The Night Raid

The Night Raid was a brilliant RP event held tonight, where several groups if Free Peoples stormed a large camp of evil Dunlanders. This time, however, they weren't just NPCs, and they fought back hard.


Sander Woodhead, my evil Dunlander for the night, watched the western bridge for signs of trouble.


Out of the rainy mists a group of heroes stormed through and pushed into the camp.


They cut down everyone in the camp, and outnumbered, the evil leaders were forced up the hill.




A small but desperate skirmish was fought on a platform overlooking the hilltop.

Classic Armours: Helegrod, Part 1 of 3

Helegrod!
Helegrod!
Helegrod!
...it's only a model.

Here are the old, OLD raid sets from Helegrod, the original and only 24-man raid in LotRO. Although the raid is, in its current form, horrendously outdated, it's still run by many people for deeds and, occasionally, even fun. In the next update the huge instance will be split into separate wings, it can be scaled up to lv65 and there will be new challenges (hardmodes) in each boss encounter. We'll have to wait and see what they'll do with the current armour rewards.

Anyway, here are the Helegrod light armours. Note that these are all from the era of Silly Hat Designs. I have a feeling the artist team was still looking for a consistent style, because some of these designs just look old and, compared to the later Rift set, rather ugly.

Silver-voice set

Minstrel set. Confusingly the new minnie set from BG is also called Armour of the Silver Voice.

Beast-master set

Lore-master set. The robe design is really unique, but sadly it doesn't dye that well. Also, revenge of the Tea Cosy Hat!

Learned set

Runekeeper set, which stands apart from the other armours since it was created over a year later than the first sets and doesn't actually look all that bad (the discontinued Ettenmoors version was especially cool-looking!).

Classic Armours: Rift, part 3 of 3

And lastly, here are the heavy armour sets from the Rift. I've used RED dye to show each dyeable area. Here it's pretty obvious that they re-used most of the armour models, but managed to create enough difference with shoulder and helmet designs. I really wish they'd continue making more of these extravagant shoulderpads (without going all WoW, haha).

Gloom-bane set

Champion set, which is probably one of the coolest-looking armours in the entire game. Red is also the original dye on the armour, and I didn't have the heart to swap to any other colour because it just doesn't look the same.


North Star set

Captain set, which, like the burglar set, looks rather odd on an elf (it's not possible to roll elf captains nor burglars, so this look isn't possible to achieve ingame... yet). It's still one of the best-looking armours for captains, and looks especially gorgeous in all-white.

Rift Defender's set

Guardian set, which looks quite a lot like the champ set when dyed red (it's blue originally). The shoulders look HUUUGE on other races, especially on those stocky dwarves.


Allright, so that was all the classic armour sets from the Rift. Next up will be classic Helegrod, and after that... you tell me! What would you like me to showcase next, in glorious high-quality screenshots?

Classic Armours: Rift, part 2 of 3

Here are the medium sets from the Rift, again with RED as the dyeable colour. Note that some of the helmets are 'bugged' so that they look pitch black in the dressing room (front and back view), can't really help that - they do look better ingame.

Doom-hunter's set

Hunter set, that helmet is my favourite in the whole game (although the BG headgear is a close second).

Thrill-seeker's set

Burglar set, which looks rather odd on an elf :D. That hood is also very popular, especially now that it's available as a cosmetic version from any skirmish vendor. It's actually rather difficult to find any other pieces of armour/clothing that go well with it, and on most non-burglars it just looks out of place.

Town-saver's set

Warden set, I really really like the chestpiece here, it looks very feminine :D. I wish they'd make a proper 'skirt' model instead of that old one they've used here.

Classic Armours: Rift, part 1 of 3

Here are the three light armour sets obtained from the Rift, which used to be "the" endgame for years and is still considered by most to be the best raid in Lord of the Rings Online. Luckily the next updates should see the Rift, as well as other "classic" instances, become scalable up to the current max level. Since we don't know yet how they'll change the loot and other rewards in the scalable instances, it might be a good idea to go grab parts of these armour sets now that they're still fairly easy to get, as both Rift and Helegrod can be easily run with a fellowship (6 people) or even less. Grab some friends (preferably champions :D) and have fun!

Wandering Bard's set

Minstrel set, RED areas are dyeable.

Elder Days set

Lore-master set, again RED areas are dyeable.

NB! There's a strange 'feature' in most Rift headgears; for some reason they appear black when viewed straight from the front or the back. For a better look, check out the cosmetic versions from any skirmish vendor.

Graven Word set

Rune-keeper set, used GREEN here for dyeable areas since the original colour of the robe and accessories is a reddish brown.

For stats and more information on each armour set, see Darzil's Armour Guide.

Fan Service: Annúminas Armour

I'm grabbing some of roll100's keywords and trying to answer them as well as I can, hence the title "fan service". One of the most used keywords people have used to find this blog is "annuminas armour", which is kind of odd since I haven't really talked about it, except perhaps than mention that it's rather pretty, so I thought I might as well post some juicy screenshots of it for your viewing pleasure.

Why the sudden interest in such an old instance? Well, once LotRO goes free-to-play, all these old instances will be scalable, so they should see some more traffic in the future. The devs have also stated that these old sets can be acquired as cosmetic items, so their looks will definitely be popular again - there's also the new Wardrobe function, which should offer all kinds of interesting possibilities if it'll allow sharing cosmetic looks between characters on the same account...

There are three different sets total, one for light, one for medium and one for heavy armour users. Each set has seven pieces and a 6-piece set bonus, and they can be acquired by bartering Battered Annúminas Armours and Armour Fragments which can be looted from most mobs around Annúminas. Some pieces, notably the chest, leggings, shoulders and headgear (shield for the heavy set) need a specific trophy that can only be found inside one of the three instances inside the sunken city.

Seven Stars set

This is the light armour, called the Seven Stars set. I'm using WHITE dye here to show each dyeable area - click on the image for a high-res version. The headgear has the same skin as a Dwarf-Make circlet.
PROTIP: the shoulderpads go really well with almost every other armour.

Nenuial set

Medium armour, called the Nenuial set. Again, the WHITE areas are dyeable, but the bright green is pretty dominant whatever you do.
PROTIP: the boots are awesome.

West-tower set

Heavy armour, called the West-tower set. This set doesn't have a headgear, instead it's got a heavy shield.
PROTIP: the cloak, Cloak of The West-tower, dyes really well and looks good on any character. You don't need to be a heavy armour user to wear the cloak.

I went and took similar high-res screenies of all the other "classic" armour sets as well, expect to see them in future updates!

(btw I always feel dirty when I'm accessing Google Analytics by typing "anal" into my address bar... now let's see how that sentence will affect this blog's keywords :D!)

Wilderness Appreciation

Read more about this exciting event here!

Demotivational LotRO posters

O LÅL LOOK IT'S A MEME HAHA OH WOW SO FUNNAY

Maddy contributes:





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