The New Zealand Hobbit League, Final Round. - Day One.

Over the weekend my son Chris and I attended the final round of the New Zealand Hobbit League, held at PlayerBase in Lower Hutt, where 20 players had gathered for a weekends gaming fun in MiddleEarth.

Photos courtesy of Matt Ridgely and NZHL Facebook page... I took my camera along, but the action was pretty fast and frantic once the games started and I never remembered to take any in-game pics myself!

The event was 750 points, with the stipulation that armies must include at least 1 hero (or two combined) who's points value is 250pts or more. I think the thinking behind this being two-fold... the games will get to feature Heroes which Middle-Earth is all about, and it would avoid purely horde armies which can take a long time to move... the games were 90 mins max, with a strict dice down at that time... so we needed to boogy to get our games played out in time... horde armies would inevitably time out...

So with that format we had four games in the first day, with a random draw in first round followed by swiss chess draw for remaining games of the day...

What did I play? Well I tend to favour my Mordor armies (It's good to be bad!), tending on the horde side with a few powerful fighting leaders... but I decided on a variation this time...

I've always had a 'thing' about Dol Guldur, and the recent Hobbit movies certainly, have all explored that theme, and they were some of my favourite scenes from the trilogy... delving into the back story behind the main theme of the Quest of Erebor...

So I chose a Dol Guldur force led by the Necromancer.

I have had the model painted in my collection for quite some time and only used it once thus far in a 1000 point game where I felt its points were justified., so I thought it was high time it got a dusting off... and try it out at this smaller points game level.

He would lead a warband of Dol Guldur Orcs (F4) with banner. Backing him up would be a Mordor OrcTaskmaster and more Dol Guldur orcs with a Spectre. Finally, a Mordor Orc Shaman mounted on warg, leading a warband of orc warg riders and giant spiders.

I wanted to keep a sensible Dol Guldur theme, and still have an effective combo of heroes in the force...

I would be focusing on Chill Soul with the Necromancer, channeled where possible to kill troops. The Task masters ability would hopefully buff this ability saving some Might points, with luck. The Shaman would of course be there to cast channeled Fury, to try and keep my orcs alive and wearing down the foe...


To Battle!

Game 1
My first game was against Ollie Redding, who was running a Mordor force led by the Witch-King on Fellbeast, with Morannon Orcs, a Troll and some Easterling allies...

Sorry, I didn't find a shot of this game. Ollie hadn't played for a while, so wasn't up on some of the new Hobbit rules tweaks, but that said, I made a rule error too that Ollie corrected, so all was good.

The Game was a standard To the Death, and I got ahead early with some Chill Souls killing a few of Ollies troops. Ollie responded with an expected Channeled Sap will from the WK forcing my Necromancer to burn will to combat it ... in the meantime my greater numbers were knocking down Ollies troops. This theme continued until my Necromancer was down to 1 Will remaining and legged it getting away from the WK. With time running out, I had managed to break Ollies force, remaining unbroken myself, and had a banner active too, where Ollie did not, resulting in a 7-0 VP win, converting into a 24-0 Tournament score.

Game 2 and I was drawn against my son Chris, and the Gondor force he was running that I had readied for him. Boromir with the Banner led WoMT, Damrod led rangers with spear, Faramir led his mounted Knights and Beregond led more WoMT.

Chris had got off to a good start against Peter leading a Mordor force in the first round and had also come away with a 24-0 in his favor so he was feeling pretty stoked!

Our game was Domination... with 5 objective markers scattered about the board.

This would mean splitting my forces to try and cover all the objectives, which wasnt the way my army worked well. Also I had no shooting attack so couldnt just sit tight as I'd get shot to bits by the rangers... the board was relatively open.

So I decided to go for broke. the central objectives were all covered, and Chris had put his rangers clustered in a group covering his rear objective. He had placed Boromir out on a flank. I thought I saw a chance to advance on the rangers - Chill souls them and knock them out of the game, then return to the board centre and hold off Boromir and make a go of contesting the rest of the objectives and killing off Chris's army. But it was big and would be tricky to break.

Things started to go wrong from the start, I advanced on the rangers with the Necromancer's warband... and cast channeled chill soul., rolling a six on 4 dice. Damrod had one will point to resist it, and rolled a six to block the spell! The rangers then shot, and dropped 6 orcs! My Shaman was busy on the other side of board so no Fury saves either...

I got Chill off next round but by then Chris has spread out so I only got 2 rangers... and now Boromir was marching down to attack my shrinking warband...

We continued to battle it out across the table for the objectives... but when time was called Chris held one solely while all the rest were contested, and I was broken, leading to a 10-4 in VPs IIRC... and Chris getting a major win 20-4 in Tournie points.

Well done Chris, well played indeed!

Game 3, and I was drawn against the 'Ringer'; Matt Ridgely. One participant had pulled out at the last moment, so Matt although being TO, also stepped up to run a force. Any points he scored wouldn't contribute to a position on the day, but his opponents score would still count fully.

Matt had gone with The Fellowship as his force.

Our mission was Reconnoitre, with an adjusted points scoring system. This is a mission where this match up worked well for me... a small hero force trying to stop a much larger force crossing its table edge, and vice versa.

Again, sorry no picture for this one.

Our forces deployed and we set to... Matt deploying centrally on his board edge whilst I loaded a flank.

My force surged up the side of the board and Matts main heroes tried to head me off, whilst the 4 hobbits went for a sneaky end around uncontested march.

After a few turns we were mixing it up, with  Aragron, Boromir and Gimli in the front with support from Gandalf and Legolas from behind. But once the lead heroes were engaged by foot troops, the faster wargs and spiders zipped around and surrounded Legolas and Gandalf.

The fighting was fierce and the Necromancer ended up in the thick of it, against Boromir and Gimli, with orcs on all sides and Aragron surrounded by orcs too. I cant remember the order in which they fell, but Legolas went first I think. Boromir lost his fight and the Necromancer laid the killing blow with Drain Soul, Boromir being out of Might and failing his lone Fate roll. And subsequently Gimli also fell to the Necromancer. Legolas and Gandalf also both fell surrounded and cut down by warg riders and spiders... Only Aragorn stood alone in the throng at this time... But whilst all this was playing out the Hobbits were continuing on their merry jaunt, unmolested... so I was having to keep a close eye on how close they were to escaping, and how may of my own troops I had to get moving, and how much time was left...

We lashed through the last few turns, with all hobbits escaping, but hordes of orcs had also escaped, vastly outnumbering the hobbits... Aragorn had been unable to impede their massed march.

With getting max points for my reconnoitering troops, the altered Scenario VP's awarded me a 5-0 win; and thus another 24-0 in Tournie points.

Great game against Matt, and a little revenge for our last meet up at CTA! ;-)

Game 4, and the last game of the day and I was draw again Bryan Thompson, running Rivendell Elves led by Gandalf the White on Shadowfax, Arwen was along for the ride too, with Elladan and Elrohir both mounted and armoured up.

Bryan and I had had a pre tournie warm up game a couple of weeks back, where I tried out the Necromancer for only the second time, and Bryan dabbled with using Tom Bombadil in his force... it was a curious game with Bombadil facing off the Necromancer... and largely neutralising him...

Back to our game today...

Our game would be Lords of Battle... which is basically a scoring match with each kill scoring a point.

I deployed centrally up front with Bryan deploying to one rear corner...

I began by advancing towards Bryan's force and lashing away with a channeled chill soul at the grouped elves, trying to take out some archers too to reduce their return fire as I approached.

Bryan replied with Gandalf lashing back with Sorcerous Blast... to minimal effect thanks to Fury saves...

Evil continued its advance closing down the Elven force, more Chill souls  took their toll and Arwen trotted out to let off a Natures Wrath, accompanying Gandalf on his own Sorcerous exchange.

A steady toll was being inflicted on the Elves, and the orcs were passing all manner of Fury saves.

Eventually the two sides clashed in melee and started mixing it up...

The Necromancer singled out the Elven banner with a Chill Soul to remove his benefit to the elves, but elves being elves, still made an account of themselves in the ensuing melees...

When time was called we anxiously totted up the casualties and Victory Points, to find the game was a draw! I had got ahead early with my Chill Souls, but Bryan had fought back towards the end and closed the gap.

This scored us both 12 Tournie points.
A very enjoyable game.

And this pretty much wrapped up the events of Day One.

To finish off the day we submitted our votes for 'best sportsman', 'best painted', and 'best army'.

Our final standings after Day One would then see us go through to a knock out cup draw, splitting the field, the top 8 placings competing for Lord of Middle Earth and the rest for Squire of Middle Earth.

So with 2 wins, a draw and a loss, I'll see where I stand...

Tune in next time for Day Two!

Durin's Causeway - Finished!

At long last I have finished Durin's Causeway. 

It's been a marathon journey, and as usual what seemed like a simple idea at the outset, grew and grew in the making...

Unsatisfied with how the suggested terrain looked in the Fellowship of the Ring Journey book, to play the game, I started making this to look more in keeping with the movie. It's still far from a perfect copy, and several things I did my own way, either for practicality or play-ability reasons.

I am more than happy with how it has turned out, though the amount of effort that has gone into building it, compared to how often I will actually get to play on it, plus I have still to figure out where to store and keep it, having yet to be resolved, has led me conclude this is most likely my folly! ;-)

However, I am still happy to have built it and will look forward to playing the FOTR scenario upon it :-)

Just to put things into perspective I have included the movie sequence which the terrain piece is derived from. It's an epic and iconic movie moment, and also gives perspective for any blog readers who are not fans of or simply have not seen the movie...



Here's how it looks under normal lighting and fill in flash photography...

And then some more atmospheric 'night-time' pictures. These took several goes to get right and I still think they are perhaps a little over-exposed but I haven't figured out how to reduce the exposure on my camera settings as yet. It took me all my time to get these to work at all!

Never the less, I hope you enjoy them...

I left this picture un-cropped, just to give you an idea of how big it is... its roughly 3' x 3' x 3', give or take a few inches...

The next terrain piece on my list of to-do's is to finish Balin's Tomb, which is actually for the scenario, before this one! Yes I know, I know, I should have made that one first, but oddly enough this one had given me most cause for concern so I had decided to tackle it head and get it out of the way first...

Ah well, that is part of the madness that goes on in my head! ;-)

The defence of the ruins of Cair Andros

The year is 3017 of the Third Age of this world...

A sense of foreboding lies over the realm of Gondor, as if some great event is about to take place... Long has Gondor dwelt in the shadow of Mordor, its visceral threat evidenced by dark clouds over that cursed land, punctuated by flashes of flame as Mount Doom rumbles restlessly in its long slumber...

Ever have the borders of Gondor been tested, whether by foul orcs from Mordor itself, or the varied races of evil men of the East, in thrall to Sauron, the Dark Lord of Mordor.

On this fair summer morn, Faramir is north east of the great city of Minas Tirith, checking the northern borders with his company of rangers, around the ruined outskirts of Cair Andros. The small garrison here guards the norther crossings of the great river Anduin, which lie in direct course to the Gates of the Black Land, the Morannon...

It is not only Faramir, who is in the north that day, but Boromir, his brother, also has just arrived from Minas Tirith. Travelling with a company of the Tower Guard, he is inspecting the borders of Gondor, looking for weakness...

The meeting of the brothers is a joyous time, but their merriment is short lived as Faramir's ranger scouts bring in news from further north. Dust clouds herald the approach of a host of men on foot and horse, led by a great man borne in horse drawn chariot. The wainriders have come, once again!

-----o0o-----

Our second game at the KWC, saw Andrew and myself enjoying another game of LOTR/Hobbit. 

Andrew had wanted to bring his Eastern Realms force featuring Easterlings of Rhûn and Khandish troops led by a Khandish Chieftain in chariot. This would give me a good chance to try out my fledgling Gondor force that I have recently competed over the last month or so.

We decided to keep the points at 600 for the army size, as we have found this is a big enough size to include some decent monsters or heroes, without being too large that we cant get conclusion in a comfortable evenings playing time.

As I arrived at the club, Andrew had the table set up ready to play, having arrived earlier... a couple of dice throws later and we were playing 'Lords of Battle' and I won the first dice to choose sides and start deploying...

Lords of Battle is basically a kill fest where you score points for all the kills you achieve and points for wounds inflicted upon and fate points used up, by enemy heroes... Once one side breaks (down to 50%) you roll a die... on a 1-2 game ends, otherwise play on ... and check again next turn and so on...

-----o0o-----

Deployment:

Andrew had set the board up with his Gothic ruins set, depicting the outskirts of a ruined settlement.

I had Boromir, leading a warband of WoMT (Warriors of Minas Tirith), Faramir leading a mixed warband of WoMT and Rangers and a Captain of MT leading a warband of WoMT. An all infantry force, with strong armour for the most part backed by a few rangers.

Spying Andrews force I could see a mixed formation; solid heavily armoured Easterling foot troops and kataphract cavalry, in addition to lighter armoured Khandish foot and light bow armed hosremen. ( I love the look of these troops they have a real Mongol horde look about them, and I have started acquiring some to compliment for Mordor forces.) At their head was a very grand looking Khandish Chieftain riding his war chariot. Super job on this by Andrew - nice to see the extra effort to add reigns and even the addition of severed Gondorian heads!

As usual we deployed in alternating warband fashion, and I was wary of being caught in the open too much against the cavalry and chariot. So I deployed Faramir's warband first, holding the central ruin, with covering archer positions to the fore and flank. Andrew placed his Easterling foot centrally which I countered with Boromir's warband, centrally positioned. Andrew placed his Khandish foot reinforcing the Easterling foot, against which I placed my last infantry warband on my far left flank, led by my Captain. Finally Andrew placed his cavalry and chariot on my right flank, looking possibly to sweep through the weaker flank held by my rangers...

Battlefield deployment

"The board is set... the pieces are moving..." ... great line by Gandalf!

The brothers hold the Gondorian centre

Rangers hold the Gondorian right as the Rhûnic cavalry look to turn the flank.

-----o0o-----

Battle is joined!

I won priority for the first turn and charged forward with most of my troops, whilst the rangers continued to hold the ruin on my right flank.

The Khandish cavalry went up the flank as expected...

...but the Easterling kataphracts led by the Khandish chariot, swung in towards the centre and the end of the Gondorian line...

Initial bow fire from the rangers killed one Khandish horseman and unhorsed another. Two shots at the chariot instead hit the kataphract but failed to penetrate the armour.

The early part of the fighting showed the difference between the heavier armoured Gondorians and the lighter armoured Khandish foot troops. The Easterlings and Gondorians being a match for each other, in the centre, but Boromir made a slight difference here, though was making hard work of it...

Sensing the risk to his right flank, the Khandish warlord continued towards that flank escorted by two kataphracts...

The Khandish light horse galloped in towards the ruins the rangers were holding, bows twanging, trying to flush them out...

Battle was fierce all along the main battleline. Faramir had joined the fray against the kataphracts attacking the end of the Gondorian line. Boromir still tried to push through the Easterling centre, trying to get towards their captain.

The Khandish chariot rumbled into position now to reinforce the faltering Khandish flank, now just waiting for a gap to charge into...

The rangers feel the pressure as the Khandish light horse approach, they can wait for another round of shooting before they will have to retire...

The strong Gondorian armour continues to hold out against the Khandish foot...

The rangers pull back just in time as two warriors rush to help the now faltering Gondorian right, one ranger is too slow to react and caught...

Battle rages and the Khandish chariot rider makes his presence felt crashing into the Gondorian soldiery... as Boromir finally gets to the Easterling captain. Meanwhile the Khandish chieftain on foot finds himself surrounded for the second time...

Boromir fights on, urging his line to hold... Faramir at the flank battles on with the kataphracts...

The Khandish foot troops have been sorely beaten by the Gondorian foot, but now the gaps in their ranks are terribly exploited by the charging chariot and Easterling kataphracts, and brave Gondorian soldiers begin to fall...

The Gondorians continue to hold, with pressure on all sides now, but they keep battling and evil men of the East continue to fall...

A ranger has fallen in the ruins but the other light horsemen are fought off, and Faramir has felled the kataphract he was engaged with...

The Khandish chariot mounted chieftain continues to batter his way forward into the Gondorian line knocking men over like bowling pins... Boromir is too far away to help, being engaged still in the centre with the Easterling captain... The Gondorian captain will have to hold as best he can...

The battle rages on in the ruins...

Boromir battles on with the Easterling captain... the line thins as other troops pull back to help other positions...

 ...trying to hold the Easterlings, whilst greater numbers try to deal to the Khandish troops...

The chariot crashes on into several Gondorians... and the Khandish Chieftain on foot battles on having survived being surrounded twice!

The rangers see to one of the horsemen, but are beaten back by the other, the line against the Easterlings holds as more Khandish troops fall, but the chariot is unstoppable... felling the Captain of Minas Tirith!

The final Khandish light horseman is surrounded in the ruins and pulled from his horse, ending the pressure on the Gondorian right flank..

The khandish Chariot crashes on its trail on destruction, the Gondorian left now sorely tested and looking to crumble...

Boromir is still engaged with the Easterling captain...

... as Faramir fights off the last Kataphract on the Gondorian right... finally cutting him down from his horse...

The battle rages on... the flank ruin is secure and the rangers can now look to move to reinforce the centre... and Faramir can start to try and turn the Easterling flank... The remnants of the Gondorian left, having dealt with the Khandish foot troops, now look to withdraw to the centre... away from the chariot threat...

...if they can lure the chariot that way, Boromir may be able to deal with it, that is our slim hope...

A brave Gondorian trooper charges the stalled chariot, impeding its charging movement, Faramir is starting to turn the Easterling line, but a kataphract moves up to threaten this bold move...

Can Gondor hold on...

The brave Gondorian who charged the chariot is dispatched, but Boromir has finally managed to fell the Easterling Captain in the centre.

And at that point the fateful chance cube comes to rest, showing battle is over this day... dusk has come and both sides withdraw...

Boromir stands holding the centre, with his brother Faramir close at hand...

The two Khandish war chieftains have crushed the Gondorian left...

You have fought well this day little brother!

-----o0o-----

And so ends our battle, a most enjoyable and brutal game. The casualties shown below...

The final victory point tally shows a slim victory to Gondor with final scores for casualties inflicted, and wounds suffered and fate points used up, by heroes as, 28 - 22, in Gondors favour. At the end, both sides were broken.

A thrilling game and we look forward to our next installment.

Andrew wants to bring his beautifully converted Dol Amroth army so I will be fielding the varied foul troops Mordor has to deploy....

Join us in a fortnights time for the next thrilling encounter!