Battle Companies - Rescue Mission!

It was a bright sunny day, but no birds sang amongst the ruins of a long ruined settlement near the banks of the river Anduin. An emissary of Dol Amroth was travelling to Gondor to meet with the Steward when he and two of his companions found their selves trapped amongst the ruins by a roving band of Orcs. They seemed in grave danger until a Ranger of Gondor arrived, with soldiers and the rest of the separated Dol Amroth party. They had a short march to reach their comrades but were confident they could hold off orcs until they arrived. That is until a drum beat in the distance. A band of Uruk Hai Scouts from Isengard had arrived to help the orcs, their motives unknown.
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After getting battered by Orcs, Goblins and Dark Elves at Warhammer, Myself, Richard, David and Adam decided to move on to a 4 player game of Battle Companies. I had brought my Isengard army to play against Richard's Rohan, a 700 points matched play game. But we decided since there were so many of us, including a few other chaps who were having games of Warhammer at the time, we may as well get stuck into a 4 player game and opted for the battle companies rules, as it would result in a game that wouldn't take hours to play.

I had my Uruk Hai Scouts band, comprising of Uruk Scout Captain with Shield, Uruk Scout Sergeant with Shield, Uruk Scout Sergeant with bow, 1 Uruk Scout with Bow, 1 Uruk Scout with Shield and 2 Uruk Scouts with Sword. The standard base starter warband.

David used Richard's Morannon/Mordor Warband, and was my ally for the scenario.
Our opponents, Richard and Adam had a Gondor and Fiefdoms warband respectively.

We set up a table depicting the ruins of a settlement, with trees and bushes growing, nature slowly reclaiming the land.

We rolled off and got the Rescue Mission scenario, and another roll had myself and David as the attackers, Richard and Adam as the rescuers.

My strategy was fairly simple. Let the orcs surge forward with my Uruk Captain and Sergeant and tie up the two spearmen protecting the Captain, our target for the scenario. My scouts with sword and one with shield would attempt to flank around the sides. My Uruk Sergeant and regular scout with bow would take positions and fire down on the target until their support came, in which they would instead fire at them to try and keep them busy. I figured, since Uruk shooting is a bit better in this edition, I might at least weaken the reinforcements.

I won't do a full battle report as I didn't get enough photos, and the game didn't last more than 3 turns, but shall post the photos I did get and give a general summary.

Turn one saw Adam's Captain and two spearmen flee into the ruins, taking cover from orc and uruk bow fire. (Worth noting at this point that Adam's spearmen seemed to have bent their spears, possibly when being transported. This lead to a lot of laughter. Spea rmen hiding behind a wall whilst their spear poked around the corner, skewering an orc? perhaps in a discworld novel!)

Orcs and Uruks move forward to engage

the Captain and Spear men, who hide

behind a wall of rubble.

Hiding behind a (Bent) spear wall!

The reinforcing Gondorians and Dol Amroth men arrived on the opposite side of the table as the forces of evil, and rushed forward to try and reach their allies before they were caught!

Turn 2 saw myself and David continue to push forward, and 2 orcs managed to charge a spear man on the edge. I moved my Uruk Captain and Sergeant with Shield just behind those 2 orcs, whilst the rest surged around behind, waiting to get stuck in. The orc captain rolled to climb onto the roof of the ruined building, but fell to the anything but a one curse! Luckily he was not wounded. My Uruk Sergeant with Bow climbed the ruined building to the south, hoping to get a shot off at the Gondorian reinforcements. Combat saw the spearmen win but no wounds were inflicted.

Turn 3 saw the Uruk Captain charge the Captain of Dol Amroth, as orcs tie up the spearmen, from the front and behind.  Gondorians close the gap and they were almost in range to charge around the large tree into the backs of the Uruks and the Orcs, and relieve pressure off the Captain...

Reinforcements arrive...

 But the Uruk Sergeant hits a Gondorian Soldier with a black arrow, and rolling a 5 to wound, manages to fell him...

A black arrow sticks into the eye

of a Gondorian!

The spearmen, with 1 dice against 4 and 1 dice against 3, both win their fights! But fail to wound any orcs!
But this was their folly. So distracted by the foul orcs that they didn't notice the brutal Scout Captain raining down blows with his sword, even fate could not intervene (rolled a 3 on the only fate point he had) and the valiant Captain had been hacked down!

And thus our game was finished by the end of turn 3! I was the only one to get any kills the whole game! The orcs couldn't win a fight and therefore, even though they would have been trapped, they could not kill the spear men. It was difficult for Adam to keep at bay the Uruk Captain, winning due to his higher fight value and wounding easily with his high strength. And so the Orcs depart cackling, with many shiny trinkets and a report to please their master. The Uruks also depart, carrying only a small sealed envelope from the Captain's body, back towards the tower of Orthanc, their master eagerly waiting...

It was definitely a fun game! we expected it to last a lot longer than 3 turns but it was still fun all the same. With the new battle companies book coming out soon, we are looking to set up a new campaign. The small scale of the game means you can easily fit a game or two into an hour - an hour and a half which is ideal for us as we get towards the end of the day but have wrapped up our long games. The new book see's the release of new warbands also, including Dunland which I've always wanted to field alongside my Uruk Hai. This leads me to suspect, with the recent made to order taking place (from which I ordered Halbarad and some Morgul Stalkers) that perhaps Dunland may return again! So I'll keep an eye out for that, for sure...

Elsewhere, I got the rest of the paint required to paint everybody in the Fellowship other than Boromir, Pippin and Gimli (Need red paint!) Which allows me to steadily get through them. I've also been assembling British infantry and Commandos for Bolt Action, of which the rulebook arrived today in the post! I also have a Cromwell and a mortar team waiting to be built up. Being a student means my monthly income makes it slow to get progress made on wargaming projects. But as I have uruk hai to base to paint and base, and models to build for Bolt Action, I have plenty to get on with whilst waiting for paint needed for other figures.

On a final note I got this long sleeve shirt, which is fantastic!

 So what next? well with May the 4th approaching, as our next club meet, a Starwars themed day of gaming approaches quickly. I also plan to get stuck in to painting The Fellowship, so I'll post on here how that goes.

Thanks for reading,
Until next time!

Let battle be joined - A battle report!

As Saturday the 20th of April rolled around, I packed my miniatures into my case and set off for a day of gaming at the Kirkby in Ashfield (K.I.A) Gaming club, hosted in the Kirkby Church hall, a stone throw away from the scenic church in the middle of the village. 

Kirkby Church, lovely in Spring!

I played a few games, of which I will post in later posts throughout the week. But the one I was looking forward to the most, was a demo game of Warhammer Fantasy Battles 8th Edition, hosted for me by a friend, Richard, who brought along 1000 points of Empire and Orks and Goblins. 

Now, I'm not too knowledgeable when it comes to list building etc. I'm fully invested after the game which was brilliant, but I haven't even done more than flick through the rulebook yet. So I will try to list what we had as best as I can.

Army General: Captain of the Empire with Heavy Armour and Shield?

Characters: Battle Wizard, Bright/Fire Magic

12 Reiksguard

20 Swordsmen

20 Spearmen

16 Handgunners

1 Great Cannon

They all had the Banner, Musician and Champion upgrades barring the Handgunners. They also had various armours and shields etc. 

Richard had, from the best of my memory, 

Orc Shaman

Orc Warboss

Orc Boyz

Savage Orcs

Goblin Wolf Riders

Night Goblin Archers

Now this was my first Warhammer game, and as such I didn't get as many pictures as I'd liked to have gotten. Being used to skirmish games, moving units and marching/wheeling etc took some getting used to. But I'll try to recount as best I can with what pictures I do have, exactly what happened!

Deployment:

We decided a simple kill everything until one side remained, or conceded, would be the objective of the game. With no idea on how the game worked, I deployed how I would on Total War Warhammer. A block of spears with Captain in the middle allowed my leadership bubble to reach as much as possible. To the right of that I set up my Reiksguard, to either aid the handgunners in fighting off some nasty looking wolf riders adjacent to them (especially after their vanguard rule allowed them to make a free move at the start, enabling them to be within charging distance before the game had even started!) or to charge the night goblin archers directly across from them. To the right of the guard I placed the great cannon with a clear shot at everything on the field and to the right of those, on my far right flank, my handgunners were deployed to hopefully wipe out the wolves, leaving me with a mobility advantage. To the left of my spear block I placed my swordsmen and Wizard. My hopes were that the swordsmen could tie up the savage orcs for a while whilst my wizard used either fireball or flamestorm to break the goblins morale.

From left to right

Swordsmen, Wizard, Spearmen with Captain.

Reiksguard, Great cannon and Handgunners

Another shot of the table.

Richard deployed his Orc Shaman in a block of Orc Boyz directly across from my Captain. He then deployed a big block of Night Goblins, and some Savage Orcs directly across from my Wizard and Swordsmen, with a goblin rock lobba sitting in the tower. I was looking outnumbered on the left flank. He then deployed night goblin archers across from my Reiksguard, and wolf riders across from my handgunners.

Orcs and Goblins deploy! Wolf Riders

make a sneaky move forwards due to vanguard.

Turn 1:
Richard:
In this turn, we established the priority roll. I won the roll off but decided to let Richard go first, so I could observe and learn rather than make silly moves right from the start. His wolf riders stayed behind the stone wall they had moved to previously due to vanguard. Pretty much everything else other than the goblin archers and rock lobba surged forwards.

Onto the magic phase and Richard got off a spell (forgive me, I forget the name of it now) but rolled a double 6! so after resolving the spell which inflicted a wound on my Captain, he rolled on the chart and took a S10 hit on his Shaman, inflicting a wound! I learned quickly that magic in this game was going to be a risky affair.

Both heroes wounded! A swift introduction

to the risks of magic.

The shooting phase wasn't too bad. 3 handgunners fell to archery from the wolf riders, arrows harmlessly plinked off the armour of the reiksguard and the rock lobba failed to hit home.

Brandon:
So onto my movement! I moved my spears and swords forward, along with my Wizard. The reiksguard I moved forward about 3inch and elected to stay there. My theory was that I could plough into the archers and wipe them out whenever, but I wanted to wait and see if my handgunners would need help against the wolf riders. This would prove to be a mistake soon. My handgunners and cannon stayed in place, as neither could move and shoot.

Magic phase didn't see too much action from me as I learned all about dispelling and not rolling two 6's etc. I ended up with 10 dice, and used 4 to cast the second level fireball spell (10+ cast, 2d6 S4 hits) and managed to get it off, frying 4 night goblins. I also attempted to cast flamestorm on the savage orcs, but it was dispelled.

Shooting saw me take out 2 wolf riders, not a great amount unfortunately. The great cannon fired a successful shot at the orc boyz, and managed to flatten 3 of them!

With no combat yet we moved on to the next turn.

Turn 2:
Richard:
Richard rolled for animosity on the orcs and only the goblin riders failed! They therefore had to charge into my handgunners.

Wolf Riders charge!

 The orcs in the middle with Shaman charged my spears, and the savage orcs and goblins advanced towards my swordsmen. The rock lobba predictably maintained it's position in the tower, eating popcorn and cackling at the charging lines!

No magic phase for Richard as his shaman had engaged in combat!

The shooting phase saw something quite unexpected happening...

The dreaded "anything but a 1!" curse...

A goblin archer managed to find a weak spot in all that armour, and felled a reiksguard!
Being a casual player I'm not always one for the "it's got to make it's points back in play to be worth it" when army building, but this goblin had just sniped more in points than it's whole unit was worth!
It was about this time I'd realised my mistake. The reiksguard should have charged down the archers in turn 1, and attempted a swift reform to charge the orcs in the middle from the back. Of course, it was my first game so these mistakes are expected. The rock lobba once again failed to hit anything.

Onto the combat and things started out not too bad. Due to the higher initiative my spearmen and Captain got to go first. Due to being charged my spears could attack with the front 3 ranks, which was excellent. The Captain managed to fell two orcs, and the spears managed to kill... 0!. The Orc retaliation was completely ineffectual as absolutely everything was either saved by armour or failed to hit in the first place! Beginner's luck?
The wolf riders however, took many losses and inflicted many losses but due to winning combat resolution (explained below) the handgunners fled... but were quickly charged and ran down, destroying them completely! This didn't go all the wolf riders own way though. Due to them charging over a wall they lost a wolf rider before combat started, due to a dangerous terrain test. They then over ran past the dead handgunners into a marsh, where a further 2 were lost in the murky waters leaving only 3 wolf riders, in the middle of dangerous ground...

Not a safe spot to be in!

Brandon:
This time I charged my reiksguard into the goblins. They had waited around long enough. My swordsmen charged the savage orcs, and my cannon and Wizard remained in position.

Magic saw me cast another fireball, this time a level 1 (5+ to cast, 1d6 S4 hits) at the night goblins. It hit, but only killed two due to rolling 2 on the d6. Due to low power dice count, this was all I cast! A very ineffectual round of magic.

Shooting saw the cannon fire again, and it pulled off a cracking shot. Bouncing through the night goblins it managed to kill 5 of them. Still not enough to cause a routing test but the numbers were dropping, evening the odds for my swordsmen...

Combat resumed and the spearmen and orcs had a go at it first. The spearmen and orcs battering away at each other, reducing each others numbers though the orcs were making more headway than the spearmen. The Spearmen lost the combat resolution and had to take a leadership test. This works differently than I'm used to in LOTR. The concept is similar, roll 2d6 (3d6 and drop the highest for my spearmen due to Empire rules) and you have to get below the highest leadership in the unit (or the general, if he is nearby.) Due to losing the combat resolution by 1, I was at -1 to my leadership. So with a leadership of 8 -1 totalling at 7, I rolled 3d6... and taking away the highest I manged to get 5. So the spearmen stuck it out!

Battle is joined!

The swordsmen fought the savage orcs, losing about 6 men for 2 killed. They passed their leadership however and managed to fight on.

The reiksguard charged the night goblins with their lances, wiped out a third of them which caused them to flee, and were promptly stampeded by chasing knights! This lead us on to turn 3.

Turn 3:
Richard:
Richard rolled for animosity and everything but the night goblins passed, who didn't move as they were too busy bickering and squabbling.
The wolf riders attempted to leave the marsh, with another failing the dangerous terrain test and running afoul of hidden pools. The two wolf riders remaining managed to get safely out of the marsh, but were too far from the cannon to charge it (luckily making my early mistake of not charging them with the reiksguard a bit less punishing. Though had I not lost my handgunners, I could have perhaps got into a position to open fire on the savage orcs or night goblins!)
The savage orcs and regular orcs continued fighting.

No magic again as the Shaman was in the thick of it!

The rock lobba once again failed to hit anything. It seemed largely ineffectual the whole game, but when I learned of it's points value I could see why it was good to bring one, if even to just make your opponent worry about where to place their units!

In combat, the orcs managed to beat down the spearmen until only half of the unit was remaining. The spearmen managed to kill a few orcs  but not enough, and it was swiftly becoming evident who would win this fight...

Spearmen before combat started. 

a further 5 were lost.

And sure enough, due to a failed leadership test my Captain and spearmen fled, and were cut down. A mighty blow indeed, and if that wasn't bad enough my cannon exploded due to a misfire roll.

At this point, I conceded the game to Richard. In my opinion the game was lost. The savage orcs were winning on the left flank, my right flank had been left wide open and in the end I had I think 5 reiksguard and a swordsmen unit left vs their orc boyz, savage orcs, rock lobba and 2 wolf riders. We played on my turn just to give the Empire a chance at revenge.

Brandon:
Movement saw the reiksguard charge the night goblins, the wizard back peddle from the savage orcs and the orc boyz and the swordsmen remain in combat.

The magic phase rolled around and through the use of a flamestorm spell, I managed to wipe out the Orc Shaman!

With no shooting we moved on to combat. As predicted the savage orcs broke and wiped out the swordsmen, and the reiksguard managed to kill a quarter of the goblins but they somehow managed to pass their leadership test and stick around.

A win to Richard!


In the end I had a lot of fun and it has convinced me to pick up an Empire army as and when I can. I made a few mistakes early on like leaving my handgunners exposed, and not charging with the reiksguard when I could have on the first turn. Thinking back on it, I perhaps should have left my handgunners to deal with the wolf riders whilst the reiksguard charged down the goblin archers. This could have allowed me by turn 3 at the latest to have charged the read of the orc boyz and the front of them would either already be in combat with spearmen or charged by them. This really could have turned the game in the Empires favour, as it would have been at least turn 4 by the time the two wolf riders would have caught up to me.

Most importantly though, we had a very fun game and I learned of yet another system I'm definitely going to enjoy playing. I also had another game against Adam and his Dark Elves, but that didn't go much better! I definitely underestimated the power of Wych Elves, and didn't get my handgunners into a good position until it was far too late (although to be fair, they did wipe an executioner unit by themselves when they did get in a good position!).

Stay tuned as next I will write a battle report detailing a daring rescue mission lead by the forces of Dol Amroth and Gondor. Can they rescue their men? Orcs and Uruk Hai aren't far away...

Until next time, dear reader!

Frostgrave Beginnings!

Following my recent first few games of Frostgrave, with miniatures and books borrowed from mates at the club, I've jumped in with both feet and ordered what I need to begin playing!

From a local hobby store I purchased both the rulebook and a set of elementalist wizard and apprentice! Both are in metal and are quite nice sculpts, which I will show off when I get them painted up. The great thing about Frostgrave is that there is no set "colour scheme" to stick to. Whilst the elementalist sculpt seems to picture his hair being almost like flame, and the book pictures his clothes being bright shades of red it never specifies exactly what element he uses in combat, neither in his description or the description of elemental spells. I'm going to try something a little different. It's called Frostgrave after all, so will try various shades of blues and whites to get a frost mage on the field! and I shall be doing a similar scheme for the apprentice!

Wizards duel within the Frozen City

The book itself is quite appealing, depicting two wizards and their warband doing battle within the frozen city...
 It certainly tells you exactly what the game is all about! There are also various images scattered throughout the book, using the miniatures to create various scenes.

A Wizard, Apprentice and their warband battle ghouls

outside of a Sepulchre in the city

The book contains what you would expect from a rule book. The core rules, optional rules, stat blocks for characters and creatures, a bestiary and a spell section. It also contains a few scenarios, and rules for things like building your own hideout within the city, a chart for rolling to see what beastie turns up during the game and a bunch more.

Some interesting beasties 

in this game!

The miniatures their selves now, and the as mentioned above Wizard and Apprentice. I can't wait to get these painted up, and I really like the elementalist in the game. He has a few spells up his sleeve, and the elemental school is closely allied with some useful schools (allows to cast spells from those schools without too much of a penalty to cast) such as Enchanter. The demo game I had saw me using elemental bolt (+8 to hit shoot attack) to wipe out many targets from a distance. A few spells I had but didn't quite get around to using included an elemental shield to soak up damage, a scatter bolt which is the multi-target variant of elemental bolt and the ability to call upon a storm, which could be cast multiple times to confer a -2 to hit on all shooting rolls per cast which certainly puts crossbows and archers out of action!. Something worth mentioning here is that "elemental bolt" could be open to interpretation as to which element it actually is, further inspiring my idea to create a frost elementalist.

Elementalist and Apprentice

£6? Robin Hood himself would be

proud of that steal! ;)

And that brings me on to my last item, which funnily enough arrived whilst I was writing this post.

Frost Grave Male Soldiers by Northstar

quite a lot of variety!

I saw on Ebay, for £4 I could get a sprue which would allow me to build up to 5 varying soldiers. A full box for £20 will give you 4 sprues to create 20 men (or women if you get the right box!) which is a little more than I need. So instead I'll build up these chaps, and I've got lying around somewhere a miniature of the sapient pearwood luggage of Two Flower from Sir Terry Pratchetts' colour of magic that will make a fantastic "medium animated construct"! This will give me enough to play the first few games of a campaign at the club, with a second sprue winging its way to me in the next week or so. As you can see, the models are plastic and come with many different head, arm, weapon, accessory and equipment options which make for some unique models, something I'm always happy for. And of course when kitted out, these fine chaps will make perfect sell swords, mercenaries, town guards etc for all kinds of gaming systems, bonus!

Sapient Pearwood Luggage, or in my case

a medium construct for FG!

And that's me kept busy for the next week or so! I've been slowly painting and basing up some Uruk-hai, which will feature in a blog post later in the week, and I aim to get the Frost Grave soldiers assembled and painted up also!

Thanks for reading, and apologies for picture quality. I'm relying on my phone's camera until my partner and I get a camera next pay day!

You have a good day, and I'll see you next time!

Welcome to The Sherwood Forester!

Welcome all to my blog!

The intro

I am a 22 year old wargamer from Nottinghamshire, close to the beautiful nature reserve and history site of Sherwood Forest, home of Robin Hood! (hence the name!). I've been trying to get into wargaming since I was about 11... but lack of funds and friends with an interest in the hobby defeated me for many years up until last Christmas when I finally took the plunge, went to Warhammer World with my girlfriend and picked up the new Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game rulebook. And boy, it was probably one of the best decisions I've made in a long time. From there, I played a few games when and where I could before being invited to join the KIA (Kirkby in Ashfield) Gaming Club! 

this has seen me play a few more games, from the charming skirmish game of Frostgrave, to the fantasy action fest of Warhammer Fantasy Battles! (8th edition). This, and a long time desire to start a blog of my own, prompted me to finally create one!

The Major Oak, Sherwood Forest on a gloomy day!

So what will the blog feature?

A bit of everything, to be honest! 

Wargaming, perhaps the odd film, programme, book or video game related post may sneak in but only where relevant. I hope to provide reviews of gaming systems, battle reports, custom scenarios, painting and terrain making and perhaps even posts of wargaming shows I attend! 

Being rather new to both wargaming AND blogging, I'm excited to get stuck in and bring entertainment to my readers!

Any particular gaming systems?

Most definitely! As mentioned above, Middle Earth SBG and Frost Grave are both my current "main" systems right now. Middle Earth has always been one of my favourite worlds to get immersed in, having read the books, seen the films and played the multitude of games hundreds of times, it should come as no surprise that this is my main system. I am slowly getting to grips with it, mostly playing 600 point scenario games, or indeed working through the Fellowship Journey Book campaign with a few mates from the club.

Middle Earth SBG - Dunedain attempt to stop

The Nazgul from entering The Shire!

Frostgrave appealed to me simply because it is a charmingly fun little skirmish game of wizards flinging tonnes of different spells at each other, whilst fighting all sorts of "neutral" beasts that are drawn to the sound of conflict! My first small demo game I had at the club was an excellent example of this. I'd send my apprentice and two crossbow men to the left of the table, along a ruined courtyard. My apprentice was sniped down about turn 3? which was a big pain... but my wizard did get revenge in killing the other teams wizard! Shortly after this, one of my men reached the treasure. The roll for a creature took place and a large white ape appeared, and was promptly controlled by my opponents apprentice due to his knowledge of witch spells! It is this randomness coupled with the small amount of models required to play resulting in a smaller play time that appeals to me, a nice change of pace from Middle Earth.

Frost Grave, a fun little skirmish game 

of daring wizard duels and mad dashes

for treasure!

Any future ideas planned?

Yes. Warhammer Fantasy Battles 8th Edition, I'd really like to start off with collecting Empire! I've also obtained a box of British Infantry, a Cromwell and a Mortar team for Bolt Action. Being a WW2 Enthusiast like most wargamers, I was drawn to Bolt Action and it's in the pipe lines!

The Outro

So that's me and my blog! Thanks for taking the time to read this, and any subsequent posts! Please bare with as I learn the many features of Blogger and also the many different ways of Wargaming. I'm hoping to upload a post by the end of the week on how my latest game of Middle Earth went, so stay tuned.

Until next time!