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.