From StuartL - Free Immortality, no stRINGs attached - 25 Points

 Well, here we are with my first post for Challenge Eleven.

To introduce myself to any newcomers and to re-introduce myself to existing Challengers, my name is Stuart and I am originally from the UK. I've been living in Japan for about 16 years now and I have more minis in my small hobby room than I know what to do with. This is my third Challenge (the 4th if you include the Quarantine Challenge earlier this year) and it's my favourite time of the year. 

This year I have set myself a lot of goals. 1750 points is my first target, with a top ten finish being the ideal. I have entered side duels for painting the most GW minis, painting the most Skulls and painting the most genres of mini. (Squirrel!!). I also aim to reach the Altar of the Snowlord and see what fiendish things our gracious host has cooked up for me.

The first step on the path to the Altar is the Hall of Traps, which has the theme of a figure which is trapped, stuck in a trap, snared or lying in wait. This was quite a tricky one and I spent ages rummaging through figure boxes until I found something suitable. In this case a Ringwraith from Lord of the Rings.

As any true scholar will tell you, the Ringwraiths, or Nazgul were once mortal kings and powerful men. The Dark Lord Sauron gave each of them a ring of power, which made them all but immortal, but at the same time bound them to Sauron's will. For future reference, don't accept gifts from people with the title 'Dark Lord', it never ends well.

So in a sense, (and the one I'm using to justify this figure as my entry to the Hall of Traps), the Ringwraiths were ensnared by Sauron and his magic, destined to become dark spectres of terror and Sauron's most feared servants. 

This figure is a metal model of a Ringwraith from GW's Lord of the Rings game series that I bought years ago. I never really played much of the LotR game, mainly due to a lack of local interest. The rules seemed okay so long as you never used the more powerful named characters. One game I did play saw Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas murder the Balrog for the loss of only Merry and Pippin, something that would have changed the trilogy immensely if it had been included in the original story.

So there we have my first entry. This should score me 5 points for the figure, 20 for the Hall of Traps and it puts 5 points towards my Games Workshop side duel. Just to round things off, I'll also offer this mini up as my Curtgeld, as I am sure there are a few LotR fans among my fellow challengers.

Now, on to the Pit of the Pendulum.