Battle Reports

The week ended with a lot of gaming, too many for individual reports.  On Wednesday I got off work early and was able to meet up with Keith for a game.  We played Seize the camp.  Smaug went off on his, sadly, normal, solitary blood lust infused charge and chewed through my troops to get into my camp.  I was finally able to see him off with three Black Darts, after which I had to rush a third of my army across the table to get to the center where the remainder were facing off against the rest of the army, a bunch of Black Shields.  Keith thought the fight was over once the dragon was dead but he managed to drag it out for several turns and limit me to a Minor Victory.  As always against Keith, I had to think fast in this game.  I only win about a third of my games against him, one of the things I'd like to turn around this year.

Smaug Munching on Haradrim warriors

Smaug about to get Black Darted for the third time.  The Nazgul is in the forest, top right.

Painting Status I

This is my army list, to be painted by the end of the league, which I think is the end of February.  So it will be the end of the league or the end of the month, whichever comes last.

Haradrim King
Haradrim Taskmaster
Haradrim Chieftan w/ spear
Nazgul
6 x Abrakhan Merchant's Guards
1 x Haradrim Raider with Horn
1 x Haradrim Raider with banner
26 x Haradrim Raider with spear
14 x Haradrim Raider with bow

52 Models.

I have now painted 11 Haradrim Raiders with spears and 1 Nazgul.  They all still need to be based.

Test models - Harad

I have two test models done for my Harad army, as well as the Nazgul.  I use almost all Vallejo Game Color paints with GW washes and some metalics.  I also have some Army Painter Dark Tone dip as well as a can of Antique Walnut MINWAX.  Unless stated otherwise all colors are Vallejo.

Battle Report - Harad vs Eagles

Last night was the second night/week of league play.  We had a large turnout with nine people getting games in.  Off the top of my head we had two Harad armies, one horde infantry (mine) and one with a Mumak.  There were the Eagles of the Misty Mountains.  There was a woodelf army and an Isengard army.  Two Moria armies, one with a cave troll and one with Black Shields and a Dragon.  There was also a Dwarf army led by Durin.

My game was against Russ and his eagles.  He had six eagles including Gwahir.  I had the same list as last week, Nazgul, Harad King, Harad Chieftan, Taskmaster, horn, banner, 6 Abrakhan Guards, 26 spears and 14 bows.  I don't like the banner.  I will not play it after this round of the league.  I never make my re-rolls with them and even if you accept the odds at 50% I think the 3 inch range is too short to make it worth while.  The horn, on the other hand, paid for itself again last night.  In this case it was the huge number of terror tests I had to take in order to charge the eagles. 

The table, looking towards the Eagle deployment zone, after the battle.

League Night

Today is league night at Collectormania.  Last week I had to change my list and drop my Far Harad in order to comply with the league rule that you can only have one ally.  This rule was a holdover from the first round of the league when there were a whole bunch of new players and they wanted to keep it simpler for them.

After some discussion we have decided to open it up to the normal army building, Legions of Middle Earth, rules.  This will help people prepare for the Mayhem in the Mountains tournament in September.  They will get to build tournament legal armies and play against them as well.

After all of that, I have decided to keep my list the same for the rest of the league.  I'll be sticking to a list of Harad with a Nazgul allied in.  This will force me to learn to play the less great aspects of my army without the Far Harad crutch.  It will also simplify my painting and give me something to work on for the next round of the league.

I'm actually pretty sure I'll be able to stick to this decision, though a total shellacking tonight could test my resolution.

P.S.  I'm totally going to try to remember my camera tonight.

Four month plan

I re-read this blog last night, just to see where I've been.  That's the main reason I'm keeping it, to help myself track this hobby.  Here's some themes I took out of it.

1.  I need a deadline in order to paint.
2.  A goal of 20 models a month - painted is reasonable.
3.  I love terrain.
4.  I need more pictures.
5.  If you want to do something someone has to organize it.

Based on these five things here's what I am going to aim for.

1.  I am currently in a six week league at Collectormania.  I am going to aim to have my Haradrim list painted by the end.  This is a stretch goal, to say the least.  It will put me way above the 20 a month, but what the heck.
2.  I am going to paint more than 20 models in January.  I only have a week and a half left so I'd best get cracking.  February is going to be the same story.
3.  I am going to make some Harad specific terrain.  This will be done after the current league round.
4.  I will take my camera to the shop tomorrow night (Thursday) and I will take pictures of my games.
5.  I want to play in a campaign.  I have been planning to build a 3-D campaign map for the last couple of years.  My goal will be to complete that by the end of April.  That way we can play a campaign out in the league, two rounds from now.

So, nothing to grandiose but definitely some stretch goals there.

Battle Report - Harad vs Galadrim

Last Thursday Jonathan and I played my first game of the league. It was a reprise of the game from the week before, his Galadrim led by Glorfindel and Rumil against my Haradrim. I was tripped up at the last second by the League rule that you can only ally one faction into your army, a rule I believe we should change, by the way. Consequently I was forced to drop my Far Harad and went with a list that consisted of Bob the Budget Nazgul, a Haradrim King, a Haradrim Chieftan, a Haradrim Task Master, a banner, a hornblower, six fat guys (Abrakhan Merchant's Guards), fourteen archers and the rest spears for a total model count of 56. We played Domination with the MitM change of only three objectives.

I had a big hill in my deployment zone. there was a ruins between my zone and the objective to my left. The rest of the terrain, of which there was a lot, did not really factor in the game so I'll leave it off. I made a lot of mistakes in this game. Jonathan only made a couple. He, again, got a well deserved win with a minor victory. One more turn would have given me the minor but two more would have made it his game again. This was a real nail biter and I found myself thinking about it quite a bit the next day, which is the mark of a great game, to me.

We started off with a general advance on the part of the elves towards the left and center objectives. The elven phalanx headed towards the left while the cavalry and archers, with Glorfindel riding along, went towards the center. I left my archers behind the hill, firing in volleys most of the game (mistake number 2, I waited way too long to start firing directly). I split my force with a strong infantry force heading towards the left objective and a smaller force going over the hill and towards the center, (mistake number 1. I shouldn't have split them the way I did and had too many high value units in this group with no meat shields.)

My volley fire was average over the course of the game but started out strong. I killed both knight archers and another model in the first round. I got rid of most of his highly prized archers over the course of the game with volley fire. Jonathan killed all of my fat guys with arrows, a very disapointing development but well deserved the way I left them hanging out in view.

I pushed my infantry up into the ruins, about twelve inches short of the left objective, and stayed there. This was where Jonathan made the only real mistake of the game. He brought his phalanx up and charged me. Between the wall bonus and some good use of transfix/compel, I kept Glorfindel out of the fight, killed Rumil and managed to bounce the phalanx. Jonathan realized that he didn't need to fight me and pulled back to the objective, still too strong for me to sally out and contest him.

He also shifted his archers and remaining knights to hold the other two objectives. this is when I realized that the reason I was feeling outnumbered was that I had 15 models hiding behind the hill. I marched my archers out to contest the center and right objectives. Killing Rumil had made me a happy little Haradrim. I had also put a wound on Glorfindel with a Black Dart, something generally frowned upon in tournament play. Most players consider it too risky for too little pay off. Now Glorfindel found himself facing down a haradrim gatling gun of fourteen poisoned bow shots. This is where I made mistake number 3. I rolled all the dice at once. I killed the hell out Asfaloth but didn't have enough left to finish off the elf, though I did put another wound on him. I would have been better off taking the individual shots. The reason I did this is becase it was almost 2100 and I had Rhys (7yrs old) with me. I had already gotten a testy phone call from Mama and 2100 is closing time, though Chris very nicely and characteristically offered to keep the store open for us. So I was rushed. I took another turn to kill Glorfindel. Another moral victory in my eyes.

I managed to take the right objective and was one turn away from having more models on the center objective. I had broken but my hornblower more than paid for himself. Jonathan was one model away from breaking. I had moved my Nazgul up so his phalanx would be taking break tests with no heros on a -1 courage. He was moving troops up to the center objective, who would start arriving a turn after I controlled it. We survived the roll on the first turn after I was broken but the second one ended the game.

Long gone but not forgotten

It has been over a year since I last updated.  I had to run off and fight a real war and that took up pretty much all of my time.

I'm back now.  I have hobby time.  I might even have the desire to work on this blog.  I have not played much in the last year.  I have gotten in two games of LotR in the last two weeks.  I have joined a league and that encourages regular play at least once a week.  I am hoping to get some Warhammer fantasy games in as well as exploring some of the historical rule sets out there.

For LotR I bought a new Harad army right before I deployed.  I got them assembled and basecoated.  The development of that army will probably be the core of this blog for the next few months.  Just like the last time I was actively working this blog, I'm building up for Mayhem in the Mountains in September.  That gives me a lot of time get them painted and to play test the hell out of them.

I'm also going to work on some terrain for the army; perhaps enough for a table at MitM.  I have a Bree table which I can contribute if it's needed but I would like to have a table for the new army as well. 

So, I hope to be hitting this space with battle reports, painting progress and terrain construction.  We'll how it goes.