AHWPC - Nostalgia Bonus Round - Gandalf

My second entry for the painting challenge was for the Nostalgia Bonus theme round - I decided to paint up Gandalf...

When I get nostalgic about my gaming, and think back to those early days and where it all began, there is always one character that shines out above the rest... and that character, is Gandalf.

I think it was back in 1982, when I was 12, that I first read the Hobbit... and that book, not surprisingly fired my imagination and set my feet firmly on the road to eventually becoming a gamer...Gandalf was there in that story, and remained with me as I subsequently read my way through the Lord of the Rings... and those inspirations eventually lead inexorably to the world of D&D and starting to collect and paint miniatures... and back then in the 80's GW brought out an LOTR range long before the movies were ever made... and I started collecting and playing with those figures... found memories, even though those figures are long since sold off, largely due to the recent movie matching range that GW subsequently produced.

And now I find it quite comforting in a way to have come along the gaming road some 30 years later and I am still as enamored of this character as I was back then... the Movies from PJ, and the casting of Sir Ian McKellan could not have personified a Gandalf better that matched the figure my mind had imagined.

I still recall tearing up as I saw Gandalf ride his cart into Hobbiton that first time... and again when he fell from the bridge at Khazad Dum, even though I already knew he didnt actually die then!

I guess I have remained affectionately bound to the character of Gandalf, as these years and still remain so now, and still enjoy watching Sir Ian's portrayal of the character every time I re-watch the movies...

For me there is no better definition of Nostalgia, as Gandalf.

The figure I present is the mounted pose, from the recent range of LOTR figures from GW, matching the movie characters. This pose is relatively rare, and now sadly long OOP. So getting your hands on one is not an easy task, and they still command quite high 2nd hand values subsequently.

I was very fortunate in acquiring this figure last year in way of a trade online, with none other than Tim Kulinski - he of authorship fame of the Legends of the High Seas rules - a wonderful pirate skirmish set, based on the Core LOTR SBG game.

Due to GW's strange business practices... the withdrawal of Warhammer Historical, loss of the product range, and subsequent poor treatment, and lack of any apparent real support to the LOTR/Hobbit games system, Tim had understandably decided to wash his hands of GW, and no longer play LOTR, and thus sell off his collection... and subsequently he offered me his Gandalf, as part of a large bundle of figure trades... and consequently two parcels winged their corresponding ways across the Pacific... and so, there I had in my hands, finally, a mounted Gandalf the Grey.

But with a typical backlog of figures I was working through, Gandalf found his place in the lead pile and patiently waited his turn...

And thus in summary, now I am pleased to have finally finished him and the Nostalgia round was the perfect excuse to get him painted up and finished!

A relatively simple paint job as matches the grab colours the character is named for! Getting the face right was a little tricky under the brim of his large hat, and sadly doesn't show well in the pictures due to the angle of the pose. But its there I assure you! ;-)

I do look forward to giving him a try out in the game, a mounted wizard gives the character better mobility, raised line of sight for spell casting and a bit of a buff to his meager combat prowess, gaining the bonus of a cavalry charge... the 10pts spent on the horse are well worth it!

And though he may have taken what seems an age to grace my game table, I guess I can sum this by quoting the character himself;
"A wizard is never late, Frodo Baggins!..Nor is he early... He arrives precisely when he means too!" ;-)

I am still working away with several models, but my folks are visiting with us at the mo', so hobby time has come to a halt until they leave next weekend. I'll hopefully get back in to the swing of things after that...

The New Zealand Hobbit League, Final Round, Day Two!

Day Two!

And on with the fun...

The tempo changed a little on day two, as previously mentioned, there would be three games, so games went up from 90mins to 120mins.

Looking at the result after Day One I was positioned 5th out of 20, and my son Chris was 10th - not bad for a 12 year old!

That meant I was in the top 8 and would be competing for the Lord of Middle Earth Title. Chris just missed out and would be competing for the title of Squire Of Middle Earth.

Also at this time the result of the Best Sport, Best Painted and Best Armies were announced. Best Sport went to Andras, and Jericho picked up both Best Painted and Best Army.

I had yet to play Andras so I guess I'd see! ;-) Jericho had brought a very well presented and converted Corsair army led by a pair of Wraiths on flappies. It certainly got my vote for best painted. Best Army though...hmmm... there was little guidance on what exactly encompassed "Best Army"??? Did it mean that most likely to win... or perhaps the best themed or 'fluffy' army - and not one designed to crush all before it??? Who knows, people were left to make up their own minds...

Jericho's army was a carefully chosen force, making best use of some of the new weapons rules from the Hobbit... taking Corsair Reavers, and converting them to holding at least one axe! These supported by Corsair XBs behind Pavisse shields and a pair of mounted wraiths - ShadowLord and Knight of Umbar. ... Such list builds and conversions have been known to illicit the word "filthy" on the GBHL Facebook page! ;-) ... in a goodly natured way of course!

As it turned out I didnt vote for Jericho's army for Best Army - I voted for Peters Mordor force... I liked the general theme and the conversion work was very good.

The nice thing about these Awards being made after the first day was that the recipients gained Bonus Cards with in game effects that could be played once each game for the rest of the day. So Andras won one of these and Jericho won two...

Anyway on with the day, and the first game I am draw against...Jericho! Oh bugger, I thought!

Game 5

I had had enough of a difficult time dealing with one wraith sap willing me in game one against Ollie, without having to face a tag team of 2! I had feeling this was going to get unpleasant quickly!

Mission was a modified Seize the Prize.. Centrally placed objective had to be dug up and either held in your own board half, for least points, held in your opponents board half for half points or carried off your opponents board edge for max points...

As it turned out Jericho, didnt do as I expected - tag team the Necromancer with his wraiths. Instead he flapped one forward , dismounted, losing the fellbeast, and dug up the objective, with his corsairs moving up in support. He then performed a skilled and surgical strike with his other wraith, compelling a warg rider forward then charging it with the wraith to kill it using heroic combat to then leapfrog forward and target my Shaman on Warg, who I thought was safe at rear of my lines. He then killed the shaman on warg by throwing him through my lines causing chaos and robbing me of Fury. (Why it is it whenever I try and move like this, my wraith invariably stuffs up one of the required dice rolls along the way!)

The only good thing about this move is the wraith had kind of shot his bolt as it were. If I could now charge him, I could take him out. I duly passed courage checks with my spiders and got some spear orcs supporting the spiders trapping the wraith against terrain. I also lashed him with a channelled Sap will for good measure. Jericho managed to resist the sap will at a cost of many will points, sniped off an orc  that was supporting with his XBs and then with 2 dice against my 5 managed to win the duel roll, and flapped away and escaped! Curses!! I ended up chasing the wraith away down the flank with my spiders caught up with it once more but couldnt kill it and it escaped again... on one will point remaining... I just couldnt get anything else to reach it!

Back to the centre and all remaining foot troops mixed it up, with the Necromancer and wraith holding the prize, exchanging spells...

After my spiders had given up chasing the other wraith they had moved back towards the centre where the main action was taking place.

And here right towards the end, the dice gods finally smiled on me little... I cant remember the exact combination of events but the wraith holding the prize was engaged by a sneaky spider, who broke through a gap in the lines and scampered around the flank and rear of the corsairs mob to charge the wraith, at the same time more spells from the necromancer targeted it... the wraith lost the fight, its last will point dissipating it to nothingness and the spider leaped on the prize as the rest of my orcs on foot, ran forward to engage the corsairs preventing them from having time to catch and attack the spider with the prize. As Jericho scrambled to try and do something about this turn of events... game time expired with me holding the prize in my opponents half of the table!!!

IIRC, this gave me 3 points for holding the prize in my opponents half of the board, but my force was also broken giving Jericho 3 points too - a Draw! The sigh of relief from Jericho was audible ;-)

Well I never expected that one to go down that way, and I was rather pleased to have come away with a Draw. A tense but enjoyable game none the less.

The unfortunate part of this was, that this was knock out cup draw stuff - and only one of us could go through. The rules were that since Jericho had finished one place higher than me after day one, then he trumped me in today's game and he would go through.

Fair enough I thought... I hadn't expected to win the game anyway, so I could live with that, and well done to Jericho!

So I was back to playing for pride and final position in the top eight for the weekend...

Game 6

2nd game of the day is Hold Ground, and I am drawn against Govinda, who is using a Moria goblin army led by Durburz the Goblin King, and assisted by a Dragon and Troll!

This mission has us all coming on from random board edges, with a rush to take and hold the centrally placed objective.

As the game deployments unfolded I was fortunate to manage to get my troops massed in one corner of the board supporting each other, whilst Govinda goblins were fairly spread out, and a couple of warbands late to the show... I got a sneaky chance to get ahead early and decided to give it a whirl placing one of the goblin warbands that came on, right in the way of my whole force... my idea being to swamp them with numbers getting rid of part of the Goblin force with ease before pressing on the the centre.

This largely worked though took a couple of rounds longer than I would have liked, the goblin captain there putting up a desperate fight and taking a few orcs with him before finally dying.

By this time things were certain hotting up in the centre, with the main issue being the Dragon closing in on my forces grouped there. It would only need to win a fight and chaos would ensue as its Monster Brutal power attacks kicked into gear. Luckily my Necromancer was there to diffuse the situation, and I decided my best option was to just keep transfixing it, so it couldnt win any fights!

And this pretty much worked, I managed to neutralize the dragon this way for several turns as the rest of my troops fought off the rest of the goblins. Finally with time running out in the game the Dragon finally managed to avoid a Transfix, and was just about wreck mayhem upon my force... when game time expired!
Saved by the bell I'd call that!
As we toted up game VPs it was clear I had a greater number of troops near the centre, and Govindas goblin force was broken.
IIRC this resulted in a 30-16 VPs in my favour, mostly because I had reached the objective first and had more troops around it than the goblins.
This resulted in a another tournament Win for me.
A great game.

Game 7

My final Game of the day and I am drawn against Andras and his Isengard force, led by Saruman mounted, Vrasku leading XBs, Thryden WolfsBane leading Dunlendings and an Uruk Captain leading a Pike phalanx, with a shaman leading a couple of ferals.

The Mission was a modified Contest of Kings.

We both felt we knew what we were doing and pressed ahead with the game. It was basically kill each other scoring points along the way.

I set up either side of a building in board centre again splitting my force. Vrasku set up on a building roof with his XBs, they were going to be a pain to my poor orcs raining death from above.

I decided to deal with this threat with the Necromancer whilst my faster moving troops looked to hit the other flank...

I got off to a decent start, with the Necromancer lashing a Chill soul at the XBs on the roof killing half of them! My flank charge went in quickly against Thryden, but he wasnt to be out done and got support from nearby troops to fend off my spiders and warg riders.

Saruman made his presence know letting loose Sorcerous Blast to minimal effect due to poor rolls or Fury saves...

The Battle raged on as all troops were drawn in to a melting pot in the centre of the board. The Necromancer continued his Chills souls taking further toll of the XBs and sniping several Uruks with Pikes. However this was taking a steady toll in the Necromancers Will points, and shortly before the end of the game we took stock to check victory conditions and see where we both were...

My Necromancer had caused a steady toll of casualties far beating Sarumans total, so we assumed I was quite a way ahead in game VPs.... it was then we noticed that wasnt how VPs in the game were being scored, but they should have been awarding the Necromancer bonus might points per turn!

I had already burned through all my might by this time. Andras very sportingly (Proved!) suggested that since I had clearly won the previous turns in Leader Casualties inflicted, I could have 4 Might Points back!

Well this helped my cause certainly and was probably fair... I would certainly have got off more Channeled Chill souls earlier in game which themselves would have been rewarding me with more Might points again....

So I let fly as best I could with my remaining will points, and again reached that fateful point where the Necromancer has to retreat to save his own life and remaining Will store.

Andras chased my force for all he was worth trying to get to my Necromancer, but in vain... again with time running out I had preserved my Leader and force just enough, even though broken, to hang on at the end, and caused a decent dent in my opponents force., who was broken also.

The small tipping pot had been hitting Saruman with a Chill Soul, and wounding him, giving me a VP for wounding the enemy leader...

IIRC this resulted in a 2-1 VP win for me, which result in a 'Major' win in tournie points, as I had double the points of my opponent!
A very enjoyable game.

Over to Chris

For his part, my 'mini-me' had also continued to do well in his days gaming and was in the final against Gordon for the Squire Of Middle Earth...

Playing as well as he could he was finally beaten by Gordon, in a Gondor Civil War - Aragorn the King prevailing over Boromir!

And so with final games played the placings could be finalized.

Matt had organised a huge amount of Prize support, the great thing about it being everyone had an equal chance of coming away with a top prize.

The winners of the league and the day received certificate awards, but the physical prizes were given out by random draw among all who attended on the day! Each name drawn from the 'hat' could select any prize from the table, and they then drew the next name and so on...

In the end Chris got the "No Admittance Except on Party Business" sign, and I got a set of NZHL inscribed dice.
We were both very happy with our prizes :)

After all was said and done, we gathered for a group photo...

 And the final standings after the two days gaming... I managed to come out 5th overall out of 20, with which I was very happy.
Four wins, 2 draws and one loss - and that was to Chris!

Chris got 'silver' in the Squire Of MiddleEarth and 10th overall. A very worthy performance for a 12yr old... I was very proud of him that he kept his interest and focus through the two days intensive gaming. Well done indeed.

 Well done to the Winner on the Day; Jericho, and to the overall league winner; Josiah. Much kudos!

Big thanks to Matt for organising and running the show, and to all players who came from far and wide to make it a great day. Great to meet up with some of the locals with whom I hope to get more gaming in, in future.

Thanks also to Nathan and Luke at local GW stores for loaning the tables and much of the terrain and the other players for contributing terrain... even my Weathertop got a showing... its quite a fiendish piece of terrain to play on, it would appear!

I look forward to next years Hobbit League activity, and hope I might be able to organise a weekend tournament in the Kapiti area...

And finally, its just great to see this game still getting the love from the player base, long may that continue... if we keep playing it, it won't die!

And on that note it will be interesting to see what continued support will eventuate from GW's recent 'specialist games" announcement... I'm keeping my fingers and hairy Hobbity toes crossed! ;-)

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!

Lord of the Rings / The Hobbit at Call to Arms!

Pull up a pew, grab yourself a tipple and settle yourself back to a  recount of tales of daring do!...

The weekend of 15th/16th August 2015 saw my son, Chris, and I venture south to Wellington for the Warlords annual Call to Arms event.

It was great to have The Lord of the Rings, or as it has become known now, The Hobbit, Strategy Battle Game, back as a tournament game at the event.

This years event would be a singles event, 800 points per army, using a player pack used with some experience from prior events.

Forces were to be selected from recent army books from 2012 onwards, and lists from the Hobbit releases.

Missions however were different and were more akin to the older style missions where deployments for most missions were measured 10" in from your board edge.

At 800 points, I had finally decided to take a simple to run, straight forward Mordor list;

Gothmog on Warg would lead 12 Morannon Orcs.
Backing up this warband was a Shaman, with banner-bearer and 11 orcs with spears.
Shagrat then led a warband with a front row or Mordor uruks backed by more orcs with spears.
Finally to give me some mobility, an Orc Captain on warg would lead 12 Warg Riders.

The tactics would be simple - solid well led infantry core, with a Shaman casting channelled Fury, would keep the horde moving, and resisting some hurt, and scary things wouldnt worry us! Try and use weight of numbers to crush the opponent, applied at the best time possible. Warg Cavalry would threaten flanks and give mobility to surround the foe.

I had considered also going 'all-mounted Rohan', but was concerned at those de-horsing spells like Natures Wrath  and Panic Steed that could neuter my effectiveness... plus I hadn't got round to painting up my dismounts for Rohan Royal guard, nor completed the outriders I wanted to add.

I also thought about going with a Lothlorien, Woodland Realm alliance, but elves can need a little finesse to get the best out of them sometimes ... and it had been a while since I had used them ... plus I am not a fan of blue on blue engagements... so Mordor, being Mordor, would be happy to kick anyone's butt! ;-)

For Chris, we agreed that a Gondor force would be a good solid list to use, without too many bells and whistles and special rules to get wrapped up in, so...

Boromir Captain of the White Tower with Banner, would lead a warband of Warriors of Minas Tirith, backed up by Damrod leading 12 Rangers with spears and bows.
Beregond would lead another Warrior warband with spears and swords. whilst Faramir would set aside his ranger garb and don armour to lead his knights into battle, for some cavalry support; 6 knights and a mounted banner.

Chris would be using similar tactics to mine, a solid infantry core, backed by spears and effective shooting from the rangers for ranged missile attack, assisted by flanking cavalry.

-----o0o-----

Game one I was drawn against Nathan Smith, Manager GW Wellington. I have known Nathan for some time via the shop, but this would be my first time playing him. Nathan was fielding a well converted Mirkwood spider list, lead by a Spider Queen and joined by an allied Shelob! This was not an army to face for arachnophobes!

The mission was Meeting Engagement!
Deployments as below...

This was a cagey affair...initially... I was wary of what this many spiders would achieve... they're a bit like glass cannons ... hit hard, but are 'squishy'...

I advanced in to the centre keeping my numbers together as the spiders swarmed to my flanks...

Eventually the warg riders and spiders on my left started mixing it up, so I moved the rest of my force to the left to deal with half of the spider threat before the others could move across and surround me.

"Hold the Line!"

I managed to get ascendancy on the left... though Gothmog had had a fright when he got paralyzed and fell from his warg, luckily shrugging off the effects at the end of the turn, but the warg legged it!

Shelob who had been probing for a weakness finally charged forward with the other flank spiders joining in. Shagrat counter attacked Shelob leading a mob of orcs who manged to surround her.

The fight was swift and brutal and mighty Shelob was dispatched!

The game finished shortly after... resulting in a minor victory to me, scoring 15-5 over Nathan.

I really enjoyed this game, and Nathan was great fun to play against, and his spider army was a delight to see.

-----o0o-----

Game Two, would be against James Ryder, GW Auckland Manager, who had brought down Smaug!...and a 'generic' Ringwraith, to  make up the points.

Smaug was a sight to behold. The first such to feature in NZ... and very nicely hand painted by James. And set off on a great display board.

Now we all know Smaug is an absolute beast! But as in many games, where mission parameters can vary, its not always about killing your foe, but sometimes about manoeuvre or holding separated objective markers... these are where a single large model can be out pointed and mitigated to an extent... so what mission did I draw against mighty Smaug? Conquest of Champions!

Yep, I had to kill more of James's force than he did of mine to win! Yeah right, that was never going to happen.

Having been instructed in the various abilities and special rules of Smaug, we set to...

Well I got across the board, weathering dragon fire and spells as I did so... I eventually managed to get Gothmog and a party of orcs into Smaug, called a heroic strike with Gothmog in the hope of beating Smaugs fight skill and having a vague change to winning a round of combat, but I rolled a one for my Strike, so that wasn't going to happen...

Chomp, whack, scream, barge chomp again, and there was little left of my force. the next wave just able to rinse and repeat... I did manage a consolation prize when Shagrat finally caught up with the wraith and killed him for a point, but by then Smaug had killed about 30 orcs, so that was that...

Major loss, 0-20 to James.

As much as it was great to see Smaug there, reality was I was mostly playing against him in name only... the model being largely too big to put on the board without constantly knocking over terrain or other models. So I was playing against a grey oval flat base to represent where Smaug was...

Sadly not the best experience. No faulting James though... it was just best practical way to 'use' him in the game.

I couldn't help conclude Smaug is really a scenario piece, or display piece, rather than a routine gaming / tournament piece. James' model had taken a couple of knocks too and would need some TLC after the show, to re-fix a tail section etc etc.  ... not sure I would want to be having to keep making repairs to a $650NZ model!

But thanks again to James for bringing Smaug down from Auckland for us all to see. A sight to behold! Cheers mate!

-----o0o-----

After game two had ended we had the beauty pageant...

The Gondorians I painted up for Chris to use...

My Mordor horde...

Luke's Elven Heroes...

Matt's White Council...

Peter's Easterlings...

Nathan's Mirkwood Spiders....

... and of course James' Smaug...

...and finally Declan's Dwarves..

A great variety of forces on display and in use in the tournament and all painted to a high standard. A joy to behold! And tough to pick one the winner.

In the end my vote went to Peter's Easterlings... good to see a good size themed army painted up nicely and with a great many individual conversions that are not immediately apparent, but echo the work that has gone into getting the force assembled. Well done.

-----o0o-----

Game three and last on Saturday I was drawn against Declan, a fine young man, who was running Dwarves. Dain led the main warband, with Balin and Thorin each leading another. For some magical support, Gandalf the Grey was along for the ride, and for a little sneaky support Alfrid had been convinced to join in this expedition!

The mission was Take and Hold. A marker was placed in the centre of the board. At the end of the battle, each model within 3" of it would score a point.
Each army started with their leader and his warband on table. The rest were off as reserves, with reserves arriving from any side dependent on roll of a dice...

Reserves would be allowed to charge, on the turn they arrive...

Gothmog lead the charge to the objective with the morannons following. Opposite him Dain lead on the dwarves...

Then the fun began... Declan won priority, moved Dain and his warband forward...and then started rolling for reserves... Declan rolled 3-4s for all reserves meaning I could select which side they came on... Gandalf came on from Declan's board edge, Thorin on my right, Balin on my left and Alfrid from my side. With the two allied heroes being independent warbands they were isolated in this mission....

I then moved up Gothmog and the orcs, and started rolling for reserves. This was one of those times when winning priority was not helpful as it allowed me some adjustment to what Declan had done...in other words, depending of where my troops showed up I could charge on as I pleased or not.

Gandalf was immediately caught from behind by the Shamans spear armed orcs!

Balin was left unmolested and with a long walk to the centre...

Shagrat and his warband charged the flank of Thorins warband and Alfrid found himself immediately surrounded by warg riders...

Gandalf managed to survive the orc ambush, but Alfrid was slain and Thorins warband took an initial mauling.
This seemed to set the scene for the remainder of the battle... Thorins warband found themselves in increasing pressure from the combination of Shagrat and the wargs...

In the centre the leaders squared off, as Gandalf ran to get to the safety of the dwarves warband with the orcs hard on his heals.

Thorins warband steadily succumbed to the outnumbering orcs and wargs...

The fight had now started in the centre and spare wargs were peeling off from the flank, where their numbers were no longer needed, to start the fight for the objective marker.

Thorin soon found himself surrounded but fought on bravely...

 Now Dains warband is under pressure with Orcs to front and rear and wargs joining in... Gandalf tried to disrupt the formation casting Sorcerous Blast.

The last troopers with Thorin are taken care of, leaving Thorin to survive another turn...

More pressure in the centre as Balin desperately tried to arrive on time...

Finally Thorin stands alone...

... and falls...

Balin has arrived and now the central fight breaks up... buts it too late.
The dwarves have broken with the orcs firmly in control of the objective.

I found it a very enjoyable game, and Declan battled on manfully, though I feel the tide turned against him very early on from which he didnt really have much chance of recovering from... once the numbers went against him...

Major Victory to Mordor, 20-0.

-----o0o-----

So after the first day I was on two wins and a loss... not a bad start.

Sunday was scheduled for more of the same.

Game Four was against Luke Henning; GW Manager from the Lower Hutt store.

Luke was fielding an Elven hero list with Elrond, and his sons Elladan and Elrohir both on horse, Erestor, Glorfindel, Haldir, Rumil, and Legolas.

8 models against 52... but those eight Elves were pretty powerful, so could they hold out and win the mission , which was ... Reconnoitre!

Sadly for Luke this was going to be a tough ask. The mission is a scouting mission, or in my case a reconnaissance in force!

Both armies had to get as many of their troops off the opposite board edge past their enemy. The player to get the most models off, wins.

Lukes thin line of 8 models would have to stop 52 models rushing past the elves...

How things started off...

Gothmog lead the main mob through the centre opposed by Glorfindel and Rumil, Shagrat is to my left, resisted by Legolas and Haldir. and the wargs head up my right, headed off by Elrond and his sons and Erestor.

Obviously the wargs and their speed are Lukes biggest threat and Elrond was looking to Natures Wrath my cavalry to slow them down...

The game predictably boiled down to me charging across the board as much as I could, using Heroic Marches to increase my speed. The Warg cavalry was largely dismounted by spells but most of the dismounted wargs stuck around increasing the number of models the elves had to deal with.

Towards the end...

At the end, Shagrat and Gothmog lead their warbands off the table... Luke just mistimed his run, and missed getting any models off the table, with one of the twins on horse just falling short despite calling a Heroic March.

The result a major win to Mordor, 20-0.

It was an enjoyable game, despite its odd nature and the brief skirmishes went mostly in the elves favour, I just didnt want to commit numbers to any fights, preferring to leave just a few models tying up the elven heroes as the rest of my hordes ran past..

-----o0o-----

Game Five, and I am facing another 'Elven' Hero List. This time its Matthew Ridgley, a local Wellingtonian, who has done wonders generating interest in the game again, and setting up the New Zealand Hobbit League on Facebook. Matt fielded his White Council ( Galadriel, Elrond, Arwen and Saruman and Glorfindel), assisted by Elladan and Elrohir on foot. OK Saruman is not an Elf but you get the gist!? ;-)

The mission this time was Clash Of Pickets. This is much like a straight up fight mission, but you only have half your force on the board to start on your table edge with the rest of your force to come on as reinforcements, from dice roll determined board edges.

The victor would win by killing the enemy army leader and breaking the opposing army.

Matt deployed his White Council centrally and I opposed him with Gothmog backed up my the Shaman and spears.

As it turned out our reserves all came on our own board edges, so the elves hunkered down beside their wooded copse and awaited the Orcish onslaught...

This was going to be a numbers game, pure and simple. Basically I will try and surround and overwhelm the elven heroes, weather their spells, like Natures Wrath, and watch them burn through their Might, Will and Fate points. I'd obviously pick on the weaker heroes first; Arwen and Galadriel with their lower defence values...

And so charging across the board I went. The twins held the wood, and most of the warg riders looked to outflank this, and reduce their exposure to Nature Wrath spells from Elrond and Arwen... My infantry pretty much went straight up the middle.

The shamans Fury spell negated most of the terror liability the orcs had charging the Legendary elves, so I was able to swarm the heroes with numbers, having first weathered a couple of Natures Wrath spells...

Saruman kept himself out of trouble, ducking and diving and finding some cover in the woods. Arwen and Galadriel were shielded somewhat by Elrond and Glorfindel up front, but the orc numbers were too great and flanking wargs got round the back and got into Arwen.

Elladan and Elrohir engaged the wargs circling the wood, trying to stop them flanking the council, with more numbers....

Arwen was quickly in trouble and was the first to go down under the weight of orcs. Galadriel shortly followed.

Saruman kept ducking  and diving, chased into the woods by the orcs.

Glorfindel and Elrond kept their face stern and bore the brunt of Gothmog and Shagrat and a world of orcs! Elladan and Elrohir were sucking it up too, both surrounded by orcs and wargs.

Eventually Gorfindel dealt to Gothmog... but was soon after slain himself! Then one of the elven twins fell...

Now this is when Hero-mob breakpoint-stuff got a bit interesting,...

Matt had started out with 7 models... break point is 50%... so half of 7 is 3.5, but this rounds UP to 4. And for an army to be BELOW its break point it has to have lost MORE than that number of models. So to break an  army of 7 models, I have kill 5, not 4... got it?

My head got it , but my heart was looking at the side lines and seeing 4 dead elves and looking back at the game and seeing 3 live elves, and it was was telling my brain, but we've killed more than he's got left in the game man!    Yep, suck it up bro, and move on...

OK, I've still got a ton of orcs, the elves are all out of might will and fate and are totally surrounded, and bleeding out wounded, and the last elven twin has just gone nuts so his D has just dropped...

Saruman is still ducking and diving,... I've given him a fat lip but cant nail him down...

Each scrap has 3 elf dice with no might left and and I've got at least double that if not more per fight (orcs spears are great yo!). So long as the elves dont roll a six and I can, then I win...

...a couple of rounds go by, and both elves roll a six, and I cant win even with a six due to their higher fight skill... and each round I bleed out more orcs...getting closer to my own break point...

Finally, they both fluff it and both roll 5 max, all I have to do is roll a single 6 on a heap of dice... twice... just to kill one elf hero... and I fluff it, ...twice over... about 30 dice go down and I dont get a single six....AAAAARRRRGGHHHH! (that was audible in the gaming hall too...)

...and I broke, losing more than 50% of my orcs... and lose the game... major loss....0-20!

ARRRGGGH!!!!

Fair play to Matt it was a hugely enjoyable game, and went according to plan... except the dice forgot to read the game plan before hand!... thems the breaks...!

-----o0o-----

Game 6, against my son Chris and his Gondorian force.

Coming off game 5, and I was still buzzing... Chris had just had a game against James and Smaug and had taken the expected mauling, like everyone else had... and as he'd been playing and looking imploringly at me with a "what do I do, Dad" look in his eyes... all I could say was, write it off, and look forward to the next game...

And that game was against me!

And that seemed the best end to the weekend... by last game I think everyone has just about had it... but we set to like we meant business...

Final game was to Kill a King... to win outright you had to kill the enemy leader and break the opposing the army...

Chris and I set up alternating warbands as we did so... we both went for the central infantry mass, with cavalry to opposite flanks.

I knew Chris would sit tight and shoot me up on the way across... I wanted to get my wargs round to his rear as quick as possible to deal with the archers, but Beregonds warband was in the way... in the end I vacillated a bit, and ended up deciding on a slow march across the board and have my wargs switch flanks to deal with Faramirs cavalry who could hurt my infantry flank as it advanced across the board...

Chris played a bit of cat and mouse with said cavalry... moving up, threatening then jinking back out of harms way... eventually... my wargs got relocated and the cavalry started mixing it up, but those turns to relocated had seen many orcs die to ranger archery. Gothmog joined the wargs and Shagrat lead the infantry assault in the centre...

Over several turns I beat down the cavalry and dispatched Faramir, whilst Shagrat marched headlong into the Gondor line. Boromir soon made himself known and he was in my back field burning might along the way and chasing down my shaman and banner... Shagrat had also more or less broken through and was into the soft rangers  with wargs starting to relocate from the victory on the flank and finally getting round to the rear of the Gondor line. Beregond had joined the fray and was rolling up the other orc flank...

It was all a grand mess but we were having fun... but time was ticking by and most other games had ended  and we were just about the last still playing in the hall, and with wifeypoos arriving with the chariot to take us home, we decided to call it...

Neither of us were near break point and our "kings" were not likely to fall anytime soon, so we called it a draw... 10-10.

And with that the weekend was over and the final results tallied up...

-----o0o-----

As the results were read off and awards awarded, Nathan Smith won a bunch on prizes for his Spider army, well deserved... then Chris was awarded Best Sportsmanship! High honour indeed!

Then I was awarded Best Painted, and was announced 3rd place overall. Well I was well chuffed with that result!

Luke Henning came second with his Elven Hero force and no surprises, James with his Smaug the Magnificent came first overall, and won the Butcher award!

What a brilliant weekend. Great guys to play with all round and many thanks to Alan Borthwick for running the show!

Big thanks to the other players for joining in and especially to the GW managers who all elected to join our little comp... that certainly speaks volumes to me about the potential appeal of this game.

All I can say is, if you have the chance, give LOTR/Hobbit a try... and if you have a stash of old LOTR models hidden somewhere, break them out and get using them again... its a cracking game and the player base, as it is, is still as passionate as ever...