Battle for Middle Earth

For a change we got my Lord of the Rings collection out last Saturday for a battle. What is nice is each time I get it out I find a few more figures and get them painted up as seen in my last post. I do have a few more figures floating around ….the danger of course is the urge to pick up just a few more and I really don’t need any.

Our battle is not based on anything ‘specific’ in the literature although having seen a few eleven armies and conversions recently that would be a nice idea I’m hoping this urge will pass !

The forces of Good Rohan and Gondor take on the combined might of the Witch King and Saruman. Given the nature of the battle and the irregular forces I haven’t done a blow by blow account of the battle. We used Kings of War with some modified statistics, we didn’t get all these quite right as the trolls proved to be a bit too resilient and the Good Hero’s not tough enough ! I also have a slight imbalance with too many forces of evil. Despite all this the game provide a very enjoyable days gaming.

The initial set up roughly 8 x 5 somewhere in Middle Earth

The stoutly armoured men of Gondor 

Mordor has unleashed a mix of Wargs, Orcs and huge armoured trolls !

He doesn’t play often if ever so the evil force is led by the Witch-King himself , we gave him some special rules (which was a mistake !)

The clatter of hooves as the Riders of Rohan arrive

Soooooo many Urk hai coming out of the woods

Too many ! 

Tactics what tactics the evil doers are simple here to kill or enslave men and bring the whole of Middle Earth under darkness ! They rush across the field

Some early success sees the Gondorian Knights push back and eventually get the better of the Wargs

Gondorian Rangers are holding the small hill and successfully hold back the onslaught at least for a while.

More Knights push across the stream

At the small temple a fierce hand to hand fight, how long can the men survive?

A wave of death charges across the stream and the men of Gondor brace themselves

The witch king swoops in

You shall not pass, unfortunately Gandalf is not quite as tough as I had hoped he wounds the troll but isn’t quite able to kill it 

The first wave has been held back but then another troll charges the bridge !

Faramir takes on the Black knight one to one but he falls, perhaps only wounded ?

Sarumans Uruk Hai are now swarming around the temple hill

Eomer charges into the berserkers to stem the tide and another Hero falls 😢

The Rohirrim cavalry are using their bows to avoid hand to hand combat

Some fantastic saves by the Rangers who roll two consecutive double ones to stay in the fight

Fighting all along the battlefront 👍

The witch-king is still causing trouble

Boromir smashed into by a huge armoured troll, now in the films he would easily win ?

On the right the good guys are just holding

But just as the Gondorian cavalry threaten a breakthrough the witch king circle around to catch them in the rear 😠

By this stage after several hours (literally) the forces of good are being thinned down, and they don’t have an answer to the trolls

But they are still holding the stream

Did I mention the eagle which ? Seems ok at killing Orcs but couldn’t tackle the trolls

At this point keen for not all the hero’s to die , Boromir and Gandalf at this stage are both fighting separate trolls we call it a day and the good guys flee back to Minis Tirith and Helms Deep respectively. The orcs are too busy feeding on ‘man-flesh’ to chase them down.

Jolly fun game, I need to upgrade the hero’s and downgrade the trolls slightly otherwise the armies are quite well balanced. Who knows we might get these out again sometime soon as I have some other stuff which has virtually never been on the table.

On a different note I ordered up some anti tank guns at Christmas, unfortunately when I opened them the tracks of the carriers are all miss cast. I contacted PSC and they have been very good about some new  ones are on the way.

As always thanks for checking in …..Matt

Update the replacement carriers and guns have arrived in 2 days so excellent service we’ll done Plastic Soldier Company 👍