Well, I'm happy to say that Barukshathur made it into battle in today's Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game Battle Report - Domination between the Haradrim and Dwarves.
LotR SBG is sometimes about skill, tactics, strategy, a bit of luck and lots of dice. Other times it's all about the models, scenery and fun story that plays out in front of your eyes! I know different people like different elements of the game. My brother and I tend to the latter, we're in it for a fun bit of entertainment. And if that entertainment is a newly painted Great Eagle chomping on banner bearers, well, who can deny us that =)
My camera was running very low on batteries, so I didn't take as many shots, but still got plenty that turned out well enough to put up here, so enough blather, on with the show...
Here's my army, same heroes as previously played, but smaller warbands to accomodate the Great Eagle, Barukshathur (Axes of the Clouds in Dwarven if you've not been keeping up). On the right of screen are Etako's four Khazad Guard, four Iron Guard and Banner Bearer. (Etako is basically Balin for those of you who are new, but with an Ironfist and one eye.)
In the center are Boggle's band of eight archers (Boggle is a dwarven captain with shield).
On the left are Brynmor's warband, three vault warden teams, a banner bearer and two Khazad Guard.
To the rear for dramaticness is Barukshathur the Great Eagle (using Gwaihir's stats).
My brother has his usual troops, though with an additional spearman to balance my slight overspend (704 points).
And the board...
Domination is about key locations on the battleground. The four locations here are the small tower back right, the well, back left, the tomb, front left and the weapons cache and treasure (blocked from sight here by the ruins in the front right). After a team breaks the game can end and whoever has the most locations secured (more models) wins.
In Turn 2 we pretty much all ran forward. My archers climbed the tower and posed near Barukshathur for dramatic effect... (gratuitous eagle photo)
Here's the board after a few turns...
The Haradrim raiders, led by Suladan himself, race forward to the well. The Hasharin appears back-lit against the lava if you look carefully...
The mission continues, one dwarf archer falls to the volley firing of the Haradrim archers. They hit soooo many times this game, but only got about three kills. Meanwhile they completely secured their objective. None of my guys wanted to charge at 13 poisoned bows.
The first melee of the match was a surprise fly-over by the Great Eagle, who swooped over the intervening terrain (wow, flying is really fun) to attack the banner bearer at the rear of the spear group led by the Hasharin. The banner was immediately picked back up, but it was still cool =)
The poor Hasharin, at the front of the spearmen, was shot at by the dwarven archers. They hit him and would have wounded him if not for his massive supply of fate. He used it all up, but no blood was spilt and he raced on, cursing his lack of cover.
The Betrayer poses menacingly on the hill... (less menacing with the window and curtains behind him, but pretend it's not there!
Here we are at the end of Turn 4...
Turn 5, The Betrayer Black Darts the Banner Bearer, the banner is picked up by a nearby Khazad Guard, who curses the loss of his massive axe, but knows the value of the ancient banner. Believe it or not, it was only in this game that we realised the wounding table is not symmetric. We've been playing that strength 9 hits (like the Black Dart) wound on a 1 for lower armoured troops. Little did we realise that the wounding chart never goes below a 3! Duh! How did we miss that?!?!?! Makes me wonder what else we're doing wrong! Oh well =)
Barukshathur uses his only point of might to Heroic Move and charge into some raiders, saving the dwarven footsoldiers from being overwhelmed. Fortunately he rolls a six and with such high fight value is ensured a victory, slaying the raider banner bearer and his companion with a flashing, razor sharp beak and strong, pincer like claws. I'm really loving the super-speedy eagle, disappointingly low might, will and fate for so many points, but still awesomely cool!
The Iron Guard near the treasure cache spread out as a rear-guard for Etako and hurl their throwing axes at the approaching men, killing two!
While the eagle had a munch on two raiders, Suladan and Brynmor each called a heroic move of their own. Suladan won the roll off and he and his raiders charged bravely (?) into the Vault Wardens. Suladan targetted the flank Khazad Guard and rode him down, slaying the dwarf in seconds. The super tough shielded dwarves are unmoved by the charging horses and the long spears thrust forward, killing two raiders.
Here's the board in Turn 6, which was also full of action...
The Betrayer uses a might to call a heroic move... hisses sibilantly evil words and compels Etako, he uses four will and gets a six... Etako uses his three will, but can only manage a four and so is compelled out of line towards a waiting group of Watchers of Karna. The other watchers and The Betrayer himself attack the other dwarves in such a way as to leave Etako surrounded by four evil men!
Barely able to lift a finger, Etako is overwhelmed by blades. Fortunately his awesomely crafted dwarven mithril mail deflects all but one blade and he survives the dastardly attack with only one wound! The other watchers and the Betrayer all survive their assaults on the Khazad Guard, who fight well but cannot land blows past the whirling dervish swords.
Suladan's Heroic Move allows him to charge around and kill another Khazad Guard, while Brynmor thwacks a raider with a quick, but forceful, shovel to the head. In the background, the Great Eagle swoops down, plucks the third raider from the last combat up in his mighty claws, carries him far above the battlefield, then drops him into a nearby lava pool to die quickly, but screaming horribly. Serves him right for being an evil pawn in Sauron's dark game.
In Turn 7 Etako calls a Heroic Move to quickly force combat against The Betrayer and try to gain some momentum back on the assault of the weapons and treasure cache. One dwarf dies to the flashing blades of a Watcher of Karna, The Betrayer is unwounded, but loses another point of will for having fought.
Fist of Iron in a massive uppercut, axe sweeping in a blur shortly thereafter, two dead Watchers of Karna fall to Etako One-eye (after using all his remaining might!). Another falls to an intercepting Iron Guard, dual axes beating dual blades.
At the end of the turn you can see the Haradrim spearmen all entering the tower underneath the archer dwarves - they outnumber the dwarves, so technically dominate the objective! To the top of the shot you can see Suladan fighting with Brynmor, no wounds from that evenly matched fight. The dwarven archers shoot at the Hasharin again, and wound him! The Haradrim archers volley fire (again) and kill an Iron Guard in the center of map thanks to a lucky poisoned arrow re-roll!
Turn 8: A Watcher of Karna takes on the dwarven banner bearer and another Khazad Guard and wins the fight! Two blades flicker out from dark sleeves and both dwarves fall dead!
The Betrayer uses his penultimate will points to try and compel Etako, but the spell fails. The iron-willed dwarf uses his Ironfist Gauntlet to battle the evil ringwraith. After winning a tie of 6s, the dwarf fails to wound the black Nazgul, but evil laughter hisses around the battlefield as the wraith disappears, fading before their eyes. His evil plans have been fulfilled, though the battle is not yet won... who knows what he was really after?
The dwarven archers at the top of the ruins fire down on the encroaching men and kill one, who falls screaming to the ground, an arrow through his eye! The other archers take aim and kill the Haradrim banner bearer, who was to lend aid to the Hasharin - who has leapt to attack Barukshathur!
The Hasharin needs no help from a banner, he takes on the Great Eagle and a Vault Warden team and wins! Flashing blades land on nothing but thin air as Barukshathur flies around. Fortunately for the evil man, he gets a reroll if he fails to wound! Leaping to the air, the Hasharin's blades flash again and he carves a gash in the Great Eagle as well as plucking a large tail feather as a trophy!
In the background, Suladan wins his fight, but directs his attacks against the massive Vault Warden shield and fails to penetrate it.
At the treasure pile, the dwarves begin mopping up, killing the second last Watcher and moving in towards the last remaining man.
In the second round of combat with the Hasharin, an enraged Barukshathur swoops down and disembowels the evil assassin while a Vault Warden team keeps him busy. Boggle slams a spearman with his shield, allowing another Vault Warden team to stab in with a spear to his guts.
In one of our favorite moments of the game, an Iron Guard dwarf charges at the tower, his throwing axe whips forward and kills the guard in the doorway! He leaps in, axes flashing, only to be killed by the spearmen still inside!
Suladan charges Brynmo and a Vault Warden team, they are evenly matched, but Suladan wins the tie-breaker, knocking the dwarves to the ground and this time directing his attacks against Brynmor. He scores two wounds, but fate is with the dwarf and no blood spills, though his barrel of beer is split - he's going to be angry now!
Here's the final turn. As you can see, the dwarves pretty much hold three of the objectives, though fighting at the tower could go either way and Suladan is still doing a good job at his objective, while a Watcher of Karna refuses to die to Etako. The Haradrim archers have hit 14 times in three turns, but have only managed to kill one Iron Guard! Arrows are lying all over the place and sticking out of armoured plates, but very few have blood on them!
The Great Eagle swoops in towards the tower and plucks out a spearman guarding an entrance, slashing his jugular with a mighty beak. The haradrim spearmen have managed to gain a foothold at the top of the tower after killing one of the dwarven bowmen.
On the far side of the tower another Iron Guard manages to slay the defender and enter the tower.
Brynmor wins the fight, but can only stand up after having been charged, the Vault Warden team manages to slip past Suladan's defensive guard and wound the King.
At that stage, with the Haradrim army broken, my brother capitulates and the dwarves achieve a minor victory - but victory none the less!
Here are the victors!
And the survivors of the Haradrim force, who will surely live to fight another day...
The 13 archers kept volley firing throughout the whole game, but only managed to kill three dwarves. I didn't relish the idea of charging towards them, as their fire gets way more accurate when in direct fire range! I toyed with sending the eagle over, but I don't think he'd win against that many guys!
Well, that's yet ANOTHER brilliantly fun game we had. There were so many heroic moves called, evil spells cast, amusing wins against the odds and I got to use my new toy to great effect =)
So much fun, thanks heaps again to my brother! By the way, if you haven't already checked out his blog it's here: http://paulslotrminis.blogspot.com.au/
He doesn't usually take photos with his camera, but posts some if he does as well as his other hobby stuff. Check it out!
Thanks for watching and reading, hope you enjoyed it even a fraction as much as we did!
Stay tuned for our next match, hopefully it will be road testing the new rules properly, though we may have to wait for some more Haradrim reinforcements.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
LotR SBG Great Eagle Base
All my base is belong to me =)
Thanks to The Last Alliance http://www.thelastalliance.com/blog.php/ and Typhoon2 there, I found out that the Great Eagle uses a base even bigger than the cavalry base - woohoo!
This was good news because a bigger base means more stability. It was bad news in terms of meaning the Eagle wasn't finished yet!
Anyway, short post to show what I did...
Basically I glued the old base onto a new bigger base.
Ages ago I got four sprues of LotR terrain. I painted most of them up (you often see the statues in our battle reports) but had saved one of each type just in case I wanted them for something else. So I got the "fallen down broken" statue and chopped it up into it's separate bits. You can see some of what was cut away in the picture below. I greenstuffed the big gaps, pressed some small stones into the greenstuff to texture it. A bit of cork was added between one break and a smaller rock between another (as though the statue fell and broke against these rocks). Then I dipped it in my sandy mix with some glue.
Here it is painted grey. My usual base/rock paintjob. ie. paint it all black, then heavy drybrush of Codex Grey, then a lighter drybrush (or two) of Fortress Grey, then a tiny tiny highlight of Skull White.
And here it is after a Badab Black wash, really heavy wash to tie the colours into the board I play on.
I then did another tiny bit of highlighting on the statue to further define some of the edges and then it was done! The whole job was done in two half hour blocks, one to do the cutting, gluing and greenstuffing, one to do the painting.
And here it is from above, you can see that I've put the Eagle and original base right on the very edge to maximise the stability, keeping the center of mass as close to the center of the base as I could.
So thanks for the comments and here's hoping we get a game in tomorrow =)
Thanks to The Last Alliance http://www.thelastalliance.com/blog.php/ and Typhoon2 there, I found out that the Great Eagle uses a base even bigger than the cavalry base - woohoo!
This was good news because a bigger base means more stability. It was bad news in terms of meaning the Eagle wasn't finished yet!
Anyway, short post to show what I did...
Basically I glued the old base onto a new bigger base.
Ages ago I got four sprues of LotR terrain. I painted most of them up (you often see the statues in our battle reports) but had saved one of each type just in case I wanted them for something else. So I got the "fallen down broken" statue and chopped it up into it's separate bits. You can see some of what was cut away in the picture below. I greenstuffed the big gaps, pressed some small stones into the greenstuff to texture it. A bit of cork was added between one break and a smaller rock between another (as though the statue fell and broke against these rocks). Then I dipped it in my sandy mix with some glue.
Here it is painted grey. My usual base/rock paintjob. ie. paint it all black, then heavy drybrush of Codex Grey, then a lighter drybrush (or two) of Fortress Grey, then a tiny tiny highlight of Skull White.
And here it is after a Badab Black wash, really heavy wash to tie the colours into the board I play on.
I then did another tiny bit of highlighting on the statue to further define some of the edges and then it was done! The whole job was done in two half hour blocks, one to do the cutting, gluing and greenstuffing, one to do the painting.
And here it is from above, you can see that I've put the Eagle and original base right on the very edge to maximise the stability, keeping the center of mass as close to the center of the base as I could.
So thanks for the comments and here's hoping we get a game in tomorrow =)
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Sunday, February 26, 2012
LotR SBG Great Eagle
Well, ages ago I said I'd like to get something with some "height" for my dwarven army. I got a good ebay metal great eagle last year (actually, it may have been the year before).
It was a complete expletive to put together, and so it sat on my desk until now. Over the last few months I've done a bit of work here and a bit there to get it put together. Even when it was finally assembled it would break so easily due to the pose and the heaviness of the metal. Still, here's hoping it's together for good now, I still handle it very gingerly!
Here it is, based and sprayed black. The base has extra greenstuff on the far side to raise it on the back and help counterbalance the miniature. The base itself has lots of metal scraps and bits to try and weight it. As you can see, the pose is very high and dramatic, but you can imagine the pain in getting it together when it's all attached from one point down the bottom!
To paint it I first did a google search for "eagle" then "australian eagle" to get an idea of colours etc. I decided to go for a fairly plain brown banded look, with a little red colouring as well. Here he is with the solid colours blocked in. I took this photo after three layers of paint. In hindsight, the base coat of black was silly given the lightness of the browns (apart from Scorched Brown).
The darkest is Scorched Brown, then Bestial Brown, Vermin Brown and Snakebite Leather, with Bleached Bone on the wingtips.
As you all know by now, I try to get the best I can without having to mix paints, straight from the bottle. I do water my paints down, and on this model it was especially important because I still wanted to see the feather details. Of course, Vermin Brown is quite red and Snakebite Leather quite yellow, so I wasn't very happy. My original plan was to just highlight each layer with the layer below it, but I didn't think that would work now, given the red and yellow tones.
Here we are after a couple of highlights. I've highlighted the Scorched Brown with bits of the other browns. The Bestial Brown is highlighted with the Snakebite Leather. The Vermin Brown is highlighted with some Red Gore and a tiny bit of actual Red. The Snakebite Leather is highlighted with Bleached Bone and the Bleached Bone is highlighted with White.
I should also mention the Desert Yellow for the beak and feet.
It was still looking nowhere near what I wanted at this stage and I should know by now not to judge until after the washing is done, but I still panic at this stage. So next I gave it a really good wash with Devlan Mud, pretty much all over. Oh, and before I did that I picked out some random feathers in lighter colours, hard to see in the photo.
After that broad wash I went back with a small (10) brush and just washed the ridges between feathers to help delineate each feather. I also gave the beak a little drybrushing and washing to give it some extra look. On lots of the eagle pictures the beak went from yellow to white to black near the tip, so I tried to duplicate that. I also washed black under the eye and highlighted around the eye and the feathertips.
None of these pictures quite capture the colouring, I'm afraid, I think because it's relatively subtle compared to my usual turquoise and purple! I'm pretty happy with it, though, it's certainly not a brilliant job, but at the moment I think I was pretty good to get ANY painting done =)
Oh, and you know I'm a nut for story, so just how does a great eagle come into the company of dwarves?
As you know, Etako Ironfist and his clan live in the southern barren reaches of Harad. Some of their battles take them closer to the southern borders of Mordor and that is where they first met Barukshathur. The great eagle had been following The Betrayer when Etako met the evil Nazgul in battle. The eagle dove in to the fray, saving Etako from a Hasharin blade. Etako returned the save moments later by hurling himself bodily at The Betrayer just as he was hissing out a Black Dart to bring down the majestic eagle.
Since then they have been fast friends, Barukshathur often brings Etako news of where the Harad are massing, allowing the dwarf to meet the Harad armies, even with the slower travel speed of the dwarves. The directions from up high above the land allow them to take handy short cuts!
Barukshathur is the dwarven name for the eagle, who's eagle name is unpronounceable by the dwarves. It is translated to mean Axes of the Clouds, referring to the deadly beak and talons of the eagle.
Look later this week (or next) to see Barukshathur in action (all going well)!
In game terms I'll be using the stats for Gwaihir, there not being a lot out there in the way of eagle profiles. He's pretty expensive, 125 points (more than my dwarven heroes), but I could use a little speed. Of course, I'll have hardly any dwarves! I haven't got the rulebook yet, but I guess Gwaihir has to lead his own warband (of which I have none) and therefore to make the 700 points I have to have three undersized dwarven warbands.
Anyway, we'll see how it goes!
It was a complete expletive to put together, and so it sat on my desk until now. Over the last few months I've done a bit of work here and a bit there to get it put together. Even when it was finally assembled it would break so easily due to the pose and the heaviness of the metal. Still, here's hoping it's together for good now, I still handle it very gingerly!
Here it is, based and sprayed black. The base has extra greenstuff on the far side to raise it on the back and help counterbalance the miniature. The base itself has lots of metal scraps and bits to try and weight it. As you can see, the pose is very high and dramatic, but you can imagine the pain in getting it together when it's all attached from one point down the bottom!
To paint it I first did a google search for "eagle" then "australian eagle" to get an idea of colours etc. I decided to go for a fairly plain brown banded look, with a little red colouring as well. Here he is with the solid colours blocked in. I took this photo after three layers of paint. In hindsight, the base coat of black was silly given the lightness of the browns (apart from Scorched Brown).
The darkest is Scorched Brown, then Bestial Brown, Vermin Brown and Snakebite Leather, with Bleached Bone on the wingtips.
As you all know by now, I try to get the best I can without having to mix paints, straight from the bottle. I do water my paints down, and on this model it was especially important because I still wanted to see the feather details. Of course, Vermin Brown is quite red and Snakebite Leather quite yellow, so I wasn't very happy. My original plan was to just highlight each layer with the layer below it, but I didn't think that would work now, given the red and yellow tones.
Here we are after a couple of highlights. I've highlighted the Scorched Brown with bits of the other browns. The Bestial Brown is highlighted with the Snakebite Leather. The Vermin Brown is highlighted with some Red Gore and a tiny bit of actual Red. The Snakebite Leather is highlighted with Bleached Bone and the Bleached Bone is highlighted with White.
I should also mention the Desert Yellow for the beak and feet.
It was still looking nowhere near what I wanted at this stage and I should know by now not to judge until after the washing is done, but I still panic at this stage. So next I gave it a really good wash with Devlan Mud, pretty much all over. Oh, and before I did that I picked out some random feathers in lighter colours, hard to see in the photo.
After that broad wash I went back with a small (10) brush and just washed the ridges between feathers to help delineate each feather. I also gave the beak a little drybrushing and washing to give it some extra look. On lots of the eagle pictures the beak went from yellow to white to black near the tip, so I tried to duplicate that. I also washed black under the eye and highlighted around the eye and the feathertips.
None of these pictures quite capture the colouring, I'm afraid, I think because it's relatively subtle compared to my usual turquoise and purple! I'm pretty happy with it, though, it's certainly not a brilliant job, but at the moment I think I was pretty good to get ANY painting done =)
Oh, and you know I'm a nut for story, so just how does a great eagle come into the company of dwarves?
As you know, Etako Ironfist and his clan live in the southern barren reaches of Harad. Some of their battles take them closer to the southern borders of Mordor and that is where they first met Barukshathur. The great eagle had been following The Betrayer when Etako met the evil Nazgul in battle. The eagle dove in to the fray, saving Etako from a Hasharin blade. Etako returned the save moments later by hurling himself bodily at The Betrayer just as he was hissing out a Black Dart to bring down the majestic eagle.
Since then they have been fast friends, Barukshathur often brings Etako news of where the Harad are massing, allowing the dwarf to meet the Harad armies, even with the slower travel speed of the dwarves. The directions from up high above the land allow them to take handy short cuts!
Barukshathur is the dwarven name for the eagle, who's eagle name is unpronounceable by the dwarves. It is translated to mean Axes of the Clouds, referring to the deadly beak and talons of the eagle.
Look later this week (or next) to see Barukshathur in action (all going well)!
In game terms I'll be using the stats for Gwaihir, there not being a lot out there in the way of eagle profiles. He's pretty expensive, 125 points (more than my dwarven heroes), but I could use a little speed. Of course, I'll have hardly any dwarves! I haven't got the rulebook yet, but I guess Gwaihir has to lead his own warband (of which I have none) and therefore to make the 700 points I have to have three undersized dwarven warbands.
Anyway, we'll see how it goes!
Labels:
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WIP
Friday, February 24, 2012
Battle Report - Dwarves vs Haradrim - Contest of Champions
Sorry for the few weeks off, wife had a business trip that the boy and I went along on.
Anyway, back into it with another Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game Battle Report between my faithful dwarves and my brothers evil Haradrim.
We chose 700 points again, put together our forces, then met at his house to do battle. We rolled on the random scenario generator and got Contest of Champions! Basically the winner of the game is not the one that destroys the enemy forces, rather it is all about your leader. Being in charge of a warband requires the loyalty (dwarves) and maybe a touch of fear (Haradrim) among your troops, what better way to show who's in charge than personally dominating the battlefield! At the end of the game, whichever leader has the most number of kills wins.
My leader is Etako Ironfist, also known as One-eye, 95 points, his main advantages are his high defense and Ironfist weapon (+1 to wound and rerolls as though under the effect of a banner).
My brother's leader is Suladan the Serpent Lord, 100 points, his main advantages are an extra wound and, his trusty steed!
We don't have the new rules yet, but have been roughly making our armies based on warbands of one leader and 12 troops. My birthday in a couple weeks, so am hoping to get the new dwarf army book then.
Anyway, onto the fight itself:
Here's the Harad warband 1, not sure his chieftain has a name yet, but he's leading twelve archers.
Here's The Betrayer leading six Watchers of Karna as the second warband.
Here's a Hasharin (I think he has a name, but can't remember it right now) leading a banner bearer and fourteen spearmen (I know that's not right for the new rules, but I guess you could put them in the Betrayer's band and just move them together from Turn 1.
And lastly, the fourth warband, six raiders led by Suladan, three with bow, two with warspear, one with banner.
Here's the battlefield ready to go, it's about 5 foot by 3.5 feet, so not usual size, but that's the table we have! True line of sight rules used, but the sections between individual trees, ruins and rocks count as difficult terrain.
Here's Etako's warband of a Banner Bearer, five Khazad Guard and five Iron Guard.
Here's Brynmor leading a banner bearer and five Vault Warden teams.
Lastly, here's Boggle, my dwarf captain with throwing axes and shield leading twelve archers.
After a couple of turns you can see the lines surging forward. I was hoping for an objective based mission so my vault wardens could park somewhere and raise shields, but oh well, they'll just have to go bash stuff instead!
Suladan leads his raiders on a lightning fast strike towards the dwarven archer flank.
The archers climb the small hill to get a better view of the battlefield.
The Haradrim archers stay well back and fire volley after volley at the dwarven host. By the end of the game, they've accounted for five or six troops, and early on managed to stop me from volleying by killing three of my archers.
On some missions it's not worth it, as those troops could be used for swarming over my outnumbered dwarves, but on this mission, keeping these lightly armoured guys away from my hero was probably a good move!
Suladan charges into battle, the banner bearer falling to combined archery from the dwarves on the hill. His horse rides roughshod over the top of a Khazad Guard, hooves and sword flashing down to batter past the defenses of the stocky dwarf and slay him. The dwarf captain manages to raise his shield and beat back the attacks of the raider. (If it hadn't been for the extra defense from the shield he'd have been dead!)
Check out that long line of Haradrim infantry! The haradrim archers kill roughly a dwarf per turn. The dwarven archers focus on killing the raiders, and eventually de-horse most of them.
Turn 5: Both Boggle and Suladan call a heroic move! On the roll-off the dwarf captain wins (phew) and stands up, attacking the raider, while his companions also move in. The Iron Guard hurls a throwing axe that flashes past Suladan's horse and thunks into the chestplate of his armour! Fortunately for him, fate is on his side and he suffers nothing worse than a split gem (though it was worth a small fortune!) In retaliation, Suladan leans forward with a mighty cleave of his sword to slice through the Iron Guard. Boggle wins his fight against the raider, but some fast hoofwork backs the human away from the flashing axe of the dwarf.
On Turn 6 the dwarves win priority again (they win priority for the first 7 turns in a row!) but Suladan calls another heroic move, ensuring that he gets the charge (vital for horses to really capitalise). In an epic battle of Suladan vs. Boggle, they both roll well, and it goes to a tie-breaker roll-off which Suladan wins and wounds the dwarven captain. One of the dwarven raiders manages to swing past and attack and kill the dwarven banner bearer! The other nearby Haradrim men are not so fortunate, they fall to the flashing axes of the dwarves.
The Hasharin swings past the dwarven battle-line to assault a spearman and kill it amidst flashing daggers. All of the other dwarves hold fast, although they lose their combats their superior defense ensures that the only death comes from an unlooked for source - The Betrayer! Evil magic in the form of black darts take out several dwarves over the course of the battle.
The battlefield is essentially one big melee in the middle with archers peppering volleys in on exposed dwarf flesh.
The dwarven captain calls his own heroic move and Suladan is surrounded! A throwing axe kills a nearby spearman to clear the way for dwarven archers to barrel down the hill into close combat. Suladan bucks and rears his horse, but the dwarves hit him with several nasty blows and reduce him to a single wound!
Meanwhile, Brynmor is attacked by four spearmen and the Hasharin! One of the nearby Iron Guard sees this and hurls himself towards the dark assassin. Against all the odds, the dwarf manages to get some of his blows past the fearsome man, fate goes against him and he is left with no fate and just one wound at the end of the struggle.
With his back saved, Brynmor swings his mighty shovel, the sharpened mithril edge of which cleaves two evil men in twain! Most of the fights are four men vs a dwarf, or two men vs. a dwarf. The dwarves lose one Khazad Guard, but otherwise hold their own, indeed, a Watcher is slain.
Etako races down the hillside and barrels right into a spearman, the Ironfist slams into the man, throwing him senseless through the air to crash to the ground, out of the fight for good.
The melee is intense and bloody, and it seems as though a never-ending stream of black and dark clothed men is hurling itself against the stout dwarven lines. The mighty shields of the Vault Wardens protect them from a multitude of spears, swords and daggers.
Suladan loses the fight and dies... or does he... remembering the nearby banner (which my brother cunningly moved forward) we reroll the fight, Suladan gets a tie! The tie breaker goes to the Serpent King, who kills Boggle and an archer - increasing his tally still further and proving that he is a force to be reckoned with, though young in years compared to the dwarves!
The Betrayer calls upon evil magic and attempts to transfix Etako, who uses all of his will and (by rolling a six) resists the spell!
Etako uses his freed up limbs to take on two Watchers and spearmen. He deflects incoming attacks with his fist, the flashes his axe out to take the life of a Watcher. The Hasharin retaliates against the lucky Iron Guard and quickly finishes him off in a whirlwind of blades. Brynmor again hurls his mighty shovel through the brainpans of another two men. Along the line the dwarves, having survived the inital assault, attack back with renewed vigour, slaying a host of evil men.
Suladan's triumph turns to fear as a wave of archers approach, ready to claim back his blood for the slaying of Boggle. He turns his horse back and under cover of his foot soldiers, beats a strategic retreat.
Brynmor takes on the mighty Hasharin and a spearman, using his century plus of battle experience (and some might points) he slays the evil assassin!
Etako makes another kill as his Vault Wardens help take the pressure off!
After the vicious melee of the last few turns, the Haradrim forces are now broken, but all pass their leadership tests this turn, still, the game is in it's last legs now and Suladan has killed more dwarves than Etako has killed men!
And Suladan spurs his horse around the action to pick off a lone archer - there's just no stopping that man and his horse, the movement rate is just sooooo fast compared to the dwarves - he's a killing machine!
The Haradrim banner bearer manages to beat back two Iron Guard and a Khazad Guard!
Finally, the Betrayer, sensing his time at this location was nearing completion, charged at Etako. His black miasma cloaked his attacks and those of the Watcher that darted in to stab with sharpened steel. Etako fought valiantly back, but fate was not with him and he suffered a wound. After stabbing the dwarf, the Nazgul faded away, evil laughter reverberating across the battlefield.
In the final few turns of the game, a Vault Warden team that had been distracting the archers suffered a lucky shot that skewered the shielded dwarf through the tiny eye-slit in the massive barricade. (So many sixes rolled!)
And here's a closer shot of Suladan's continuing rampage.
On the final turn Suladan charges into battle again, slaying two more dwarves! The banner bearer falls under the onslaught of no fewer than five dwarves!
The Haradrim chieftain kills a speardwarf, finally getting his blade bloody after loosing arrow after arrow throughout the battle as he guarded the massed archers.
Suladan's final tally: an impressive seven kills, including one Captain! He easily killed more than his own points worth.
The final game shot, with the Haradrim's longer legs, Etako would never be able to catch up with any! As in the last game, the dwarves won in terms of the battle, but lost in terms of the actual mission objective as Etako only managed to take down three men (four if you include the Nazgul expending itself to fight him).
So congratulations (again!) to my brother on a victory!
I loved playing this game. I may have lost but boy it was a blast. So much fun! There were heroic combats, epic struggles, flukey random awesome shots... Once we got into combat every single turn had at least one "whoah - cool!" moment in it.
In hindsight, I should have marched Etako over towards the horses to get him killing more quickly. As it was I sort of had the archers in mind without thinking about how long it would take to get there! Those stubby little legs!
Anyway, totally awesomely fun game and hope you enjoy the pics =)
Anyway, back into it with another Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game Battle Report between my faithful dwarves and my brothers evil Haradrim.
We chose 700 points again, put together our forces, then met at his house to do battle. We rolled on the random scenario generator and got Contest of Champions! Basically the winner of the game is not the one that destroys the enemy forces, rather it is all about your leader. Being in charge of a warband requires the loyalty (dwarves) and maybe a touch of fear (Haradrim) among your troops, what better way to show who's in charge than personally dominating the battlefield! At the end of the game, whichever leader has the most number of kills wins.
My leader is Etako Ironfist, also known as One-eye, 95 points, his main advantages are his high defense and Ironfist weapon (+1 to wound and rerolls as though under the effect of a banner).
My brother's leader is Suladan the Serpent Lord, 100 points, his main advantages are an extra wound and, his trusty steed!
We don't have the new rules yet, but have been roughly making our armies based on warbands of one leader and 12 troops. My birthday in a couple weeks, so am hoping to get the new dwarf army book then.
Anyway, onto the fight itself:
Here's the Harad warband 1, not sure his chieftain has a name yet, but he's leading twelve archers.
Here's The Betrayer leading six Watchers of Karna as the second warband.
Here's a Hasharin (I think he has a name, but can't remember it right now) leading a banner bearer and fourteen spearmen (I know that's not right for the new rules, but I guess you could put them in the Betrayer's band and just move them together from Turn 1.
And lastly, the fourth warband, six raiders led by Suladan, three with bow, two with warspear, one with banner.
Here's the battlefield ready to go, it's about 5 foot by 3.5 feet, so not usual size, but that's the table we have! True line of sight rules used, but the sections between individual trees, ruins and rocks count as difficult terrain.
Here's Etako's warband of a Banner Bearer, five Khazad Guard and five Iron Guard.
Here's Brynmor leading a banner bearer and five Vault Warden teams.
Lastly, here's Boggle, my dwarf captain with throwing axes and shield leading twelve archers.
After a couple of turns you can see the lines surging forward. I was hoping for an objective based mission so my vault wardens could park somewhere and raise shields, but oh well, they'll just have to go bash stuff instead!
Suladan leads his raiders on a lightning fast strike towards the dwarven archer flank.
The archers climb the small hill to get a better view of the battlefield.
The Haradrim archers stay well back and fire volley after volley at the dwarven host. By the end of the game, they've accounted for five or six troops, and early on managed to stop me from volleying by killing three of my archers.
On some missions it's not worth it, as those troops could be used for swarming over my outnumbered dwarves, but on this mission, keeping these lightly armoured guys away from my hero was probably a good move!
Suladan charges into battle, the banner bearer falling to combined archery from the dwarves on the hill. His horse rides roughshod over the top of a Khazad Guard, hooves and sword flashing down to batter past the defenses of the stocky dwarf and slay him. The dwarf captain manages to raise his shield and beat back the attacks of the raider. (If it hadn't been for the extra defense from the shield he'd have been dead!)
Check out that long line of Haradrim infantry! The haradrim archers kill roughly a dwarf per turn. The dwarven archers focus on killing the raiders, and eventually de-horse most of them.
Turn 5: Both Boggle and Suladan call a heroic move! On the roll-off the dwarf captain wins (phew) and stands up, attacking the raider, while his companions also move in. The Iron Guard hurls a throwing axe that flashes past Suladan's horse and thunks into the chestplate of his armour! Fortunately for him, fate is on his side and he suffers nothing worse than a split gem (though it was worth a small fortune!) In retaliation, Suladan leans forward with a mighty cleave of his sword to slice through the Iron Guard. Boggle wins his fight against the raider, but some fast hoofwork backs the human away from the flashing axe of the dwarf.
On Turn 6 the dwarves win priority again (they win priority for the first 7 turns in a row!) but Suladan calls another heroic move, ensuring that he gets the charge (vital for horses to really capitalise). In an epic battle of Suladan vs. Boggle, they both roll well, and it goes to a tie-breaker roll-off which Suladan wins and wounds the dwarven captain. One of the dwarven raiders manages to swing past and attack and kill the dwarven banner bearer! The other nearby Haradrim men are not so fortunate, they fall to the flashing axes of the dwarves.
The Hasharin swings past the dwarven battle-line to assault a spearman and kill it amidst flashing daggers. All of the other dwarves hold fast, although they lose their combats their superior defense ensures that the only death comes from an unlooked for source - The Betrayer! Evil magic in the form of black darts take out several dwarves over the course of the battle.
The battlefield is essentially one big melee in the middle with archers peppering volleys in on exposed dwarf flesh.
The dwarven captain calls his own heroic move and Suladan is surrounded! A throwing axe kills a nearby spearman to clear the way for dwarven archers to barrel down the hill into close combat. Suladan bucks and rears his horse, but the dwarves hit him with several nasty blows and reduce him to a single wound!
Meanwhile, Brynmor is attacked by four spearmen and the Hasharin! One of the nearby Iron Guard sees this and hurls himself towards the dark assassin. Against all the odds, the dwarf manages to get some of his blows past the fearsome man, fate goes against him and he is left with no fate and just one wound at the end of the struggle.
With his back saved, Brynmor swings his mighty shovel, the sharpened mithril edge of which cleaves two evil men in twain! Most of the fights are four men vs a dwarf, or two men vs. a dwarf. The dwarves lose one Khazad Guard, but otherwise hold their own, indeed, a Watcher is slain.
Etako races down the hillside and barrels right into a spearman, the Ironfist slams into the man, throwing him senseless through the air to crash to the ground, out of the fight for good.
The melee is intense and bloody, and it seems as though a never-ending stream of black and dark clothed men is hurling itself against the stout dwarven lines. The mighty shields of the Vault Wardens protect them from a multitude of spears, swords and daggers.
Suladan loses the fight and dies... or does he... remembering the nearby banner (which my brother cunningly moved forward) we reroll the fight, Suladan gets a tie! The tie breaker goes to the Serpent King, who kills Boggle and an archer - increasing his tally still further and proving that he is a force to be reckoned with, though young in years compared to the dwarves!
The Betrayer calls upon evil magic and attempts to transfix Etako, who uses all of his will and (by rolling a six) resists the spell!
Etako uses his freed up limbs to take on two Watchers and spearmen. He deflects incoming attacks with his fist, the flashes his axe out to take the life of a Watcher. The Hasharin retaliates against the lucky Iron Guard and quickly finishes him off in a whirlwind of blades. Brynmor again hurls his mighty shovel through the brainpans of another two men. Along the line the dwarves, having survived the inital assault, attack back with renewed vigour, slaying a host of evil men.
Etako is again assaulted by a mass of men and is transfixed, unable to move or fight back effectively. He is beaten, but manages somehow to deflect the blows rained down on him. Fate is on his side and he only takes one wound, though now he is out of fate and will.
Etako makes another kill as his Vault Wardens help take the pressure off!
After the vicious melee of the last few turns, the Haradrim forces are now broken, but all pass their leadership tests this turn, still, the game is in it's last legs now and Suladan has killed more dwarves than Etako has killed men!
And Suladan spurs his horse around the action to pick off a lone archer - there's just no stopping that man and his horse, the movement rate is just sooooo fast compared to the dwarves - he's a killing machine!
The Haradrim banner bearer manages to beat back two Iron Guard and a Khazad Guard!
Finally, the Betrayer, sensing his time at this location was nearing completion, charged at Etako. His black miasma cloaked his attacks and those of the Watcher that darted in to stab with sharpened steel. Etako fought valiantly back, but fate was not with him and he suffered a wound. After stabbing the dwarf, the Nazgul faded away, evil laughter reverberating across the battlefield.
In the final few turns of the game, a Vault Warden team that had been distracting the archers suffered a lucky shot that skewered the shielded dwarf through the tiny eye-slit in the massive barricade. (So many sixes rolled!)
And here's a closer shot of Suladan's continuing rampage.
On the final turn Suladan charges into battle again, slaying two more dwarves! The banner bearer falls under the onslaught of no fewer than five dwarves!
The Haradrim chieftain kills a speardwarf, finally getting his blade bloody after loosing arrow after arrow throughout the battle as he guarded the massed archers.
Suladan's final tally: an impressive seven kills, including one Captain! He easily killed more than his own points worth.
The final game shot, with the Haradrim's longer legs, Etako would never be able to catch up with any! As in the last game, the dwarves won in terms of the battle, but lost in terms of the actual mission objective as Etako only managed to take down three men (four if you include the Nazgul expending itself to fight him).
So congratulations (again!) to my brother on a victory!
I loved playing this game. I may have lost but boy it was a blast. So much fun! There were heroic combats, epic struggles, flukey random awesome shots... Once we got into combat every single turn had at least one "whoah - cool!" moment in it.
In hindsight, I should have marched Etako over towards the horses to get him killing more quickly. As it was I sort of had the archers in mind without thinking about how long it would take to get there! Those stubby little legs!
Anyway, totally awesomely fun game and hope you enjoy the pics =)
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