the Dalian troops look Norman like. My first goal is to make some Dale buildings and write a good army list to work for.

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"An Hour of Wolves and Shattered Shields When the Age of Men Comes Crashing Down" - Aragorn

Adding Erkenbrand as a "Dale Captain" with Westfold Redshields would round dale out well imo and Yeah I have played Third Age Total War and based on that something like Rangers/Dunedain (Dale Rangers) and the Knight of the White Tower (Swordmaster elite units in the game).

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Go The Glorf!
My W.I.P - viewtopic.php?f=50&t=28062

What would be more useful Rangers of Dale or Riders of Dale? Cause Warriors of Dale have a basic shoot value and the rangers would help out alot but cavalry could help tactically as strategically

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"An Hour of Wolves and Shattered Shields When the Age of Men Comes Crashing Down" - Aragorn

Currently Army List 398pts out of 500pts maybe some more warriors could help out

Warband 1
Bard the Bowman

Warband 2
Captain of Dale with Shield
10 Warriors of Dale ( 4 Spear and Shield, 3 Shield and 3 Bow)

Warband 3
Captain of Dale with Shield
10 Warriors of Dale ( 4 Spear and Shield, 3 Shield and 3 Bow)

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"An Hour of Wolves and Shattered Shields When the Age of Men Comes Crashing Down" - Aragorn

You could easily give Bard a warband of Laketown guards and just call them "Dale Militia"?
Fill out the other two warbands and you should be at about 500 points with a 38-39 model count.

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Go The Glorf!
My W.I.P - viewtopic.php?f=50&t=28062

Since Lake Town itself was rebuilt, probably as a fief of Dale, it's reasonable that it's military would have been at the King's command.

For my Dale I was planning on merging Dale warriors with Riders of Rohan to create rRders of Dale (Rohan proxies) Also considering sculpting additional chain and plate on some figures to create elite Knights/Guards for the kingdom. (I was thinking Rohan Royal Guard proxies. Maybe even use the rohan minis as the base, and add Dale buts to them, raher than add armour to Dale models.)

Rangers could be made to work, but they seem a very Numenorean thing - perhaps you could make them work as "woodsmen" with the appropriate models/conversions, I'm not sure. Gandalf mentions them in the area, and they may have come under Dale's domain.

Obviously allied troops from Erebor would be fitting if you were pressed for points?

It's a project I've been hoping to tackle for some time, but my hobby tike is taken up with finishing off my LotR collection before it goes oop, so I've not so much as bought a single box of Dale Warriors.

It's worth considering that the cinematic Dale is very himilayan/eastern european in it's designs. I'd suggest deciding whether you want movie-dale, or your interpretation of book-dale, since the your vision could be incompatible with the culture already in place in the film version. I wish you the best of luck for it though if you decide to envision it how you think it should be - such projects are always the most satisfying, and very exciting to see finished.

Thanks for the advice im thinking Laketown Guard might be the way to go, problem is they're quite expensive for the number of models you actually receive, Dale to me has always been a fusion of Anglo Eastern cultures with the Third Age Total War making me feel more so, in TaTW Dale Swordsmen have Kite shields which I associate with Normans ( those who took over england ) plus their famed for the bowman aka English Longbows but have a eastern feel

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"An Hour of Wolves and Shattered Shields When the Age of Men Comes Crashing Down" - Aragorn

Best of luck with the project, then.

Conquest Games do a lovely couple of sets of plastic normans (foot and mounted), so they could be a start model wise - perhaps with some parts of the Fireforge Games Mongols for an eastern feel (I'm mainly thinking hats, recurve bows, etc). Hell, the current WETA style Dale minis might have something salvageable for that eastern feel. But much more expensive than the Fireforge set. Plastics at any rate would be my go to, simply because of the ease with which you could convert them and kitbash them together.

Rules wise I'd honestly wait till you have models you're happy with. It'll be far more satisfying to find an appropriate profile to match the models than have to do it the other way around.