Beastcaller Battle Company Battle Report

So what do you do when you quite like playing with beasts, but have always loved a little bit of narrative play? You make up a battle company to suit your purpose! The battle company book gives lots of good ideas, so I just made a starting company with the same number of points as all the other companies. It represents one of the beastcaller goblins (Druzhag and Ashrak) and their pack of beasts. 

And I made up a Beastcaller path that is essentially the same as a shaman, but with spells that are about the beasts instead of other people.

So the first mission represents the goblin and crew coming out of the caves and spying some elves just across the river. What better prey?

They are just hanging around, playing their musical instruments and singing annoying songs... destroy them all!

Off to a pretty good start, the two spiders take out two elves as the beasts emerge out of nowhere and attack without warning! Another elf, though, takes on two wargs and the shaman and one of the wargs falls!

Another elf falls to spider poison, while the other spider takes a wound and the hero warg barely avoids defeat by using a point of fate!

These last two elves are surrounded by all the luck of the Valar! Down goes the yellow spider, even after the point of fate it had and the green spider loses a wound too!

Finally the last two elves are defeated! Shar'lok the shaman urges on the gigantic warg and green spider to feast on elf-flesh!

While the beasts are nursed back to health, the shaman does a little healing and as the night progresses a swarm of bats flocks to his pack and report that three bands of dwarf rangers are coming towards the river - time to get back to the cave!

This is the second mission, but the first mission only took about 10 minutes so we just launched straight into it! Three batches of three dwarven rangers are blocking the river crossings!

The high speed of the beasts means that they're less likely to plunge into the river! One dwarf is quickly dispatched as the beasts begin their crossing.

Two more dwarves fall, while the shaman gets closer to the bridge, he's so much slower and is starting to have to dodge dwarven arrows!

In a massive ganging up, another dwarf falls to a warg and two spiders!

To try keep Shar'lok safe, the bats and the hero warg attack a dwarf, who beats them back and takes a wound from the bats!

Two other dwarves hold off the beasts and inflict wounds on the spiders!

As another two dwarves finally make their way around the hill, the brave archer near the river falls beneath flashing teeth!

Near the cave the two dwarves who were doing a great job against the spiders fall under the willow.

The hero warg intercepts the other dwarves to keep Shar'lok safe from throwing axes! He is defeated by the dwarves, but has kept his master alive!

The bats and other spider also put themselves between Shar'lok and harms way.

The dwarves pay for their encroachment!

The final dwarf falls as the shaman makes it back to the safety of the cave!

With so few models, and quick ones at that, the missions are fast and furious! I'm hoping the beastcaller will be fun and might go well against the elves, but then again, I'll probably have to make another hero army so that the elves are never in any "real" danger =) The beasts take a long time to level up, but can be extremely powerful, especially as the spiders start with two attacks and two wounds!

Elven Battle Company - Third Mission Battle Report

Another week locked up, another battle report!

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!

Elven Battle Company - Mission 2 Battle Report

Mission 2!

I stole the idea for this mission from Don's very excellent series of Battle Company reports that you can watch here on YouTube: OSBGL Battle Report.

Ithilgalad and her team travel north to locate the missing Hobbit and his friends. Travelling through the woodlands they make excellent time due to their woodland skills. After a few days they hear shouts off in the distance!

The missing adventurers mentioned by the Hobbit in the pub have put together a hasty barricade and it is under attack by some Ruffadrim! Some of the scruffy men continue their back and forth attack at the makeshift defences while the others note the bright white horse and head down to investigate. (These guys won't actually participate in the battle as they're all tied up with the adventurers.)

With their woodland skills, the Elves decide to use the terrain to their advantage and head into some rough ground. (They get full movement in rough terrain rather than half - except for the horse, which is slowed right down until Ithilgalad gets some bonus rules.)

The three Elven archers take aim at the incoming Ruffadrim and launch their shots. The accurate Elven archery swiftly claims two victims, one Ruffadrim...

And one horse! The only mounted enemy is de-horsed! (Well that was my attempt at making the mission at least a little difficult!)

The arrows from the Ruffadrim continually bounce and ricochet off Celeb-galadh's armour plating. He took arrow after arrow as the Wood Elves have Elven Cloaks and can't be fired at while obscured by scenery - making the Galadhrim the prime targets!)

Col-galadh and Ecthel-galadh charge forward and Col-galadh wins the battle due to his fighting prowess (won on a tie!). One more Ruffadrim spearman goes down! (In this mission, to increase the difficulty a little at a time for my son, I let these guys use their spears and bows, along with the arrow poison.)

Ithilgalad boldly spurs Legrinsul forward and smashes down two more Ruffadrim, narrowly winning the duel, knocking them to the ground with the momentum of her steed and then striking both of them down!

The Elven archers continue whittling down the enemy before they can get into close combat, thanks to the rough woodland terrain! (The poor Ruffadrim move at half speed in the rough terrain and the archers managed to pepper most of them before they could get into close combat!)

Col-galadh continues his relentless march forward, Ecthel-galadh ably assisting him with some spear support!

At this point the Ruffadrim are losing men rapidly and the elves have yet to take any injuries! Those attacking the adventurer party are starting to cast nervous glances around!

The last evil man in the south puts up a terrific fight, winning against the three elven archers and pushing them back temporarily, but failing to wound any, before they gang up on him again and this time strike him down.

Col-galadh's cockatoo swoops in to help trap another Ruffadrim, ready for Ithilgalad to strike down from horseback. However, the two remaining Ruffadrim archers shoot into the combat! One of them takes out their own trapped companion! The other manages to roll many sixes and wounds Col-galadh!

But it's too little, too late and the remaining Ruffadrim leg it, chased by arrows as they scurry away!

And the Elven team meets up with the adventurers, who are very grateful for the save and contribute resources to Ithilgalad's cause - allowing her to attain a Rallying Horn (which gives plus one to rolls for reinforcements).

Col-galadh makes a full recovery, though is becoming annoyed at the taunts from his friends given that he doesn't seem to be able to make it through a mission without being knocked out (he has failed all of his Fate rolls!

The adventurers confess that they have received a treasure map, but that they may be underprepared for the task and offer the map to Ithilgalad if she grants them a finders fee if she is successful in obtaining the treasure! Sounds like more missions are in the future!

Golden King of Abrakhan and Entourage

The Golden King and Entourage project is now complete (actually it's been complete for a bit, but I haven't posted it until now!)

The King is supported by his two "robust" guards and accompanied by seven "tough chicks" as my wife and son like to call them. Given there's no female representation I had to source these from a range of companies and adjust their bases etc. to try and get them relatively sized correctly. They're not perfect, but I think they came up well enough and the colours blend them in with the rest of the Harad army.

So here are the first three. I've kept the same dark skin colour and used some putty to make turbans and head scarves for them all.

A mix of female barbarians and warriors from a variety of companies.

And from the back...

The tough chicks generally have the same oversized weapons that the Games Workshop Abrakhan Guard models have, they've always been almost silly and cartoony reminding me of an old Looney Tunes cartoon (these are the guys carrying the King).

On some of the head scarves I did a little bit of freehand in gold. I used scarabs as the motif as they're what are on the King's banner above his head.

At some stage I'll do another whole army photo with the Haradrim, but the spare time I have at the moment (hint - almost none thanks to having to do home schooling thanks to COVID-19) is on getting the Elven battle company ready for reinforcements!

Elven Battle Company - First Report

My son asked for an Elven battle company so at Christmas (and his birthday which comes just after) we got a whole heap of elves. It has taken since then for me to get them painted up! He's super into Lord of the Rings and we even got out a Sindarin dictionary (well, looked it up online) so he could come up with names for his elves.

His leader (Arwen model) is Ithilgalad, the sergeants are (Elrond) Col-galadh and (Haldir) Celeb-galadh. Then we have Brethil and Thaun the wood elf archers and Ecthel-galadh the Galadhrim with spear and shield. He chose all the colours and bases etc. and I painted them up to order =) We don't have hardly any wood elves (I just happened to have a couple that I'd obtained in random eBay finds) so it's a bit of a modified battle company!

We set up for the match with what he calls our Ruffadrim (we don't have ruffian models, but do have Haradrim). This is the mission where the battle company has to escape from a random board edge while the ruffians try to stop them. The story is that a Hobbit says he has a friend in need and invites the Elves into the pub to explain his quandary to them. While meeting the hobbit the Elves notice a shady character slip out of the door. Going to the window, Brethil reports that there are some shady looking characters approaching. The Elves tell the Hobbits to stay put and that they'll lead the newcomers away from the little town...

And in the most unfortunate of all events, in the middle of a COVID-19 lockdown, having waited months and months to get the company painted and ready to play, on turn 1 he charged three Elves at a single Ruffadrim. The Elves all rolled 1s and 2s, the Ruffadrim rolled a 6. No worries, Elven heavy armour will block that... and another 6! Yikes! Col-galadh fell immediately. This caused some grief and almost tears, but we had a chat about how in the first mission there's no ill effects, no rolls on the wound chart etc. and with a few deep breaths we continued on playing.

Fortunately from there the other Elves made short work of three Ruffadrim!

Still, after the scary first turn, the Elves decided to hustle for the exit, keeping Ithilgalad safe and leading the Ruffadrim away from the Hobbits. They launched into the rotten Ruffadrim who caused so much angst and served him up some revenge!

The two wood Elves, Brethil and Thaun, bravely held the alleyway, forcing some Ruffadrim to go around the houses while they fought and defeated two more!

Meanwhile, the others bolted through the fields towards escape!

With some lucky priority rolls, Celeb-galadh fired arrows at the Ruffadrim while the brave rearguard wood Elves caught up with the rest of the group.

Finally, they all escaped and discovered that Col-galadh was merely knocked unconscious and recovered with no ill effects. Thanks to their excellent forestry skills they returned to the deserted hut in the woods where they recovered Ithilgalad's white elven horse, Legrinsul and Col-galadh was reunited with his loyal cockatoo (which they'd had to leave outdoors while inside the village). The remaining Ruffadrim all scattered, but the plot thickened! The Hobbit told a story about a friend of his who had been talked into going on an adventure (I know, I know, the shame!) with a Dwarf, a Human and an Elf! They hadn't been gone a very long time, but long enough that they're a bit worried. They pointed the Elves off in the direction they think they went and hope that the Elves can check on their friends. The Elves are very interested in what would make an Elf, Hobbit, Dwarf and Human all join together so will head off to investigate!

We're looking forward to more adventures from the Elves!