"Many Of His Men Were Won Over With Promises Of Glory Or Oaths Of Loyalty."

"And many more followed Horus simply because they always had."

This pair of 28mm plastic Space Marines are by "Games Workshop" and come from the now OOP (Out Of Production) Burning Of Prospero boxed game. The multi-part figures have been assembled wearing MK III armour, and will form part of a Sons of Horus Tactical Squad for the Horus Heresy. Both figures were initially undercoated with "Citadel" Sons Of Horus Green, before being heavily washed with Nuln Oil, and dry-brushed with (more) Sons Of Horus Green.

I then applied some "Citadel" Abaddon Black to their shoulder-pads, as well parts of their backpacks and Bolters. The models' power tubes and firearms were subsequently treated to a combination of "Vallejo" Gunmetal and "Citadel" Nuln Oil. Whilst I 'picked out' all the ridges on their shoulder-pads and helmet brows with a little "Vallejo" Gold. These areas were later given a splash of "Citadel" Agrax Earthshade and highlighted with some additional touches of "Vallejo" Gold on the sharpest edges and rivets.

Gondor lines up against the formidable forces of Lurtz and Isengard's fighting Uruk-hai

With two more of my Sons of Horus space marines completed, I also managed to participate in another 500 point skirmish using the "Middle Earth: Strategy Battle Game" rules by "Games Workshop". This time my Isengard force simply faced a similarly-sized army of Gondor in a fight "To The Death!" using the rule-book's second scenario. Once again though we slightly reduced the recommended set-up measurements to better accommodate the three foot square table we were using.

To mix things up from my previous victory, and learn a bit more as to how effective archery can be in the game, I decided to line my Uruk-hai scout archers on my left flank facing Beregond's unit of archers. This shoot-out ultimately just showed how difficult it is to actually hit anyone with arrows when using bows, albeit over the course of the battle my leather-clad "Orc-folk" were slowly whittled down by their better armoured human opponents.

Gandalf unsuccessfully attempts to overcome the magical might of the White Wizard, Saruman

In the centre I placed Lurtz along with his contingent of fighting Uruk-hai and Bezerkers. Initially, these faced across some ruins at Gondor's swordsmen and spearmen. But during the fight I quickly split most of my Bezerkers off to the right so as to tackle my opponent's Knights of Minas Tirith. Quite surprisingly, this proved to a most wise decision, as my ferocious fighters easily withstood the inevitably cavalry charge, and then chopped both Knight and horse to pieces before the battle was over.

This massacre then allowed my Bezerkers to rejoin my Uruk-hai who were battling Gondor's increasingly beleaguered swordsmen, and soon afterwards there was little doubt that Isengard would be victorious once again. However, one of the best moments in the entire game was Saruman's sorcerous duel with Gandalf, which at one point looked likely to see my (true) White Wizard roast his Olórin alive with a devastating Flameburst...