Middle Earth SBG - Fords of Isen

A bit of a late post as this was my last game of 2019 but hey, that's the way things roll recently.

With the release of the recent War in Rohan supplement for Middle Earth SBG, Kev wanted to give the troops a try out and plumped for the ever popular Fords of Isen scenario to give the rules/stats a try out.

Myself and Alan plumped for the Evil side (as usual) and Kev and Ian taking the Horsemen s side for the encounter, with all the toys supplied by Kev as usual.

The game was it's usual very enjoyable affair with the evil side having to kill Theodred and have 12 bods on the other side of the river by game's end being a very tough nut to crack.

Luckily for us this time, Ian was the 'One King' and threw multiple 1's for much of the game and the Uruk Hai shooting was pretty effective when the Multitude of Rohan Mounted re-enforcements arrived being mown down as if facing machine guns.

Needless to say, the game was a ding-dong affair with much splashing about and only a couple of Uruks drowning trying to cross at the deep end and much heroics on both sides and Theodred refusing to die gracefully, but die he did in suitable style surrounded and alone on the evil side of the river and the evil side just managing to squeeze the victory on the last (twelvth) round of the game with having twelve bods alive and on the other side. Skin of the teeth stuff.

Anybody's game right to the end and a great way to end the year with. Look forward to more Middle Earth shenanigans this year.

Middle Earth SBG - Matched Play Second Helpings

Recently had a return to Middle Earth and had a re-fight of the Rohan vs Uruk-Hai game in a matched play game from last year (wow, didn't realise that was ten months ago).

Similar forces and table set-up with all the bits supplied by Kev again, but this time myself taking the side of Theoden and Dave K playing Lurtz. Different scenario with this one's objective to being to control five or more locations on the table (plus points for taking out important bods).

With both sides armies keyed to getting into combat quickly, the game started with a general rush to come to grips and Rohan getting the charge in to maximize impact of lots of cavalry.

The game then produced a similar clash of the two lines with a few Uruk-Hai dropping to a the fair amount of Rohan missile fire, and the Uruks managing to unhorse Theoden in the first round with their shooting.

The charge result of the Rohan cavalry was similar as before but much more pronounced this time with Rohan pretty much bouncing off the Uruk-Hai lines.

Not so much my bad dice throwing here, but Dave's very good dice rolling, with Rohan often failing to wound when getting the hits in, but pretty much every time Dave would get the 6's to wound so the combats for the three melee's tended to go one way for the whole game.

Dave didn't get it all his own way though and particularly on the Rohan left flank under Theodred did pretty much have it his way, but not sufficiently or quickly enough to make a difference for the overall outcome.

In the Centre and right of the line, Rohan were reduced to the individual hero's Theoden, Theodred and a Rohan Captain who, in the way of these things producing better results than all their forces combined and held the hordes at bay for a couple of rounds themselves and successfully denied the Uruks a couple of objectives by plonking their butts on the markers and refusing to die in good cinematic fashion.

In the end the game finished with the random game end being rolled on round 8 or 9 I think with the Rohan force broken (well broken) and almost all killed but with the dregs refusing to run away and the Uruk-hai still unbroken but claiming two objectives, it was an Evil victory though Rohan did claim the lives of all (2 at least) the Uruk-hai hero's in return. Theoden, Theodred and the Captain all surviving (though surrounded) till the last.

If it had been the scenario from last time, Rohan would have actually won on points even though they were pretty much all dead.

Another great and much enjoyable game and I am looking forward to the decider, though I note Rohan has lost on points both games (though narrowly) so far. Watch that space

Defence of Amon Sul - Battle Companies Campaign Finale

So the big finale for the year and a bit long Battle Companies finally rolled around last week with the Campaign victorious Evil side laying siege to the Arnorian Amon Sul and the Good forces trying to delay the inevitable death and destruction bent hordes from slaying all in their path.

The Scenario was simple, the Forces of Evil; Kev (Warg Riders), Andy W (Mordor Orcs), and Kenny (Easterlings), Any K couldn't make it on the day to add to the Evil hordes numbers), were to assault the outskirts of Amon Sul, defended by the forces of Good; myself (Arnor), Dave K (Rivendell Elves) and Leigh (Hobbit Horde) who were re-enforced with 150pts worth of Arnor Warriors and Rangers across the front (18 figures). With the Arnor re-enforcement's included it was a 1200 to 850 point match off plus the evil possible 150 pts of re-enforcement's (would have been 1400 or so if Andy K could have made it) giving the Evil a roughly 2 to 1 advantage in points for the assault, about right.

Having won the Campaign (by a narrow victory of one game, the Evil side gets one re-enforcement roll to come on centre stage on the their deployment line on round 3. Rolling on the table which could be anything from a Ringwraith to a passle of Orcs, the Evil side rolled up a Cave Troll and half a dozen Warriors of Angmar to add to their horde count.

The Ruins held eight objectives roughly evenly spread across the 12' x 5' table, four in the front of the town and four half way back. Each objective worth 2pts, the death of a captain worth 2pts and each other hero 1pt. The game was to be of limited length but I wasn't sure what was fair here so a nominal 9 turns with the option to extend to 12 if the 9 proved too short for the evil side to traverse the the hefty run in. Most victory points gives the winner to see if the good forces delay the enemy enough to let the 'big wigs and mighties' time to escape to fight another day.

First off, the forces of Evil cunningly surprised us by deploying completely on the centre/right flank, thus pretty much nullifying Leigh's mighty Hobbits over on our right. (Leigh then spent most of the rest of the game guarding objectives and marching across the front to come into bow range of the attackers).

First round and the defenders gained the initiative but stayed put and the evils launched their attack on my poor Arnorian's on our left with the Warg Riders surging ahead to limited the rounds of much shootiness coming at them. My first round was fairly poor given the number of shots I poured into them but still managed to take out three Wargs and riders. The Orcs and Easterlings began their march towards our line with the Easterlings being slowed by a covering wall.

The second and third rounds were pretty bloody affairs with the Wargs charging into the defences. My Captain called a heroic move after loosing the initiative a drew back Warriors in his Charge just out of range of the first charge and then managed to get the charge in the following move after a slighlty worse round of shooting but blunting the Warg charge.The two Easterling Cataphracts joining the fight towards the end.

The first Good result followed quickly with my Captain Anairion with his Warrior Sergeant Tarcil charge the Warg Captain and in flurry of blows with the Mighty Needle glowing in his hand (Kev's Captain was the only Evil company to pick up the Needle too) with three mighty blows slew the Warg Captain taking out the major threat to the good forces, the Sergeant and his follower taking out the Warg Captains companion.

Elsewhere on the flank its more of a give and take melee but the number of warriors (and better dice rolling in melee than shooting) hold the remaining Riders and Cataphracts at bay.

The slowly advancing Easterlings trade a fire fight with the Elves and a few rangers in the centre ruins and begin to get picked off one by one as the number of shots coming their way begin to tell.

The Troll and Angmar Warriors appear and start a slow trek towards the centre and approaching Troll killer Hobbits.

The Hobbits continue their long trek to get into action

Troll and warriors long walk to attack the Elves who generally keep behind cover.

The Arnor Warriors and Rangers (including the local inhabitants jump into the fight with the Warg Riders and Cataphracts and though losses are heavy manage to break the Warg Riders. 

Meanwhile the Orcs continue their steady advance on the far left while taking small but continuous losses from the Ranger Sergeant Tarondor and a couple of Rangers defending the left most ruin.

With the Orc horde closing, Captain Anairon rushes towards the beleaguered Tarondor who fires arrow after arrow at the oncoming warriors as they scale the walls taking down the Ranger defender.

The initial fight on the left draws to a close as the Wargs are broken and begin to disappear just as the Easterlings scale the other ruin on the left and put the Ranger defenders to the sword (aided by some firing from the encroaching Orc archers) and begin to close on the untouched Elves while continuing their long range shooting at the Elf Archers and Rangers on the high towers.

In a cinematic end, surrounded by multitudes Sergeant Tarondor goes down surrounded fighting to the end and rather than do the sensible thing and move back to the other Arnorians, Anairon jumps into the fray depending on his mighty blade and cuts down a couple of Orc Warriors but is surrounded too, below the arches of the ruin and despite mighty blows and fate rolls the sheer number of hits (each enemy getting his hits doubled and Andy saved his hero's for surrounding Anairon and got good rolls :-) ) Anairon went down in a flurry of mighty hits from the Orc weapons.

The Easterling's began to assault round the high towers and about to clase with the Elves and the Hobbits reached firing range and began a few pot shots at the Troll and Angmar Warriors.

This was the end of round nine. My Arnorian's were two away from their extended break point but had lost four of their hero's and there were another six or so Arnorian defenders down, The Elves and Hobbits were pretty much untouched, The Warg Riders were broken and a spent force and the Easterling's and the Orcs were both nearing their break points so the Evil side called it, thinking that with the hard Elves and the many Hobbits still to tackle it was an unlikely prospect to get the victory. So the defenders managed a victory delaying the evil hordes sufficiently blunting their initial attack to let the Seer of Amon Sul escape the destruction.

Looking back on the scenario, the Evil side felt that the long run in was just too much to over come despite their two to one superiority in points, and looking back I would probably shorten the run in distance to three normal moves, maybe four at most. With no mechanism for figures to 'rush' within the LotR SBG rules, long moves turn into a trudge which can be fatal while under fire even though shooting tends to get a kill in about 1 in four if your lucky.

But with the Warg riders moving in quickly but unsupported, nullified their advantage of the flank move, pitting one Company against a slightly bolstered other, who managed to get the numbers into the combats that counted counteracting the disadvantage in the points values, though they were sufficiently battered to probably break shortly after now that the Orcs and Easterling's were in amongst them. With a Troll and fresh warriors coming in things were still not completely decided for the Evil forces, but perhaps unlikely to get a result in three moves right enough probably being only able to pick up another three objectives at most in that time.

So a slightly fizzled-out ending to the campaign as I would have liked to get a good tit-for-tat bash-up taking it close to the edge finale but I find it quite hard to get a good balance with LotR SBG scenario's, as I don't play then often enough to get a good feel for the balance, but a good game all in and a completed campaign which is always a result.

Battle Companies Campaign - Threading the Needle

Being the penultimate installment (and final scenario) in the Battle Companies Campaign, where the Companies have crossed into Rhudaur on the trail of the fabled 'Needle' and tracked it down to the ruins of Caer Emwyn but this is also the lair of the brutal Troll.

We randomly applied opponents with places being determined by a throw of the dice. Kenny's Easterlings were pitted against Kev's Warg Riders, Andy W's Mordor Orcs were up against Dave's Rivendell Elves and I ended up facing the might of Leigh's Hobbit horde.

Our game was pretty quick and fairly brutal with myself (as the good opponent) gained the initiative and advanced as quickly as possible taking the flank to avoid the Troll with the best of my hero's and aimed for the nearest objective token and started flying at the Troll. Leighs Hobbits did likewise in a mirror image of my deployment and sent some off to deal with my rear guard, leaving a toke force at the rear to try and catch anyone that got past the Troll and the majority of his force headed straight for the Troll.

As luck would have it, and the worst result for the Hobbits, the first objective picked up was diced for and my Captain found The Needle on the first flip over on the flank. With that in hand the Captain and his accompanying guards started to make a bee line for the far table edge. I jumped in with a couple of Arnor Warriors to stop the Troll from getting in the way and exchanged fire with the advancing Hobbits on the flank.

Leighs Hobbits closed on the Troll and my rear guard where an on going kerfuffle ensued with my Ranger Hero and a Ranger eventually got the better here but not before losing the Ranger to the Hobbits and I continued to keep the Troll busy while losing a couple to the beast. The rest of my band worked their way around the Troll to avoid the Captain and his race for the far table edge. 

In short, once the horde of Hobbits managed to close with the Troll (and a little help from my lone Warrior, once again brought down the mighty Troll by sheer weight of numbers and Leigh kept his honorific as 'Troll Slayer' once again.

My Captain and his entourage swept aside the screening few Hobbits at the rear and swept to a victory claiming the mighty sword the Needle as the prize.

Elsewhere, Kevs Warg Riders defeated Kenny's Easterling but lost a couple of his number (and his victory counted to the good tally much to his chagrin. Andy W's Orcs and Dave K's Elves fought each other to a draw so the Good side gained a much needed two victories to their tally giving a final score of 24 to 25 victories going in to the big battle. This means the Evil side will only have one re-enforcement roll in the Defence of Amon Sul. (Though they might not need it as the Evil BC ratings are well in advance of the Good Side and with four players to three remaining the Evil horde will outmatch the defenders, much as it should be really).

Battle Companies Campaign Update

Another small get together this week to keep the Battle Companies Campaign alive with four attendees; myself Andy W, Kev and Kenny mustering their Arnor, Mordor Orcs, Warg Riders and Easterlings respectively, playing a round robin bout, two games each with random generated scenarios.

First up for myself was a game against Kenny's Easterlings. Kenny's band was down a fair bit from my Arnor Company so went the defender in a 'Stand your Ground' scenario. This was pretty straight forward and I won the tussle but the Easterling two bows did significantly better than my eight and managed to take down half my Company before submitting to the higher numbers once combat was joined. No losses were incurred on either side but I ended up gaining an Arnor Warrior and have two hobbit archers sitting out the next game. Kenny managed to increase his band by two warriors.

My next game as we all moved round a chair was up against Kev's Warg Riders. His Company had a significant higher rating than mine so I started with six re-rolls and the same Influence points right off the bat. With two hobbit archers sitting out the game and Kev only having one scout type sitting out the game, things seemed a bit stacked against me in rating and in numbers. The scenario rolled was 'Recovery', with five counters in the middle, one the 'relic' searched for and each band starting at opposite ends and objective to find the relic and take it off the opposite side from deployment.

Deployment for Recovery Scenario

The Companies advanced and the Arnor forces managed an early kill to archery for a change as they advanced and reaching the line of counters first too due to Kev keeping as much to cover as possible as he advanced. The first counter approached proved to be the relic so all was down to the fight to follow.

Early game was a mixed affair with casualties on both sides and an early good round from Kev where his scout took down two of the Arnor force in one round and the Orc numbers looked to begin to tell.

Mid-late game Orc numbers telling

The Arnor force now seemed to pick up a step (mainly down to Kev's inability to get the wound rolls in) and the warriors carrying the relic took a fair bit to drop but they eventually did, but the Arnor Warriors, (including the Captain who managed to get his first kills of the campaign, and getting two to boot) managed to pick up the pace and the tide turned quite spectacularly and managed to turn the numbers round with the Arnor forces outnumbering the Orcs by a good margin at the end.

Kev went for the objective though and leaving a couple to slow down the Arnor troops managed to get two orcs on the relic and managed a free move towards the base line with only his captain intervening. Last round and the Orcs got he initiative and the win but with only three orcs alive and narrowly loosing his captain too.

Great game with big loses on both sides but I was happy with the way my band stood up to uneven odds at the beginning and nearly pulling out the win but Kev's tactics at the end getting the well deserved win.

The other two games of Kev's Warg Riders versus Andy's Mordor Orcs was a hard fought game too with Kev just managing a win in a 'Show of Strength' scenario, and Kenny's Easterlings against Andy's Orcs which though quite one sided ended up with the Easterlings getting a whopping 13 Influence points and a much needed injection to the Company.

The scores on the doors of three Evil wins and 1 Good win were added to the running total and the Evil side moves further ahead to 15/21.

Next up more random scenarios for the other four players and the next Campaign Scenario; 'Bridge over the Mitheithel'.

Middle Earth SBG - Matched play

This weeks club match was my first trial in anger of the new Middle Earth SBG rules from GW. Playing against Kevin with him supplying the forces as usual in the form of Theoden and his Riders pitted against the vile Lurtz and his gang of Uruh-Hai thugs. I of course chose to play Lurtz's force.

Forces close

Early shooting worked well for the Uruk-Hai and 2 or three Rohan unhorsed and three or more Royal Guard are shot in the first couple of rounds, the Uruk-Hai hero claiming a couple on his own.

Lurtz gets pinned in the doorway

Kev goes for the charge and a line develops across the field but this limits shooting so everyone pretty much piles in.

Rohan charge in to the pike block and bounce while the Warg Riders
 counter charge the centre

The fight on the right begins to go Evils way with numbers telling

Cavalry dual goes Evils way with the Rohan failing to get the kills

Theoden rides tp buff up his forces on the Evil left flank

The mid game goes by with priority shifting and a couple of heroic charges declared and countered. Rohan gets the hits but the Uruk-Hai get the kills. Rohan failing to close the gap in numbers that they need to.

Numbers thin mid game with Rohan getting a good round

In the closing rounds Kev got a couple of better rounds and scored a decent number of kills but the Uruk;Hai continued to eat away steadily at the Rohan force.

In the end the Rohan centre disintegrated and the melee seperated into two fights around the ruins and the two Rohan main hero's with Rohan doing slightly better on the left and clearing the far side of the ruins but the Uruk-Hai doing the same between the ruins.

End mid game the Rohan force was broken.

End game? Theodens line looks about to end as the king and his son are
cut off and surrounded

Even though the Rohan force is broken it doesn't lose many to rout due to good courage and buffs but continue to lose to the Uruk-Hai attrition. With the Uruk-Hai looking to have already won and still unbroken things look grim but it's still not all one side.

The end nears and playing through the final round to see how things pan out Kev manages to take out a couple of the general Uruk and Theodred cuts down Sharku and thus gets the Uruk-Hai below break point and despite overwhelming numbers Theodred miraculously survives the final round.

Theodred likewise surrounded but manages to survive

The other side however Theoden and the Rohan Captain are cut down by Lurtz and Ugluk and the massing Uruk-Hai.

Surrounded, Theoden is cut down by Lurtz and his Uruk-Hai

In the end we totaled up the victory points and the death of Theoden proved to be the clincher with a narrow 6 to 5 victory going to the Uruk-Hai but with the Rohan force scattered and only 8 left on the board and the Uruk-Hai broken but with 17 or so left fighting. Rohan closing the gap near the end but not enough to tip things

Very enjoyable game all in all. Kev felt it to be a bit one sided and Rohan getting beaten up due to his inability to get the kills despite hitting lots. I felt the game was pretty even but the numbers on the Uruk-hai side giving the edge and limiting the Rohan Cavalry charge advantage.

Definitely up for another rematch on the matched play or give a scenario a try.

The rules were all pretty familiar with really only the changes to the hero rules to pick up on. Certainly seem to be reasonable and will be up for more trials soon.

Battle Companies Campaign Update

Managed to get another small get together for the Club Battle Companies campaign last week. A fairly small gathering with Alan, Dave K, Andy W, Kev and myself getting another couple of games under the belt.

Myself and Andy W played the next campaign specific scenario 'Catching the Thread', with Andy's Mordor Orcs attacking my Arnor band who were in possession of the ruined village searching for the relic 'The Thread'.

The outcome of the scenario was a definite military victory to the Orcs as the strength of my band is definitely in the shooting department but this strength sadly eluded me as any of my guys couldn't hit a barn door if it was lying on top of them on the day. The Orcs lost a few guys in the end but my band went down almost to a man. It didn't help that one of my Rangers was so well camouflaged that I forgot to use him for most of the game. (You might spot him in the bottom left of the first photo above).

A good hard fought game and most enjoyable. The game result proved to be a draw in the end as I managed to prevent the Orcs getting a hold of the relic (the objective) right up to the last turn though losing it myself right at the end as my last man standing fled the field.

On the other games there was a prethala of other mayhem with Warg Riders, Elves, and the men of Gondor battling it out but several draws and one evil win were the results there.

With other previous games results in and a large increase in the number of no score draws adding up, the side of Evil is now slowly creeping ahead in the campaign tally with a score 11/14 good to evil wins.

Battle Companies Campaign update

Another game under the belt for my Arnor Battle Company in our ongoing campaign in the wilds of Rhudaur.

Only a short update with a couple of players taking part this time to get some games in to catch up with the other players with Dave K's B team Elf squad, Alan L's Gondor, Kenny's Easterlings and my Arnor company taking part.

Alan and Kenny and myself having one game apiece and Dave's elves two.

My game with Alan's Gondor BC was a pretty hard fought affair with Gondor playing hide and seek while the Arnor force advanced cautiously. The one active Gondor Archer in hiding over the coarse of the game picking off three of the Arnor force while the tree he hid behind must had about forty arrows sticking in it. I soon abandoned this coarse as the Gondor Knight and associated hero's advanced into charge range.

Gondor plays hide n seek with Arnor while Elves and
 Easterlings battle in the background

Things went a bit pear shaped for Alan now as my archer heavy squad took affect and his numbers dropped quickly. Alan managed to get his knight and a hero into combat but his dice were lowsey and the Arnor force managed to take down his entire force bar one who broke in the face of the Arnor charge.

Dave's B team Elves managed to get two victories both hard fought and the second turned defeat into victory. You can check out his batrep here.

Campaign is certainly getting interesting as the companies beef up so looking forward to the next big get together at the end of the month for more games and the next Campaign story scenario.