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!

Shire Protectors Battle Company Battle Report 3 - They have a cave troll!

Well, Loki was captured by some goblins... and it turns out they have a Cave Troll! Yikes! These beasties can really ruin your day, with three attacks and a higher fight value than any of my crew, if they get into close combat and roll a 6... well... let's just say that there may be hobbit bodies here, there, and everywhere!

Some of the pictures didn't turn out so well, so excuse the slight gaps in the story! Loki is being held prisoner, he counts as unarmed and as long as three goblins stay around him he can't go anywhere. Meanwhile, the cave troll charges towards my squad. Arrows fly from Hedger, Tom, Harry and Geleth, they hit, but bounce off the tough troll skin!

The troll continues to charge down the hill, with arrows and rocks just ricocheting off the beast! Just before the troll charges, Tom's arrow manages to pierce the cave troll! And then a stone flung from Farmer Maddock also hits the troll in a very sensitive spot - it's down to one wound as it charges into the hobbits! I surround it with everyone and gulp as my son rolls the dice... a 1... a 1... and... a... 4! I have a chance, I just have to get a 5 with any of my eight guys. I roll a 2... a 4... a 3... a 1... a 3... a 2... a 4... another 4... and then... finally... a 5! Phew, that was almost a total disaster! Now I just need to roll a six! I get it first try with Hedger! Down goes the cave troll! Very anti-climactic, we were expecting to lose a few hobbits before the cave troll was defeated.

Now onto the remaining goblins. Three snipers are up in the ruins, with a smattering of other goblins. We race forward, arrows flying from both sides, but no damage is done.

Closer and closer we get, some arrows hit, but nothing manages to wound.

Finally Harry takes out one of the goblin archers. The other two archers hit hobbits, but can't manage to do any damage!

Tom and Harry take out the other two archers in a dazzling display of Hobbit archery! We are now super close to rescuing Loki!

Skodi takes out a goblin, and so does Cookie, CLANG goes the frying pan! Meanwhile, Farmer Maddock takes out a goblin wielding a spear!

It's all stacks on to the goblins near Loki, most of whom run chittering away!

And off the little buggers go! Victory to the Shire Protectors! Loki, who was a rescuer of Jolly has himself been rescued in return!

And with enough influence to roll twice on the reinforcement charts we have three more hobbits join up, Fatty Cooper, Marmadoc (M.C. Hammer) and Andwise (Andy) the Shirrif. Loki has also been promoted to an Iron Guard! So now I have four proper fighters (a ranger, two dwarves and an elf) and ten hobbits!

My son has been very patient as we wanted to level up my company to be roughly equal to his so we can do a teamed up mission. However, after three missions and mostly hobbit reinforcements, his Elven battle company still way outclasses mine - hobbits don't count for much! In any case, we're still going to do a cooperative mission next time, I'm sure he won't mind having better guys than me =)

Shire Protectors Battle Company Battle Report 2

While down in the goblin infested caves, Hedging Bets (the Shire Protectors battle company) hear a forlorn howl in the distance. Hedger scouts on ahead and finds an enormous black wolf held at bay by a swarming crowd of goblins. Never one to let an animal suffer, Hedger convinces the group to move forward and attack the goblins!

About 120 points worth of goblins (and one goblin riding a warg) versus about 120 points worth of good guys!

Fortunately, even though the goblins are many, they are a bit spread out, so as long as the rocks and arrows hit their marks, the goblins shouldn't be too tough, though if they can get into a lot of melee combats against hobbits there'll be trouble! Goblins have spears, so can get their two against one bonus - and against a combat weak hobbit that's a problem! Turn one starts off really well, Cookie throws a stone and knocks a goblin out on the first turn!

No way! While Skodi faces off a goblin, a goblin arrow from further afield thwacks into Loki, taking him out! That's a massive blow to the good force, as they only had three proper fighters, now suddenly down to two!

Skodi takes out his goblin just in time to join in the melee against the warg rider, who charged in to battle and was swarmed by as many as could pile in! Hedger and his squad rolled nothing higher than a four! Fortunately the goblin rolled a one and a two!

The two archer hobbits, Tom and Harry, take aim at long range and take out a goblin archer! The archery so far has been dreadful for the Shire force, there were turns where everybody missed (all 1s and 2s) and many other turns where even the hits didn't manage to get any wounds, so this was a good feeling!

And the archery continues! Hedger and Harry take out two goblins! Skodi and Cookie smack down another goblin - Cookie smacks his frying pan right into the goblin's chittering face, sending it to the gravel. Jolly, Hugo and Rory similarly gang up on a goblin, only winning because the Shirrifs have a massive fight value of 3 while the goblin only has 2! I think this turn turned the whole battle around, as the goblins were getting close to swarming us! Thank goodness that sometimes the archery works!

Pushing forward, Hedger and the team manage to gang up on some more goblins, Skodi taking out another in close combat while Harry takes aim and shoots another hill-top goblin!

Skodi takes on two goblins and loses the fight, but the spear thrust is turned aside by his shield. Hedger pushes back a goblin but can't get a damaging strike in. Cookie, however, frying pans another goblin!

There are fewer goblins now, but Hedger and Skodi continue to take on as many goblins as they can to spare the Hobbits. Skodi pushes a goblin away from the Hobbits. Hedger slips on something and the goblin lunges forward and takes him out! Hedger got one bow kill this game and did nothing else except distract goblins from Hobbits! Meanwhile, Hugo clonks another goblin in the head and knocks him out!

Vengeance is theirs as the Dwarf, Skodi, and all the remaining Hobbits pile in to thwack the final goblins down! They hear a cheerful barking and snarling sound in the distance and see the massive black wolf claw down two goblins as it howls in the direction of the Hobbits as it bounds away into the distance. Mission accomplished! But at what cost?!

Post game rolls - Loki rolls snake eyes - DEATH!?!? But then as we're making a fuss about what rotten luck we realise that the whole way through the game we had Hedger's stats wrong (I thought he only had 3 defence) so that he shouldn't have even been knocked out! So we fudged the results by one and had Loki roll a three instead. So our next mission will be trying to rescue him as he wasn't found after the battle - the goblins have dragged him off somewhere!

In better post-game rolls I got double sixes (thanks to the horn bonus) and got a Wood Elf Sentinel, Geleth, and another hobbit, Farmer Maddock. Also, Cookie rolled and got a six, promoting him to a Hero! A hero Hobbit with a frying pan! Skodi and Hedger also qualified for promotions. Skodi has decided that the Hobbits need protecting and so he is now a Khazad Guard, ready to lay down his axes for the little folk. Hedger has donned better protective armour and is now a fully fledged Ranger of the North. Here's hoping that will help him in future battles!

Fell Wargs and Goblin Riders

So I got some fell wargs just for fun. My son would like to make a battle company out of wargs. So we thought of what that might look like.

After making that up we decided we needed some Fell Wargs so that there could be some sort of upgrading.

Given that they're likely to be used for a Battle Company I painted them all slightly differently so we could tell them apart. Also because we can use them mixed in with our other wargs (some with a gray kind of palette, others with brown).

Here are some snarling beasties! These sculpts are soooo much better (in my opinion) than the original wild wargs. more dynamic, more hairy, more wolfy, just more fun to paint and look at!

Probably using the Wild Warg Chieftain as the Lt. I made a black and white fell warg to use as the Sgts.

I don't know if we'll ever actually play with them, but it's nice to know we can field so many wargs now!

And I just realised I also didn't show you the goblin riders, or if I did, I've forgotten!

As I've mentioned, we just finished reading "The Hobbit" and my son wanted some goblin warg riders ('cos... why not?!?!).

So I modified some goblin archers and sword and shield guys. Here is an archer that we will use as a captain (hence he's on the chieftain). I added a spear to the hand that is usually reaching back for an arrow, took off the arrows and added a sword hilt as though in a back scabbard, put a shield on his outstretched arm (that used to hold a bow) and green-stuffed some chainmail all around his legs.

And similarly, these other goblins have just been cut away a bit so that they ride on the wargs (though they're just blu-taced on at the moment, not glued so we can quickly de-warg them if they dismount or one or the other is shot).

So there you have some crazy cavalry and fast moving warg packs, ready for adding to a normal army list, battle company or whatever!

My brother and I are always happy to add things that make sense (as long as they're appropriately costed!)

Etako's Expeditionaries Battle Company First Battle

We've played a few games now and I don't have as much time as I used to so this won't be as thematically written as ye olden days. But hopefully the pics still tell a story!

The first few rounds were trudging forwards. The goblins were on sentry duty and we tried to sneak up as much as possible.

Then I realised that with my stumpy little legs it wasn't going to be possible to just take out a single goblin at a time. So, you know, forward to victory!

The first goblin goes down, but another is up on a cliff, out of reach to attack, but within visual range - the alarm has been raised!

The dwarves charge to try and tackle the goblin, who fights back, shoving the dwarves but not wounding any.

Off the hill Etako and Boggle charge on, while the goblin on the hill wins again! Fortunately the strong dwarven armour keeps them safe, but this is tying up the forward progress while goblins across the board swarm over!

Finally, finally in the next turn Brynmor (who is sitting on blu-tac because super goblin knocked him off the table and he snapped!) uses a point of might to finally kill the goblin who doesn't want to die!

Another two goblins are failing to die! Etako is even wounded, but saves it with a point of fate! At least with their dwarven super armour that'll be the last time I have to worry about being wounded!

Noooo! The goblins attack Boggle, who has a shield and dwarven armour! They roll four sixes and Boggle fails his fate save! Etako almost loses his fight too, but uses might to tip the balance in his favour and slays a noxious green goblin. Still not a fair trade!

Etako takes out another goblin, who are swarming thick and fast to stop the dwarves from advancing. One spear goblin beats back Archie and Brynmor! Fortunately no wounds to the dwarves! Meanwhile in every turn goblin arrows flash past (often only barely missing their own compatriots!)

The dwarves take priority and Archie and Brynmor charge in to hold up some goblins so that Boggle and Skodi can sprint, well, waddle off closer to the prison!

The dwarves get swarmed yet again, but this time Etako and Skodi smash through them. Brynmor, however, just can't seem to catch a break.

With no fate left, Brynmor is hit hard by yet another goblin and falls to his death near the lava lake.

The dwarves thought they were home free, with just one goblin left at the top of the prison stairs, but they leap out from nooks and crevices all over the place! It's an ambush!

In the prison Archie and Skodi leap into action!

An arrow whistles past Etako's head and kills the goblin he was fighting against!

Archie close-combats a goblin to free up Skodi to charge up the stairs.

Etako smashes another goblin with his big two handed axe!

Skodi kills the guard-goblin atop the stairs!

Then we were even more excited and I forgot to take photos! Etako charged up and split the prison door in a single hit! Meanwhile the goblin archers continue to fire down, but the arrows either miss or fail to penetrate the dwarven armour. Archie and Etako bracket Loki to keep him safe, with four of my dwarves still alive the tide has turned and it looks like I might win! Where's Skodi you might ask? Look in the distance...

We added a treasure chest to the scenario with Healing Herbs in it and Skodi went for it!

With three goblin archers shooting non stop Archie is charged by a goblin - who sneaks a nasty dagger past Archie's armour!

Well, at least I have three dwarves left yeah?!

I shifted Etako behind Loki to protect him further and we all laughed at my paranoia - as if three goblin archers could take out another dwarf!

Yikes! They do!

Right, literally at the edge of the board, a goblin arrow takes out Etako! Another arrow hits Loki... but just fails to wound!

Fortunately Skodi and Loki both make it away and the mission is technically a win!

In the post game Battle Company rewards phase I was reinforced by Mighty Montgomery, a shield carrying dwarf. Boggle gets an upgrade to Heavy armour (as he felt pretty let down by his poor showing this time!) Etako, after prying an arrow out of his back, upgrades to heavy armour and can now Furious Charge!

Well that was way hard! I thought I was going to lose for sure, then win, then lose, then win, then just at the last second I almost lost!

Great fun, and pretty good intro to the game after a long time. It was way quicker with only a few dwarves on the team than we remembered from those big thousand point battles!

Next up, the Harad try the same mission, how will it go for them?