Tuesday 24 January 2023

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 👍


32 comments:

  1. A mighty Middle Earth melee there Matt. Dave will love it🤣🤣🤣

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  2. Super game presentation, Matt. Your single figure basing makes the battlefield appear as a swarming mass of fighters over the expanse of the table. Great visuals.

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    1. Thanks Jon the collection started some time ago was originally a skirmish game ….it then grew and grew 🙂

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  3. Wooooow! What a great looking game!!

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  4. A splendid run out for the gnomes and fairies there Matt. I always enjoy seeing your table layouts, even for 'Fantasy' games like this.

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    1. Thanks David….just to confirm no gnomes or fairies hurt during the filming 👍

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  5. That swarm of Uruk-hai looks very intimidating and impressive. All the figures look great Matt.

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    1. Thanks Lawrence the collection started for my son but now I get to play with them 🙂

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  6. I felt like I had stumbled upon secret screen shots from the trilogy. So very nice. Reminds me that my own LOTR stuff has sat gathering dust for awhile now. 😀

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    1. Thanks Stew….all going well until the Hero’s started dying 😢

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  7. Not my thing really ....I haven't read the book, don't really remember the films and have only ever played one REAL fantasy game, but the table and figures look great Matt.
    If PSC are letting you keep the faulty carriers, they will be useful as battlefield wrecks?

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    1. Thanks Keith……LOTR a little like marmite. Looks like I am keeping them, so yes thinking about what to do with the xtra bits ?

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  8. Ooh! Do like a bit of LotR. It was a shame that the GW game was a bit naff, so doing it in KoW sounds like a good plan. Lovely looking table and toys.
    Cheers
    Matt

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    1. Thanks Matt, I have been a fan since childhood, love the books and the films. I think you can play any fantasy rules really from Warhammer through to Dragon Rampant. But for a big game KoW is much quicker.

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  9. Thought I was watching a movie. Great figures,table. Find aa way to kill those trolls!

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    1. Thanks Joe , in reality I didn’t get the stats quite right for the trolls but next time 👍

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  10. fantastic looking battle, we should play a fantasy battle, I have my huge lizardman army

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    1. Thanks a rare outing ….not sure about lizardmen these days ?

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  11. Wonderful stuff Matt, the Trolls always seem to be a right pain, we use them in an adapted version of Infamy and we struggle to take them down. Great battle report, which has given me a nudge to get our campaign back under way.
    Cheers
    Stu

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    1. Thanks Stu the trolls were a bit overpowered for this game but easily correctable, yes get that campaign going 👍

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  12. As always a fine game there Matt and with those wonderful figures too. IIRC they are 25mm rather than heroic 28mm and with pretty realistic proportions too. I sold mine off years ago but did make a nice Mordheim warband out of the Orcs IIRC.

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    1. Thanks Steve, and sorry it might be me but what is IIRC ? I have been puzzling over it for a while now 🤔

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    2. IIRC = If I Remember Correctly

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  13. A truly epic battle Matt…
    I think these Lord of the Rings figures have really stood the test of time…
    Have you considered using Dragon Rampant … they actually have a couple of LotR type army lists in the book.

    All the best. Aly

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    1. Thanks Aly, I know some people don’t like the Peter Jackson approach to Lotr but I’m not one of them. As to dragon rampant yes we have used them lots of times for smaller lotr games 🙂

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  14. Lovely looking Lotr game, it's a really nice range and your terrain is of course ace!
    Best Iain

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    1. Thanks Iain 👍 makes a nice change every now and then

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