Morannon Orcs

I finally finished off my set of 24 Morannon Orcs, part of which saw their first action at the recent Call to Arms Event as previously featured...

Here's the 24 finally done... I have kept their tunics largely red throughout, to make them standout as Morannons, compared to the regular orc soldiery... the next batch of Morannons I do I may add in more varied browns and grays to break up the red...

I also just managed to finish off the Morannon Command set, and an extra pair of Morannon Orc Commanders...

I don't normally add blood to blades as its so easily over done, but this orc has clearly just chopped off someones head so it seemed appropriate...

The Orc captain who welcomes the three hunters to the docks at Harlond... "Come on you sea rats, get off your ships..."...

Morannon Orc Shaman...

Another captain...

...and banner bearer...

So here's the Full set of command and troops...

And of course, I'll have to add Gothmog to the scene... I painted him some time ago and in a more vibrant style, so I guess he stands out more now as the overall commander... seems appropriate :)

Come on if you think you're hard enough! ;-)

To the Death ... LOTR Four player doubles fun...

Last night, four of us gathered for a game of Lord of the Rings... with Bryan, Ste and Roly joining me for some Middle-Earth fun...

We played the game as a 2 vs 2, 500pts per player, with Bryan leading his Rivendell Elves, and Ste bringing his Uruk force. I added Mordor for myself alongside Ste, and put on 500pts of Gondor for Roly to command, alongside Bryan's Elves.

Bryan had Glorfindel and Gildor leading his two warbands on foot.
Ste had Lurtz and an uruk captain leading two blocks of Uruk warriors, with a warg mounted orc captain leading some warg riders.

For Mordor, I had a full power Generic Wraith on horse, Grishnahk and a warg mounted Shaman leading the orc soldiery.
Boromir and Beregong led the Warriors of Minas Tirith on foot, with Damrod leading a small group of rangers, for Roly.

We rolled off for mission and got To the Death, so a straight up fight ensued.

Deployment as below.

We didn't have long to play with it being a weeknight evening, so all deployed forward to get into the scrap quickly...

There was enough terrain to make the game interesting, without it over impeding game play, the ruins providing an object for the warg riders to make a flanking move around, as the rest of the battle lines formed up, with the rangers holding a small wood on the opposite flank.

And thus battle was quickly joined...

The evil force won initial priority and charged headlong in to the fight, with the Warg riders commencing their flanking move. Boromir was lashed by a Sap Will from the wraith and lost 2 of his 3 Will points... Whilst Lurtz found himself targeted by an Immobilize from Gildor, but shrugged it off...

The Orc shaman channelled Fury...

Initial bow fire from the Elves and Rangers was ineffective, and melee commenced...

A steady toll started to wrack up the casualties, though with the shamans fury saved some orcs and Grishnakh.

The combats raged back and forth with holes appearing in the lines. Boromir was the typical combat beast in the centre, blasting through the evil lines...

But with the warg riders threatening to envelope the good guys left flank, the elves and men there started to pull back trying to form a battle line between the ruin and woods...

Grishnahk found himself fighting Glorfindel... not the best place to be, especially when both sides roll a 6 and Glorfindel wins on Fight Skill, but the 2 wounds he received were saved by the Shamans Fury!

Elsewhere Lurtz suffered another immobilse from Gildor, and was slain, though this only seemed to enrage the surrounding uruks who then cut down several elves...

The wraith hit Boromir with a Transfix, on a 6 , but with his last will point Boromir rolled a 6 too to resist it! Shaking his ethereal head in disbelief the wraith then charged a lone WoMT to try and get involved in the fights too...

The rangers closed in, looking to pick off supporting uruk pikemen and managed to drop a couple...

Boromir, having broken right through the evil lines, was thus then surrounded and trapped there by orcs and uruks!

Grishnahk was still looking at the glowing elf lord, and nervously looked sideways to the wraith who obliged with a 4 dice Transfix on Glorfindel, getting a 6, but who then resisted with 3 dice and used a point of might to boost a 5 to a 6 and resist the spell!

By now the warg riders were breaking round the flank and back of the retreating WoMT and Elf line starting to threaten their rear...

With time drawing to a close, the final combats were fought with Grishnakh again surviving the Elves attention to the cost of a Fate point, Fury saves keeping him alive...

Despite being surrounded Boromir triumphed again and slew more orcs for the fun of it...

The wraith charged in against the same WoMT as last turn, and killed the brave warrior.

The remaining melees were resolved and the game concluded.

Final positions...

A quick tally up of VPs, found neither side yet broken, neither commander (Boromir or Wraith) wounded or slain, and both sides each having 1 banner... resulting in a 1 - 1 Draw.

With the game being a draw, we had a fun little fight off between Boromir and the Wraith, with Boromir winning, but failing to wound the wraith...

We only had time for 3 turns. Ste, coming to chez-moi for the first time, got a little lost, with me living a bit out in the wop-wops, and upon arrival enjoyed introductions and chat too, so we didn't get started till 8pm, with a 10pm finish scheduled.

But no matter, we all enjoyed the game none the less, and some spicy snacks from wifeypoos were a nice accompaniment.

The game was left in one of those poised positions, as both sides ponder on what might have befallen next... The evil right flank looked to be doing well against the faltering good left. The Uruks on the flank were pretty much even with the elves there, but the rangers were approaching... and Boromir was still loose in the evil backfield, though now with no Will remaining and at risk of Transfix and being surrounded by the orcs and wraith. If I could get the wraith in too, the wraiths high courage would hopefully have nullified Boromirs Horn of Gondor...

But who knows, we can ponder the ifs, buts and maybes forever...

I always enjoy these sort of doubles games as they are always great light hearted fun... looking forward to another adventure in Middle-Earth.

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.

-----o0o-----

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...

Mordor Uruk-Hai

I love fielding loads of orcs in my Mordor forces, that horde rabble look is certainly appealing and can at times also overwhelm an opponent... but your humble orc is not the best fighter Mordor can offer... enter stage right Mordor Uruk-Hai !

The Uruk-Hai were a much bigger and stronger orc that Sauron first created, I believe, but that Saruman also later bred in his fortress of Isengard...

In the movie, we see the Mordor Uruks at the Tower of Cirith Ungol, when Shagrat and Gorbag get into a fight over Frodo's mithril shirt... their squabble, rolls out across the fortress as the orcs of Gorbag fight the Uruk-Hai of Shagrat, effectively destroying each other and leaving the tower unguarded, for Sam to enter and rescue Frodo...

In the game the Mordor-Uruks have a better Fight skill than their orc cousins and are also stronger. But they are still lightly armoured so relatively easy to kill still.

There were only three models made, that I have come across, two Uruks with sword and one with a two-handed mace.

To beef up their defence a bit I have added shields to the sword armed Uruks. A couple of these were spares from my box of Morannon orcs. Two more I made from Instant Mold Milliput casts of the same batch of  Morannon shields...

So the idea was to have a warband with six of these strong orcs, backed up by six spear wielding regular orcs, most likely led by Shagrat - War chief of Cirith Ungol. A supporting warband with a banner led by an orc shaman would also be a useful accompaniment.

These troops were due to get their first blooding tonight at KWC against Andrews forces of Dol Amroth, but Andrew is recovering from a bout of 'Sauron's Revenge' aka 'Montezuma's revenge'... so we'll delay their debut until next week.

The "High" Ground - LOTR SBG BattleReport; Rohan vs Mordor.

Managed to have an impromptu game tonight, with Brett and his muster of the Rohirrim!

 We agreed to drop the points of the game to 500 points, to make for a smaller game, hopefully playable to conclusion in an evenings playing time available.

To theme the Battle, I decided to take a a Mordor force, across the Anduin, into a raid into the Eastfold...

I selected:

Mordor:
Mouth of Sauron, on Armoured steed, leading warband of 6 Morgul Knights with banner and Horn, a spectre and two orcs, shield and spear.
Kardush the Fire caller leading a warband of 12 orcs including a banner.
An Orc Captain leading a warband of 12 orcs.
(I had been toying with the idea of having a Troll Chieftain lead my force, but at 140pts he seemed too much for such a small force)

Brett took:

Rohan:
Eomer Knight of the Pelennor (model proxied by Theoden), leading a warband of Riders of Rohan. 
Erkenbrand (model proxied by a nicely coverted Mounted Boromir), leading a warband of Westfold riders.
The Kings Huntsman (model proxied by Legolas), leading a warband of Warriors of Rohan on foot.

I had set up the board again depicting an isolated Rohan farm.

We rolled off for mission and got The High Ground. Having already placed the farm centrally I didn't want to shift it all out of the way to place a hill there, so we just decided that the cornfield had mighty tall corn! So that would be the prize!

Brett won the initial roll, selected the side closest the cornfield and started deploying...

The forces deployed.

I then managed to win the roll for starting turn, and started my attack, charging in with two Morgul knights and supporting with the rest of the force. I advanced into the cornfield with the central warband, but was wary of being outflanked by Eomer heading down the road, so left a few orcs to cover my rear.

Brett pulled back as best he could, playing for time, and hoping to have his archery do some work... and probed down the road with Eomer...

Seeing the possible risk to my flank and seeing the chance to trap Eomer's warband in the confines of the fenced road, I swung the central orc warband over this way... whilst the fight hotted up on my left flank...

Brett stays out of reach on my left... still playing for time and very wary of the Morgul knights backed by a horde of orcs...

After several heroic move declarations the orc captain leads his warband across the fence into the packed horsemen... Eomer was bunched up and pinned against fences and his own men with the orc captain and his followers swarming in to get to the action... This scrap then raged over several turns with Eomer hanging on and eventually forcing the orcs back!

The evil forces continue the press on the other flank, eventually forcing Rohan to commit...

The ongoing scrap for the farm and road...

My best chance to really hurt the resolve of Rohan; Erkenbrand  attacks the end of the orc line with more riders piling in and others holding off the Morgul knights... But evil saw its chance, the spectre swung in behind Erkenbrand, and the Mouth of Sauron trotted forward and with a wave of his claw like hand, Transfixed Erkenbrand, then charged in to trap him and seal his doom!

Erkenbrand was beaten in the fight and trapped took double hits, but his high D7 saved him and he managed to only take one wound from 8 dice (needing a six to wound). He fluffed his fate roll, but had survived, and I had thrown everything into that transfix!

The battle raged on another turn but Rohan had escaped the trap, Erkenbrand fought clear, and Eomer stayed lucky and forced off the orc attackers back down the road. Kardush was lucky to survive a fight against 4 foes on the edge of the cornfield.

By this point the orcs were broken and time was telling so we called it.

Brett had managed to break me without being broken himself, he also had more troops in the cornfield at the end than I had.

So win to Rohan, 9 - 1 .

 A great fun game. I, as usual lost sight of the victory conditions, hold the field, and went after Rohans troops. I could have sat my whole force in the field and possibly held on for a win, but thats not the way I play!

Interesting points:
The Morgul knights were certainly a handful!
Kardush wasnt terribly effective, his spells achieved nothing...
The MoS, was cool to use but couldnt land the killer blow against a tough opponent.

The D7 Eomer and Erkenbrand took all that was thrown at them.
The Huntsman, sniped a couple of orcs, nothing too telling... though Rohan archery overall took a steady toll of orcs.

Again a lot of fun and looking forward to the next battle in Middle-Earth...

Troll Chieftan

The Mordor Troll Chieftan, a great behemoth of a beast, intent on death and destruction.

A slightly tricky model to photograph for best effect as it has a very stooped forward pose. I tipped it on on a small prop to better view the face, although still somewhat in shadow.

I can't recall if a troll captain features explicitly in the books, but he makes a wonderful movie appearance fighting against Aragorn at the Black Gates at the end of the movie, The Return of the King.

Mordor Catapult

"As soon as the great catapults were set, with many yells and the creaking of rope and winch, they began to throw missiles marvelously high, so that they passed right above the battlement and fell thudding within the first circle of the City; and many of them by some secret art burst into flame as they came toppling down"
The Lord of the Rings, Book Five the War of the Ring, The Siege of Gondor.

The Mordor Catapult, assisted by a troll to load the heavy stone, that will crash against the City of Minas Tirith.

This will give my Mordor force some hard hitting artillery power from long range.

Gothmog - Castellan of Minas Morgul

Gothmog, the Castellan of Minas Morgul. A great orc of fearsome reputation, and guile on the battlefield.

Here on foot and mounted on ferocious warg.

A very themed commander of the forces from Mordor that issued forth from the 'wraith city of Minas Morgul, Tower of Sorcery, at the time of the War of the Ring. Bringing his forces into the ruined city of Osgiliath, and with stealth across the Anduin, and onwards across the Pelenor to lay siege to the great city of Minas Tirith.

In the game a very strong battlefield epic hero, capable of great feats of generalship and heroics. Much debated on forums too!

I have to say sadly, of all the representations of characters from the book PJ made for the movie, I think only Gothmog displeased me. I couldn't help but think thoughts of 'elephant man' and 'piggy-orc', and 'gimp'!
Why have such a strong fighter and battler, with a gimpy malformed arm? And as for fighting ability his on screen action against Eowyn was positively pathetic, my ol' granny could have beaten him...