Flame of Undun

So on Monday of this week we decided to play the Balin's Tomb scenario for Games Workshop's Lord of the Rings game.

The kids had helped me to make and paint the terrain for this and I was quite keen to have a bash.

The scenario is pretty simple. During the Fellowships trek through Moria in an attempt to avoid Saruman at the gap of Rohan they stumble across the lost tomb of Balin, and are attacked by the denizens of Moria.  This consisted mostly of goblins and orcs, with one cave troll.

For the purposes of this the Fellowship deploy in the tomb, and every turn you can bring on as many goblins as you can fit through the door. The game lasts for ten turns and to win 5 members of the Fellowship have to survive, including Frodo. Anything less than that or if Frodo died was a win for the residents of Moria.

At the start of the game Ian did the sensible thing and took his three hardest heroes and rushed the door, trying to block it off. Kenny got one moves worth of goblins through the door before it was shut down by three of Middle Earth's greatest heroes.

The Heroes bar the door.

Not many Goblins on the board now.

A few goblins survived this be basically no more goblins managed to get through the door, as Strider, Boromir and Gimli barred the door.  The few goblins that made it into the room tried their best but the best they could manage before they were mopped up by Gandalf and Legolas was to kill Samwise.

We reset and started again, this time using a different version of the scenario. In this version the fellowship had to kill Frodo, with the game ending when the cave Troll is killed. the cave Troll came on in turn 4, and was promptly killed a turn later by Strider, thus ending the game. 

It was still early so we decided to have a bash at Kazad Dum as well, with Ian still playing the Fellowship and myself as the forces of darkness.  I did not have anything to represent the actual chasm itself so we just used the ends of the bridge to represent its edges.

This scenario is pretty similar to the film, with the Fellowship making a break fro the bridge, pursued by goblins and the Balrog himself.  This game was a bit closer than the last two as all the goblins started on board at the start of the game.  As Ian rushed for the bridge I mobbed him with goblins and even managed to kill Sam, Merry and Pippin.  I managed to stall him badly just before the bridge and then mobbed Legolas and managed to bring him down over a few turns. Even better was the arrival of the Balrog on turn three, really putting the pressure on Ian.

Mr Balrog closes in on the action.

Too many goblins!

Frodo makes a break for it.

Frodo managed to get across the bridge but the rest of the Fellowship stalled slightly, causing a bit of a log jam. I took advantage of this and did my best to hold up enough of the good heroes to prevent Gandalf blowing the bridge before the Balrog managed to get into the thick of things.

Nearly there!

Too late. Gandalf is toast.

In the end it came down to Gandalf trying to blow the bridge before the Balrog managed to get him in close combat, with even Gimli using up all of his store or might to fight the Balrog of for a few turns. It was not to be though and in the last turn Gandalf only had to roll a 5 or more to destroy the bridge. Unfortunately he did not manage it and was slain in the darkness of Moria, sealing the fate of Middle Earth.




An entertaining evening of gaming and the first time I have actually put the Fellowship on the table. The main thing we learnt tonight was that Strider is hard as nails. In the first go at Balin's Tomb he killed everything he came up against without breaking a sweat.  It was a nice change from our usual Lord of the Rings style gaming and I will certainly be looking at doing a lot more Fellowship scenarios in the future.