Gathering in the Desert 2012

I attended the 5th annual Gathering in the Desert (GitD) this weekend.  This is one of the best gaming tournaments you'll ever attend.  It's two days of Lord of the Rings gaming on some incredible tables. The scenarios are fun and the competition is tough but friendly.  I'm lucky to have this event happening right in my backyard.  We have people come from all over the country to participate.

Well, despite having a camera phone in my pocket the entire time, I took exactly no pictures (unless you count the picture I accidentally took of my nostrils while messing with my phone).  I attribute the lack of pictures, honestly, to the fun I was having and the concentration on my games.  I never thought of photography.  Keep an eye on the blog link above, and I'm sure Tim will have pictures posted.

Overall, I came in 8th place.  That's the best I've ever done.  I played a 600 pt force of Far Harad supported by Corsairs with spears.  They are a "one trick pony" style of army.  When I can pull off the trick, they perform fantastically.  Otherwise, they don't do so well.  They can, however, get punched in the face for a while.  That's why I had so many drawn games.  I tallied up three draws, one major victory, and one minor loss.  I did solidly in sportsmanship (I didn't swear or throw any punches) and appearance (wore fresh clothes each day), which helped cement my spot in the top ten. Not having some serious out of town competition around also let some of us mid-listers float up a bit this year.

With the changes in the new books, this was probably my Far Harad army's last ride.  I'm OK with that, as I'm tired of it at this point.  I want something different.  Let's review the games that formed their farewell tour.


Game One:  This was "The Artifact" scenario played on the Osgiliath table.  I faced High Elves.  This is a modified "Seize the Prize" scenario from the Legions of Middle Earth book. I had to dig up and carry the artifact off the enemy table edge.  My army got the artifact first, and the Elves sealed off every avenue to their table edge while I did that.  A huge brawl ensued and in the end my army broke and the Mahud King died.  He dropped the artifact and the Elves picked it up.  But time was called, and it was only a draw.  Whew!

Game Two: This was a straight up game of Domination on the Balin's Tomb table.  If you followed the above link you'll see the board and think that it's wide open. Believe me when I say that's an optical illusion.  There's very little LOS on that board.  I played it last year too; so I speak from hard experience.

I faced Gimli and his Dwarf buddies.  I unwisely tried to contest three points and ended up having to concede one and try to shore up my other two holdings.  I was able to retreat because the Dwarfs move slow.  But I had to feed them troops to allow me to do so.  That was all wasted resources.  When time was called, we ended in a draw.  That was a hard game.

Game Three: This was "The Emissary" which is a modified "Storm the Camp."  We each had to escort an emissary into the enemy's camp.  I faced Dol Amroth and Prince Imirhil on the so-called generic table #2.  It was basically both our lines clashing together and doing a meat grinder.  My opponent expected to walk through me like a revolving door.  But Far Harad excels at busting up stuff in close combat.  We fought to a standstill. The Far Harad broke and so did Dol Amroth.  A random die roll ended the game at that point, and so I got my third draw.  In all honesty, if we continued I had a serious risk of losing due to low courage.

Game Four: This was played on day two of the event.  We started with "Bilbo's Treasure."  I faced an Arnor list on the generic table #1.  There are five treasure markers on the table.  You randomly determine which number marker is going to be the treasure.  Then whoever gets to the marker first flips it and sees if they have the treasure.  I got to three markers after a few turns of movement.  It ended up being in my possession and right at the table edge.  I had two guys rush it off the table for a major victory.

But we still had two hours to play.  So we just continued on with a "kill 'em all" scenario where we fought to 25% forces remaining.  Arnor and their dwarf allies put up a great fight.  But Far Harad was in good form for this "fake game" and ripped Arnor into bits.  I felt bad dealing a horrible defeat twice, but we were just killing time.  The men of Arnor would be avenged during.......

Game Five: The final game of the tournament proved to be the most suspenseful of all my games. I played on the incredibly modeled Prancing Pony table.  I faced 59 Woses (Wildmen of Druadan), all with spears and blowpipes.  These were not the shitty Harad blowpipes that are move OR shoot.  These allowed a half move to shoot.  The scenario was "Head of the Snake," which meant my Mahud King had to kill the Woses leader Ghan-buri-ghan in combat to get a major victory.  This wouldn't be so bad but for Radagast floating around the back ranks casting Aura of Dismay and also Transfixing my tough guys.

Well, the Woses lined up a firing line and I dutifully walked into 30+ blowgun darts for three turns.  He couldn't always get all 59 blowguns on me at once, but managed quite a bit.  At first I doubted S2 blowguns would be much to worry about at D5/6 on the Mahud.  But the Woses player was rolling hot and I saw 6 after 6 after 6 come up.  By the time I got to the line, 16 of my men were dead and almost all were Mahud.  I had 5 left to break point.  It was fucking brutal!  I thought the game was done.

But my opponent had miscalculated my Mahud King's wounds, thinking he had already dealt one to me.  So we ended up in a dance with Ghan-buri-ghan and the King each seeking advantage.  There was a lot of nail biting at this point, and I'm not doing the tension any justice in this write up.  In the end, Radagast was out of gas and my King got on Ghan-buri-ghan and slammed four S5 attacks on his naked ass.  He only did two wounds and GBG rolled his Fate to save one.  Then the Mahud hit the break point.

The Mahud King failed courage spectacularly and left.  While I would've thought that to be a draw, since GBG didn't kill him, it was ruled as a kill for the Woses.  I ended up with a minor loss.  It really came to that last Fate roll of GBG.  Despite the loss, it was probably the most satisfying game I played in a while, coming from almost total loss to a real chance to win.  Oh and for what it's worth, when the surviving Mahud and Corsairs hit the Woses line, they tore them to shreds.  So it didn't feel too bad!

So overall it was a great two days.  I thought I'd be tired of LotR but just like last year this event reinvigorated my enthusiasm for the game.  While the new army books have screwed some armies, others got a nice boost.  It's time for me to do something different in LotR.  I tried Elves and detested their pansy play style.  I'm thinking Orcs and lots of monsters.  I want big monsters and ugly evil for my next list.  That's where I'll be headed when my gaming group is ready to pick up LotR again.

A Tale of Four Lord of the Rings Gamers, Phase Four

At last we come to the end of the painting challenge that has been a "Tale of Four Lord of the Rings Gamers."  I'm updating my Rivendell Elves to their final 700 point total.  Here they are posing for a group photo.

There are a total of 50 models present, coming to 692pts.  I couldn't squeeze in those final eight!  The disordered mess you see above is not much different than what I've been building all along.  I just add more of the same guys each month.  In the list is Elrond, 17 swordsmen, 16 spearmen, 16 archers.  Viola!  If I dropped Elrond I could force in about 12-13 more Elves.  But at 700 pts I'd have practically nothing to deal with the big boys I'd face at that level.  Additionally I don't want to play 700pt slug-fests, so no point in tweaking the list.

We haven't been getting in many games with these armies.  As a result, the few games I've played have been not so good.  I'm last in the competition.  So my dreams of being treated to a gigantic sirloin at one of Phoenix's most exclusive steakhouses is all but destroyed.  Looks like I'll be buying someone sushi.  I'll just have a soda.

There you have it!  I'm glad to have a new army for LotR.  Elves are definitely challenging to play and run counter to how I've played any other army in any system before.  I'm a "horde army/life is cheap" player mostly.  So defensively minded Elves are a new twist on things for me.  I'll hopefully get more table time with these Elves over the rest of the year.

A Tale of Four Lord of the Rings Gamers, Phase Three

July is here and that means I've got to post up my 525pt list of Elves.  We're going all the way to 700pts at 175 increments.  So next month will be the final force.   This month comes with yet more change ups to the force.  I've dropped the Stormcaller and added in Elrond.  It make sense to bring him in at this time.  He costs 170 points on his own!  So to fill in some holes to get to the full 525 points I added in two each of Spears, Warriors, and Bows.  Here they are.

Not a lot of models here, as Elrond soaks up a huge chunk of the army's cost.  As I said, everyone else is going with a horde army.  So I have to keep up the numbers.  Otherwise, I'd have kept the Stormcaller in the list.  Elrond got a little extra attention.  Here he is.

I went with my own colors for him. This was also the first time I used Reaper paint triads.  It made the shadowing and highlighting on the hair and cape very straight forward.  The colors of the model are fairly accurate, while the background grass looks like it needs watering.  Don't know what happened there.

So I'm dead last in the challenge.  We were supposed to play games at each point level against one another.  But that's proving too hard to coordinate.  So I lost my one official game and that puts me in last place.  However, I've been getting in games with these Elves "unofficially."  I'm still not very accustomed to their style, but am getting better.

I clobbered a newcomer to the game last week.  I was rather hoping I'd enjoy my usual combination of poor strategy and bad dice rolling.  That would probably ensure the new guy had fun.  As it was I could roll nothing but sixes and wiped him away like a sandcastle on the beach.  Too bad I'll never see that again when I need it. And I likely soured a new player on the game.  Elves!  Can't win with them, can't throw a game with them!

It's Small World Afterall

Time for another LotR battle report!  So the plan for last Friday was to test out changes to my Far Harad 700 point list.  But it wasn't my day, and I couldn't get to the game at the planned time.  Too much "real life" was in the way.  So by the time I did arrive, it was late.  Like usual, I was playing at Tim's house.  He's a great guy and lives very close by; so we tend to get in a lot of games.  We also tend to get talking and keep talking.  So it was really late and I thought we wouldn't actually get to gaming.

But we decided a friendly 175pt game would be both manageable and a refreshing change of pace.  Besides, Tim thought it would be a good opportunity to try out his Tale of Four LotR Gamers list.  I also happened to have Corsairs in the box with my Far Harad.  I scratched out a list and we were ready to go.  I took a Bo'sun with 15 corsairs, nothing special but for a three unpainted bowman models.  If you didn't click on the link above, I'll tell  you that Tim took his Goblin list featuring Durburz and a bunch of prowlers.  We shortened the board size and chose a meeting engagement for the scenario.

I absolutely love these small games.  I had 16 models and Tim had 20 models.  The turns moved quickly and the fights were quick.  But the game was no less complex and even at the small points scale, there were still a lot of great tactical decisions to make.  I think this game scales nicely from small points up to 700pts.  I've never played anything larger than that, so can't comment on those 1,000 point monster games!

Thanks to shortened deployment zones, I avoided the trees that are always in front of me!  I just ran for the hill to try to get my archers on the high ground.  I only had three, and thought they might be able to snipe a few goblins to even up the numbers a bit.

Hey, I think I can see the ship from up here!

Since this was a meeting engagement, there wasn't a lot of consideration about where everyone should be and what they should do.  The plan was to get stuck in as fast as possible and plow through the enemy.  My Corsairs are superior fighters, and are so confident in their skills that they fight in pajamas.  The goblins were a lot tougher with armor and shield, some boasting the dreaded "D6" that makes my dice hurt when rolling to wound.  As we closed in, I think one of my bows might have killed something.  However, once within 6" range my throwing weapons heated up.  Totally four goblins went down with throwing knives in their necks!

The lines clashed, evenly matched to start.  A few turns of push and shove ensued, with equal losses on both sides.  But then the Corsairs stared losing fights.  Recall the pajamas I mentioned a moment ago.  A lot of the boys started dying.

Meeting the goblins and trying not to die

The key moment of the game came when the Corsair Bo'sun lost his fight to Durburz.  It was actually a tied fight, and I lost the roll off.  The poor pirate would no longer be able to shout at his boys, encouraging them to greater achievements.  He failed his Fate roll and died where he stood.  In fact, in that round, both forces broke.

So as you can expect, I started winning priority from this point forward.  Therefore my cowardly sea dogs kept melting away.  The goblins, though broken, were all within Durburz's 12" stand fast.  So they hung around to finish the job.  We played until every last Corsair had fled or died.  But truly amazing was the lone Corsair who survived three combat rounds being trapped.  He died on the fourth attempt, shielding to the very end.  His heroic efforts sucked away four goblins and helped his fellows prolong their agonizing defeat at the tiny hands of goblins.

Buckler by Zildjian

When you don't have a force on the table, you don't generally have to look up victory conditions.  I assume it was a major victory for the goblins.

It was a refreshing change of pace to play at the small points level.  I hope I can play more in and around this number.  Up to 250-300 points is ideal for a few hours of leisurely gaming.  Tim and I really took our time with this, intermixing the game with our on-going conversation.  So it took some time to get done.  But if we concentrated, we could've got two games in during that time.

While I didn't learn anything useful about my Corsairs, having played them a lot over the years, I did learn about goblins.  I learned that Prowlers have some nasty abilities.  The backstabber rule was cool, but we didn't get to see it too much in play.  But couple that with a weapon that can be either two handed or single handed and throwing weapons, and you've got yourself a neat package of hurt for the points.

It was a good game that could've went either way for most of the fight.  But the Corsairs ended up having a day that reflected my own.  Still I had fun and look forward to trying this points level out with my Elves.

Isildur's Bane

As I promised a few posts back, I wanted to test the Isildur's Bane rules set.  This is an adaptation of the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game rules to allow for solo play.  I wanted to try solo play to test out new armies or new units before playing a real game.  While I could just line up two armies and roll dice as usual, it's better when there's some randomness involved.

I won't get too involved with the rules.  The link I provided will take you to these.  I'll just give the key differences.  The move and shoot phases are combined.  Priority is replaced with an activation phase that is determined by randomly drawn cards.  There's no heroic actions and the use of might is determined by making a might roll.  Otherwise, all other LotR rules apply.  There's a lot to cover; so let's get started.

I picked two forces I own but have never played and used 175 pts for the size.  I rolled up a Legions of Middle Earth game.  Seize the Artifact was the scenario.  I set up a 2'x2' board and gave myself a 3" deployment rather than the standard 6" zone.  The evil side was a Barad-dur force of Morranon and garden variety Orcs, a horrifying visage of unpainted plastic.  The good side was Rivendell Elves, fully painted and wearing freshly starched capes.  The artifact went to the middle of the board: a pot of Tin Bitz paint.  The Orcs coveted its pigment, and the Elves could not abide color falling into the clutches of evil.  It was going to be a tough fight.

The rules don't say anything about how to select table sides.  I just rolled for the elves and gave the orcs the other side.  I set up, divided into groups, and dealt activation cards.  Groups with a hero get red cards, which mean these groups go first.  Other groups get black cards and go after the red.  Suits determine order and so does Ace thru King.  Groups can be single models up to ten models.  They just have to be within 4" of each other to start.  I split my groups up into archer versus non archer units.  Here's what my magnificent game board looked like at the start.

Whichever side moves first gets what is called "the edge."  This means that during combat you make the best tactical decisions for whichever side has the edge.  However, since movement means a lot in this game, I gave the edge throughout the whole turn.  This made a difference later on, which I'll explain when I get there.

Turn One
You can see from the cards in the picture above that the Elf Captain and his swordsman go first, followed by the Orc Captain and his wild bunch.  Finally Elves shoot and Orcs shoot.  On turn one, the Elves pick off one of the two orcs on the hill.  The remaining Orc archer misses his return fire.  The other forces simply move forward to the artifact.  The orcs realize it's a metallic paint and simply go nuts for it.

Turn Two

The Orcs are going first (hearts go before diamonds) and get the edge.  So they swarm the artifact,with a defensive line going before it and a 2hd weapon grunt getting into base with the artifact.  The Elf Captain

2 Handed weapons are great for removing stubborn paint caps.

and Tennille engage the Orc line.  The orcs have set up with spear support and wide enough to prevent an end run around them.  Next comes the Elf archers, they shift out 3" and shoot at the Orc on the artifact, killing him, and shoot out another orc spear supporting.   (This is the combined move and shoot phase, remember?)  The lone orc bowman reaffirms his uselessness.  The fight phase goes as expected with Elves winning but not wounding.  The Elf Captain uses his Elven blade to wound the Orc Captain. If a model has Fate points, a fate roll is required whenever a wound is suffered.  The orc fails it and is wounded.  Interestingly enough, the orcs are pushed back onto the artifact and now get to dig for it.  They succeed and are the proud owners of 10ml of Tin Bitz, artifact grade!

Turn Three
The orcs go first and the Orc Captain and his warriors lock down all the Elven swordsmen and Captain.  The lone orc with his artifact starts to run.  Since the orcs had the edge, I should've had two orcs escort the artifact.  But I wasn't thinking about that.  The Elf warriors go next but are locked down, so now the archers come up and shoot.  The Orc artifact bearer dies and drops the artifact about 7" from the table edge.    The archers shoot out another spear support.  The close combats are a repeat from before, but at least they kill one orc.  I used Elven blades to crack the D6.  The orc archer again achieves nothing.  Now the orcs are one away from 50% break point and the Elves are untouched.

Turn Four

 The orcs go first and therefore have "the edge."  So I make moves that tactically benefit them most.  You can see from the picture above there's an elf able to reach the artifact.  (I switched to an artifact token, since the paint pot was getting in the way.)  While I was "routing for" the elves, I had to pick up that open elf to keep him away from the artifact.  The Elf warriors are again tied up.  But the elf archers go next and shoot out a spear supporting orc.  This breaks the orcs.  Now when the archer is activated, he takes a courage check and fails.  The hand to hand fights get a little more deadly this turn, with one elf and one orc dying.  I used Elven blades again on any D6 model.

Turn Five

 The elves are now on the attack and go first.  They engage all the remaining orcs and one elf moves to pick up the artifact.  The archers have nothing to do but move up.  The Orc and Elf captains are fighting.  The Elf captain wins but rolls box cars on his wound rolls.  It's starting to get silly.  Another orc falls to an Elven blade.

Turns Six & Seven
The Elves have the edge, so I make the best decisions for them.  The orcs could still reach the artifact bearer if they pass courage checks.  It only takes the captain to pass and everyone else will stand fast.  So I re-engage all the orcs while the lone elf picks up the artifact.  The Elf archers join the fight and trap the Orc captain.  During that fight, the Orc captain shields and the wins the fight, rolling a six to the elves' five.  I make a might check for the Elf Captain.  He passes and bumps his roll to a six, and now wins base on his fight value.  At last the orc captain is vanquished.  All but one orc is killed.  On the following turn, the Elves move to 1" of the table edge with the artifact.  The last orc actually rolls a 12 for his courage check!  It's useless at this point and just runs from the Elves. I call it here, since there's nothing left to do.

Major Victory to the Elves!  Here they are with their prize.

Overall I thought it was a fun game.  The concept of the edge made sure I wasn't always favoring one side.  I also got to learn some things about my force.  I didn't think three bows would be "all that" but for this points level they were very good.  I was surprised how tough the Elves were to crack, but very unimpressed with their ability to kill.  Elves won almost every fight, but were pressed to hurt anything.  I was surprised to see that for Elf bows being S3 it didn't make any difference for rolling to wound.  The bows may as well have been S2.  For Orcs, I realized regular Orc bows are pitiful in range and accuracy.  They are only useful for creating a nuisance, but probably shouldn't be given important objectives.

So will I play Isildur's Bane again?  I'm certain I will.  This 175 pt match on a small table only took one hour from busting out the figures to cleaning up when done.  It took me longer to write this post!  I guess I wished there was more unpredictability in the game.  But the "edge" concept did compensate for knowing both sides' strategies.  Overall, I think this is a great rules set and would recommend it to anyone wanting to brush up on rules, scenarios, or just try something different.

A Gamble of Champions

Last Friday night I got to play a game of LotR, and I took my Far Harad force.  This is only my second game with an all Far Harad force, and I'm learning a lot about them.  For years they were an allied contingent for my Corsairs.  They play a lot differently in that role than they do as a stand-alone force.  One important difference I noticed is that it's really, really not OK if one of them dies.  So let's talk about my game.

I'm going to actually provide my list this time.  I didn't take notes on the exact composition of my opponent's list.  I'll take some guesses.

700 points
Mahud King, camel
Tribemaster, camel
Mahud Warriors, blow pipes x 4
Mahud Warriors, hw/shield x 8
Mahud Warriors, spears / shld x 13
Half Trolls x 4
Half Trolls, 2 hd wpn x 4
Mahud Raiders, war spear x 3

I faced Tim's Uruk Hai.  At 700 pts he had big blocks of Uruk-hai with pikes.  A bunch of crossbows were parked on the a hilltop, maybe 6-8 of them.  A shaman was running around the back ranks.  But imposing beyond belief was the Isengard Troll that stomped ahead of the force.

We rolled up a scenario, and got Contest of Champions.  In this scenario the leaders of each side try to kill more than the opposing leader, all the while attempting to destroy the enemy army.  Probably sounds like something that happened at the office today, doesn't it?  I digress.

One of the areas that I struggle to get correct in any game system I play is the deployment phase.  I don't know why I tend to treat this phase like I'm sleep-walking.  Whenever I lose, half the time I can trace it back to poor deployment.  Now having said that, I don't think I deployed badly in this scenario; but throughout the game I had a nagging feeling like I was going the wrong way.  I'll come back to this point later.  Here's how the proud Mahud looked after I finished dropping them on the table.

There's that damn woods I always find right in front of me.  After years of seeing it there, why don't I learn to plan for it?  It's only six inches from my line, but yet I set up like it's a total and utter shock that those trees should appear before me.  So priority falls to me and the Mahud move out.  At the end of that move, I realize that I will have to divide my force to avoid the trees.  Splitting a small force in the face of a numerically superior foe is not a good idea.

My only reprieve from my short-sightedness is that the Uruk-hai are to my far right.  Later I would discover I am being led by the nose into a tight position where my already small numbers will be restricted.  Since I am thoroughly fascinated with the woods in front of me, I spend all my time dealing with them.  I decide to filter through the trees and keep my line together.  Here's a shot of me plodding through the terrain while trying to keep everyone together.  You can see the Uruk-hai getting into position.

So the next several turns will be a lot of movement and positioning of both sides.  I did manage to stay away from crossbow fire for most of this movement.  I got to take a few blow pipe shots, too.  The move or shoot rule is really too bad, given they're such short range.  I suppose the shoot 3+ and the poisoned darts make up for that.  But in reality, they don't; it's still a strength 2 dart with a re-roll on a 1.  Eventually we are all in position and I realize immediately that I'm am not going to be bisected, but instead trisected.  This is why I had that nagging feeling of going the wrong way I mentioned before.

The main Uruk-hai park in the center of the wide field between two trees.  Small harassment forces are coming around the flanks, which force me to send something to deal with these.  I end up getting pulled three ways, and the traffic jam in the middle means my Mahud warriors are spear supporting.

A Mahud left to spear support his buddy is only half a man.  He's just been castrated by one attack, which you dearly paid for in his expensive points.  It's a sad day when this happens, because you are throwing three dice where you should've been throwing four.  This is the downfall of an all Mahud force, I suppose.  But it just riles me whenever I have to do this. 

Here's a shot of where the rest of the game would play out.  Check out this awesome picture of the Isengard Troll roaring at me across the expanse.

The Uruk-hai come forward and two brave (insane) orcs break away to block the approaches.  However, this allows my King to charge the orc.  So the objective is for him to kill more than the Uruk-hai captain.  So he makes the charge.  His impaler rule does not kill anything and I rejoice.  I now have a Muhud leader in combat, which activates the warrior's pride rule for a 12" radius around him.  This means all my Mahud will pass their courage checks automatically.  So I send the two raiders charging into the troll.

The combat with the troll goes unfavorably.  First, none of the impaler strikes go off.  Next, the darn troll has a shield and he decides to use it.  So he rolls six dice to my six dice, and he wins.  Too bad, because the troll was trapped!  The king also loses his combat and has to blow a point of might to win.  At least he killed the orc, and I'm now leading the death toll 1-0.

All around the fights are joined and it is a very bad day for the Mahud.  One half troll is killed after losing the fight, and five other Mahud die in that combat phase.  During the shoot phase, the crossbows sniped a raider off his camel.  Rather flustered at this bad luck, I also see my Tribemaster is uselessly milling about on his camel, adding nothing to the fight.  The Uruk-hai captain gets a kill this round, too.

The Mahud win the next priority.  I decide to take a gamble.  I move some models around to break control zones.  Then I plow my Mahud King right into the Uruk-hai captain and his two columns of pikes.  This is crazy, but at least my impaler rule kills one of the orcs.  Now it's 2-1 for kill ratios.  The Raiders charge the Isengard troll again.  The spear of one of my models touches the troll's chest.  Will this be the good omen I hope it is?

Well, it was a good omen for the raiders.  The troll decides to "troll-up" and fight.  I win this time and throw six, strength 5 dice to wound.  I roll a lot of sixes and the Isengard troll is no more!  Yeah!

It was a Pyrrhic victory.  My King throws four dice and the best he gets is a three.  So pikes and swords get jammed into his face and he dies.  The kill score is 2-2, but the game is lost.  I ask to call the game, but we decided to play through one more round.  The Uruk-hai captain easily gets his kill and we end it.  Major victory to the Uruk-hai.

It was a good game and I had several realizations as I played.  The biggest one hit me like a ton of bricks.  I realized my Raiders are not for charging rank-and-file troops.  They are for hitting multi wound models.  To do otherwise means the Impaler rule could leave them exposed to counter attacks.  But on a multi-wound model, like the Isengard troll, it would help soften up the enemy.  So any game where I can learn something is not a loss!  I look forward to taking out the Far Harad again.  I might just start learning how to play them!

A Tale of Four Lord of the Rings Gamers

So I will be participating in the "Tale of Four Lord of the Rings Gamers."  You can read about it on the Cursed Treasures blog.  It sounds like a nice challenge and an interesting way to get an army together.  I remember the articles from 2008.  So it will be fun to do the same in my own corner of the gaming universe.

As Tim pointed out, I will be working on an Elf army.  I've already previewed it here and started test paints.  Since I did buy the army from Tim it was already primed.  I just had to assemble most of the spearmen and glue the other models to their bases.  So I'll slow down my pace to match the competition schedule.  I'll just finish what's in progress now and pick up again on May 1st.

Playing games in increments of 175 points will be an interesting challenge for Elves.  Of course, if I'm going to play Elves I better get used to being outnumbered.  At 175 pts I can take a Captain and nine warriors.  Yikes!  I think I'll test out the Isildur's Bane rules I mentioned last post using this points level.  Everyone else will be doing a horde army (yes, I will bet even Dwarfs).  So I expect a lot of trapped Elves meeting horrible deaths.

Painting in increments of 175 pts will be a lot easier for me.  But I'm still a massive slow poke with the paint brush.  When I get to Elrond, though, I'll just have to paint him and a warrior to make the cut!

Well, that's about all I have to say for now.  Check out the link at Cursed Treasures for more details.  My first 175 pts is due on June 1st.  Until then, back to the regularly scheduled program.

The Merits of Practice

Whenever I get a new army together, it usually takes three or four games for me to understand how the force plays and how its special rules work.  Sometimes things that I think I "get" don't actually work as I thought.  A case in point is my understanding of the "impaler" rule for my Far Harad raiders.  Another thing that happens a lot is forgetting special rules.  I had to play my Corsairs at least ten times before I stopped forgetting about their throwing weapons.

For most people, the antidote to these problems is to get in a lot of games with the army.  As you go, you learn how the force plays and the nuances of its special rules.  However, there are some cons to this approach.  You might have purchased models that you no longer want in your force, (I'm looking at you, Corsair Arbalesters) or not enough models to make the unit useful.  Since you will be stumbling along, you might enjoy your games less and become frustrated with your army.  Finally, you might have limited gaming time, therefore prolonging the time to get accustomed to your new army. Trying to solve for all these issues at once seems impossible.  But there might be a solution.

Solo play would allow you to address each of these issues.  For starters, the entire issue of limited time is solved as your gaming partner is available when you are.  Since you will be playing a solo game, you can proxy models to try out different units.  You don't even have to use models.  You can use paper chits or spare bases with labels.  After all, you are just testing out options or checking to see if you like a certain army.  If you make stupid mistakes, you can keep that to yourself.  Even if not trying to solve for anything specific, the repetition of "the basics" will improve your game.

When I first learned WHFB years ago, I walked through the rules using the Orcs versus Empire models that came with the starter box.  I've done this for FoW and other games as well.  These sessions helped get the rules into my head.  But the solo play rules walk-thru is different from a game where you are trying to meet scenario objectives while dealing with the unpredictable movements of an opponent.  You need to be able to surprise yourself.  That usually only happens to me when bouncing checks. 

This has been a long way around the barn to get to what I want to say.  I was thinking of how I might be able to play LotR as a solitaire game.  I mainly wanted to do this as a way to learn how some of my newer armies play.  But I'd also like to be able to check out other forces before I invest in them.  A quick web search revealed that I am not alone in the endeavor.

I found Isildur's Bane, which is a "hack" of the LotR game to allow for solo play. I read through the rules and think that this will fit the bill.  I actually set up five models for each side and tested it out.  It works!  It's not exactly the same game.  Move and shoot phases are combined and there are no heroic actions.   A test with five models a side was just a way to see if things made sense.  I will now have to test out the game with a larger force.

So I'll be hosting a "Battle of the Unpainted Armies" some time this week.  I've got about 250pts of Orcs and easily that much of Elves.  I've never played either side, so this will be a great test.  I don't have much in terms of terrain to make things more interesting.  I plan on using just a 2' x 2' board to keep things moving fast.  I haven't decided on a scenario either.  Maybe I'll make up my own.  At any rate, I will post up the results of my test game.  Stay tuned!

The Next Big Thing

"Vig used to call me 'Elf boy', and I'd call him 'filthy human'. As an Elf, I never got a scratch on me, never got dirty. And Vig would come out with blood and sweat all over him. And he'd say to me, 'Oh, go manicure your nails.'"
Orlando Bloom

After that subtle introduction, you probably guessed that my next army is Elves. Congratulations, you are correct! Based on who I quoted, you probably guessed Legolas will be part of the force. So sorry, you lose. I'm going with 700pts of High Elf goodness. I'm leaning toward Rivendell, with Elrond in the lead. But I also bought a few other Elf heroes to swap out. It seems the only modification you can make to a pure Elf force is the hero. Everything else is a warrior. A bit dull.

Here's what the force looks like in its current state.

 That's a bit underwhelming. You may have noticed a few models are actually painted. Despite thinking "Rivendell" I'm actually painting a "Grey Havens" color scheme. Check out my test paints.

Once again I am defeated by crappy photography skills and an overwhelming laziness to improve my photography. But you get the idea. They aren't this washed out in real life. While individually the color scheme might look somewhat "blah," when you group up a bunch they look far more impressive.

This is what I'll be working on for probably the next month. Despite an easy to paint color scheme, I'll find a way to make it take far longer than necessary.

"Love is a perky elf dancing a merry little jig and then suddenly he turns on you with a miniature machine gun. "

Matt Groening

Far Harad Battle Report

So I'll just be pretending that I haven't added anything to this blog in two years. Let's get right to a new post!

I'm not so big on photographing my models and posting up. I suck at photography, and therefore tend to dislike it. But my new iPhone has got me taking more pictures. These still all suck. But I plan to take more pictures of my games and document the fights on this blog. Hopefully I can improve my game by writing up an analysis and report of what happened. Let's go.

I played a game of Lord of the Rings today with Tim from Cursed Treasures. It was a 700pt game, with Tim taking Uruk-Hai and me taking Far Harad. We rolled up a scenario from Legions of Middle Earth, and came up with "Ill Met by Moonlight." This scenario calls for each players' forces to be divided in half. One half goes to the center of the board and the other half is deployed three inches from opposite table edges. The object is to fight until one or both sides is destroyed.

As for forces, I don't know the exact troops Tim took. There were about 65 models in the army, mostly Uruk-Hai warriors with normal Orc spear support. He had some crossbows, a few berserkers, and a nasty Uruk-Hai Shaman. I had 38 models in my army, mostly all warriors and eight half-trolls. I took three Mahud Raiders and put a King and Tribemaster on camels to complete the force. With 38 models total, it really hurt to dived them in half. Here's how the Mahud looked at the end of deployment.
I put all my half trolls up front along with some warriors and the Mahud Tribemaster. The King and the Raiders along with the rest of the warriors were deployed at the back. As you can see, the half of the Uruk-Hai that was deployed to the center already outnumbered me two to one. I lost priority and expected to get hacked up. If I had won priority, I wanted to pull back to bring my forces together. One thing I'm learning by playing small forces is that you shouldn't divide them without good reason. This scenario starts with you breaking that rule.

You can imagine my surprise when Tim did exactly what I was thinking. He pulled back to get all his troops together. I wondered at that move, since he had superior numbers. I should let you know this is only my second time out with an all Far Harad force. I didn't appreciate the power they bring to combat. So I think Tim was right to consolidate. Later when I saw the eight half trolls in action, I belatedly realized that front line could've readily handled the odds. Two wounds, fight five, and strength five turn them into "demi-heroes" capable of ripping up almost anything.

When I got my turn, I pulled back and here's what we looked like.
The basic flow of the game went as you might expect. The lines pulled back to reform then pushed forward to engage in close combat. I have three blowpipes in my force, which due to their move or shoot rule almost never do anything other than tote around the blowpipes all game. I never had shots. Tim, however, had six crossbowmen that took the hill that frowned on the center of the table. Having the high ground vantage point was great for him, and the only thing that limited its value was the special rule for the scenario. In this scenario, all ranged attacks were limited to 12" due to the moonlight. However, rolls to wound were at +1 due to being at a closer range.

I made a mistake with this special rule. I engaged the Uruk-Hai within 12" of the hill crest. This allowed Tim to pepper quarrels into my spear support and unengaged models. I should have stopped out of range of the hill crest to deny  the vantage point. Had I done that, Tim would have had nothing to use to prod me forward. But I guess I was feeling cooperative and parked myself so that his bows could hit me everywhere. It cost me a few men, and also cost me my Tribemaster's camel. Here's a shot of the line after a few turns. You can see the commanding position of the crossbowmen.

The rest of the battle was fun, but doesn't provide much drama in a write up. We kick the snot out of each other back and forth. The Uruk-Hai Shaman had cast Fury on himself from turn one. So he stood at the center of all key fights and gave everyone a who took a wound the ability to ignore it on a die roll of 6. Tim saved two or three warriors this way.

My heroes turned out to be the half trolls. They were incredibly good and earned every point. My King was the biggest let down. He wiffed everything, barely killing a few lousy orcs. Also sort of a mixed bag was my raiders. They are tricky to use due to their Impaler rule. If they kill whoever they charge, then they are sitting ducks for a counter charge. Tim wisely positioned his troops so I couldn't get multiple hits. So I often ended up hitting a model, killing it, and then getting swamped without the benefit of charge bonuses. I learned that with Raiders, you have to pick their charges carefully and to charge them before other friendly models move. This way, if you kill the model you charged then the other friendly models can intervene to protect the Raider.

I broke the Uruk-Hai, but due to the benefit of Fury they kept going. Everyone within 6" of the Shaman auto passes courage checks. That Shaman was the game defining model for the Uruk-Hai. Eventually, I got to break and we had to call time. It was an impressive fight, since my break was 19 models and the Uruk-Hai breakpoint was something like 33 models. So I had a good showing and could've had a shot at a win. But the Shaman kept everyone on the board. Tim saw the break point coming and each turn he moved the line tighter around the Shaman. Here's what it looked like with both forces broken.I definitely had a great time and appreciated the chance to get these guys on the table. There's a a lot of nuance to this army that I'm going to have to take the time to understand. They're brutal but very fragile. I don't want to even talk about what happened to this same force when it faced a Wood Elf army! (Evaporated in bowfire.) I'll try to take more pictures of future battles and post up. Maybe it won't be two years between posts!

Far Harad and Corsairs

I took some pictures of my Corsair and Far Harad forces together as they will be on the table. While I know the Mahud are great fighters, they look pretty weak with just a few models out there. So Corsairs come to the rescue with cheap spear support! I would've done them all as spears, but would've had to buy another box of Corsairs to do so. It's not worth it, so a few sword and shield guys made it into the mix. There are also some crossbowmen who might help taking out a troll or two on its way in. I could drop them for Reavers, but I haven't decided yet. The Mahud are hitty enough on their own!

Here are the Corsairs alone. I never did a blog update of my whole Corsair force. There are more than what's pictured here. But this is what's allied with Far Harad. I was not impressed with Corsairs as a stand-alone army. They had some early success, but eventually their weakness overcame them. They are very much an ally army, capable of filling in as strong fighters. Just don't ask them to do the whole mission themselves. I guess that's sort of what you'd expect from real pirates!

Far Harad Completed

At last I have completed my Far Harad force. It's about 350 points worth of warriors, plus two half trolls and a mounted King. It's not a large force on it's own, but I intend to ally this force with my Corsairs to make a solid 600 point list.

I went with the native look for the Mahud. I think GW and the guys who made the LotR movies wimped out and made a "PC" bad guy out of them. But honestly, to me they look like brave, fierce warriors from a fantasy version of Africa. So that's how I painted them. The color scheme is a little blah. But for the most part all they're wearing is some sort of wicker armor and a robe. There's not much to fiddle with, though I'm sure more talented painters have figured out how to add pizzaz to these guys. Here are the pictures. Check out the King, as I thought he come out pretty nice.

Gathering in the Desert T-Shirt Art

Another year of the Gathering in the Desert is upon us. It is an independent grand tournament for Lord of the Rings, which is run here in Phoenix. The esteemed Mr. Kulinski helps organize it, and you can read more about it on his blog.

He asked me to create a painting for the GitD t-shirts he created for the event. I think the shirts are going to look great. The colors were changed from the original to accommodate the capabilities of the silk screen shop doing the work. They could've done full color, but that would've driven up the cost beyond what's reasonable. So here's a look at the original painting.

It was done digitally, using Painter 9 and a Wacom Intuous 3 pen tablet. You can see how the painting looks on the t-shirt by following this link to Tim's blog.

Gondor Complete (Lazy Update)

My Gondor force is complete! In fact, I finished it about two weeks ago. I was too lazy to take pictures at the time. But after attending the Arizona Lord of the Rings Indy Grand Tournament I had some snazzy pictures taken of the force in action.

These pictures come from Cursed Treasures, Tim Kulinkski's esteemed blog. (Link is on the right.) The top shows most of my force all lined up for display. That's why there's two of Boromir in it, one mounted and one on foot. The other two photos are actual action shots of games in progress. The middle one features my knights bravely hiding from Uruk-hai pikes. The bottom shows the start of a highly successful charge into Dwarf rangers on a hill (the rest of the men are in the background).

The GT was by far the most fun I've ever had at a tournament. I truly enjoyed all two days of the event. Overall, I placed fifth out of 14 players, which is a lot better than I expected. The standings were pretty tight, too. I put a ton of effort into painting these guys, but I knew my dull color scheme would work against me. So I didn't place for painting awards. I did, however, win best sportsman!

I took home a lot of prizes. For best sportsman I got about 300 pts of Corsairs. (More pirates!) The the first place winner, Frank Brown, graciously refused his prize and asked that it be given to the best sportsman. Since I had a tie for best sportsman (I won it only by battle point decision) I split a Far Harad force with the other best sportsman (Rob Brightwell) and took home about 300 pts of Far Harad.

So you all know what I'll be painting next! Time to go evil! Seriously, LotR is probably going to become my main game. It's a great system and loads of fun!