A little gaming - Lion Rampant

Nick, of Little Nicky's Gameroom, came over on Saturday and we played a couple of games. He wanted to try out Lion Rampant, and we followed that up with a Star Wars Armada game.

The lines close.

Gaming with the boys

I've been playing a few games during the last few months. My main opponent for X-Wing moved to New Zealand. I haven't had a lot of time to get down to the shop. My main opponent has been Rhys.

Rhys, prior to deployment. He set up the terrain.

Entry 14, Part 3 - Vth annual Analogue Painting Challenge - The Raisuli

This last model was not part of the plan for the Challenge.  Of course once I hit my goal everything is extra, but I had no intention of painting Boromir any time soon.  I don't have anything against him.  He's pretty great in the game, but he's also very expensive.  I tend to shy away from the uber heroes and try to bring more guys.

Boromir.

Lion Rampant

One of my Christmas presents was a copy of Dan Mersey's Lion Rampant rules.  While these are designed for medieval warfare they will work just fine for any sword and board type of troops.  They are a skirmish level game, with units of twelve, or sometimes six models.  Much is simplified in the name of game play but they work very nicely and are very quick to pick up.  This, however, is not a review of the rules.

Cirion leads his men against Isengard raiders.

LotR Battle Report - Harad vs Dol Amroth and Wood Elves

A couple of weeks ago four of us got together to play some Lord of the Rings.  This was not an ordinary gathering.  Keith, who introduced me to the game, and Tim, who used to manage Collectormania were both there.  As well, Steve, a long time denizen of the shop.  This was a special night because Keith has been working out of town for the last two years.  I haven't seen much of Tim or Steve in the same amount of time.  It was great to sit down with three old friends and just play a game.

My battleline with Steve's Mumak on the right.

Battle Report - Harad vs Gondor

Last Thursday night was club night down at Collectormania.  Russ was the only other person there so it made the line up easy.  He brought his Gondor army, with some new models that he wanted to try out.  I had my tried and true Haradrim, who are about to undergo a major revision.

The battle lines meet.

Battle Report - Harad vs Gondor

I've now played my first game of the year.  It wasn't the 1st, but pretty close.  I met Russ down at Collectormania and we took the new Hobbit rules for a spin.  We are both very familiar with the LotR rules but we still had to flip through the book a fair amount.  It was a fun game, only slightly marred by my loss.

Faramir and his Osgiliath veterans. 

Battle Report - Gondor vs Corsairs

Two weeks ago Tony and I played another game of LotR.  He brought his Corsair army, which includes the Shadow Lord.  His special rule is that all shooting at targets within six inches needs sixes to hit.  This pretty much makes my Harad army an overpriced light infantry force.  With that in mind I pulled out my Gondor, which I haven't played with in the new rules.  This game was a straight up brawl, first one to 25% loses.

Faramir's scouts had reported a raid, by Corsairs, moving up the Anduin.  When he finally made contact he found that they were accompanied by the Shadow Lord and his guard of Black Numenorians.  He was still sanguine about the results.  He had brought a strong force of his veterans from Osgiliath as well as a company of his rangers.

The Battlelines meet.

Battle Report - Harad vs Gondor

I played a couple of games of LotR last week.  It's too much effort to write them both up, so I'll tell the story through pictures.

The first battle was against the Traveller.  We were brewing up a batch of beer, and smoking some meat, so we were running in and out all day.  He chose Gondor and I had my Haradrim.  We played the same scenario as in the shop the week before.  There were three objectives (yellow dice, I really need to make some).  Warband deployment but within six inches of the table edge.  Extra points for wounding and killing the enemy general.

Rangers in one set of ruins.  Most of my army is bottom right.  One warband top right, opposite Faramir.

Battle Report - Harad vs Gondor

Something a little bit different this time around.

Nuradan was feeling weak and frustrated.  His wounds were healing slowly and the Nazgul wanted to get on the road.  Nuradan's Kharna levies had fought a dozen battles against elves and men trying to keep the Dark Lord's road through Ithilien clear.  This last one had gone well, except for his own part in it.

The battle had been in the south of Ithilien, among some long forgotten and crumbling Gondorian settlement; remnant of Gondor's past glory, and the still bitter subjugation of the Tribes by the men of the White City.  The Haradrim, Nuardan's own Kharna levy as well as the Betrayer and his Abrakhan guards, had arrived first and occupied the ruins.  The heir of the Stewards, Faramir, had detected the movement of the Southrons and brought his battle company to destroy this isolated band.

Battle Report - Harad vs Gondor and Dwarfs

With the league in hiatus there were only two of us playing last night at Collectormania.  When Rhys and I arrived there was no one else there to play so he played with his Star Wars Squinkies on some Osgiliath terrain while I talked painting and rules sets with Russ and Chris.  Chris is a great painter with a really entertaining blog, which I can't find right now.  Hopefully I'll be able to dig it up or someone will shoot me the link.

Micah showed up a little after 1900 and we agreed on a game.  I had played him a couple of weeks ago, before the switch over from Legions to Warbands.  In that game he had an avenger bolt thrower and Boromir.  Two very expensive options.  His new list is led by Faramir as a ranger.  It had a Capt with five knights, Faramir leading nine rangers, a captain with six sword/board and six spear and shield and finally a Dwarf captain with five or six Iron Guard.

We rolled up Reconnoiter, which is not my favorite scenario.  It pulls me out of my comfort zone.  This is not a bad thing.  My army is designed to stay out of combat as long as possible while shooting the hell out of everything that gets in range.  If I haven't whittled my opponent down, by a lot, before we get into combat then I am going to lose.  My guys are squishy and my force is only average sized.  The opposition last night was very crunchy, and had almost as many models as I did.  Not a good place to be. 

Reconnoiter gives points for getting models off your opponent's table edge, wounding or killing the opposing general and for breaking the enemy.  His knights were a priority target.

I apologize now for the pictures.  I forgot my camera so these were taken with my phone.

Two warbands, one of which is the Nazgul and Hornblower.

The knights moving forward to try to get off the table.  Faramir, his general, with the rangers, moving up in the background.

The Gondor Phalanx followed by the slow moving Dwarfs.

More games with the new rules

I got two more games in with the new "Warbands" rules today.  I was playing against my cousin, who I am trying to get into the game.  He has played a few times, enough to remember most of the rules.  It has probably been a year since our last game though.

Both of us liked the changes.  I gave him my Gondor army.  Faramir, Cirion, Damrod and a captain.  He had 46 models, 14 rangers.  It was his first time playing something other than Isengard, which is the army I usually start new people out with.

He liked the new deployment rules.  He liked the scenarios.  I like everything about the changes except for being forced to take so many heroes and the nerf to my Mahud.  Overall, I can live with the changes and they seem to be transparent to new players.  With all of the attention that LotR should get this year that means we should have a lot of new players around.  Here's hoping.

More thoughts on Warbands vs Legions

In the local club (I don't actually think we have a name yet) we have been discussing the new army books for Lord of the Rings SBG.  The first thing we had to determine is what we are going to call these.  The old rules were called Legions because we had to use Legions of Middle Earth to guide our composition.  We have finally decided to call these rules Warbands, since that is the most obvious concept that they are built around.

The next article of discussion is the size of armies that will be needed under the new rules.  There was an immediate, and widespread, rush to argue that 700 points will have to be the new standard.  I have been leaning towards staying at 600, though that is a fairly arbitrary amount as well.

I wrote up a post in our forum (here) about this and decided that it was something I wanted to capture on this blog as well.

I agree that 600 points is feeling pretty good to me. The new Warbands construction rules actually force theme better than the LoME rules did. You can still take that hero that doesn't really fit your army, but you are paying a premium for the privilege. If you just have to have Durin in your Gondor force then you are going to have to make some sacrifices. From a theme standpoint, this is not a bad thing.

It also makes horde armies smaller, with the exception of goblins and hobbits. I'm less happy about this. I like having a bunch of crappy dudes on the table and kicking that elite warband's arrogant teeth down their throats. Oh well. I'll just have to adjust.

You can still bring a pricey hero. The trade off is still there. It's just when you try to bring a pricey hero who is not thematically linked to your army that you get hammered on the points. I'm actually ok with that. I'd prefer that the min/max math hammer stay in 40k and Warhammer and LotR be about the story. For me, and this is certainly only my opinion, the point of a skirmish game is the story that's being told. The reason I like LotR is because I started in the books and want to play them out on the tabletop, not because I'm looking for a generic fantasy skirmish game.

All in all, it's actually a pretty elegant way of controlling what players bring. We can all choose to bring the big heroes but there are appropriate penalties in place when we break the paradigm of the stories. I'm less pleased that I have to buy some new models and get them painted as well as retiring others that I have worked so hard on. On the other hand those old guys are already forming the core of new armies, in my mind at least.

So what we have with Warbands is certainly an adjustment.  My Faramir, Captain of Ithilien doesn't even exist in the new rules.  I can take Faramir and tool him up for the story or purpose I want him for, but the guy I built my Gondor army around is gone.  I can move on from that.  In many ways, Gondor is the least affected army because they have a couple 25 point heroes that you can throw in and lead Warbands. 

My Harad list is more affected.  My base troops are more expensive.  1st blow against numbers.  Bob the Budget Nazgul is no longer viable since I won't spend 90 points on a hero who can't lead a warband.  I can use a thematically correct Nazgul instead.  He costs 30 points more.  Another blow against numbers.  My Mahud are now just another slightly different flavored warrior option.  They are a lot cheaper.  Here's where I can make some points back.  Coolly themed upgrades to tweak how normal warriors play.  Those eat into points too.  I'll have to see if they are worth it.  Right now I'm thinking they are not but I'm going to give it a shot, just to see my opponent's face when I tell him I have 18 Elvish equivalent archers with poison on a 1&2.  Suck it Galadrim!

I'm reconciling myself to the changes, though I'll always regret the loss of my Mahud.  We're in for some fun times for the next two or three years.

Battle Report - Harad vs Gondor and Dwarfs

The Thursday night league at Collectormania has come and gone and I got in another fun and interesting game.  I was there early and Micah showed up.  I haven't gotten to play him yet so we agreed on a game.  600 points using the old composition rules but he, kindly, agreed to my request to play one of the new scenarios.  We divided our armies up between our heroes, to serve as our warbands.

This is turn two.  You can see each of the warbands in action.  Boromir and the two Knights are just visible behind the wood, top right.

The Knights and rangers battling the Mahud.  Almost everyone in this picture was dead by the end of the game.

Lord of the Rings Source Books - Initial Impressions

My initial impression - I don't like the changes but it's not game breaking and I think everything will be fine in the long run; except for Rohan, they are just as bad as before.

What I don't like:

1.  The Warbands rule.  You have to have a hero for every twelve warriors.  This forces smaller armies.  The hordes are pretty much dead.  There's nothing wrong with hordes.  It was a viable army build.  In return for more warriors you had fewer heroes.  Most factions don't have cheap heroes meaning a bunch of troops are going to have to be dropped to fit in the extra heroes.  This rule just takes away options from the player.  I'm not sure what problem GW was trying to fix with this.

The Changing Game

This weekend Games Workshop is finally releasing the stats for all of the LotR SBG models.  Sadly they are doing it in five books.  Happily, from my point of view, they are not changing the main rule book.

The good news is that I no longer have to carry around an arm full of White Dwarfs.  This is an eternal problem, as old as White Dwarf, but at least for awhile we will have everything we need in these five books.  This also means that Legions of Middle Earth is now irrelevant.  It's few uses are superseded by the new books.

More Test games

I played another game of LotR the other night.  We are all fine tuning our armies and just trying to get some practice in.  This time I played against Chris Ward, who is always a fun opponent.  We rolled randomly for scenarios and got the night fight one, which is my favorite.

Chris has a nicely painted Uruk army led by Saruman.  I was anxious to play against him because I do not have a lot of experience vs magic.  In addition to Saruman there were a captain, a handful of crossbows and an equal mix of shields and pikes as well as three berserkers.  His model count was 37.

I was running my new list.  Faramir, Captain of Ithilien with rangers and Osgiliath veterans.  My model count was 50.  I really feel the lack of might in this army, with only Faramir's three.  On the other hand the 12" banner, fight 4 within six inches of Faramir and the high model count all work well.  Faramir's better stats are nice too.

As I said, we rolled for a scenario and got "Ill met by moonlight".  We each divided our army in half, with a hero forward.  We were playing on part of the Osgiliath table.  I say part, because we only had some of the tiles and none of the scatter terrain.

Chris had Saruman, the five crossbows and berzerkers forward with the rest of his numbers split, pretty evenly, between pikes and shields.  I had Faramir, all of my rangers and veterans forward with only veterans to the rear.

Chris had to set up first and he built a firebase in a ruin in the very center of the table.  I placed my rangers to each side of that, with veterans in front.  Faramir, valiantly, hid behind a ruin so the crossbows and Saruman couldn't start the game by crushing him.

The first few turns were fairly even.  Our shooting was effective, as usual in this scenario.  The +1 to hit meant he was killing rangers on a 3 and I was killing Uruks on a five.  I had more shooting his was better.  It evened out.  He rushed everything but the crossbows and a couple of shields towards my right flank, which is where Faramir was now.  Both of us were moving our reinforcements up as fast as we could.  My left flank archers were sliding up towards his table edge.  In the way rolls were saving his crossbows, I only killed one through shooting the whole game, though his normal warriors and a beserker were not so lucky.

We finally engaged on the right flank, Saruman threw out a scorerous blast which killed one veteran and knocked over a couple of rangers.  The first round of combat was pretty tame.  Faramir got in one charge, killing two Uruks.  Saruman then blasted him six inches.  Faramir lost his horse but was unhurt, and no one was behind him.

Chris had moved his reinforcements over towards the brawl, dropping a couple off on my left flank, with the crossbows and their guardians, and a couple more in the center, forming a wall between two buildings.  I split my reinforcements, just about evenly, between my right and the center, with a couple heading over to help my left flank out.

Things were looking pretty bad for the forces of good.  Faramir was locked down every turn.  Chris had more models in the main fight and many of mine were squishy rangers.  We then had two brutal, for the Uruks, turns of combat.  In the first turn I killed six Uruk Hai.  I blew away nearly his entire center formation, between the buildings, opening up my route into his rear.  I killed a couple in the main fight, evening things up there enough for me to hold my own.  I also gained clear dominance in the flight on my left flank.

The rest of the game was just me closing the trap on the Uruks who were pinned in on my right.  I broke him but Saruman's standfast meant he didn't have to take any tests.  The fact that he had no room to maneuver and that I was coming at him from, literally, all four directions, meant that almost all of the fights were going my way.  With F4 and a reroll out to 12 inches Chris just couldn't win enough to make a difference.

Chris had some bad rolling going on in the end there, but I think my banner is what made the biggest difference.  In the end, the last turn, I killed Saruman when I jumped him with nine dudes.  He rolled a 1 for the fight, which was not really epic at all.  I offered to let Chris re-roll it, since that seemed like a sour note to end the game on, but he stuck to his guns and took the 1.  We hit 25% over the rest of the turn and the game was over.

I was not broken so it was a Major victory to me.  We didn't keep track of the kills for our heroes, but I think Saruman got one or two and Faramir got two or three.

On my side, I was really pleased with how my army worked.  I really feel the lack of might in the late game, with only one hero.  On the other hand the F4 is pure gold.  The 12" banner really paid off in this game, though this is the first time that it has.  Ranger shooting was as good as always and the large numbers were really useful.  I shielded more in this game and that helped me stay above break until the end.

For Chris, as he said, "I don't know if my army sucks or not with rolling like that".  I had two good rounds of combat that pretty much determined the game.  Saruman was good, making all of his spells and fighting off my troops until he was really, really, outnumbered.  There were a couple of places that Chris could have played differently, but with his center getting blown away in one round of combat there was not much he could have done to salvage it.

It was a fun game, as always against Chris, and I learned more about how my army works.  I'm pretty sure this is the list I will take to MitM.

Slacktastick

I've been slacking.  I not only haven't been updating the blog but I haven't really been doing much, at all, hobby wise.  I started a new job July 1st.  It is killing my soul.  I have no energy left at the end of the day.  I'm getting to be in great shape, working off all of the angst though.

Today I got in a game of LotR.  Keith had an, unexpected, day off and gave me a call.  I arranged to meet him down at the shop for a game.  He brought his Dwarfs and I brought my Gondor, with a twist.  I have been trying the new Faramir, Captain of Ithilien.  I changed out all of my Warriors of Minas Tirith for Osgiliath Veterans.  This means they have fight 4 within six inches of Faramir.  Along with this he acts as a banner for them and the rangers within 12 inches.  I had to drop my horn, Cirion and my knights to get him in but he seems to be worth it.

Keith and were play testing one of the Scenario's for  Mayhem in the Mountains.  This is the one I wrote a battle report about earlier, on the Bree table.  Each player divides their army in half.  Hero's have to be evenly divided.  One half deploys between 18 and 24 inches in, the other half up to 3 inches in.  This puts half of the force toe to toe with the enemy.  Night fight rules are also in play so bows and crossbows can only shoot 12 inches but they get plus one to their roll to wound.  This makes bows MUCH more powerful than normal.

We were also playing with table layout for the Osgiliath table.  We have five 12 inch squares of ruins, which work well, but we both think we need some barriers, walls and barricades as well as some difficult terrain we can throw down.  We also need to bevel the edges of the MDF that the ruins are based on as the square edges caused us quite a bit of positioning problems over the course of the game.

I only have one hero, so had to place him up front.  I also front loaded all of my rangers into the forward force, with the rest filled out with Veterans.  I placed them as far back as I could, but they were easily in charge range of the Dwarfs, if Keith got Priority.  Keith had Dain and Gimli, with Gimli forward.  He also had a mix of Khazad Guard, Iron Guard and Dwarf Warriors.  At the last minute I convinced him to try Dwarf Warriors with bows instead of Rangers.  I'm not sure how well that worked out, since the plus 1 to wound made all shooting better.  More play testing is probably called for.

Happily, I won priority.  Gimli promptly called a heroic move, countered by Faramir, who won the roll off.  One Veteran engaged Gimli, putting an end to his move.  Everyone else fell back while Faramir repositioned to a more central position, closer to where Gimli was.  There was some combat to Faramir's right, and my rangers started picking off Dwarfs like it was cool, which it was with me. 

Keith had 40 models in his army, while I had 50.  From the first turn on, I was ahead in the body count pretty much the entire game.  Dwarf armies rely on their awesome armor saves to stay alive.  With the shooting rules in this scenario, that is not as much of a factor for them.

Combats were going my way, my reserves were moving up faster and I had fire superiority.  Keith's front line was not holding up very well and Gimli was not killing anything.  By the time Dain and his boys got up there were not many of the first line Dwarfs left.  Dain managed a Heroic combat into Faramir.  Sadly, for Dain, Faramir had charged that turn, though a different model.  This gave Faramir four dice, instead of three, letting him win the combat, knock Dain down and put a wound on him after using up his fate.  This was the only charge Faramir got in the entire game, getting charged by Dain or Gimli every turn after that.  Dain died in the next round of combat but Gimli lasted the rest of the game. 

Once I broke Keith his Dwarfs started to fade, though slowly.  It took several more rounds of combat for me to kill enough to get him to 25%.  It is actually easier to kill Dwarfs with shooting, in this scenario, than it is with a sword.  That plus one on the die roll is better than the +1 strength of a hand weapon over my shooting.

I walked away with a major win.  Any time I get anything better than a loss against Keith I'm thrilled.  He is a great player, probably one of the best in the country, since he took second at Adepticon. 

I think we are both very happy with the scenario.  We have played it twice, on different tables, and it worked very well on both.  It changes the game a lot, forcing players to think on their toes and develop new tactics on the fly.  The table needs some more work, but it is going to work out well once we add some more terrain to it.

I needed a good game to take my mind off of work and this, as always against Keith, was a great game and a lot of fun.  I feel very good about where we are with the tournament preparations.  I hope we have people actually show up.

Play testing

As part of the tournament we are planning, for the fall, we are developing new scenarios and testing table layouts.  Wednesday night, my wife being out of town, Kieth came down and we played in my basement.

I laid the table out in the Bree layout that I had come up with.  The table was laid out with a village in the center.  There was a large village square with a fountain.  Surrounding the square were houses, two per side.  There was a road, lined with walls running out of the east side (north being Keith's side of the table - to the right in the picture below).  There were some fences and trees in various places around the town.

(The sunken road is nearest the viewer in this picture.)

The effect of this layout was that there was a good sized area in the center to fight in, divided in two by the fountain.  The road turned out to be a pivotal location, allowing flank charges into the village and a defended wall on each side.

(The sunken road is top right in this picture).

The scenario we came up with is a combination of several others.  Each player divides their army in half.  We are still trying to decide if we want to have the opponent choose the force that will be deployed forward or the player, though we went with the player choosing their army last night.

Half of the army deploys between 18" and 24" in, on the table.  This means that the two armies start with half of their troops right in each others faces.  The other half of the army deploys three inches in from the table edge.

Night fight rules are in play, meaning that bows can only shoot 12 inches but they get plus one strength.  This had the effect of forcing players to close on each other and, theoretically, it shortens the time they have to shoot.  It also makes the shooting much more dangerous than normal.

The other scenario element that we added in was a modified contest of champions.  Normally in that scenario it is decided by the champion who kills the most enemy models.  A lot of people (including me) really dislike this scenario.  In our scenario a major victory means that you have reduced your opponent to 25% but you are not broken.  A minor victory is achieved by reducing your opponent to 25%, but you are broken.  The kills of your champion add bonus points.  In our game Faramir ended up killing eight dwarfs while Dain only got three kills.  That gave me five bonus points for my minor victory.  We liked this because it makes the scenario about more than just what two models do, and it also has the potential to really get some spread on the player's points in the tournament.

Keith deployed first.  He had Dain with half of his force, divided equally by type (Khazad Guard, ranger, etc), in the village square.  Half of this company was on each side of the fountain.  The other half of his army was set up in the center of the table in his rear deployment zone.

(Dain is the red beared fellow, second from the right in the left hand company.  The shield bearer is the unpainted mini to the left).

I also divided my army in half by type, except that all three of my knights were in the rear deployment zone.  Faramir and Cirion were both forward with their half of the army.  Faramir, a bunch of WoMT and three rangers were set up in the road, just outside the square.  Cirion and the rest of the forward WoMT were in the east corner of the square, as far back as I could get them.  There were five rangers to the west of the village.  The rear deployment zone had knights, the horn blower and six rangers, off to the west.  The WoMT were in the center and five rangers were in the east.

(Faramir and his company along with the three rangers who are bait for the trap.)

I got priority first turn and moved Fararmir, in the second rank, and his band so that they were across the road, right on the edge of the square, with both flanks secured by buildings.  The rangers in the road moved up to the wall.  Cirion's lads backed up so that they had their flanks held by buildings, but they bulged out into the square.  Another part of his force moved up to fill the gap between two buildings, to the west of Cirion.  All of the rear troops moved forward at full speed.

Cirion's troops were setting up a trap for Keith.  By bulging out into the square they gave the Dwarfs an opportunity to have more Dwarfs fighting than humans.  If they moved forward to engage these troops then they would have to ensure that they split off enough troops to keep Faramir and his company locked up in  the street.  Once the Dwarfs had committed to this course of action, Cirion and his lads would fall back, past the houses, so that the situation was reversed and fewer Dwarfs would be forced to fight against more humans, who would have both flanks protected by houses.

(Cirion and his boys move back to increase their odds.  The Dwarfs have bounced off of the wall after their first attack, top right.)

The second part of my trap was based on Faramir, and was, by far, the riskiest part of my plan.  If Faramir and his lads got locked in combat to the front then they would not be in a position to react if the Dwarfs could get over the wall and into the sunken road, from behind.  It appeared that the only thing keeping this from happening was three rangers along the wall.  No problem, thinks the Dwarfs, we can take some D4 rangers.

In Keith's first turn he pushed forward on both sides of the fountain.  The eastern block pushed up so that their flank was on the house, with Faramir's lads just around the corner.  Dain's lads moved forward, trying to minimize how much shooting they would take from my rangers on the west side of the village.

My shooting was completely useless.  Keith managed to kill a couple of WoMT.  The additional strength from the scenario rules made the bows much more deadly.  I, again, won priority in turn two.  I used the opportunity to move the rear half of my army forward, running everyone as fast as they could go.  The knights moved up the western board edge.

Keith moved Dain's forces forward, leaving the other half of his force in the square in place.  He split his rear force in two, half heading directly towards the square and half heading towards the sunken road, which was still only guarded by my three rangers.  Shooting was, again, inconclusive.

Turn three Keith finally won priority and decided to move into combat.  His eastern force swung in to engage Faramir's company and block of the road.  He split the force advancing on the sunken road, sending a third of it off towards the square and the rest towards the wall.  Dain's force advanced against Cirion's company, pushing off a force to guard against the small group of WoMT between the buildings.

My shooting, this turn, was finally decent, with a bunch of Dwarfs falling.  All of the combats were inconclusive, with losses on both sides.  At the end o this turn we had each lost seven models, meaning bad news for Keith with his smaller army.

Turn four finally saw the Dwarfs reach the sunken road.  Two Dwarfs got in to combat with three rangers.  All of the troops who were originally deployed in the square were now in combat.

I pulled Faramir away from the street fight, where he had been in the second rank, and threw him up to the wall against the Dwarfs attacking the rangers.  The WoMT in the center pulled back behind a building, leaving the alley open.  I was hoping that Kieth would try to cross the fence, allowing me to engage his force piecemeal.  He didn't fall for it.  The WoMT who were coming up the center, from the rear deployment zone, split, with half hiding behind a building and the rest moving to reinforce Cirion.  Keith ended up forgetting how many troops I had behind the building and, when they finally came out, late game, he was shocked by ten fresh troops piling in to combat.

The fight in the sunken road went against the Dwarfs, with Faramir getting his first kills.  In the square, neither battle line was moving.  Dain was not getting kills but a few models were still falling to archery.  My rangers, on the western edge of the village, kept moving forward, behind cover, and dueling with his rangers, who were in the open.  My knights were swinging around the rear of the village.  I'm sure that Keith expected them to get in to the fight in the square.  My plan was to have them hit the Dwafs at the sunken road from behind, then swing back around to the square.  Additionally, I had gotten the reserve rangers up to the road and there were now eight there instead of three, along with Faramir and a WoMT spearman supporting him.

This was the decisive turn.  Keith's force in the square was engaged all along the line.  His rangers were losing the archery duel and hid behind the fountain, short buggers.  The force at the wall had just seen its advantage in numbers disappear.  Keith pushed everything he could up against the wall and bounced, losing several dwarfs.  In the next turn he pulled back, allowing Faramir to shift back to the fight at the edge of the square and the rangers, along the wall, to shoot at will.  The dwarfs along the sunken road evaporated over the next couple of turns.

In the road, Faramir managed to turn the fight and break through the dwarf line.  The knights finally reached the fight, one being dismounted by rangers and one killed, but they killed off the last dwarf in the way and the remaining, mounted knight, charged into the combat in the square.

(The Dwarf attack on the sunken road is over.  Faramir is about to blast his way through the dwarf line and Cirion is about to eat Dain's axe.)

Dain was slowly pushing back Cirion's company, killing Cirion in the process.  The WoMT line just wouldn't break though, with the ten troops behind the house providing the numbers to hold Dain and his band.  The dwarf Shield Bearer was having no luck in killing hi opponents, even with his free Heroic combat every turn that he was within three inches of Dain.  Only once did he get into a combat that involved Dain.

(Cirion's last moments.  You can see the shield bearer off stage left, in all his mithril glory.)

My rangers moved forward to engage hand to hand, Faramir's company finally broke out of the street and the Dwarfs were steadily pushed in to a smaller and smaller corner of the square.  When Keith finally broke, the shield bearer kept all but one Dwarf in the fight with their re-rolls of failed courage tests within 12 inches.  By the time the shield bearer failed there were not enough dwarfs left to really affect him much.

(Faramir leads the breakthrough.)

Keith finally broke me but with Farmair's stand fast and the horn blower I only lost five models to failed courage tests.  (Actually that seems like a lot, looking back on it.)  We called it when Keith got to ten models.

(The final moments of Dain's warhost.)

I really enjoyed both the scenario and the table layout.  As always, Keith was a great opponent.  We made some changes to the rules and clarified some issues.  We were going to play it out to total annihilation, thinking that with the two armies starting so close together this would not be a difficult threshold to reach.  It turns out that it just takes too long to wipe out an army so we changed that to 25%.  We also decided that throwing weapons would not benefit from the additional strength, since they were unaffected by the range restrictions.

My trap worked as I hoped.  If Keith had pushed everything against the sunken road, as he started to, it might have been different, and he had me very worried until he split his force.  He underestimated the advantage that a defended obstacle gives.  Faramir was a star, killing dwarfs right and left.  I manged to limit Dain to only three kills, but I just couldn't kill him.  I put one wound on him, even when I had him trapped by three models with support.  He is a tank.

This is probably the most enjoyable game of LotR I have played, which is saying something.  I think both the table layout and the scenario will be good to go for the tournament.

Doldrums

I am having a hard time getting back in to the swing of things.  I started painting up the rest of my Gondor army but I just can't bring myself to finish them. 

I think I need to play.  Playing always motivates me to throw some more paint on my models.  When I'm throwing dice and my opponent's army is painted, and mine is not, it is a huge motivator to get it done.  I'm always good for at least a week after that.  Likewise, if my opponent's army is not painted I think about how crap it looks and want to get mine looking better.  Either way the gaming is what keeps me painting.

The other thing that helps is having a deadline.  I got more painting done in the lead up to the GitD than I have in any given year before.  Having that sort of goal is hugely helpful to me.  I have always worked best under a deadline.

Bottom line, I need to figure out a deadline or play some games.  We have our warbands league this weekend, so I may be able to get some gaming done then.  That would get me kick started on my Empire.  I have a lot painted for that army but there is more I can do.

Next weekend is our 40K league.  I have not played any games yet, but we are doing kill teams from the Battle Missions book.  That would give me a chance to learn the rules and to get motivated to paint my IG.  I have one squad of them painted.

I also got an American Rifle Company box for Flames of War for my birthday this week.  If I get them assembled then I could play some practice games of that.

I guess I just have too much hobby and not enough time or motivation.  I know what I need to do, now I just have to do it.