Rescue Hedger! Shire Protectors Battle Company Battle Report

Well, Hedger was injured and left at camp with Geleth and Monty while the others headed off shopping and stuff. And wouldn't you know it, along comes Mur'Baj's battle company - and they have a cave troll!

In this mission I start with three guys in the middle of the map, with the enemy battle company close by and the rest of the team only coming on from the far edge. If I can reduce the incoming goblins to 50% I win, if they knock out Hedger, they win!

And we're off to a good start! Geleth shoots one of the goblin archers!

And the rest of the team hussles in (at slow speed for the dwarves and even slower speed for the hobbits!) In round 2 Geleth uses one of his sneaky elvish songs to compel the leader of the company out onto the rickety bridge, and Hedger then makes a great shot to take him out! Cookie races ahead on his pony!

Monty the dwarf holds fast behind the ancient doors, while goblins attack!

Geleth sings another verse to his song and makes the cave troll run in the wrong direction, meanwhile Hedger is only a short way in front of a conga-line of goblin troops!

Cookie manages to hold off a goblin blackshield, Monty similarly repels two goblin attackers.

From above you can see that the magpie is lending some assistance here (allowing Monty to get a re-roll).

Hedger's new ability to move as well as shoot means that the following horde is being whittled down, but he's not out of the woods yet - literally or figuratively!

Cookie and Loki take out the blackshield, Monty continues to hold off the other two goblins.

Hedger is now at the rivers edge and will have to leap to the central island, the troll and remaining goblins are closing in!

With both Loki, Skodi and Cookie taking on goblins, another falls! It's getting close to 50% of the goblin force...

And Hedger has successfully made the leap to the little central island. The hobbits all throw stones and shoot arrows at the goblins, but fail to knock any of them out.

And on the next turn, the dwarves and cookie get the final kill required and secure the numbers necessary for a win!

But in a totally bizarre twist, two goblins leap over to the small island and beat Hedger's duelling rolls and then get a wound past his fate as well! Hedger falls! It's a tie!!!

At the end of the match Hedger receives a permanent leg wound, which slows him down to dwarf speed. A new dwarf, Archie the ranger, joins the company and Cookie again gets the mini of the match! 

Two of the three goblin heroes as well as the blackshield will be missing their next mission, but they're joined by another goblin blackshield to help pick up the slack.

Get the treasure! Beastcaller Battle Company Battle Report

The Beastcaller and his minions are back and ready to plunder some treasure! This was one of those interesting missions where you roll dice to see where your troops enter the board and so there is quite a lot of randomness inherent. The Beastcaller is up against a far more numerous goblin force and the game is all about getting more models on the bridge with the treasure at the end of the game (when one force is reduced to 25% of its starting model count).

Right off the bat (pun intended) one solitary goblin archer who rolled poorly for his battlefield placement is taken out.

A far more numerous goblin force closes in on the Beastcaller, though the extra speed from the warg mount makes it much easier! Goblin archers fire away! But hit nothing.

And some bats are already checking out the potential spoils.

Calling a heroic move with his only point of might, the Beastcaller manages to dodge around a goblin ambush and take out a speargoblin while the nearby giant spider also removes a goblin from the game.

By flying bats into small spaces, they soak up goblin hits while the other beasts claim more goblin lives.

The goblin archers continue to pelt shots at any creature that emerges to stand near the treasure.

The Mirkwood spider entangles the goblin leader in webs while the green spider and two bat swarms inflict further casualties.

And down on the ground even more goblins are dying to the high strength scores of the monsters.

But what's this? Another goblin swarm climbs up behind the treasure! With only one bat swarm there, if two goblins can get to the bridge when the game ends, they'll win!

In a remarkable feat of dice rolling, the goblin leader disentangles himself from the spider webs, is attacked by a giant spider and the mirkwood spider, beats them off and causes a wound on each one!

Unfortunately his comrades are nowhere near as effective as they fall to numerous attacks!

And on the following turn the goblin force is broken, the goblin leader is killed and all but two of the other goblins run away!

But the two remaining goblins are soooooo close to getting on the bridge, if they can get past the bats they'll at least get a tie! But they don't.

The Beastcaller pack wins, though it seemed very one-sided, it came down to the very last turn for the actual victory! Another warg and a giant rat joins the pack!

More itsy bitsy spiders! Shire protectors battle company battle report 5

Not to be outdone (and to use the same scenery set up so we didn't have to think too hard) the Shire Protectors also found themselves under assault by eight legged beasties! With lower strength, defence, attacks, fight value etc. the Hobbits were really going to need protecting! I deployed down one corner, hoping to make the spiders take at least two turns to get to me if they appeared at the other end of the board (the six big terrain features were the spider spawning spots, with a D6 to randomise where they would appear).

Turn one started really well! Stones were thrown, arrows flew and two spiders dropped dead with one getting a wound on it!

It was then stacks on to two close by spiders, which both fell!

On the next turn, the spider the hobbits were fighting only rolled a two and a three and I had four hobbits and Cookie charging on the pony. The hobbits all rolled twos! Cookie rolled a one and... a 5! Phew!

The spiders continued advancing, my Sentinel, Geleth, kept singing Eldamar Madrigal, which made the spiders keep moving away from the fighting - very helpful!

Cookie on his pony kept on saving the day!

So far, so good, the dwarves, sentinel and Cookie have been doing the major work, while the other hobbits throw stones and fire arrows. The tough dwarven armour took a dent on this turn as Skodi took a hit from the purple spider, fortunately fate was on his side, though it used his might and fate points.

Hedger manages to take out a green spider, but the others are all getting very close now.

The spider against Hedger rolled double sixes, he needed a six to stay in the game...

And thanks to Geleth singing the Mirkwood spider away and joining in another fight, yet another spider goes down. Hatless Harry shoots an incoming green spider right in one of its eyes!

The Shire protectors continue to put a wall of slightly tougher warriors in between the spiders and weaker hobbits!

And on the other side of the tree Loki and Cookie intercept another spider, killing it.

The brave Sentinel, Geleth, puts himself right in the way of the Mirkwood spider, and it proves too much for him.

Loki intercepts another incoming beastie!

And on that final turn, both Skodi and Hedger lose to an orange arachnid, laying down their lives for the Hobbits!

At the end of the match, with the exception of Loki, the other proper protectors were all knocked out, but the halflings all survived! In the injury rolls they were all okay except for Hedger who has to miss a game to recover from the spider poison. 

Hedger managed to get one wound in, Loki made 6, Cookie got 7! Some of the other hobbits got a few hits in with arrows and rocks.

For rewards, Hedger received an elven bow and seasoned archer (can move and shoot). Skodi is now a blade master (can reroll a die in a duel). Loki is a dual wielding specialist (a skill we made up for dual wielders which allows either an extra attack or an extra defence instead of burly). As well as that a new dwarf, Monty, has joined the team (he has a shield) and also has a pet magpie. I've upgraded the models for Loki and Skodi as well so they look a little more epic after their spider slaying abilities!

Itsy Bitsy Spider(s) - Elven Battle Company Battle Report 5

For our next misson, we played the old Mirkwood spider attack. This has four spiders that attack for 9 rounds. When you kill a spider, a new one just takes its place!

I only have one Mirkwood spider model (though I just bought another I need to paint) so we have one Mirkwood and three giant spiders. 

This mission has traditionally either been a complete slaughter of the battle company or an xp pinata of spiders. They have powerful attacks, but awful defence and the Elves have great fight values for winning ties.

Round one goes very well for the elves, with shooting and heroes taking out three of the four spiders!

On the next round Ithil-galad takes out the Mirkwood spider on the charge.

Three giant spiders attack the other side of the camp and some wounds are added, but they aren't slain.

On the next round the wounded spiders are dispatched, Rochon the knight charges at the next Mirkwood spider, but Cyll the Sentinel is taken out by the poisoned fangs of a green giant spider!

Ithil-galad charges her horse, Legrinsul, at the green spider to avenge the Sentinel, Rochon charges the Mirkwood spider to smash it to bits and more wounds are placed on the giant spiders.

Still more spiders appear and although one is killed by Celeb-galadh, another manages to shred Telegan!

On the other side of the clearing, Ithil-galad and her team remove yet another Mirkwood spider, while Rist bravely holds off a green giant spider.

Ecthel-galadh is taken out by an orange scuttler, hile Thaun and Celeb-galadh hold back yet another Mirkwood spider.

Ithil-galadh spurs Legrinsul off to take a wound from a purple spider, but Rochon and Rist are sent to the ground by a green spider!

The numbers of the elves are thinning with still a few turns to go! Fortunately the mirkwood spider is crushed by Celeb-galadh and Brethil, though Tirith and Tawar just manage to deflect the blows of an orange spider.

Ithil-galad flattens her opponent, while Col-galadh and Thaun manage to get a wound on the green spider.

The green spider is finally defeated by a combined effort with Ithil-galad charging in.

On the other side of the clearing more elves are just holding on, getting a wound on the mirkwood spider and holding off the other giant spider.

And, phew, the spiders have had enough and all scurry away!

It was looking pretty nasty there, lots of elves went down! However, apart from Telegan the sentinel (who is going to have to miss the next game) all of the injury rolls were full recoveries!

The end tally was Ithil-galad with 9 wounds on spiders! And almost all of the other elves got at least two wounds on spiders as well, so they did really well! This led to many advancements and ability upgrades!

For example, Brethil is now a knight, Ithil-galad now has devastating charge, Col-galadh has Burly, Thaun is now an Expert Shot and a new knight also joined the company. Two more sets of throwing daggers were added to the armoury!

The company is now worth a whopping 285 points! We're looking forward to me painting up a few new models so we can play with them again!