Graveyard or Cemetery - Empire of the Dead.

Finally finished my piece of terrain for Empire of the Dead gaming, a Graveyard, or Cemetery...

Actually I was not quite sure what, if any, difference there was in these two words... so a quick glance at wikipedia: Graveyard

In a quick summary, Graveyards are typically old, near a church and within the city limits... Cemeteries replaced this practice by burying the dead in municipally owned land, not adjacent a church and often outside city limits... So I can use this piece of terrain in both an urban or rural setting; in town, put it next to a Church and its a Graveyard, in rural environment, it becomes a cemetery, though I may conceal the perimeter pavement if used in a rural setting...

I began this project earlier this month detailed here.

I would have had it up on the blog sooner put had problems with the PVA warping the whole board quite badly. So had to turn it upside down, and glue the under surface, with some weights in place to bend it back... of course the darn thing then warped the other way! So I had to repeat the right way round again! If you look closely it still has a slight lift to the corners of the perimeter pavement but its not too noticeable...

So, "bring out yer dead!"...

"

A skirmish in the Graveyard, some Gentlemen encounter a Vampire!

I have ordered some brick pattern embossed Plasticard to have ago at making some city buildings, though the Hobbit / LOTR craze could well distract me away from this project now...

The Hobbit - Premiere - a great day out in Wellington!

A non war-gaming post today, and I apologise to those who follow my blog, and are not really in to such things - but its clearly going to be inspiring for my forth coming hobby output...

 28th November, 2012 - The Premiere day of the The Hobbit movie in Wellington New Zealand!

My wife and I managed to get the day off work together and took the kids out of school for the day, so they were rapt!

We took the train down to avoid traffic and parking hassles and got into to the city at about 11am, and took our time through the city, enjoying a 'second breakfast', before rambling along the waterfront to the Hobbit Artisan market...

The 'Beehive', NZ parliament building.

Becky outside the Law college, a lovely victorian era building and good inspiration for my Empire of the Dead buildings

Chris at same

The entrance to the Artisan Market

Lots to see here of various craft activities related to Hobbit movie props and such like. Also a very cool Air New Zealand free photo booth:

Inside Te Papa museum - I picked up the The Hobbit visual companion book here, useful painting inspiration, and was tempted to buy the LOTR card game..., but its an age 13+, so I'd end up just playing solo... and be better off spending the time painting.

Grabbed lunch then strolled through to the red carpet area at about 3pm... Managed a nice shot of the entrance way statues...

After this we couldn't get near the barriers, these had been staked out long before, but we managed to secure a small seat out side the Reading cinema mall, upon which we could stand to see over the heads in front of us... Interestingly, just behind me was the local GW store. I couldn't help but think if GW had thought about it and launched their Hobbit game release for this day, they might have picked up some impulse purchases for the crowds of people... a chance missed indeed I think!

The big screen...

And then the Stars started coming down the Red Carpet, some were great and interacted well with the crowd, stopping to sign autographs for those lucky enough to be close... others walked through with out stopping...

Martin Freeman - Bilbo

The difficulty I had is that a lot of the dwarfs, to be fair, are not 'mega-names', as yet, and were tricky to recognise without all their makeup, plus the red carpet area was so full of assorted security and 'hangers-on' that it got a little tricky spotting who was who...!

Richard Armitage - Thorin

Aidan Turner - Kili

 Stephen Hunter - Bombur, James Nesbitt - Bofur, Graham McTavish - Dwalin

At this point my camera battery died, and I had to resort to my son's Iphone...

Peter Jackson, fine fellow - took his time with the crowd...

Richard - head of Weta

Dean O'Gorman - Fili

Jed Brophy - Nori

Andy Serkis - Gollum

Andy 'motored' through at a great pace and I just caught the back of his head as he raced through...

Adam Brown - Ori

As the sun began to lower it started to affect the Iphone's photographic abilities...

Sylvester McCoy - Radagast

William Kircher - Bifur

Barry Humphries - Goblin King

Hugo Weaving - Elrond

James Cameron, enjoying the Red Carpet day out too!

Director James Cameron, recently moved to NZ and I believe owns a large estate in the Waiarapa...

The PM - John Key

Cate Blanchett - Galadriel

The lovely Cate Blanchett, made a delightful female change, to the majority male cast...

Me - knackered!

A great day out, and a first for me to experience a Red Carpet movie show. The atmosphere in the city was great and I am pleased I was able to make it. Must admit I was knackered by the end of it, standing with a hefty 9yr old kid on your shoulders so he can see, takes it out of you!

So please forgive my snooze on train on the way home... ;-)

To the Death! - LOTR SBG Battle report - Rohan vs Isengard

A lazy Sunday afternoon saw me have the chance to entertain two gaming chums; Paul and Brett, to a game Lord of the Rings SBG.

In this case I was happy to umpire it, taking them both through the ropes of the games rules and subtleties of tactics within the game.

Paul is primarily a Flames of War player, who had not experienced skirmish wargaming before so this was all new to him.

Brett had played a bit of Legends of the High Seas before, which is a derivative of the SBG rules, and is also a SAGA player so has a fair grounding in Skirmish games.

Brett also had some Rohan troops he had acquired and wanted to try them out, so I added some of my own to bulk out his force and then gave Paul an Isengard force to theme the battle - an Isengard probe into the Westfold.

I accordingly set up the terrain depicting a small isolated farm...

 The battle was 750pts each.  

Rohan's force was (roughly)
Theoden (the King) leading warband of Riders of Rohan, including gaming with royal banner
Theodred (King's son) leading a warband of Riders of Rohan
Hama leading a warband of Warriors of Rohan on foot.
Eowyn (King's niece) leading a warband of Warriors of Rohan on foot.  

Isengard's force was
Uruk Hai Captain leading Uruk Hai with 6 pike and 6 shields
Uruk Hai Captain leading Isengard Troll, and 8 Uruk Hai Berserkers
Orc Captain on Warg leading warband of Warg Riders
Uruk Hai Shaman leading Uruk Hai warriors with 6 pike and 6 shields

 We played 'To the Death' just for ease of learning the game and mission.

Paul won dice off for deployment and started first...

Final deployments as below...

Theodred is bottom right facing the Warg-riders, Eowyn leads the foot troops near the ruin, Theoden is in the centre, and Hama is in the farm paddock, facing the Shaman's Warband.

I am going to let the pictures do the talking for the most part...  Paul won the early priority advancing as best as he could though the Shaman's warband had a hell of a time negotiating the farms fences with 5 out 13 Uruks rolling a 1 trying to cross the fences. This caused the Rohan commander much amusement who promptly fell foul of the fences himself, though not quite as badly...

For the most part of the early game, Rohan tried to keep a distance, and shot up the approaching Isengarders This succeeded in dropping several Uruks despite needing a 6 to kill. As Brett says "Need a six? Roll a six!" ;-)

Flank Rohan cavalry withdraw, to shoot bows...

Centre Rohan cavalry, advance...

Slightly exasperated Paul kept plodding forwards... with troll and Berserkers heaing to centre of board, away the disengaged warband of Theodred.

Theodred rode forward, bows again shooting...

Early combat is joined in the centre as Theoden cavalry engage the central and left flank Uruk Hai warbands catching some up against the farm fences...

Eventually as battle became properly joined, the power of the cavalry charge was revealed but also shown to be blunted in the face of pike supported troops.

The fences again quickly came in to the equation as they frequently trapped those who could not back away from combat...

The battle for the farm also heats up...

Theoden leads the central charge against the Uruks, but has he over exposed himself...?

The Uruk captain facing off against Theodred quickly found himself surrounded, yet kept fighting gamely... the troll sees easy pickings in front of him, and focuses on the blonde haired female bravely wielding her sword...

The Uruk captain slays Theodred! Then runs away the next turn when he fails his courage check, as by this point the Isengarders are broken...

The troll was a huge problem, but Eowyn bravely led her forces against it... but even surrounded the troll could not be stopped (it rolled a 6), and turned Eowyn into a red pulpy squish mark on the ground! She might be able to deal with the WitchKing of Angmar, but a great lumbering troll? Nope!

Theoden, who could have made use of the Royal Banner of Rohan to recharge his exhausted supply of Might, never got the chance when Paul won priority and charged Theoden with a pike armed Uruk, who promptly spitted Theoden from his horse! Gamling was left trying to hold the centre together...

The forces of the White Hand eventually broke and started losing troops to failed courage rolls but the Shamans recast Fury held the end of the line.

The troll still could not be stopped! Where's a wizard with an Immobilize when you need one!?

Gamling holds the centre together...  just...

Final positions...
The troll is a serious problem on the Rohan left flank...

The centre has been carnage leaving only three Riders and two Uruks standing... whilst the paddocks and fields in the farm remain contested... though Rohan probably has the upper hand here...

But eventually the Isengarders were dropped to 25% of their starting number bringing the battle to close. All that remained was to add up Victory points:-

Both sides have inflicted huge losses on the other with both sides going past their break point - 3 points to each side.
Both sides had slain the enemy commander, another 3 points each.
Yet Gamling remained holding aloft the Royal banner scoring 2 points.

This tipped the game to a victory to Rohan, 8-6.

Sadly this must be considered a Pyrrhic victory for it was truly a frightful day for the noble house of Rohan, losing the King, his son and niece in one encounter! Saruman will be chuckling and rubbing his hands together in glee in the Tower of Orthanc at this boon, and the way is clear for a full invasion of Rohan!

A thoroughly enjoyable game that both players enjoyed and played in great spirit.

Sadly Brett had to depart half way through the game, leaving me to take over Rohan, but not before using up all the heroes Might points, the bugger! It was shortly after this the Rohan heroes started dying! That's my excuse and I am sticking to it! ;-)

What pleases me more is Brett was even motivated to buy some more Riders of Rohan the day after we played the game, so I count that a victory for the LOTR SBG game!

I have that many LOTR figures that Paul is more than welcome to use whatever force he wishes whenever he fancies a game, though I have a sneaking suspicion he may be contemplating embracing his Dwarven side!