Many Mithril Pages @ Faerylands

What do you mean, Master Twrich? - even if Sauron himself threatened to insert little pointy things under my fingernails, I would never, ever, EVER exaggerate - er, hang on, I think I just did...

LOL master barkeep. I think you have a better sense of humour than most of us, and certainly better than I.

Last edited by twrich (Mon, Feb15 2010 5:29am)

erchamion wrote:

Voting will begin on the 11th of February (first round), Michael said.

Has forgotten Michael to enable the vote?

:

I answer myself

I apologise for not stopping the thread earlier but Chris forgot to send me the list of suggestions he agrees with so I left it open until he got back to me. We will have the list up later today. -------Michael today in the Mithril´s page.....

Well, there's room for both. There has to be.

Look at the first three or four years of the Mithril line. What do you see? Orc enemies, player character types, important personalities, warriors and fighters. Standard bearers, captains and chieftains. Why? Because Mithril was born to serve the Middle-earth roleplaying game. And this is a good thing. MERP represents the greatest exploration and expansion of Tolkien's world ever. It was only much later when Mithril aimed for small vignettes, scenes and odd little collectables.

You don't need to be collecting a gaming army to appreciate a Minas Morgul standard bearer. It could just as easily be the centrepiece of a wonderful diorama. We've had things made such as the Forging of Anduril which, while nice, is not much good to me, and three witch kings in the Fellowship range alone.

I am also quite the purist, but I also remember when Mithril came from (and with a new LOTR RPG in the works, I'd love to see it continuing in that direction a ways)

Gavin

Some of the decisions thrown up are peculiar, as are some of the winners.

And some of the votes are obviously there to round out an army or diorama set or something. For example, Mithril has had certain "signature" armies which keep coming up: the hordes of Angmar, for example, or the Orcs of Minas Morgul. (Go look through the database, see what I mean) but because of the peculiar way that Mithril releases products, you end up with "bits" of the army released over decades.

This Christmas we got a MERP villain who was first mentioned in an early 80s ICE supplement. Recently we got the Angmar standard bearer - to go with the Angmar half-troll captain released in 1990. Now others clearly want a Morgul standard bearer to go with the Morgul captain and the Morgul orcs and various other denizens of Cirith Ungol and places nearby. At some time in the dim and distant future, I'll put together my Minas Morgul mithril army, and then a standard bearer will be quite welcome.

The other factor is that while many do not want Mithril to become GW (obviously!), GW has a deeply unpleasant habit of making hideous throwaway creations for important, if minor, elements of Middle-earth. The Mithril Arnorian knight is a head and shoulders above the GW Arnor model set. The Mithril black numenorean, with his MERP style helm, is a beautiful, subtle and believable creation. The GW black numenoreans are an embarassment.

So for some collectors, (like me) buying Mithrils is also an opportunity to see these elements of Middle-earth realised by someone with an obvious love and respect for the material, matched to talent and commitment. So the military mithrils are worthy competition to the others. (The Lord of the Rings, after all, is the story of a war, and those caught up in it)

But Mithril, unlike GW, can make soldiers and heroes and captains and turn around and release a set of some characters having tea. And so it should be.

I suspect Chris sculpted full plate armour back in the day without really thinking about it. Back then, MERP and geekdom in general worked on the assumption that "mail" meant "armour" in general. So now he continues the "look" for certain figures. A lot of MERP material was written before we had access to Tolkien's letters and sundry extras like the history of Middle-earth.

The later and clearer understanding of Middle-earth as some sort of 19th century Oxfordshire-meets-Dark-Ages-Germanic-saga is a little later than the birth of Mithril.

Though if Chris ever runs out of subjets to sculpt, he could do worse than re-making some of the plate-armoured Last Alliance heroes and ancient Noldor.

Gavin

Gavin wrote:

The GW black numenoreans are an embarassment.

Well of course they are - they were designed by Mr Morley. What more needs to be said?

Ahh, that's what the Pony needs - more Rolling Stones references! And the widely varying wants/needs/hopes/desires of the GF members, as regards good/evil/generics/heroes, is meanwhie being entirely underlined by the scatter-gun nature of this month's voting even as we sit here and drink (sorry, I meant think - sort of), with no clear leader and only 4 votes between the highest and lowest scorers!

Yes Master Tree, the line does continue like that, with words  'you just might find ' in there as well.

Are we allowed by Mithril to purchase two of these UP sets at once master Tree, or would you prefer us to buy one at first and wait a while for others to be able to scrape their coiny things together, maybe a couple months or so. I wouldn't want someone to go without because I bought two (one to paint, one to collect), but I would like to save on the shipping.

I post this here, the most frequently visited area of MMP, so others can read your thoughts.

I think that in days to come this will prove to be Chris's greatest Mithril work, and will be the centerpiece of many collections!

Last edited by twrich (Fri, Feb19 2010 2:15am)

Whew!  Just coming home from other parts.  A round for everyone and something strong, but not too strong for me. 

And a bowl of the best, clearest water for Master Ent any time he might want it for the wonderful UP. 

Huuoommmmm ... rhuommhuom ... homm ... it's so good to have you around here again, Mistress Wendy .... huoommm, indeed it is ... hommm ... rhuoomm ... but you might reconsider your offer of a 'bowl-of-clear-clean-non-sparkeling-honey-tasting-watery-liquid-I-do-prefer-most-of-all-them waters-for-which-I-do-not-have-to-spend-any-coiny-thing on it" ... rhhuoommm ...
rhuoouummmhuommm ... thank you very much, Mistress Wendy .... but I think you should rather offer The Man a free drink, as he had to do all the work with that MP-thing ... rhuoommm

Huuuoommmmm ... Master Barliman, .... ahem... you're the  one who knows ....

huoommm ... so it could also have been a 'white tower' on a black field ... no ... rhuoomm ..
I think that as Master Sauron chose the red colour to his visible threats -  as later it was the red  eye - the 'Necromancer' might have used a 'Tower' as a sign for a fortified place ... huoomm ... in that case a red tower on a plain green field ... huoomm .... sorry, it's not dark enough to see ... rhuoomhuommmhommm ...
Thank you, Master Arthadan, for sharing this issue ... hooommm