So I've been posting a little lately, as I've just gotten back into miniatures painting, after a looong break.

I've been collecting miniatures for more than 25 years. I have thousands of figures I'll never assemble or paint. Buying them isn't an issue and painting them before I buy more ain't ever going to happen.

I'm basically buying all the LOTR books and minis I like now, before GW lose the licence. At that point I won't much care if they do, since I'll have everything I'll ever need.

I lost interest in miniatures for a few years (predominantly a 40k player), and through playing the MMORPG Lord of the Rings Online and rewatching the films recently I got reinterested in the miniatures game.

I've decided to get some basic forces together, with the help of people in this forum. I'm going for Isengard, Mordor, Minas Tirith and Army of the Dead. Since 500 points appears to be a "normal" sized force for small fun SBG games, I'm going for those, and have posted a "help me make some lists" thread in the Army Help section of the board.

The idea behind setting up some workable-sized armies is to both allow some games, which help to keep the painting enthusiasm up, and also to set some painting targets, which I can then complete, which again keeps the painting enthusiasm going.

When possible, I'll also be joining in the monthly Painting Challenges here. Not for the "competition" or the "coins" since I care about neither, but to give me another impetus to paint things I might not have done, and keep it interesting. For example, over the past 2 days the 2 Barrow Wights that have been sitting in a box, not particularly important or of any kind of priority got painted, along with 2 Army of the Dead guys I nicked from my wife's box, so that I could paint them in the same scheme as the 3rd and 4th Wights from the FotR Sourcebook scenario, and have 4 unique models for the 4 Wights. I just need to get the pics up sometime today.

cheers!

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scipio.au AKA Azazelx.

http://azazelx.wordpress.com/
My miniatures painting blog.

Welcome back to the hobby, scipio! It's always good to see old players come back. You seem to be those guys who like to keep a strategic reserve of unpainted miniatures instead of the more common "tactical reserve".

The monthly painting challenge has been a real boost to my interest too. I painted hardly anything for a couple of years but now these monthly deadlines have re-sparked my interest and as a side effect also gotten me cranking out basic troops from the assembly line.

-- Pasi