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Tuesday, December 04, 2012

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...



26 comments:

  1. You had great fun there! You are very lucky, only in my dreams I can play so often!

    "Yeah I feel for you Panagiotis. Greece is still having a pretty tough time of it financially at the moment?"

    "My apologies for the delayed response again. I don't do this on purpose. I'm doing shifts at the Service I am now and I don't have access to the internet there.
    Financial situation is still difficult here and nobody knows when it's getting better, if ever.
    By the way, the cemetery is very nice!
    Panagiotis."

    By the way, here is still Monday!
    Panagiotis.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. I am quite fortunate in the number of games I can manage! I have some great local mates, and we manage to have games on just about a weekly basis, at each others houses... we must be grateful to our respective "swmbo's" who allow us this free time ;-)

      I hear you Panagiotis, I hope things improve for you and your country.
      regards
      Scott

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  2. Great battle report and great to see its a SBG and not WOTR for a change.
    keep posting

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    1. Thanks Kenzie. I am rather enjoying the SBG game. Its quite a solid set of rule, simple elegant, yet interestingly unpredictable in the outcome at times, which keeps it all the more challenging!

      Whilst I had high hopes for the WOTR game, the game had a number of issues, which I think need sorting out. I hope they may attend to this in line with the Grand Battle of The Battle of the Five Armies from The Hobbit...

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  3. I love reading your batrep summaries. I know firsthand how frustrating Erkenbrand can be to try to take down - especially when you have that particular Eomer lurking.

    This reminds me that I have 2 boxes of morgul knights that I have yet to field. Guess I need to get cracking. . .

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    1. Thank El Zorro,

      I am often faced with this dilemma in the game, do you throw your resources and efforts into taking down the enemy heroes, or ignore them and just focus on killing his regular troopers, taking the enemy to his break point...?

      I have another box of Morgul knights to make though they are the older metal ones... 12 Morgul knights hmmm... that would be nice to have ;-)

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  4. Another great report; you are certainly making it harder to resist heading up to the loft to dig out my buried LoTR miniatures; the horn of Gondor is calling!

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    1. Thanks Michael!

      I hope you find the time to climb that loft ladder and rescue your forgotten forces... give wind to that mighty horn and let its clarion call echo from the rooftops!

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  5. Nice AAR, I think you play it the best way

    Ian

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    1. Thanks Ian, yeah its always more fun enjoying the fight!

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  6. Nice write up and pics Scott. Although I have a 4 player game of LOTR coming up on the 20th for my friend's birthday, I wish I was able to play this game more often.

    Jason

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    1. Thanks. Good to hear Jason, I look forward to your battle report!

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  7. Nice write up, great figures and terrain.

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  8. Inspiring game- nice themed forces, minis & terrain. Makes me want to play some more of this game

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  9. Nice report!
    Excellent blog also Scott. Thanks for visiting mine. :)

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    1. Thank you Thanos. And likewise, a fine blog you have there. :-)

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  10. Excellent report! It's got me all Lord of the Rings-y! (or "The Hobby of The Hobbit" as we now have to call it!)

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  11. Bah Scott, you're tempting me to consider this game again! Seriously though, it's a fun looking game. I like your terrain too. It's a nice set up. I enjoyed the AAR.

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  12. Nice report! Perhaps your next foray into Rohan will result in death to the Strawhead!

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    Replies
    1. Thank you! Next time I may try out some heavier hitters, if I have to deal with D7 heroes!

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  13. Great batrep Scott. I can see why you'd get back into playing this. The figures are too nice to sit in a box, they need to see the light of day. If I could play games I would play this and I would play Blood Bowl. One day, one day....

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    1. Thanks Anne... I have to admit they have languished for several years! Its great to get them out and play the game again :-)

      If you are interested, you can probably picks some figures fairly cheap on ebay these days...

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