Again, this particular battle was based on a scenario that Don put up at the OSBGL (OSBGL battle report) with the difference that for my son we wanted it to be a little easier so used goblins instead of orcs.
Over the previous week I used some old styrofoam and some twigs we found on a walk around the block to make some new scenery (the cave piece, the hill center left and you'll see some random scatter terrain with "logs" and a fallen tree bridge over the river. The hills are just layers of cheap packing bubble styrofoam stuff covered with some "no more gaps" filler. I then just pushed some rough cork into it while it was still wet to give it some texture, drybrushed it dark grey, then light grey. Then I just glued some flock onto the flat surfaces. They came up pretty well I reckon! The stuff with the twigs is even more straightforward. Just glue, sticks, a few rocks and some flock.
The basic set up for the mission was six goblins, three on either side of the river, who are just scouting around. They follow the sentry rules except that we use a scatter die from 40k to see which random direction they move in. A D6 is also rolled to determine how far they roam. If there is a turn where the elves are 6" away at the end of a turn, or if they shoot and hit but fail to kill a goblin then the alarm will be raised and goblins will start pouring out of the cave!
The elves need to just go from the bottom to the top of the map.
Here's an "elf eye" shot as they head through the rough terrain towards the nearest goblins.
And here they are ready to begin their attack, archers in position! He snuck the elves forward a bit at a time, waiting until the goblins had priority so he'd know where they would be at the end of their turn.
In a quite daring attack, the two wood elves shot and took out one goblin and Celeb-galadh also drew back his elf bow and shot, he hit the goblin but failed to wound... but then used his point of might to take out another! Two goblins down and still no alarm!
Ithilgalad charged forward at the last goblin on the southern side of the river, ably assisted by the cockatoo! The charge gave her two attacks, the cockatoo got another attack, making for three against one... no prizes for working out how that one ended!
Arrows continue to fly and another goblin falls! Oscar decided that he'd rather play it very safe and so the sniper system seemed to be working really well. He doesn't like it when his guys die, so the archery works well from that perspective! Three elves that hit on a 3+ and kill on a 5+ gives a good chance of taking down a single target (close to 50% without using might)!
So there goes another one!
The archers are crazy powerful and so far have yet to stuff up, though there's no more might points left to help if any shots go astray. If they do hit a goblin but fail to kill it, they'll be stuck on the southern side of the river while goblins pour out of the cave, which could be nasty as they'll get overwhelming odds fairly quickly.
Finally on the last goblin the three arrows fire, two hit, but both fail to wound and there's no more might on any of the archers to help modify the roll. The alarm is raised! Every turn now we roll a D6 and depending on the roll anything from a single goblin to a cave troll may emerge from the cave!
I asked what the rules of the bridge should be and Oscar came up with: if you're on the bridge at the end of your turn you have to roll D6, if you roll a 1 you fall off! In addition, after a combat, the loser also has to roll - if he's still on the bridge AND loses the fight he has to roll twice. Needless to say, he tried to get across the bridge as quickly as possible! Finally there's some close combat, goblins with spear support manage to get a few 2 vs 1 die attacks in, though fail to wound any of the elves with their heavy armour. The wood elves have much less armour, but can sit behind the more heavily armoured galadhrim and support with spears or shoot their bows so it's a nice mixed force.
Cockatoo-eyed view of the battle, the goblins just keep pouring out more quickly than they can be put down, so the last elven point of might goes to calling a heroic move so that they can get away from the bridge ahead of the goblin horde. It's not running away, it's strategic withdrawal!
And finally they manage to pull right away, with 6" movement, the ability to move through the rough terrain at full speed and the goblins only having 5" movement, the elves manage to get away to safety, leaving a whole swarm of goblins shooting at their backs. We rolled for the last four arrows, they were shooting at Col-galadh, who has died in every other game... even though the goblins are hopeless archers three of them hit... and fail to wound. Oh well, that would've been hilarious (to me) if they'd managed to kill him on the very last turn!
And after the battle, in an amazing feat of dice rolling, two reinforcements are added and they're awesome ones, a wood elf sentinel (who can play songs that have various magical effects) and a special guard (in the white cloak) who has a pike and is just generally better at fighting and courage.
So not the most thrilling battle ever, mostly just sniping with only about two turns of actual combat!
Amazing! Very smart plays using the elves advantages here!
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