A bit of a battle report

With the weather being so beautiful today, I thought, why not get the board out and have a game on the garden?

So me and my girlfriend did.

We took the board onto the grass, through on some bits of flint, and some clumps of grass to make a makeshift board till I get round to making a proper one. 

Bare in mind I didn't take pictures of every turn, as the pictures would simply look repetitive, and I did not set out to destroy my girlfriend, as she is still new to the game and requires a bit of help now and then. I am however, very impressed with how she did!

Now, the scenario was just, set out to destroy every part of the enemy force. I did not bother with testing for breaking for this scenario. The backstory:

After fleeing to Lothlorien, The Fellowship all get a chance to rest their aching bones. However, a few hours later Aragorn and a small band of elves are leading a counter assault, in an attempt to deter the Goblin's vicious hunting instinct, and thus prevent an assault on Lorien.

I played as the Wood Elves, 2 with Elven blade, 2 with Spear and 2 with Bow, 

As well as Aragorn. For the purpose of this being a sort of friendly match to get my girlfriend more acquainted to the rules, and with their being more models for her to manage, I didn't use Aragorn's mighty hero rule.

Bethen played the ravaging, roving horde of goblins which consisted of:

An assorted number of goblins with shield and sword, around 4-5

An assorted number of goblins with spear, again around 4-5

And 3-4 Goblins with bow.

Layout is as below:

The layout

Woodelves

Goblins

Turn one, priority: Goblins.

The Goblins continue their reckless hunt, as the goblins on all sides bolt forward, apart from two lonely spearmen who stay back.

The horde chittering forward, nasty black speech filling the air.

I moved my Elves forward and had an archer attempt to climb a rock, but to my dismay, the Elf failed his climbing test! And plumets backwards, and landing in the grass. How embarrassing.

Falling to the 'Anything but a one!' trap

However else where, the other Elf goes to the other extreme, and leaps up the rock with ease, readying an arrow as he sings songs of Elbereth.

Showing up the other elf!

Onto the shooting phase and the Archer rolls a 4 to hit, but only rolls a 2, when a 3 is needed to kill a goblin spearman, the arrow clattering off the crude armour.

Close, but no kill.

Turn two and the front lines clash as the Goblins gain priority again, a Swordsman being charged by a goblin, and Aragorn being charged by three. An Elven spearman moves in to support the swordsman, as a Goblin archer takes position on a rock. The two Goblin Spearmen at the back move forward, ready to engage next turn.

Battle is joined

Aragorn, his skill far surpassing that of mere Goblins, whirls his sword about and dispatches three Goblins. However, the lone goblin beats back the two Elves and manages to dispatch the swordsman!

Elven Casualties

Goblin Casualties.

From here, unfortunately a few of the photo's went missing, so I shall do my best to fill in the gaps and explain what transpired over the next few turns:
Aragorn continues his rampage and fells a few more Goblins, curses from foul language penetrating the air as they fall.

The Goblins wipe out the right hand side of Elves, and the left Elven Archer on the rock is shot down, but not before the combined might of the two Elven archers dispatch all of the Goblin archers and a few spearmen.

And then we come to this:

This, this is how it looked by turn 5.

Goblin casualties.

Elven Casualties.

After this, the Elves were felled in combat, and all but one remained, along with Aragorn, who had one wound, no fate, no might left. Three Goblins were left on the board, and what happened?...

Aragorn fluffs his rolls! and is quickly dispatched.

How things looked on the last turn.

And with that, Bethen wins the game! A fun scenario, and I will definitely never underestimate goblin archery, or up close fighting again! I do not come away from the game with nothing though, as I definitely have a better understanding of what the Wood Elves are capable of, and thoroughly enjoyed playing as them. Next time, I would be less hesitant to charge in, due to that low defence of 3, if you lose a fight then you're in for a rough time.

Bethen did very well, and though her losses were great she managed to make short work of me over time. She employed a very sneaky tactic towards the end, where I expected her to charge Aragorn, but instead went around him and into the Archer, killing off my last ranged supporter for the game, which played a part in hammering the last nail into my coffin.


It was a very fun game to play, and we are already discussing a larger scale game, with High Elf support, and Cave troll + Warg support. It looks to be a fun game, which shall be played when we get back from Holiday.

That's right, I'm off on Holiday to the beautiful Lizard Point of Cornwall tomorrow!. It is a nice spot, and has easy access to all the best beaches and shopping towns in the area! So whilst I'm soaking up the sun rays, I shall be re-prioritizing what I need to get hobby wise!

Thanks for the read, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it, and until next time...

Wood Elf Warriors, Defenders of Lothlorien/Mirkwood arrive!

A few weeks ago I messaged Dan at the local games store, 'Games Emporium' and was told I could have a 20% discount off of anything ordered through them, from Games Workshop Lord of the Rings related, and 10% Hobbit related. Well, Having £12 I thought why not get something that will benefit me in what I most want to do at the moment, and so I did. and here it is, a box of 12 Wood elf Warriors!

The reason I got these are as follows:

• I intend to collect Wood elves for when I play competitively, and since I have Legolas I am now one warband closer to that army.
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• It will help in the Fellowship journey book scenario, as Haldir and 6 elves appear later on in the book.
• 
  
• And, I got the go ahead from Bethen, as she likes elves.
• 
  
• Not to mention they'll appear in a number of scenarios in the future. 

So, onto the review: 

So far, I'm impressed by the initial unboxing of the warriors, a few poses seem a bit odd, but nothing I can't live with.

I do have a few favourite poses, and one which I'm considering to convert, as it makes a good looking 'captain' pose.

There wasn't too much excess plastic etc that needed to be removed, so I was quite happy about that.

I shall go through a few poses in the pictures below.

Wood elf Warriors box, £12 not £15!

And the back

Preparing to shoot down an approaching Goblin!

And on his own

One of my favourite poses, you can just make out, that he is aiming up with his bow, and this makes a change compared to the normal, aiming straight forward pose. Shooting at a bat swarm eh?!

Bit blurry, but an Elf swordsman

And elf spearman, driving back the hordes of Sauron

This, is my favourite pose. For one he looks like he's calling the rest of the Elves into battle, and for this reason I am going to cut off an Elven blade at some point, and put it into his other hand. Then through the use of Greenstuff, give him a few other bits and bobs, to make him stand out as a Wood Elf Captain.

Sadly, this does mean the end of buying minatures for awhile. I need to obtain the rest of the paints needed to paint the Fellowship (The four hobbits are now finished, pictures in a subsequent post) and paint is also required for the Cave Troll. Then, I shall perhaps come to painting these elves. However, with my holiday to Cornwall approaching in the next week and a half or so, I can feel a trip to the Helston gaming store to spend some money on some minatures, or perhaps Bethen will surprise me for my birthday with some Uurk-hai scouts that she knows I need for the scenario's. Only time will tell.

I will finish assembling these when I return home around Wednesday, and post pictures then.

Thanks for reading,

Until next time.

Painting a few more models (WIP)

Recently i've had spare time, and so I got to work finishing a few Goblins of Moria. Now, they aren't 'finished' so to say. I've painted them, but need to go back and clean them up, and paint over any bits i've missed. As you can see in the pictures below, some of their arms aren't painted to a good enough standard, and the red of their cloth sometimes runs on to the armour.

Then I got to work painting the hobbits. They are mostly done, the faces need painting, and a few other things but for the most part.

I've actually played the same scenario from my previous post another 4 times now, and it is damned hard to win as evil. With 4 will, you can't fire off too many spells, but you also can't stay in combat for too long without the aid of spells to make the Ringwraith more effective in combat! A tough one indeed.

Some of my Goblins, a few need cleaning up. 

 Please bare in mind, washes etc are still to be applied, as is the basing.

My 'to be painted' plate.