Well my Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game adventure
continues apace as the other night we got our first game of the Battle
Companies rules in….kind of!
I say kind of because my regular opponent Andy has been ill
with some kind of plague all week and only just managed to drag himself to the
club last night and as a consequence was not completely clear on what we were
supposed to be doing. However this did not deter me and after catching up with
a few of the guys, we laid out a nice little board and set to. Oh and as a
bonus we also managed to recruit two more players for our little adventure,
therefore agreeing to begin properly in two weeks time.
We started off with the basic Battle Companies forces for
both Rohan and Isengard:
Me
3 x Warrior with Throwing Spears
3 x Warriors with Sword and Shield
2 x Bowmen
Andy
3 x Uruks with Sword and Shield
3 x Uruks with Bows
It sounds a little unbalanced however remember that those
Uruks are a close combat nightmare, darn tricky devils defeat up close. The
balancing factor being my bows and throwing spears (hopefully). We decided on
playing out the first mission in the Battle Companies rules (Rescue) with Andy
winning the roll off and choosing to be the defender. Andy placed his hero (a
standard Uruk with 1 fate point as per the rules) and two bowmen in the centre
of the board with my entire force placed 18” from one board edge. Andy’s
objective - reduce my force to below 50%, mine was simply to kill his hero. Oh
and the remainder of Andy’s force come on a board edge of his choosing at the
end of the first turn.
A farmstead somewhere in the Westfold!
The forces deployed, it doesn’t look good for the Uruk Hai
with the Rohan militia mustering to defend the farmstead. There’s some missile
fire with one of the evil henchmen of Saruman falling to a well thrown spear. The
Uruk Hai hero sacrifices his other bowman whilst backing away to his newly
arrived reinforcements.
The Rohan militia chase after them, they must stop them getting
in to the woods as this will mitigate their only advantage (missile fire).
Darn, the Uruks make the cover of the trees but not before
loosing another bowman. Now how to get to their hero without the others
whittling down my rather fragile militia.
Splitting my forces I mob the Uruks, which due to me getting
priority a couple of turns in a row means I can choose my fights and block Andy’s
supports when he finally does get priority.
The Uruk hero legs it into the woods hotly pursued by my
militia, who ignore the lone swordsman the Uruk hero abandoned to deliver some
rather righteous fury upon the interloper to the Westmarch!
Results
I managed to kill the Uruk hero however I did lose three of
my force to Andy’s warriors. Another two and it would have been Andy’s game, so
a pretty close one really. Once again the system itself makes me see it as two
games, the initial phase of trying to out manoeuvre your opponent and then the
very tactical chess-like close combat game.
As you can see from the pics my Rohan force is still a WIP, which
has improved somewhat since this game as I managed to find a little painting
time in my crazy schedule to sling on some more paint so hopefully I’ll get
some pics of the finished product tonight.
Incidentally this was the first game with my game board tiles;
I think I need to flock up to the edges as it doesn’t quite look cohesive as a
gaming area. Oh and I need two more as my board is 48” deep however its only 40”
wide. And you can just make out my Warbases Dark Age huts in the background. I
finished these up last week however I haven’t based them on anything and I’m
not really happy with how they look so I’ll be doing a little modelling to tidy
them.
