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?

Prison break!

The first battle company narrative mission involves breaking out one of your troop from a prison! It's supposed to be in Lake Town, but we don't have any Lake Town stuff, so it's happening in lava land.

The main scenery pieces I got from Griffin Grove (who provide Hirst Arts blocks down here in Australia) https://griffingrove.com/, you can see how I put them together in previous posts.

My son set up the board, with only a little help. We popped 14 goblins down instead of 12 Lake Town guys and got ready for some dice rolling fun.

We rolled to see who would end up in the tower, all locked up - it was Loki Lightfingers the archer!

This left me with just 5 dwarves to make the very long (with their stumpy legs) trek to the tower way off in the distance.

And the old ruins are defended by goblins as well as big pits of lava!

This was all good to go for our game tomorrow! My brother will control the goblins, then we'll swap and I'll control the goblins so he can have a go with his Harad Falcons!

The Falcon's Honour

My brother has also put together a Battle Company, with a much cooler back story than mine!

He says:

"(I consider my forces to be more ‘aggressively neutral’ than ‘evil’)

Abd al Alim and those with him failed to hold back the enemy in a battle with Gondor forces, resulting in terrible losses for Harad.

However, Abd al Alim and a handful of other survivors were declared without honour for their failure to die defending Harad from the enemy, and Abd Al Alim was ‘promoted’ to command these survivors on a new mission deep into the lands of the so-called ‘Free Peoples.’

Their task is to scout out and report on the activities of their enemies in the North. If they die for the Honour of Harad, their bodies will be returned to Harad for a proper burial. Otherwise, they now live in exile, wandering the northern lands and seeking some way to reclaim their standing.

Abd al Alim’s followers call him ‘The Falcon’ and have named themselves ‘The Falcon’s Honour’ – for while they have no honour in their homeland, they will find honour for themselves, standing together, side by side in battle, as they fight the weak and pathetic inhabitants of distant lands."

This photo is of the spearmen: “Spearmen, The Talon, The Falcon”

Borak "The Talon" (Sgt) has a raised spear, Abd al Alim "The Falcon" (Lt) has a gold mask and a home-made back banner. The other two spearmen are named Dabir "The Hawk" and Faris "The Tiger"

This photo is of the archers: “The Fang and Archers”

Gadi "The Fang" (Sgt) was horribly scarred in the battle that saw them made outcasts, and has taken to wearing a metal head-mask. The other archers are named Hakim "The Pincer", Ibrahim "The Serpent" and Jabbar "The Wolf"

So not only does he think that my companies are full of "weak and pathetic inhabitants of distant lands", but his characters also have way cooler names!

Well I guess we'll just have to see if cool names and poisoned arrows are enough to make up for strong dwarven steel or chittering goblin hordes!

Mur'Baj's Marauders

Setting out for plunder, loot and the hope of raising himself further up the ranks of goblinhood, Mur'Baj has cajoled, enticed and beaten some other goblins to come with him.

Mur'baj is the axe-wielding goblin in the centre of this shot, his sergeant Varnik is over near the stairs.

Above them are the other sergeant (this one with a bow) Kar'cha and two archers.

The other goblins are called Ash (shield), Bork (shield), Cur (spear), Duk (spear), Ern (spear), Frig (spear), Glab (bow) and Halc (bow).

Yes, each one starts with a consecutive letter of the alphabet. No prizes for the starting letter of the first new recruit they get =) Although, if you can come up with a simple, suitable goblin name starting with I, let me know!

Etako's Expeditionaries Battle Company

We're hoping to play some Battle Company games on the weekend, so have begun preparation.

You may recall a very long time ago that Etako Ironfist led an expeditionary force. Well here they are in Battle Company form.

These dwarves have been tasked with forging ahead of the rest of the army, taking on dangerous missions that are best taken in small groups that can get past the enemy unobserved. However, when they are spotted they are geared up and ready to fight!

From left to right we have Boggle Bootmire (Sergeant), Etako Ironfist (Lieutenant), Skodi Strongarm (regular troop), Brynmor Deepminer (Sergeant).

 And trying to snipe from afar we have Archie Longsight and Loki Lightfingers.

It's a small Battle Company, just six models! However, they are dwarven tough and it means that half of them are heroes!

In any case, hopefully we'll see some action with these guys on the weekend!

Black hearted Blackshields

A few evenings of painting have let me finish the Moria Blackshields.

The dwarves I'm actually painting while my son is present, so they're coming along VERY slowly =)

I, of course, have forgotten a lot in the last many years! Chiefly among them, how to take photos of miniatures.

So please forgive the slightly unforgiving too close photos below!

Here's the finished squad. A Moria Blackshield captain, four with sword and shield, four with spear and shield. I used goblin models that were "heavily armoured" - in other words, with helmets. Then I gave them various shields I had lying around to further distinguish them from standard warriors.

I know a Blackshield captain is meant to have a two handed sword rather than a shield, but it seems very odd to me that a BlackSHIELD captain has no shield. Also, none of the goblins I had looked easily convertible to a two handed sword!

I've not played with "elite" goblins before and still aren't sure if it's worth the extra points when I tend to like swarming, but we'll see!

And a side view to see the shields better, I think I might do one more black wash over the shields to darken them further. The roundish shields are meant to be from perhaps a Cave Drake or something and I think are still a bit green. In any case, they all stand out from the normal goblins.

I haven't got a name for the captain yet, but thought I'd better put some of these guys together as I think we might do some Battle Companies and the progression for warriors is to blackshields. I also need to make some Prowlers as that's what the archers upgrade to.

I know they're probably not as cool as the "official" miniatures, but they're a lot cheaper (ie. free) as I've got bits lying around =)

Long time no post

Hi all!

My little boy is now 7 years old and we’ve read The Hobbit. He really enjoyed it and I told him I had some miniatures and a game about it.

Anyway, out came the old stuff from deep inside a cupboard.

We decided to paint up the dwarves from Thorin’s company, but in the colours as told in the book so I had some Dwarven Rangers and away we go! So far we've just done the bases and the cloaks, but we do a little bit sometimes in the evening before bed time while listening to "The Hobbit" on audiobook.

The piece of paper under the miniatures has their names on it so I don't forget who's who! These will be brighter coloured than my usual dwarves as in the novel they have lots more colour to them!

I've also kitbashed some goblins to have big (or different) shields so that I can field some blackshields. I had a box full of unpainted and semi-painted goblins that I got cheap on eBay once upon a time. Oh, and in the back you can see my Harad guys with banners. All of these are yet to be painted, obviously! 

My productivity will obviously be much reduced from the "good old days" but I'm going to convince my brother to come over for a game at some stage so that my son can watch how it's played and help us roll lots and lots of dice!