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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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!