Game - Gondor/Fiefdoms vs. Isengard - Middle-Earth

 The other day Chris and I played a game of Middle-Earth. We played 750 pts. and had agreed on a Gandalf vs. Saruman fight. Chris took on the role of Gandalf while I was Saruman.

Gandalf's army:

Warband 1:

Gandalf on Shadowfaxe

13 warriors of Minas Tirith, 7 w. sword, 6 w. spears

2 Knights of Minas Tirith

Warband 2:

Prince Imrahil on horse

3 Knights of Dol Amroth

Warband 3:

Forlong on horse

3 Knights of Dol Amroth

Saruman's Army:

Warband 1:

Saruman

13 Uruk-hai, 7 with shields, 6 with pikes

Isengard Troll

Warband 2:

Lurtz

13 Uruk-hai scouts, 6 with shield, 7 w. bow

Warband 3:

Orc on warg

6 warg riders, 3 with throwing spears, 3 with bow

We selected the scenario randomly and ended up with Hold Ground which meant that we had to fight over an objective in the center of the board. The good side won the initiative and thus had to deploy their warbands first. Unfortunately for Gandalf the dice rolls meant that Saruman could decide where Gandalf's and Forlong's warbands should enter the field. Saruman chose that they should enter in opposite corners in hope of being able to deal with them separately. Prince Imrahil was more on point and thus entered close to Forlong to support him.

Almost as planned Saruman was able to enter where he wanted to and chose to deploy between Prince Imrahil's and Forlong's warbands, ready to take them out quickly before Gandalf was able to aid the knights. Lurtz entered next to Saruman in a good position to support his master. The warg riders were forced to enter on the opposite end.

Saruman immediately used a sorcerous blast to kill a Dol Amroth knight and unhorse Prince Imrahil.

The good side won the initiative again in turn 2, but Saruman called a heroic move. Forlong tried the same, but the dice gods favoured Saruman. The troll and uruk-hais quickly attacked the knights and killed a couple of them, while Forlong was unhorsed.

Prince Imrahil was surrounded by uruk-hais but the evil warriors were unable to kill the great warrior. At the same time Lurtz led his scouts towards the obejctive.

Meanwhile Gandalf and Shadowfaxe have reached the objective and gets ready to defend it at all cost.

We had a time limit on the game and it was approaching fast. The Gondor army was attacked by Lurtz' scout from one side and the warg riders from another. So although Gandalf stood right on the objective he had not enough troops with him to hold it, and Saruman won the battle.

Despite being completely surrounded by Uruk-hais all through the battle Prince Imrahil managed to survive and lives to fight another day.

Forlong, too, survived his fight with the troll and ended up escaping over the ruins.

And so ended another great battle in Middle-Earth. I was really lucky with the deployment which meant I could unhorse the good heroes and kill most of the Dol Amroth knights almost from the start. Unfortunately I couldn't quite those heroes but I ended up swarming the objective, and the good army was only one soldier away from breaking. I really need to get the army painted as I am rather pleased with how it plays.

Hobby Update

I am unfortunately still suffering from severe pains in my shoulder, so my hobby work is very limited at the moment. So this post is a summary of what I have been doing the last few months.

While doing the 15 minutes-a-day painting challenge in January I also worked on some 6mm terrain. I had bought some 6mm latex fields and and rough ground pieces from TimeCast during the Black Friday week, that I decided to work on also. As always I kept it simple and spraypainted them brown, flocked the edges of the fields and gave them some various wash and drybrush. I'm quite pleased with the result given the work put into them. The plan was to show them when I had finished them all, but the injured shoulder put a stop to that. In the photos there are also some 6mm buildings from Irregular Miniatures that I have had for years. They were painted with contrast paints. At some point I will also do a base for them.

About a month ago I played a game of Middle-Earth against my regular LotR opponent Chris. This time he brought the Fellowship from the book 'The Quest of the Ringbearer'. I think it's the legendary formation called 'The breaking of the Fellowship', so it's without Gandalf.

I took a Mordor army led by the Shadow Lord on a Fellbeast with a Mordor troll chieftain, an orc captain and bunch of orcs. We played the scenario where we had to search 6 objectives for an item. This definitely favoured my larger army, but I was uncertain as to how I should deal with the hero army. It was, however, still a fun game, although we did make a few, possible game-changing errors.

6 markers on the table. Mordor on the left, and the Fellowship on the right.

The troll chieftain tries to flank the Fellowship, but the heroes kills the orcs easily.

The Shadow Lord leads from behind.

The Fellowships struggles against their many foes.

Eventually the Fellowship is overwhelmed. Ironically the only survivor is Boromir.

I have assembled a few things, just to try and do some hobby work. Here are some Norman archers, a Russian KV-85 and a 15mm ruin.

And when I cannot do hobby work I have resorted to purchasing stuff to fill my hobby needs. A local Danish hobby shop have had a FoW sellout with 50% off everything, so I have stocked up on such items. I also won a Facebook auction for some painted LotR elves.

My gaming room in the garage has suffered from a leaking roof for some time, so now we decided to get it fixed. So we hired someone to put a new roof on the garage. Hopefully I will be able make the room a little bit better when the roof is done, so that will be the focus for the coming months. 

And hopefully my shoulder will get better, so I can paint some more stuff. I still have lots on the painting list, and the collection is still growing.

Game - Middle-Earth - Elves/Rohan vs Moria

 Last night I played a game of Middle-Earth against Chris and his Moria goblins and their friends. We played 600 pts.

I had 3 warbands, one with Legolas and and 14 warriors from the Halls of Thranduil list, one with a mounted Rohan captain and 12 Riders of Rohan, and one with Gamling and 10 warriors of Rohan. I don't have that many different troop choices for my LotR armies, so that is why it is all common troops in this list.

Chris had 2 warbands, one led by a Balrog and one led by a goblin captain. He also had a cave troll and about 25-30 goblins.

Deployment. Chris put the Balrog in the middle, and the goblin captain with the cave troll on his right flank. I tried to spread out my army as much as possible to outflank the goblins and avoid the Balrog as much as possible.

We played the Clash at Moonlight scenario, which although randomly selected seemed very appropriate. This meant that shooting ranges were only up to 12" which hampered me severely, but shootings attacks also had +1 to wound which was very nice.

I really didn't know what to do against the great Balrog, so I quickly decided to just go for his goblin friends instead. One of the Rohan warriors did, however, get a lucky hit quite early, which actually earned me a victory point.

When my Rohan riders stormed up my right flank, Chris decided to move the Balrog and most of his army towards that threat. This left my elves on the right flank a bit out of the battle, but at least there were a few goblins they could kill on their flank (apart from one lucky little bastard who somehow survived in combat against 2 elves most of the battle).

I had hoped to make a dashing cavalry strike on my right but when the Balrog turned towards the Rohan riders they quickly changed their minds and tried to get away from the monster.

The Balrog did manage to catch and slay a handful of riders, but the rest managed to get away, while the rest of my army killed a bunch of goblins.

The Elves cleared my right flank and much of the center (apart from that little bugger seen in the left corner here).

The Balrog got ready to charge the center of my army, but it was too late. I had killed almost all the goblins and so the Moria army was forced to retreat.

A fun game were I fought hard to avoid or limit the Balrog's killing ability. I had quite a lot of shooting in my army, so I think it was lucky that we played a scenario that limited it. Legolas did very little in the game other than kill a few goblins. The heroes of the game were those unfortunate Rohan riders and warriors that had to give their lives to ensure the rest of the army could go goblin hunting 😀

Always fun to play against Chris, and I am sure he's fine tuning his army and tactics for our next game.