Hammerhand

Rowain Boleman peered over the lighthouse tower's walls into the misty fog that hung over the rocky northern Avalonian coast. "I get no action out here, I wish I had been assigned to the Nocturnus/Avalonian border. I mean, what's out here besides rocks and dreary weather?" he said, looking disgustedly at the blurry horizon. As he did so, something caught his attention. "Is that... sails?" He took off his helmet to see better. After a few moments had passed, the blurry apparation came more clearly into focus. "Those are most definitely black sails," he said. Just as he was about to go downstairs to alert the captain of the tower, he heard a flapping noise. Startled, he turned and pointed his spear in the direction of the noise. All he saw was a large grey osprey, staring at him intently. "It's just a stupid bird" he said, annoyed with his own skittishness. The bird's gaze seemed to intensify, as he went to shoo it away. "Get out of - aaaaaak!" A shooting pain blasted through his body, with the intensity of lightning. Stunned he fell to the ground, unconscious. Silently, the osprey took to the air, gliding out toward the sea. Thirty minutes later, when Rowain didn't come to change guards for the 5 time that week, Brant Grayson, captain of the tower, went up to personally give him a lecture. "Rowain!" he shouted. When there was no answer, he walked around the corner in a fury. But that fury was gone in an instant when he saw his unreliable underling lying on the floor. Running over he took his pulse, which was barely discernible."Rowain, can you hear me?!" he yelled. Rowain's eyes opened slightly. "What happened? Who did this to you?" asked Brant. "Bird... Sails..." was the reply. "What? What do you mean? What bird? What sails?". "Sa... sails...". Looking up, Brant's eyes scanned the sea. "There's nothing out there, what are you saying?' But Rowain gave no answer, and his eyes started to close. "Rowain! Stay with me!" The battle hardened captain knew that Rowain was about to close his eyes forever. Right before his eyes closed all the way though, he lifted a hand up to grab Brants shirt. With great effort, the dying man said with as much intensity as he could muster, "Black... sails!" and with that, he went limp, his eyes no longer seeing. Drawing his fingers over Rowain's eyes to close them, Brant stood up. "I won't let your death be in vain, "he promised. After a proper burial, Captain Brant instructed one of his soldiers to ride swiftly to Albion to report the strange death, and the sighting of black sails. What these happenings could mean, he could only guess, and all his guesses left him feeling very unsettled. And that's my entry for the Ch 2 Prologue (Avalonia). Sorry for the not so good pictures. I was really pressed for time, since I came up with this last minute, so I had to rush. Plus the pictures were taken inside at night, so the lighting is below par. 75% of the build itself was done yesterday/last night, though the rock base was mostly done on Saturday. But it was fun. Mostly. I was trying to kind of get a dreary rocky shore feel for this build, kind of like you see in the Scotland area, and that was kind of a new experience for me, along with the water technique. I should note that the blury-ness of the first couple pictures was on purpose to give it a foggy look. So C&C are definitely welcome! EDIT: Here are some better pictures of the build, along with one highlighting the light brick use to make this a light house.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to get a build up in time for this challenge. Been pretty busy, and I can't think of any ideas. It's a cool challenge though.

Must be. You should join Guilds of Historica as an Avalonian. Good builders are always welcome there, and it's a fun place to show/see builds, learn new techniques, and build for challenges if you want.

Amazon's prices seem to be going down on the Dos sets also. DGA is $15, and DGB and LTC are both $48. Also, Battle at the Black Gate is $44 now, and CoE is $22. And with stores lowering the prices it's got me worried about what's going on. It's really not looking good for Lego Middle Earth unfortunately. I hope I'm wrong though.

Love the interior! I noticed you're flying Avalonian colors on your tavern...

Definitely Osgiliath. It would for sure have Gondor soldiers, and it could also come Gothmog, and some new Morgul/Morannon orcs. It could also have the witch king possibly included, or at least a Nazgul on a fell beast.

Yes, that's why I said that there's hope that the final will be better. But I can see Smaug's whole body in that poster if I zoom in, and I'm honestly not impressed with that version, although the tail piece does look interesting. I just want to see the final version, which hopefully we'll see at SDCC. @Azog15, I think that we'll probably see the set with Smaug, since he's the main subject of the movies. Don't know for sure which set that'll be, but I'm guessing it would be the Erebor set.

I've got a ship mostly done. Now I just need to add a harbor so it can count for the Settlement Task!

Hmm, I have to say that I don't really like the way Smaug looks here. I particularly don't like his head. It doesn't look mean enough, and it needs to be more angular. He could also use more spikes and detail on his face. Plus, one of Smaug's trademark things is his large lower jaw, which is actually bigger than his upper jaw. I also don't like that they're reusing the old dragon legs for his hind legs, they look to large. I'd rather have seen a new smaller mold for his hind legs to be more accurate. I know this sounds pretty harsh, but I was kind of expecting more detail, and it to look more like Smaug in the movie. I guess there's hope that the actual one they release will be a bit better... And at least we're getting a Smaug. Got to be thankful for that. Oh, random bonus - If you look closely at the poster, both Oin and Balin are holding Sting (Oin actually has two).

Nice! The use of the slope pieces on the largest tree really work well to make it look like an evergreen tree. Pretty clever actually. The only thing is, and this is probably just my lego OCD, but the upside down white cheese slope next to the red rag would seem to be defying gravity. By that I mean I've never seen snow hanging upside down from a rock. Not that it matters though, I just thought it was kind of amusing.

Thanks narbilu. And yep, we're ready for whatever Round ll brings! After all, we're Avalonians, 'da best guild.

Thank you all. Link posted, and Task 1 complete! And I'm now officially a EB citizen...

Very nice, like all your builds. The little cottage looks very quaint.

Task 1 complete - Ferinwald's Army

The bottom of the logs are genius! And I love how you made underwater visible. That tree is great too, one of the better evergreen-type trees I've seen. Cool build!

Thank you Sirs! I wish it was bigger, but what can ya do... Kabel, I suppose I should have given the two middle cavalry men different colored shields, but the only other colors I had were red or blue... So I'll just say that they traded some bread for the shields from some drunken Mitgardian soldiers who had no money.

I agree with Kabel, the use of greenery/foliage really goes well with the castle. It makes it look like the castle's built into the surroundings, all while accenting it very nicely.

Finally got around to photographing the army of Ferinwald, Avalonia. I apologize if I was supposed to post this somewhere else, but I couldn't find any other place, so here it is. Swordsmen. Gotta have 'em. Archers. RELEASE! Axemen. For some reason their names are the scariest... Unmounted Cavalry. Oxymoron, I know. And the army all together, minus the commanders that I forgot to include. The end.

I would love another Viking line with new helmets, and using the shields like the one in the CMF line, rather than the sticker on the black wheel piece they did before. Maybe they could even reuse the Warg mold from the Hobbit as large wolves, and as others have said, Smaugs mold. I would definitely get into viking sets again, since I like their torso/weapon pieces better for using as regular castle soldiers etc.

Awesome build! The rocks look very believable, and I love the bridge.

Y'all should just name it pumpkin-pie port. Or just pumpkin port. What better represents Nocturnus than that?....

Once again, Minas Morgul.

Yeah, I know he was there in the books, but he's not there in DoS, so it's interesting that there's pictures of him. I'm wondering if those scenes are going to be in TABA.

I never noticed before, but in that first link, if you look closely, the guy about to land on Gandalf looks like Thrain...

I love that mushroom on the right using the shakespeare collar. Nice job.