Catching Up

Well, its been quite a while since I last posted anything.  I haven't been idle though, I've managed to get two games in, been to a show, and quite a bit more painting for various projects.

Last  month I had a day of gaming against long time opponent Stuart (Merlin).  He hosted and we got a couple of games of the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game in, with the intention of starting a Battle Companies campaign. I started a Mordor warband, basically nine orcs, and Merlin had Dwarves.  We both used the new Battle Companies book, I forget which particular flavour of dwarf he used.
The first game required me to hold a hill in the centre of the board.

Orcs surveying the landscape (and wishing they had some cover).

The game went badly for me, the only dwarf I managed to 'kill' saved himself with a point of Fate., Most of my warband were downed, before the rest fled.

Fortunately all of my orcs survived the post game injury rolls (though I would have to play the next game without one of them).  I did get another archer and a sneak, ready for game two.

In this game I had to try and kill the enemy leader, who, along with his warband, was resting in a compound.  The sentry rules provided a suitably interesting start; although things went a bit better to begin with, I was unable to capitalise on this, and once again, my orcs either fell or fled.  This time they were able to hurt a few of the dwarves though.

One of my lieutenants died in this game, leaving me short for the next game.  I fact I will be down to  seven orcs, as I have two sitting out and will have to leave an archer behind as well, as otherwise I have too many bow armed troops for the size of the warband.

(Yes the outhouse and tents are my 15mm Orc's Drift models, but they did the job here)

Sneaky dwarves 

  

Advancing orcs

Whilst I enjoyed both games, it was a struggle to get anywhere against the dwarves.  Their high defence meant I needed a 6 to hurt them after managing to hit them.  I just didn't get to roll enough dice to get the odds closer to my side.

The sentry rules in the second game were great fun, and enabled me to send lone dwarves out to get mugged by the orcs.  Unfortunately, they failed to deliver inthe hitting things department.  I did make a classic mistake though, I held off my archers for an extra round of shooting, rather than getting them stuck in and outnumbering the enemy.  I had forgotten that orc archers are not really worth considering as missile troops, they are much better getting stuck in, if they have numbers on their side.

We will get around to another game, but its not going to be easy to win, the dwarves will now outnumber the orcs!

Playing reminded me of the fun I used to have with this system, and also the frustrations at times.  The orcs really struggle with their starting warband against the dwarves.  They should have strength of numbers on their side, but by now I have lost that.  That defence of 6 is just too high to reliably hit,

which is as it should be, the dwarves should have the best armour.  We did wonder if perhaps the starting warbands were  a little unbalanced, but according to the points, that isn't the case.

At the end of March I went To Chillcon.  I'd never heard of this one before, but it was great fun.  Close by (on my side of Sheffield) and with some great traders.  I got a few Reaper bones for my ever-growing collection of unpainted plastic, a pack of dogs for Frostgrave (and D&D, as every 5th Edition game I run seems to end up with at least one character with a wardog), some bits of modelling stuff, and some old magazines.  I even picked up an old copy of 5th edition warhammer, as if I ever get back into playing this, that is the edition I will use.  Unfortunately I didn't notice that the previous owner must have been a heavy smoker; the book is sealed in a bag with a good amount of Bicarbonate of Soda.  I'll definitely put next year's Chillcon in my diary.  It was big enough to be interesting, but small enough to still feel friendly.  And I got a couple of free minis with the entry fee.

Finally in this catch up I managed to finish the nine orcs for my Battle Company (see them above, I'll do a post on them soon, they need some reinforcements).  I've also got some more 15mm stuff finished for Dragon Rampant.  Tomorrow I am hosting for a day of Dragon rampant against Merlin.  We will play a straight forward game to remind ourselves of the rules, then try my Dragon Rampant adaptation of the first Orc's Drift game, Kachas Pass.  I'll let you know how it goes afterwards.