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Thursday, September 25, 2014

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



26 comments:

  1. You are becoming a SBG ring leader Scott!

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  2. Really good to see it went so well. Good work, and I hope to see a similar demo day at Warlords soon. :)

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    1. Thanks Spiro - I think Andrew has something planned for the 4th October? I'm just waiting to get a 'leave pass' from SWMBO to come down and help out... :)

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  3. Lots of great looking games being played and I hope you all had a great day. Hopefully you might be able to perhaps have one of those warband campaign things going

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    1. Thanks Simon, a warband thing could be could to get people into it on a smaller scale...

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  4. It was me commanding the Easterlings :P

    But great game. Definitely convinced me to pick up the game. Right now just looking at the models available trying to decide which ones I want to play.

    I look forward to more games in the future!

    Cheers

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  5. I have to say playing that game again after so long away from it was wonderful, in loved it. Thanks for putting on those games now it time to go buy some models, i have war bands to plan

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    1. Great to have you along Rex, and glad you enjoyed the experience. You certainly had a tough fight on your hands outnumbered by hordes of vile goblins!
      You did have an ace up your sleeve - Celeborn is a spell caster too! But I didnt have time to go into the specifics of what he could achieve... Basically he can make all your troops terrifying to the goblins, so that have to pass courage checks just to charge you. Also you can immobilise enemy heroes making them easy to cut down in the fight!
      But I didnt want to complicate things too much in the first game...

      Looking forward to more games with you... thanks again!

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    2. BTW I believe the guy that won the GHBL last year, was commanding Wood Elves so that bodes well for you!

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    3. Excellent, the Wood Elves will rise again!!

      During my previous foray into LOTR i did learn about spell casters but was fine using the base rules. I will be reading up on the rules this weekend as well as painting the LOTR Wood Elves for next Thursday, i know there are a lot of their WHFB cousin to paint but right now i am eager to get a painted LOTR force.

      Thanks again for the excellent evening

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    4. Great to hear Rex... actually I boobed slightly above - Celeborn himself causes terror, but his spell is an auto courage pass for his troops, not a cause terror for them... sorry lots to remember and I get confused too sometimes!

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  6. What an excellent gathering. Cheers

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  7. A great recruiting drive for the hobby Scott, well done mate.

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  8. Terrific work, Scott! You've really put on some lovely-looking games that'll surely tempt people in to the period.

    Inspiring for our proposed Black Powder demo in a month of two (if we can get Brian Smaller out of his current 'blue period').

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    1. I have seen your stuff around at Call to Arms, the kapiti Wargames open days and loved it. I have been looking to get into black powder so if you do plan on running a demo game here in Kapiti let me know!

      Im having a hard time getting my mates into Historical games so I think it would be a great opportunity.

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    2. Thanks Roly, definitely doing what I can for this game system!

      Would be good to see Brian demo BP with his Naps armies too.

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    3. Ooh I'd definitely be interested in some black powder. I've played GW's Waterloo which is great but doesn't have the right feel for really big games.

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  9. Great turnout for a so called " dead" game. Shame I missed it. maybe next time!

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    1. Thanks Ste, I think if we keep doing what we can and play and enjoy the game, with the 'next generation' of players coming through, then game will go on indefinitely... and why not, its probably the best rules set GW have done!
      No doubt we'll see you back at the club soon :)

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    2. Aye, hopefully up this week, our container is taking a while to clear so It's probably just a social visit this week!

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  10. Good to see you keeping the flag flying for his set of rules. As you say they were one of the best produced by GW.

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