Games being played at the club on Wednesday 20th June 2012

Right, I believe I'm playing young Philip at War and Conquest next week.

What are the rest of you herberts up to?

Also, if anyone else feels the urge to start this topic each week in the future, don't be shy. I won't be upset if you get there before me.

Ben, Steve and I are thinking of doing some Lord of the Rings (it is historic, right? If not how did they do the films?). Thought we'd start with giving the Battle Strategy Game rules a spin.

Here are some scenario ideas:

Boromir doing it bit of rep building leading his Gondorians down to give the Haradrim town a bit of a kicking (could use the Eastern houses I made for Mos Eisley) only to find a boatload of Corsairs are in town for a p*ss up, too) - Can do Gondorians, some Haradrim infantry and know Ben's got Corsairs. Anyone got a black sailed boat?

Bunch of Uruks and Warg riders attacking a Rohan border town. Will cavalry ride to the rescue? - Can supply Rohan, some Uruks - though Ben's Uruk Raiders might be better- Think Steve can do the Wargs. Got the 'wooden' buildings for a little village.

Bane of Durin. Bunch of Dwarves vs Misty Mountain Gobbos. Steve and I have loads of Gobs/couple of Trolls. Did I get that right that you've got a Balrog Steve? Wasn't sure if you've got enough short guys Ben? Could add a few more myself. Got a bag of large rocks for a bit of mountain looking scenery. Might have some Mage Knight 'dungeon tiles, too.

Feel free to give a bit of input

Have got a balrog . Also have some steep hills and a couple of gw pieces depicting craggy hill with dwarf walling surrounding paved area with door leading into the mountain . If looking at warg scenario i only have 10

Its gotta be dwarves and the goblins, if not just to use one of Morgorth's pet Balrogs
Possibly the scenario could be Balin leading the dwarvish survivors in a charge to break out of the mountains through an entrance, there being pursued from behind by the Balrog and a few gobbos/ troll. However after a set number of turns a second force of gobbos appear across there path, so now the poor dwarves are fighting on two fronts to try and escape. I can bring about 80 Dwarves to the party, possibly more if I do a bit of painting.

I have got a couple of rocky hills I can add to it.

For the Goblins we just need ALL of em plus the cave trolls and of course a Balrog

The Ginger Pele was supposed to be playing W&C with Chris, Reece and myself next Wednesday.

As he's let us down, does anyone fancy joining in ?

It's Saxons v Vikings.

Phil

Or more appropriately Phil's uber-grossed up dreadnought killing machines v pink and fluffy Vikings

BBrotherwood wrote:Its gotta be dwarves and the goblins, if not just to use one of Morgorth's pet Balrogs
Possibly the scenario could be Balin leading the dwarvish survivors in a charge to break out of the mountains through an entrance, there being pursued from behind by the Balrog and a few gobbos/ troll. However after a set number of turns a second force of gobbos appear across there path, so now the poor dwarves are fighting on two fronts to try and escape. I can bring about 80 Dwarves to the party, possibly more if I do a bit of painting.

I have got a couple of rocky hills I can add to it.

For the Goblins we just need ALL of em plus the cave trolls and of course a Balrog

Sounds a good plan. Tweaks I'd suggest are

1. Having the table set up to give Dwarves multiple exits (with some cross tunnels so Gobbos can re-deploy). This will give the Dwarves an incentive to split up (mass of 80 Dwarves would be a helluva lot of dice rolling for combat-in fact 40/50 or so might be enough-having several groups of 10 or so would be better).

2. Don't just have the blocking parties arrive on a set turn. Dice for arrival from each of the exits. Something like they arrive on 6 on D6 initially and 5+ after a few turns. Using multiple exits and random arrival will keep it tense, though if you roll for 5+ enough times they should all arrive.

3. Need to put a bit of thought into the chase idea - because although different initiatives gives a bit of randomness, move distances are fixed in LOTR SBG. Gobbos are a bit faster than Dwarves, but will need to measure up a bit as won't be much good if pursuing Balrog/Gobbos take forever to catch them or catch them too early. I guess Dwarves will be deploying a rearguard (nice job facing a Balrog!) Maybe could have an optional rule for 'headlong flight/pursuit' eg. figure can choose to roll a d6, on 6 add 2", on 5 add 1" but on a roll of 1 trip up ie. don't move. Goblins could climb up wall/leap crevasses etc. so bear that in mind setting up terrain.

I'll try and look up points values in Legends of Middle Earth.

Sounds like a plan, I think the sprinting rules my make the game a bit too much of a dice rolling excersize, if the deployments are far away enough then the dwarves will have a chance of getting away before getting swamped, well until they meet there friends in the blocking party . And my only advice to anyone fighting the Balrog is to not try and kill it as you almost certainly wont Just feed it a victim a turn to squash

Take your point on the rolling for individual figures. Would be a bad idea with so many.

Still not sure what you mean that there would be a 'chance' the Dwarves get away. With fixed and alternating movement it is pretty much a case of they will or they won't and (leaving aside the initiative effect that might give one side a short-lived - and temporary- advantage) you could pretty much measure where they'll meet at the start of the game.

Could take idea of getting extra speed randomly and just apply it to whole unit-lot less dice rolling. Roll of 1 could mean 1D6 figs get left behind.

I'll give the W&C game a go if that's OK.

I once ran a scenario with the fellowship being pursued by the balrog troll and goblins . If they were able to get near to the woods at the other end of the table then they got help from an out post of wood elves . To make the escape a bit trickier i included some warp riders who would be able to catch the fellowship and force them to fight or at least deploy a rearguard . The goblins of misty mountains often allied with the wargs . The films are very good but like most films based on history do have quite a number of innacuracies and sometimes miss important facts !

Technically Balin was ambushed and killed by the lake of Mazarbul. If someone has a lake we could change the scenario so that he starts of next to the lake with a small guard. The Goblins appear from random board edges and down the coloums to represent them climbing down from the rough. Balin and his guard have to reach the entrance into the hall of Mazarbul. Dwarves from the hall try to come to his aid, and this is the moment that the rest of the goblins appear with the Balrog. It will give the game a sense of escalation as well as being true to the books .
Just another idea

Im not sure if I'm going into work on days or nights at the moment. As it stands it's day shift so I'd quite like to have a go at LOTR but only if there is room?

If not I can always host another battle on the uncharted seas

Aye there is always room from one more

Another idea when the good guys are in the middle is to have a number of evil players attacking . The evil guys have a group victory condition but also an individual one to see who can kill most good heroes

Im liking the idea of a bit of glory hunting

So after much toing and froing on the forum and by text the lord of the rings game staggered into life . Using a combination of mine , petes and bens and with scenery by the above and simon the game looked good ( loved the dwarves ! ) and played very well too . Ben took the dwarves and to get balin lord of moria out of an ambush . Both sides started with some troops on the table and recieved reinforcements as the game progressed . Thanks to ben for his early dice rolling which meant dwarves and goblins were causing equal casualties . He then began to stage a bit of a come back to make it really interesting but still had the decency to feed balin to the balrog at the end . Seems there are lots of figures owned by club members for this games system and look forward to trying out other scenarios and armies

If think the decision to feed the Balrog was rather taken out of my hands after you had eaten the rest of his body guard It was the best game of LOTR I have played though . I think between us all there must be a good 600 - 700 figures. :

Oh and the final kill count was:
42 Goblins
1 Troll
1 Embarrassed although uninjured Balrog.

to 30 Dwarves and Balin

We've got boxloads of them in our roof!

How many boxes and what off?

Mainly the earlier armies. Have a Balrog and a Mumak, think we stopped buying after the 2nd wave. Have quite a few codexes.

I think the count could well be going up to near a 1000