Lord of the Rings / Hobbit gaming at the Kapiti Wargames Club

Tonight Andrew and I co-hosted a demo try out session of Lord of the Rings / Hobbit SBG gaming at the Kapiti Wargames Club.

Andrew had proposed the idea of us bringing down some forces and terrain and letting those interested give it a go, a couple of weeks ago...  We managed to get 5 of the club interested to have a go and the club saw a new prospective member come all the way from Upper Hutt to join in and have a game with us too.

Andrew and I set up 4 adjacent tables with playing areas of about 42'' x 48", taped off and set up the terrain and each of us had brought two paired adversaries.

We kept the points and format small, 450 points armies and minimal spellcasters and monsters, concentrating on infantry and cavalry - to allow the new players to get the hang of the core rules and tactics...

Andrew brought Easterlings vs Dol Amroth, and Goblins vs Dwarves

I brought Goblins vs Galadhrim Elves, and Mordor orcs vs Gondor...  though in the end Pete came over from Upper Hutt and brought his Wood Elves with him so I played my Orcs against him, and put Gondor back in the box...

Then all up and ready, and after a quick briefing were all into it. From L to R... Pete ( from Upper Hutt), Rex, Arnold, Ethan, Andrew, Jayden and David...

We kept the scenario simple too, a straight up, 'To the Death'... just kill each other!

Pete's Wood Elves against my Mordor Orcs above.

Rex commands the Galadhrim against the Goblins led by David, below...

Arnold commands the forces of Dol Amroth against the Easterlings commanded by Jayden, below...

I think Andrew commanded the dwarves against the Goblins commanded by Ethan, I believe, but others might have joined in replacing Andrew? - I am not sure, it was all fast and furious stuff, and we had several interested onlookers too!

The games played well and everyone enjoyed them... with comments afterwards of " I'm going to get Uruks" , and "I'm going to get Easterlings" etc etc...

What topped the evening off was a kind donation timed wonderfully by the local GW manager, Nathan Smith of Wellington GW, who donated to the club today some Gondorian soldiers.  The Gondorians grabbed a lot of peoples interest, including those who were enjoying playing in the demo and onlookers too... Those interested got some models, with the deal being - paint those up and bring them back to show us, and you can have some more!

So with that we already have a bunch of people grabbing Gondorians eager to get some paint on them, and get some games in with them... this may of course lead to a huge Gondorian civil war breaking out at the club! Great thing is this gets folks interested in the game and giving it a go, and once you collect one army you're bound to want to expand on it... so that all bodes well...

So a big shout out to the Kapiti Wargame Club for hosting us and allowing us to demo the game again to them, and to Nathan Smith for his very generous donation, and to Pete for making the journey over from the Hutt, and Andrew for making the journey up from Wellington and helping run the show, and of course to the players who were keen to give it a go on the night!

As Andrew put it afterwards, I dont think we've had that many people playing LOTR together at once in the Wello region for many years! I think that speaks for itself!

Hopefully we'll have more games in the future to report on, with a growing pool of local LOTR enthusiasts!

Update:
Some great pics on Jayden's blog here at The Imperial Patrol

Isengard Uruk-Hai Scout Command

With the Causeway piece completed, I'll be turning my terrain building activity back to Balin's Tomb, I think... but looking forward again, to model requirements for the ongoing Fellowship Campaign and on to the Two Towers I have recently completed more Uruk-Hai scouts and command figures to lead them...

These figures will be required for the Amon Hen scenario, and on through the Isengard versus Rohan scenarios of the Two Towers, where they will feature in the Battles of the Fords of Isen, the Burning of the WestFold and of course Helms Deep...

All metal figures this time... but they will compliment the plastic set of Uruk-Hai scouts I completed a couple of months back now...

Scout banner above and drummer below... these came out as a twin pack some time ago, probably as part of the required releases for the WOTR game. The banner I can certainly use but the drummer no longer has specific stats in the current SBG game.

There is an orc drummer in the Mordor list, who is a character hero so perhaps I could borrow his stats and abilities as an 'ally' and proxy this figure into the force that way? Would need a bit of a houserule players agreement to pull off... otherwise it can simply be a regular Uruk scout just to use the cool figure... love the thigh bone as a drum stick!

Next up is Mauhur... Mauhur wasn't in the movies but does feature in the book, although more as reference by Ugluk, when he talks of other scout warbands in the area...

If you take Mauhur, you can upgrade your scouts to 'marauders', increasing their move from 6" to 8".

Mauhur

Another uruk leader is Vrasku, with his famed crossbow. Vrasku didnt make it into the monies but he is creditted in the books as being the one to shoot down Theodred at the First Battle of the Fords of Isen. He was later killed by Erkenbrand, at the Second battle at the Ford...

Vrasku

Lurtz, needs no introduction!A well know Uruk Leader from the movies, but not one from the book! Never the less he is a very useful commander of the Uruks, and is clearly required for the Amon Hen scenario!

Lurtz

More metal Uruks with shields, to bolster the numbers of troops I need at Amon Hen...

Uruk Scouts

Hold Ground skirmish - Galadhrim Elves vs Goblins of Moria Battle Report

Had a chance for a quick game with mate Brett.

Brett was wanting to try the game at a relatively small points level; 400 points, just to see how quickly the game could be played and without going into all the Uber characters and beasties... in other words trying to 'keep it simple'...

Brett was going to bring his Galadhrim, and I decided to bring some goblins down out of Moria...

Now my past record of Goblins vs Elves has not been the best... I have usually taken a few goblin warbands led by a few heroes and thrown a cave troll in for good measure... but one cave troll was invariable 'nerfed', either being turned into a pin cushion by elven archery or immobilised and cut down whilst in a 'stupor'... Once the cave troll was dealt with the rest of the goblins were usually either avoided, shot up, or mopped up by the rampant elves...

However having had some success with my Angmar force fielding multiple trolls, I wondered how many I could squeeze into 400 points and still have enough heroes to lead them and have enough goblins to back them up, and be a viable force...

So I took Durburz with a cave troll and 11 goblins,... and a Captain , with a cave troll, 10 goblins and a Bat Swarm.

[I did think about trialing a Dweller, instead of a troll, and swapping out the captain for a shaman, but despite a furious last minute effort I didn't quite get the dweller made in time]

Brett brought a force comprising a Captain, with Galadhrim spear and sword infantry... another captain with bow, with Galadhrim archers and spears, ... and a small warband of a captain, with a sentinel and a spear support.

 After chatting through the missions we decide to try Hold Ground.

This mission is basically to fight for and hold the centre of the board, marked by an objective marker. But you start the game with no troops on the board. Warbands come on each turn from a variable random board edge position, and have to make their way to the centre where they will no doubt engage the enemy....

We didn't take many pictures of the game but here's a selection...

The elves get their two main warbands coming on pretty much together from the Eastern board edge, archers to the right...

Whilst the small warband with the sentinel, finds itself coming on from the northwest corner...

Both goblin warbands come on from the south west corner...

The main elven warband headed towards the centre whilst the archer warband took up firing position behind a crumbling wall... from here they shot several volleys at the approaching goblins, dropping a few of them on their way to the centre of the board. The goblins also tried to get a little cover from the broken wall, from the elven shooting... I also peeled off one of the trolls, screened by the bat swarm to go after the archers and try to flush them out, making them move and reduce their shooting effectiveness...

The picture below shows the Cave troll and bats engaging the elven archers at the wall as the main goblin horde pushes on for the centre...

As the game progressed the power of the trolls became rather self evident and Brett struggled to deal with them...His archery had targetted the goblins, not the trolls, and he had no spell casters in range to affect them either...

The centre goblin formation, split with some heading south to deal with the archers and aid the troll and bat swarm there, as the other goblins led by Durburz, the captain and second troll pushed on through the centre and forced the elves back...

The elven archer captain was knocked about by the rampant troll and eventually slain, trapped against the crumbling wall... the bat swarm had done it's job, shielding the approach of the troll and getting in the way once melee with it commenced... The elven centre started to collapse, but the fight had by now drifted away from the central position where Brett still had his main captain and the remnants of his centre warband...

However after a brutal turn for the elves, they were broken and the dice thrown by Brett afterwards, summed up his dice for the game... a 1 to end it...

A final tally for VPs saw the goblins edge it 8-7... Brett had more elves left near the objective than the goblins did at games end, but the elves were broken and the goblins were not. Neither leader was injured either.

-----o0o-----

We discussed the game afterwards as is usual, and Brett was concerned at the viability of his compact force. He had expected elven archery to have a strong effect in the game, but that had not eventuated and without any magic to deal with the trolls, and once engaged with the greater numbers of goblins, had struggled hold them off...

Perhaps the two cave trolls were too much for this small simple game? But then I would have had another captain and an extra full warband of goblins and other beasties to make up the points, so the elves may then have been swamped by numbers???

So it appears a basic elven force of infantry and captains just does not cut the mustard, by itself... there clearly is a need for some elven sorcery to help tip the balance. Or perhaps some cavalry?

Perhaps the mission and random deployments had not favoured the elves in this scenario either?

Any thoughts on a 400 point Galadhrim force... comments below please...

The Fellowship on Durin's Causeway

I've had a few requests for pictures of the LOTR model figures on the Causeway terrain piece, so I set up a scene and had a go at photographing it...

I have to say, its quite a tricky thing to photograph well...

The first few pics are with fill-in flash...

The next few are the true night time shots, no flash, and where I have tried tweaking the exposure... enough so you are not blinded by the light of the fires, and yet no so dark that you can't see the figures... Tricky work I can tell you... tripod and timer function a must for this... and patience!

These are the best pics I managed tonight...

I hope you enjoyed them and they give you an idea of scale with the models featured on the terrain piece...

Now just have to actually play a game on it!

Welcome Ste!

Well its been a wee while coming, but I got the chance to meet and greet Ste Haran , of Off t'club blog fame.

I have followed Ste's blog for many moons now and some time ago it was announced Ste would be migrating to New Zealand from the UK, as I had done several years ago.

Ste finally arrived here a couple of weeks ago, and as you can imagine it takes a little while to get over the jet lag, and sort your self and your family out, when you first move to a new place, especially when its the other side of the world and you're living out of a suitcase till your shipping container arrives... been there, done that, got the T-shirt! ;-)

So it was great to finally meet Ste today, over a game of Lord of the Rings/Hobbit SBG...

I had had a game lined up tonight with Andrew, but a last minute logistical hiccup forced Andrew to cancel. Luckily for me, Ste was coming up to the club simply for a meet and greet, so a quick change of plan, I'd bring two armies along and we'd get to have a leisurely game, and have a chat to get to know each other...

We played Mordor vs Rohan & Gondor Alliance; ~580 points.

Faramir and a Minas Tirith Captain led the Gondorian foot, whilst Theodred commanded the Riders of Rohan.

Shagrat and an orc captain led the Mordor foot, whilst a Mordor orc shaman led the warg riders.

A fling of the dice and we were playing the High Ground, which became a battle for control of a large rocky outcrop in the centre of the board.

We played at a leisurely place and chatted away, a very pleasant game, not taken too seriously at all...

Here's a few pics to peruse...

Battle is joined as the infantry engage... the debut of the Mordor Uruk-Hai and they make their presence felt!

The Gondorian infantry is pushed back in the early part of the battle...

The warg riders try and circle the flank of the battlefield, wary of getting shot by the Riders of Rohan and perhaps trying to draw them away from the main scrap near the rock....

The Riders of Rohan arrayed initially for shooting... the first volley wasn't bad but the second one wiffed and then they too were in melee...

The man himself, all the way from Yorkshire!

Ste Haran

It was rather cool to get to meet a fellow blogger from elsewhere in the world... the way the blogging community is, it felt like meeting up with an old friend...

Meanwhile the scrap continued, Rohirrim and warg riders clashed on the flank with Theodred benefitting from a well timed and positioned Heroic Fight, killing an orc in the centre of the board and then galloping off to aid the flank...

The remaining central riders had just managed to break through the centre and come round behind the orc infantry line as we called the game with time running out...

It was still a close game and probably could have gone either way...

We totted up VP's and were both amused to discover it was a 0-0 draw, as neither of us had troops in base contact with the rock! Doh!

Main thing is we got to meet and enjoy a great game of LOTR!

Looking forward to more games with Ste, and getting a growing bunch of gamers together interested in LOTR :) Ste's shipping container is about a month away and then he'll get to unpack his armies... among other more important things of course! ;-)

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! ;-)