Tuesday 14 July 2020

The Watchtower of Dol Guldur : LOTR

My iPad has been broken and the replacement has not arrived yet so limited blogging at the moment. This means I am behind and I have a couple of games to catch up on. So will try and get some blogging in over the next few days, first up a Lord of the Rings game, I had been re watching the Hobbit whilst painting so decided to run a scenario inspired on the film.

The Watchtower of Dol Guldur has a series ward spells protecting it, the Elves led by Elrond and the dark forces of the Necromancer have been despatched to capture the secrets held inside. The special rules for this scenario means that each side can only have one unit or character inside the protected area at one time and the force controlling the tower when one side hits 50% will be the victor.
The dark forces include Orcs, warg riders, a black knight and a troll
Elrond is supported by an elite force of Elven warriors and a small group of Dunedain 
Elrond also has Glorfindel, the spell protected area around the watchtower is marked by the obvious brown/grey board
Dark forces advance and spread out they heavily outnumber the elves but are much less resilient
The troll eyes up glorfindel
and wildly charges into crush him
The wargs are facing off with Elrond in the protected zone whilst the Necromancer fire spells and fire balls
The troll has pushed Glorfindel back but is then peppered by arrows
On the other flank the black knight has been seriously wounded and is repeatedly pushed back failing his morale check
The Eleven warriors make short work of the troll hacking him down
The archers prove very effective as you would expect
The final lone warg is soon despatched
But then more heavily armoured orcs charge forward......numbers are starting to count
Weakened Elrond has to withdraw in the face of the onslaught
But it is too late the Elf Lord is cut down by a fire ball spell
Seeking revenge the remaining elves charge towards the Necromancer
Whilst the Dunedain move in to capture the tower

At this point the dark forces reached 50% and the Necromancer evaporated into a dark cloud of dust drifting away on the wind, the good guys have won but it was a close run thing.

A fun scenario although the dark forces did seem to fail an awful lot of morale checks, the rules were Dragon Rampant and the magic cast by Elrond and the Necromancer gave just enough interest with out it becoming too powerful. I think perhaps another LOTR scenario not too far in the future....perhaps with Gandalf ?

15 comments:

  1. Oh man why are you watching the hobbit again? I can understand watching the trilogy over and over and over (and over, like I have) but the hobbit movies were all just so heart breakingly BAD.
    I almost couldn’t read the rest of the post bc I was stuck on that sentence.

    A nice scenario though and super pretty pics. I do like me some lotr. ๐Ÿ˜€

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    1. I know I know the Hobbit isn't the best film but there are small elements I quite enjoy, sorry to cause you so much pain ๐Ÿ™‚ I do like some LOTR too ๐Ÿ‘

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  2. very cool, elvin archers always tricksy

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  3. Excellent game that see-sawed nicely. Losing Elrond must have had the forces of light worried!

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    1. It was immediately declared that he was badly wounded but not dead !

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  4. Very, well, fantastical! Think of all the historical figures you might have painted down the years instead of these though.

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    1. Indeed I could have a significant collection of something else but I do love my elves and Orcs ๐Ÿ˜

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  5. A fine read and view along the watchtower, quite an experience.

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    1. Thanks Phil.....some more RCW up next๐Ÿ‘

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  6. What a lovely looking game, very atmospheric.
    Regards,
    Paul.

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    1. Thanks Paul and thanks for taking the time to comment ๐Ÿ‘

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  7. Nice game Matt, nice to see we are not the only one's bringing LOTR back to the table top. we gave it a run out using the new Infamy rules from the Too Fat Lardies surprisingly satisfying although the forces of men were soundly beaten.
    Cheers
    Stu

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    1. Thanks Stuart......I do find LOTR gives a pleasant interlude, I have seen the infamy rules being advertised of course so interested to see how they play out ?

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  8. Lovely looking game, always nice to see some Lotr games, heavily influenced my figure collecting and gaming, the tower looks ace too!
    Best Iain

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