Hello Middle-Earth!
First article about my first love in miniatures wargaming, the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game! We played a 3 players game one week ago, a nice way to remember the rules…
In Shanghai, I have armies for Rohan, Mordor and the Dead of Dunharrow. I chose to go with Rohan for this game, my opponents playing Elves of Rivendell (Mark) and Iron Hills Dwarves (Romain).
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The Lists
Rohan:
Eomer +4 riders of Rohan
Dernhelm + 3 riders of Rohan (spears)
Grimbold + 12 Helmingas (5 spears and 1 banner)
Iron Hills:
Dain Ironfoot + 6 dwarves (1 banner)
Iron Hill Captain + 6 dwarves
Iron Hill Ballista
Rivendell:
Elrond + 7 archers + 4 spearmen
Lindir + 4 Knights + 6 warriors
The goal of the scenario was to hold the stairs in the middle of the battlefield. The one with the highest number of miniatures in 6 inches when 2 armies would get under 25% of troops would win.
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The Battle
The start of the battle went more or less peacefully for both my opponents, with the Iron Hill ballista killing both Eomer and Dernhelm’s horses, throwing their riders on the ground.
On the right, the elvish archers led by Elrond managed to kill half the Helmingas, while the rest of the army ran forward to encounter the dwarves, who maintained their positions between the ruins of a Rohan village.
Enraged at their leaders’ mounts’ demise, the riders of Rohan charged the dwarves, hoping to cause a few wounds before the elves arrived. Unfortunately for them, throwing spears and rudimentary swords are no match for mithril and shieldwalls, and the charge failed to wound anyone.
Eomer, still saddened by his faithful horse’s death, regrouped with Grimbold’s men behind the central stairs, in an attempt to protect themselves from elvish arrows.
Dain Ironfoot may be a gentleman, but when dirty hooves get on his warriors’ polished shields, he sees red. So when an on-foot Eowyn stumbled upon him and his warpig, well… he basically sent his hammer forward, never knowing he had just killed the Fair Maiden of Rohan. This is without even mentioning the small hobbit his pig stepped on, who never got the chance to take his sword out of his scabbard before joining his lady in death.
Next to this tragic event, the dwarves pushed back the proud Rohirrims, killing one after the other in a crazed assault. The Riders had counted on the arrival of the Elves to distract them, but the latter were just coming out of the woods, one turn too late.
Lindir witnessed the horse lords destruction, but it did not stop him from leading his men towards the dwarves’ shieldwall. In a devastating charge, the elves managed to kill three of their opponents, but at some cost.
Seeing the potential damage the Iron Hills ballista could cause to their main line, the Rivendell Knights rode fast towards it, in an attempt to destroy its crew. Dain Ironfoot did not agree however, and after helping his troops to reform the frontline, he went back to take care of the “pointy ears on horses”. This did not go well for them, as the enraged dwarf lord was too much of a challenge for them.
Meanwhile, Elrond marched forward with his archers to join the battle, ignoring the remaining Rohirrims who were hiding behind the central stairs. This proved a fatal error for the master of Rivendell, as Eomer barged in from his cover, leading the last survivors of the Mark to battle. With his sister dead, Eomer needed to see blood, and dwarven or elvish made little difference to him.
Elrond was surprised by the attack on his rearguard, but managed to fight his way towards the Rohan leader. Heroically, Eomer went blow for blow with Elrond, taking care of his bodyguard, while Grimbold and his men charged the remaining archers. But the elf was too strong, even taking the time to move out and heal Lindir on the other side of the battlefield. Lindir was in a very bad posture however, for the dwarves were slaughtering his men effortlessly. He tried to do a last stand, but the dwarves blocked him and finished him.
It was too late for the dwarves to run towards the center, and the end of the battle would be decided on Grimbold’s mighty blow. He had already unleashed his rage on many archers, but he needed one last push to make the elves demoralized and win the day…
And he did it, his axe plunged into an unfortunate elf’s chest!
Forth Eorlingas!
Far away, Dain was playing with his beard, thoughtfully…
“Well at least it wasn’t an elf!”
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Thoughts
It was pretty fun to play again, after a long hiatus. I basically only got the win because Mark (the elf) left my troops alone once they were hiding behind the stairs, while he went to deal with Romain (the dwarf).
Iron Hills are very strong defensively, and it was definitely a strategic fumble to charge with my riders into them (I still take full responsibility for this decision, when you play Rohan, you want to charge!).
For the elves, I would definitely have played Elrond more offensively, his reroll ability is good with archers, but in a game with Dain and Eomer, more offense in close combat would have been useful.
I think the terrain might have been a bit too big, I forgot how slow the units are compared to the Asoiaf game, so for small games a small table with the objective in the center would be better.
But still, fun battle, looking forward to the next ones!
Grob’
Chez Grob 