Back to Middle Earth for this week’s
game. I got a pack of Woses for Christmas and they were pretty much the first things
I painted this year. They only appear in
one scenario, in the Return of the King book.
In this scenario the Rohan are trying to sneak through some forests that
are infested with Orcs and other nasties loyal to Sauron. Theoden enlists the help of the Woses to
guide them through the woods unseen.
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| The view up the board from the Orc edge. |
In the scenario the good player
has to get Theoden and half of the rest of the Rohan off the far edge of the
board, while all the evil player has to do is stop him. At the start of the game there are only a few
orcs milling bout on the board, while the Wose are using their excellent
woodsman skills to stalk the orcs unseen. Every turn D3 Rohan appear on the board,
while D6 Evil troops also wander on to the board. If at the end of any turn
there is an evil model within 6 inches of any good model the alarm is then
raised and the remainder of the evil force arrives on the board, basically
making the game virtually impossible for the good player to win.
Rory and Kenny volunteered to
play, with me being the Umpire. Rory opted to play the forces of Rohan, leaving
Kenny as the forces of darkness.
We started with the Wose fairly
evenly spread across the board in small groups, with the orcs concentrated in
the centre of the board. The wose
managed ti inflict some early casualties, while Rory opted to hang back with
his Rohan so that he had time to build up his forces. Kenny started moving his
troops up the board in an attempt to get them within the magical 6 inches that
would allow him to deploy all 70 of his troops at once.
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| Woses skuking in the woods. |
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| Woses brek cover |
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| Theoden marshals his forces. |
Rory managed to get most of his
Rohan on the board and inflict a few casualties before the inevitable happened and
he was spotted. He had managed to
advance about half way across the board but was not facing an uphill struggle
as Kenny deployed the remaining 50 or so orcs on to the board.
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| Charge! |
Theoden being the mighty hero
that he is he promptly dug in his heels and led the headlong charge into the heart
of the orc forces, trying to force his way through. There was a lot of early successes from the good
side and the orc casualties started to mount quickly, but it looked like there
were going to be to many orcs to fight. Rory
decided to change his route of attack and Theoden led his troops over the hill
and charged off the ridge into the orc forces, cutting down a lot of orcs and
managing to exit the board, along with three of his warriors.
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| The alarm is raised and the orcs arrive. |
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| Theoden leads the charge |
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| Too many orcs! |
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| The lasft few rohan flee the field. |
Alas the rest of the Rohan did
not fare so well, and were soon overwhelmed by the orcs. In the end both sides
were broken on the same turn and the majority of the remaining Rohan fled the
field, leaving to few left for a Rohan win. We stopped at this point and didn’t
bother rolling to see how many orcs fled the field as there was no point.
A good scenario, and in the end
the Rohan gave a very good account of themselves, with nearly 40 orcs killed
for the loss of 7 Rohan lost and 6 woses.
The only thing about this one is that it could be very easily be ruined
by one player being a bit “gamey” in their approach, rather than playing in
character. I think the key to this one
is to move the Wose ahead of the Rohan, making best use of cover to eliminate
the orcs before the cavalry reach them as once the alarm is raised it is pretty
much game over unless the good player has managed to get pretty close to the
board edge.
Next week is another visit to
Middle Earth, and we are probably going to have another go at this scenario.
