Middle-Earth Miscellany...

The long holiday weekend here in NZ, gave me a chance to catch up with Brett.

Brett is getting to grips with the game, having played it occasionally, off and on in the past...

He has acquired a bunch of figures of various factions and has been learning the ropes with a small Elven force of Galadhrim... Our last meeting saw me take a Moria force with a couple of Cave Trolls and they turned out to be a bit of a handful, so this time I decided to just go with regular troops, nothing flash but the upshot is, there's lots of them.

So I selected a Mordor force, with 4 Orc Captains each leading a full orc warband, one of which was my newly completed archer warband. I also added a Castellan to make the points just over 500pts.

Bretts elven force was fairly small and compact, with Rumil, a Stormcaller and a captain leading the Elves and an allied contingent of Riders of Rohan, lead by Eomer (proxied by Boromir).

We rolled off for mission and got Domination - which puts 5 objective markers on the board to take and hold...

We played on a relatively small table... deployment below...

The game played out fairly predictably with the orcs moving forward into the shooting of the elves and riders... the shooting took a slow but steady toll of the orcs as they advanced, until range became the issue as the orcs closed in...

The riders had a bit of a redirection , causing the orc pack to change their course of advance, but the orcs had managed to collect all but one of the objective markers by this time, which the elves held in the building courtyard...

Brett wanted to try out his cavalry charge and duly did so, but making his charge on his own priority, allowed the orcs to move in and surround them. One rider that was positioned to try and block some of the orc response only really served as a spring board for a mass of orcs led by a captain to strike him down and move on to join other fights, thanks to a heroic fight from the orc captain...

The rest of the orcs pressed on towards the elves...

The riders went down, with Eomer resisting for a turn until he too was slain in the following turn. The Elven storm caller tried to come to his aid, unleashing Natures Wrath in the midst of the chaos, but despite rolling a 5, an orc captain managed to resist the spell... this pretty much sealed Eomers fate...

Sorry but no more pictures as we both concentrated on the game...

The orcs then advanced and brought numbers to bear on the thin elven line, with spears backing up the orcs along much of their battleline...

But the elves clung on grimly for several turns whittling down the orcs, their high Fight skill keeping them in the game....

Eventually though the pressure became unbearable. Rumil was surrounded by 2 orc captains and another orc, and though resisting for a turn, he was felled in the subsequent round. The stormcaller had also been killed by an orc captain who had again used a Heroic fight to kill an elf and leap into action against the the elven spellcaster..., the turn previously...

Eventually it was all over and the Game came to a close as the elves dropped to 25%, though the orcs were broken too...

The orcs had won fairly convincingly claiming all but one of the objectives, I think... the one in the building courtyard was possibly contested....

However it was only after finishing the game that I realised I had completely forgotten about taking courage tests, for both sides, for being broken. The elves with their high courage would probably have been relatively unaffected by this but the orcs certainly could have lost more troops...

So apologies to Brett on that score... The game wasn't 'serious' as such, still a learning game in some ways for Brett, and I hope the forgotten courage tests will go forgiven as I tried to help with the other rules  and tactics in the game :-)

The main lessons I think Brett got from this game were perhaps the cautious use of cavalry, and being careful when to commit your charge... and also the effect of heroic fights allowing troops to leapfrog from fight to fight... and also how a thin elven line can still put up a lengthy resistance due to their high fight skill.

Hoping to have more games with Brett, as he gets a better grip on the rules and his elven force.

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Th rest of the weekend was pretty wet and miserable with a cold southerly blowing through, so a mug of tea, and a bickie or two, and The Hobbit playing in the background let me press on with some modelling and painting...

So here's a couple of WIP's...

I am busy working on 6 Mounted Rohan Royal Guard, here having just finished their base colours... shade wash and work up still to go... The horses have been shade washed...

Rohan Royal Guard - WIP

And I thought I'd have a go at a conversion I have seen done before; Grima on horse. The recent KWC 'Bring and Buy', saw me pick up a cheap Grima and spare RoR... so I set to, cutting out the central leg area of Grima but leaving his robes at the sides and chopping the top off the RoR to allow his legs to be Grimas mounted seated pose.

Some greenstuff to fill gaps, and we're just about ready for paint...

Mounted Grima - WIP

That's all for now, hope you all had a good weekend...