Oliphant Rampant

I have been thinking about giving Middle Earth Dragon Rampant a try fro a while now, and decided that we could give it a bash and use my Haradrim to see how the game copes with them.

I have Oliphant's, picked up from various places and have only used them on the table once. This is largely due to the Strategy battle Game making them virtually impossible to kill, making for some very one sided games.

So I opted to do the charge of the Haradrim at Pellenor fields, from the Return of the King.

I decided that the Oliphant's would be greater war beasts, with a missile attack to represent the archers in the Howdah, and cause fear to represent their size and impact. This brought them up to 10 points. In the end the Haradrrim forces looked like this:

2 Oliphants

1 Heavy Riders

2 Oliphant

2 Heavy Riders

1 Elite Riders

The Rohan force also consisted of two commands, led by Eomer and Erkenbrand:

Elite Riders

3 Heavy Riders with Bows

Elite Riders

3 Heavy Riders with Bows

1 Light Riders

The scenario was very straight forward.  It was a pitched battle, last man standing wins. We included no terrain as the battle was to take place on the Pellenor Fields just outside Minas Tirith.

We made a couple of minor changes (ie I got the rules wrong!) before we started.

We decided to randomise initiative at the start of each turn, with each side then alternating between commands until everyone was finished. We also decided that is an Oliphant started the turn battered and failed to rally rather than retreat it would rampage in a random direction, attacking any unit it contacts.

Early game and the Haradrim Left flank and Rohan left flank were both fairly well behaved, with an orderly advance. The rest of the forces were a bit more scattered though, with a disorderly advance from both sides right flanks.

Mid game and the forces of Harad managed to get the drop on the Rohan inflicting some heavy casualties, mainly thanks to the Oliphants and the Serpent King.  there were a fair few failed activations during this part of the game, and in end Eomer and his forces were removed from the game, as were the Haradrim force containing the two Oliphants.

Late game saw the Rohan make a sort of resurgence, with them inflicting heavy casualties, including the death of the final Oliphant. Alas it was not enough to save them from the Serpent King, who managed to remove the last vestiges of Rohan resistance, meaning a Harad victory.

So the Rohan lose (again!). I don't think my Rohan have actually won a game in years.I think everyone enjoyed the game, and it was quite close in the end, however I don't think Dragon Rampant is really suited to this pitched battle sort of game and it would benefit from some other objectives and terrain to liven things up a bit.

War in MIddle Earth

A few of us found ourselves at a loose end this Monday, so I offered to run a game of War of the Ring using my Rohan and Isengard collections.

We had four players so I went for a sizeable 200 point game, with a pitched battle on an 8 x 6 foot table. The scenario was fairly simple, with each side gaining one victory point for every three enemy companies killed, with an additional four if the enemy general was eliminated.

The Rohan Army consisted of:

Oathsworn Militia, 4 Companies

Oathsworn Militia, 4 Companies

Oathsworn Bowmen, 2 Companies

Oathsworn Bowmen, 2 Companies

Royal Guard, 4 Companies 

Riders of Rohan, 7 Companies

Riders of Rohan, 7 Companies

Riders of Rohan, 6 Companies

The Kings Guard, 6 Companies Including Gamling with the Royal Standard of Rohan.

Theoden, King of Rohan

Erkenbrand.

The Isengard force was:

Uruk Hai Phalanx, 4 Companies

Uruk Hai Phalanx, 4 Companies

Uruk Hai Warband, 4 Companies

Uruk Hai Warband, 4 Companies

Uruk Hai Scouts, 4 Companies

Uruk Hai Berserkers

Uruk Hai Berserkers

Sharku's Raiders, 5 Companies

Dunlending Huscarls, 4 Companies

Vrashku's Talons, 2 Companies

Isengard Troll

Lurtz.

The table was fairly open, with some scattered ruins on one flank and a single wood on the other.  Only one of the four players had actually played the game before, and the one person who had hadn't looked at the rules for a number of years so there was a fair bit of work on my part trying to make sure that I remembered everything.

The forces of Isengard deployed across the open part of the table, with the large Uruk formation taking up the open ground in the centre, and their left flank made up with the Troll, berserkers and Uruk Hai scouts, with Shaku's Warg Riders on their extreme left.  They opted to deploy Vrashku's crossbowmen on their right flank, ready to make their way through the ruins to gain a good  firing position.

The Rohan deployment was centred mainly on their right, with the infantry holding the centre and the cavalry concentrated on the right flank. The Rohan plan was to attack with the cavalry while playing a delaying action in the centre.  the Rohan made no attempt to enter the ruins on their left flank, effectively leaving that side of their forces unprotected.

Early game played out as the Rohan intended, with the centre holding firm and shooting at the advancing Uruk's, inflicting some casualties on the way, while the Rohan cavalry on the right advanced quickly to try and turn the Isengard right flank.  However the Rohan cavalry quickly ran out of room to manoeuvre and became bogged down in a war of attrition.

The middle of the game saw a change in fortunes as the Rohan right was starting to lose heavily, especially when the Isengard Troll became involved and their casualties started to mount.  Vrashku's talons also found a good firing position and in a couple of rounds had destroyed 4 stands of Oathsworn Militia, leaving the Rohan left flank extremely exposed to attack.

Late game and the two lines of infantry finally clashed, with the large Isengard formations starting to make a mess of the Rohan Infantry, while the Rohan cavalry on the right did not have the space to move that they needed and were unable to break through the enemy lines.  At this point we ran out of time and called it, with it looking like a fairly solid Isengard victory.

An enjoyable evening with a large number of toys on table.  In retrospect probably a few too many, especially with 4 players who knew nothing about the game, but everyone seemed to have fun.  I tried to remember everything but inevitably a few things were forgotten, so the game did not go as smoothly as I would have liked. Also as I was so busy running the game I forgot to take photos, so only have the measly four here. One other player was taking a few more pictures than me so hopefully he will update his blog soon (Alba Two, in case you were wondering, although for some reason I cant post a link into the text on Blogger)

I think I will need to order some more custom counters from Warbases to act as an aid to memory. I am also looking for a better way if marking casualties and Might points. At the moment I use a D8 to mark casualties on companies, as the thought of constantly having to remove models from sabot bases, only to have to put them all back on again at the end of the night is annoying. I would also like to use some markers to represent the Might points that heroes and leaders have, but I don't want to make all the counters and markers too intrusive on the table.  I will order the additional counters that I know I am going to use and have a think about the rest.

In hindsight the Rohan ignoring the ruins on the left was possibly a mistake as it would have provided them some protection, and also given their cavalry more room. In the end though nobody really knew what to expect or how anything would perform so this was definitely a learning game for everyone, including myself.

In this game I learnt the rules for defensible terrain (on the hop, pretty much as it happened, which caused some consternation among some of the players) and discovered I had been doing casualty removal all wrong. This particular change has large ramifications as it makes monsters easier to deal with but cavalry a bit weaker so that will have serious implications for the Rohan in future.  

I'm gad that there is still some interest in playing this game, and with Games Workshop revitalising the Lord of the Rings licence I hope that I can still keep players coming to visit Middle Earth for a while yet.

A Sad Day in Rohan

My third game of War of the Ring this year, and also my biggest yet.

John wanted to give his Uruk Hai an outing, and we decided on a good size game of 2000 points.  It was to be a straight pitched battle on an 8 x 4 foot table with no terrain.

The Rohan force consisted of:

Royal Guard (4 stands)
Oathsworn Militia (4 Stands)
Oathsworn Militia (4 stands)
Oathsworn Bowmen (2 stands)
Oathsworn Bowmen (2 stands)
Rider of Rohan Eored (6 stands)
Rider of Rohan Eored (6 stands)
Rider of Rohan Eored (6 stands)
Erkenbrand's Riders (6 stands)
The Kings Bodyguard (6 stands including Gamling and Hama)
Theoden, King of Rohan.

The forces of Isengard consisted of:

Orcs (4 stands)
Uruk Hai Scout archers (2 stands)
Uruk Hai scouts (4 stands)
Uruk Hai Phalanx (3 stands, including s Shaman)
Uruk Hai warband (5 stands, also including a shaman)
2 Isengard Trolls
2 Uruk Hai Berserkers
Sharku's hunters (6 stands)
Saruman.

I had never seen magic used in War of the Ring before, and had never really paid much attention to it so it was going to be interesting.

We had five players, with 2 commanding the Isengard and I had two sub-commanders, neither of which had played the game or seen the rules before.

 

Deployment was fairly standard, with the Rohan deploying a centre of infantry, with cavalry on each flank. It was a tight squeeze and a 10 foot table would probably have been more appropriate.

 

The Isengard deployed with the Trolls and Beserkers on the their right, facing down the Rohan cavalry, with the main Uruk formations in the centre with Saruman leading and their Scouts and cavalry on the other flank.

Deployment

Looking at deployment it was clear from the start that the Rohan left flank was a write off, as there was no way the cavalry could defeat the trolls, and not enough room on the table to redeploy in ay meaningful way.

 

Early game saw a cautious advance from the Rohan and a rush across the table from the Isengarders.

At this point we began to realise just how powerful magic is in this game, as Saruman and the two Uruk Shamen began to blow massive holes in the Rohan centre.

 

Rohan tried to counter with shooting but the Isengard army was full of high toughness, high resilience troops and it was not terribly effective.  By the time combat was joined the Rohan centre was pretty much destroyed, with a mopping up exercise being carried out by the Uruk's  The Trolls started to work their way through the Rohan cavalry on the left flank, without the Rohan being able to do much of anything about it.

 

On the Rohan right things were going slightly better, but not much. Failing to get priority for pretty much the whole game bar the first turn left the cavalry in a difficult position, and they were unable to capitalise on their superior charges.

 

Late game saw some minor success, but basically the game had been decided. The King of Rohan and his bodyguards were wiped out by the Trolls, along with the rest of the cavalry on that flank (the Trolls between them managed to pretty much wipe out that Rohan flank single headedly), while on the Rohan right the Uruk scouts had all been destroyed but some rotten dice rolls had ensured that Erkenbrand's Riders Had been seen off by Sharku's hunters.

The Rohan army at the end, give or take....

We called it at 10pm as there really wasn't enough Rohan left on the board to do anything, and they would just have been killed by the wizards anyway.

 

Upon reflection the game as not the complete disaster that it at first appeared to be. All that was left of the Isengard force were the troops that Rohan had no answer for, namely the Trolls and the Uruk Warband under the protection of Saruman.  Apart from that the army did not do too badly, especially when you consider that it was a cavalry army and we lost priority for pretty much the entire game.

 

A good game, played differently than I would normally approach it, which is always a good thing to try.  This was more of a Warhammer Fantasy Battle style game, with powerful magic and monsters.

A few mistakes were made with regards to the rules and what re-roles are allowed by what, but it was a very hectic evening, with a lot going on at the table at once, all needing my attention.

 

 In the context of the game I am not sure how I feel about that kind of powerful magic being present in the game. There are very few wizards in the forces of good, and most of them are named characters but I do not want to feel compelled to bring a member of the Istari every time the Rohan go to battle as I'm sure they have other things they could be doing.

 

  My gaming in Middle Earth has always taken a "historical" approach, in that I always tried to capture the feel of the books and films.  Further to that I think magic does not really have any part on the battlefield, with there being only a very few magic users in middle earth, consisting mainly of the Istari, Elves and perhaps at a pinch the Nazgul.

 

I will keep going with my Rohan as is and see what happens in the future, but perhaps a different approach is required for this style of gaming.

 

 

War in Middle Earth, Part2

This week we decided to have another go at War of the Rings, although this time it would only be for 1000 points, to make things a bit easier to complete.

I took last weeks 1500point lists and scaled them down a bit, with the Rohan lost looking like this:

Oathsworn Warriors (5 Companies)
Oathsworn Bowmen (2 Companies)
Riders of Rohan Eored (6 Companies)
Erkenbrands Eored (5 Companies)
Knights of Rohan (5 Companies)
Théoden, King of Rohan.

The Isengard ended up with:

Uruk Hai Phalanx (4 Companies)
Uruk Hai Warband (4 Companies)
Isengard Troll
Uruk Hai Scouts (4 Companies)
Vrasku's Talons (2 Companies)
Lurtz

This time we used some terrain, as I thought it might be interesting to see if anyone decided to take advantage of it, so we set up a few hills and put some ruins on the Rohan right. In the end we only made use of the hills to gain good positions for our archers and ignored the ruins, effectively shortening the table to 5 feet.

Early game started with the Eoreds on the left flank electing to stay back out of crossbow range, while the King of Rohan led the Rohan Knights forward on the right flank. The Uruk-Hai cautiously advanced, trying to close the gap.  The shooting from Rohan was very effective, with much better than average success. The Rohan were trying to get rid of the Uruk crossbows as they were likely to make a mess of the Rohan cavalry.  The King of Rohan managed one charge inot the Uruk HAi scouts, causing lots of casualties before withdrawing away out of charge range of the troll, who was lurking on the flanks. Unfortunately this let the Scouts spend a couple of turns shooting at them, witling them down to a couple of stands.

Mid game saw the Uruk crossbows finally eliminated, but not before they had made a mess of Erkenbrand's riders.  The main combat finally took place in the centre of the field, with the Uruk Hai pikemen and Scouts charging the large group of Infantry in the centre, with Théoden and his Royal Knights piling in for good measure.  This time I managed to remember to use Theodesn Epic Charge, and the knights inflicted massive casualties on the scouts, before the infantry finished them and the phalanx off, but not before taking massive casualties themselves.

On the Rohan left flank the cavalry were now working on outflanking the remaining Uruk Formation, and with only that and the troll left we decided to call it a night. 

A bad night for Isengard, with missile fire playing a big part in their defeat.  It is starting to look like the most effective unit in the Rohan force are the Infantry, which is odd considering that the cavalry are supposedly their main strength. 

Its still great to get the Lord of the Rings stuff on the table, but I still think the game needs a big table to play on as the formations can be quite large. Perhaps I need to revisit my Impetus conversion and see if I can make that work?  As always, it depends on finding the time to do it.

War in Middle Earth

Frazer had asked about giving the War of the Ring game a try, and I am always happy to get my Lord of the Rings collection on the table, so we set up a 1500point taster for him.

 

My main collection concentrates on the Isengard/Rohan part of the books, so I put together a couple of forces.  I tried to include a few options so included cavalry, infantry, a troll, one epic formation on either side and one epic hero on either side.

 

the Rohan Force looked like this:

Oathsworn (6 Stands)
Oathsworn Bowmen (2 Stands)
Oathsworn Bowmen (2 Stands)
Rider of Rohan Eored (6 Stands)
Rider of Rohan Eored (6 Stands)
Knights of Rohan (6 Stands)
Erkenbrand's Riders (6 Stands)
Theoden, King of Rohan

Isengard had the Following:

Uruk Hai Phalanx (4 Stands)
Uruk Hai Warband (4 stands)
Dunlending Huscarls (4 Stands)
Uruk Hai Scouts (4 Stands)
Orc Warg Riders (5 Stands)
Isengard Troll (Controversial!!!!)
Uruk Hai Berserkers (1 stand)
Vrasku's Talons (2 Stands of Uruk Crossbows)
Lurtz.

As we were both a bit late due to the weather and it was just a rules taster we didn't bother with any terrain, so just out the models on the table and had at it.

 

I opted to put my cavalry on my left,. with eth infantry holding the centre and right.  Frazer deployed fairly evenly across the table, with the Troll on my left, facing my cavalry and his warg riders facing my archers on the opposite flank.

 

The table was quite cramped so there was not to much in the way of moving about in eth early game. I held back a bit and tried to shoot as many of the Isengard as I could, while Frazer tried to close.  The shooting was quite successful as I managed to slay the Troll in turn 2, while the Uruk crossbowmen started to inflict some hefty casualties.

Turn 3 saw the combat joined properly, with the Uruk Hai Phalanx fighting the main Rohan Infantry, the King of Rohan and his guard getting a doffing over by Lurtz and the Uruk Hai Scout getting a bloody nose from one of the Rohan Eoreds.  

Turn 4 and the berserkers charged the flank of the Rohan infantry, making a big mess in the process but the Infantry managed to finish off the Uruk Hai phalanx facing them.  the Uruk Hai scouts were finished off by one of the Rohan Eoreds. and Erkenbrand's cavalry managed to inflict a few more casualties on Uruk Hai warband led by Lurtz.

 

We pretty much called it at that point as it was getting late and Frazer had a pretty good grasp of the rules by then.  All in all good fun and a game that I don't get to play enough of.  I think I will try and get it on the table again quite soon, perhaps do a nice big Isen Fords battle or something...

Nelly the Oliphant

Its been a while since I played any Lord of the Rings, and with this Monday being essentially the last full Monday's gaming at the club this year I decided to break out my Haradrim for nice big battle.

 

I have been acquiring Mumakil from e-bay, were you can pick them up for between 20 and 30 pounds if you look for long enough and now have three. I have spent the year gradually painting them up, along with all of the various other bits needed to get them on the table.

 

Deployment

This scenario was fro the Return of the King book by Games Workshop, but expanded enough to allow for all three Mumakil and all the Haradrrim cavalry, versus most of my Rohan cavalry.

 

The Rohan Force consisted of around 60 cavalry, made up of mostly basic Riders but with some Royal Guard thrown in for good measure. Also present was Eomer, suitable ticked off at the death of his Uncle at the hands of a Nazgul, a couple of other captains and some banners.

 

The Haradrim had three Mumakil, each with 12 archers in the howdah, and 2 of them were commanded by Mahud Chieftains, 18 Cavalry armed with a mixture of lances and bows and 5 Serpent Riders. They were all lead by the Serpent King himself.

In the scenario the Rohan get most of the 3ft by 5ft board to deploy their cavalry on, with the Haradrim being limited to a 1 foot strip down their table edge. The Mumakil would enter the game on turns three and four.

 

The Rohan chose to deploy aggressively, with most of their force deployed within charge distance of the Haradrim deployment. The Haradrrim players deployed all their forces on one flank, neutralising the superior Rohan numbers.  Turns 1 and 2 saw the Rohan charge the Haradrim, but the dice were not kind and they suffered a lot of casualties, while failing to inflict much damage of the Haradrim.

 

At the start of turn three the first two Mumakil arrived on the board, with much fanfare.  Luckily the Rohan had moved out of the way and avoided getting trampled by any but the 34 archers on the backs of the Mumakil made their presence felt and Rohan casualties started to mount sharply. 

Turn three saw a change in the Rohan fortunes, with the evil players all starting to consistently fluff their die rolls.  Everyone was starting to declare heroic moves at this point to desperately avoid the rampaging Mumakil, with the good side generally getting the better of them.  The Haradrrim cavalry were getting a bit thin on the ground by this point as well, and by turn 5 only the serpent king and the three Mumakil were left on the evil side of the board.  The Rohan were starting to run out of troops though and just did not have enough men to do the damage they needed to do to the Mumak.

In turn 6 the Rohan force finally broke, although a lot of them decided to fight on regardless.

The Haradrim decided it might be interesting to start firing at the Rohan engaging the Mumakil into combat, but this tactic did not succeed very well as in one volley Stewart managed to inflict 3 wounds on one of the unfortunate beasts with friendly fire.

 

BY the time we hit turn 8 their were hardly any Rohan left on the board, and certainly not enough to make any serious impact on the rampaging Oliphant's so we called it a night.

 

All in all an entertaining evening, if a little one sided in the end.  The Rohan objective was to kill the Mumakil, and the best they managed was to reduce one of them down to 2 wounds.  When I run this again I will definitely need to beef up the Rohan a bit, perhaps more men or some more Heroes. It is hard to tell though as the Rohan performed so badly in the first two turns of the game that they were fighting a rearguard action for the rest of the night.  It was good to get all the Oliphant's on the board though!.

 

Gruagach in the Woods

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.

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.  

Woses skuking in the woods.

Woses brek cover

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.  

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.

The alarm is raised and the orcs arrive.

Theoden leads the charge

Too many orcs!

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.