Orcs Repainted and Re-based

After the battle on Sunday, I decided to spend my free time on Monday completing the six orcs that were showcased last time and to attempt to complete another six orcs.

Here are the six orcs that were almost there on Sunday - I have tidied just a little more of the paint work and then added some flock to their bases to help improve their look and to mark them out as done...

Orc Elites (leader plus two handed warriors)...

Orcs with shields and scimitars...

And, hot on their heels are six more orc warriors. Again, I just tidied the pre-existing paint work by standardising the colours and getting everything back "within the lines" as far as I could. They are still very basic paint jobs and I will not be shading, highlighting or doing any other fancy work for these. They are just very basic figures for use on the tabletop and for my son to just generally play with...

Orcs with spears...

Orc archers...

And finally, here's a shot of them all together...

These took maybe three or four hours in total to complete. I am happy with how they have turned out considering how they looked beforehand. My son is very pleased with what he has seen so far, and he has the added bonus that he will see them completed next time he comes over.

I also took a look in my son's figures boxes yesterday and noticed that he has maybe another dozen or so orcs that need bringing up to this standard. Unfortunately, many of them are damaged, so this may take a little while to get around to - maybe later this week I will get them all out onto the table and patch them up where I can - maybe cannibilising some to complete others?

Orcs vs. Gondor III

The kids came over this weekend, so I was able to test out my new game mats and complete the third Lord of the Rings battle against my youngest. He decided he wanted to use his orcs and Gondor warriors again. When I showed him the re-painted miniatures (not all are finished so far, but 6 are almost there and the other ten or so have been started - see previous post, Orc Repaints) he was over the moon and asked when I could get his Gondor troops to the same level of completeness. I mentioned that I would try to finish off his orcs by the time I see him again in a couple of weeks and then we can talk about his Gondor troops.

Anyway, this battle was to be the decider. I had a few little odds and ends to tie up around the house before we could get started, so I asked him to set up the table again. He quickly grabbed the green felt table mat and plonked a few items of scenery onto it. He then placed both sets of our troops how he wanted them. Here is the initial set up - Gondor moving in from the left and the orcs from the right.

After the two close-fought battles from a couple of weeks ago, we decided to pool the survivors, tweak the rosters a little, and fight a final set piece...

Gondor...

Baramir - Gondor captain (Battle Companies stats)

3x archers

3x warriors with hand weapon and shield

3x warriors with spear and shield

The orcs...

Balgor - orc captain (Battle Companies stats)

5x orc archers

3x orcs with hand weapon and shield

2x orcs with two-handed weapons

5x orcs with spear

The numbers are a little skewed in favour of the orcs, but I wanted to see how well the Gondor troops could fight when outnumbered, and what tactics might best be utilised to deal with superior enemy forces.

Balgor looked up from watching the flames that were cooking his field rabbit and spotted a couple of small bands of battered orc warriors approaching through the scattered trees and bushes. He barked a greeting and asked why both Grashnik's and Griknash's boys were leaderless. The defeated orcs looked down at their feet as they mumbled that they were ambushed by man patrols from the big city. They stated that they gave a good account of themselves, as many of the man-things had fallen too, but if they were joined by Balgor and his small, but tough, band they could easily over power the remnants of the Gondorian patrols before they could return to their city. Balgor quickly summed up the situation; sixteen orc warriors arned to the teeth versus the remnants of two beaten up Gondor patrols. This should be an easy victory. Knowing which direction the men were headed, Balgor knew exactly where to meet them in battle to bring his advantages to bear.

Baramir looked up from his contemplation after burying his fellow warriors and noticed that the remains of Foromir's patrol had just come into view. He hailed them and asked for a report. Although they had won their skirmish, they were sad to report the loss of their captain. They mentioned that they had tracked the remnants of the orc warband that they had defeated to a clearing where it was noticed that they had joined forces with a few other warband remnants. They reported that there were maybe as many as fifteen or sixteen orcs; a warband that would need to be destroyed if the good farmers of Gondor were to sleep easier in their beds that night. Guessing where the orcs would head in order to set up an ambush, Baramir decided to go pell mell and try to head them off at a small hamlet that would act as a good ambush point for the orcs.

The men and orcs spotted each other at either end of the abandoned settlement and each leader barked out their orders. The men split into two wings; the right wing was heavily armed and made straight for the biggest band of orcs that were protecting their archers, and the left wing archers moved to outflank the orcs with support from a heavily armed warrior with a spear and shield. Balgor was not to be outdone after he realised that his ambush ruse had been anticipated and decided to split his forces. He led a handful of his toughest warriors to meet the Gondorian archery threat and ordered the rest of the warriors to protect the five orc archers who were climbing the nearest hill for a good vantage point for shooting.

An archery contest began to take place as the heavily armed warriors on both sides faced off against each other. The Gondorian archers shot down an orc with a heavy two-handed weapon to the left but then one of the Gondor swordmen fell to the right (1 dead orc/1 dead Gondor).

Spurred on by their previous tactics, Baramir led his men into the thick of the combat. Outnumbered, the stout men of Gondor fought for the honour of those that had died on the previous two encounters. Two orcs with scimitars and shields were felled but the brave captain of Gondor narrowly avoided a grievous wound (passed his Fate roll). The men pushed their advantage as the orc forces on the right flank began to waiver (3 orcs/1 Gondor).

Back on the left flank, the Gondorian archery claimed another heavily armed orc warrior, but these small victories were suddenly overshadowed as the retreating orcs on the right flank felled an over-eager Baramir; the fates would not save him this time. The death of their leader halted the Gondorian advance and spurred the orcs into a final push back before their retreat and regroup. One more Gondorian swordsman fell, leaving the right flank severely depleted (4 O/3 G).

Seeing the death of their leader and how hard pushed the right flank was, the archers and their spear support man headed back towards the main battle fray, firing their bows at the enemy as they went. Unfortunately, the concentrated fire-power of the five orcs on the small ridge was too much for the Gondorian skirmishers and one of their number fell. The renewed combat at the base of the hillock led to two more Gondorian deaths in return for just one orc warrior slayed. The men of Gondor, leaderless and losing men too quickly to the well-planned and fought orc ambush, decided to make a break for it, but managed to strike down another orc that was in their way (5 O/6 G).

As a final parting shot, the Gondorian archers managed to kill one last orc spear wielder to at least salvage a little honour after being so decisively beaten.

Victory was for the orcs today. Their loss of face from the previous two defeats had been avanged and the hated man-things had finally been defeated. They would feast on man-flesh tonight, and tomorrow take their pick of the farmers and their live stock.

The break point in Turn 7 came as a welcome respite for the hard pushed Men of the West. The battle started well for them, but the orcs turned out to be tougher this time round. The five archers on the hill top certainly kept the men's heads down and limited to a small degree what tactics could be carried out. The loss of their leader so early also seemed to foretell the patrol's doom. Still, four men (2 archers and 2 spearmen) got away to tell the tale and perhaps they can get back to their commanders to organise a retaliatory attack on Balgor and his boys (10 survivors - Balgor, 5 archers, 3 spearorcs, 1 orc with scimitar and shield). This was also the first time we started to use the advanced stats - we decided to use fate rolls, which helped both of the leaders escape death on on eoccasion each. I will continue using Fate from now on, and perhaps introduce Might in a few games' time, as this stat takes a little more to master adequately.

I will take a quick look at the Battle Companies rules over the next few days and try to make Balgor's mob into a coherent fighting force. I will then make up a fresh Gondorian (or maybe Rohan?) Battle Company to fight against them. However, littlun would like to use his Easterlings, so we may fight with those next time. I will see what he wants to do.

Orc Repaints

During the course of the two battles a couple of weeks ago my youngest son commented on the broken miniatures in his orc collection. I mentioned that they were OK for now and allowed us to play our games, but I could see that he wanted me to fix them up for him.

All of his Lord of the Rings minitaures were bought second-hand from eBay and are certainly in need of a spruce up. After he had sorted out the orcs for our next game (hopefully due this weekend) I noticed that he had three that were actually broken and the rest really need some painting TLC.

I took a look at trying to fix the three broken orcs; two archers with the tops of their bows broken and a spearman (spearorc?) with a missing arm! I managed to find the top of one of the bows but I am not sure how to progress with the other two at the moment - my bits box may contain some parts I can scavenge.

Anyway, as the light has been improving with the coming of spring, I also decided to take it upon myself to re-do the bases of all of his orcs to at least get them to look like a coherent unit. I matched one of the basing techniques that seemed to look the best, and got all sixteen (including the three broken ones) to the same level of neatness.

Unfortunately, in my mind, this would not do and I began to look at the poor paintjobs. They were not the best in world, so I decided to begin tidying them up too. I wasn't going to do a full re-paint on them, so just stuck with getting the disparate sets of figures into a single, coherent look.

I managed to finish six of them today and will complete the rest next week. They don't look too bad considering they are just a basic block colouring in to cover up where the previous owners had "gone over the lines". I didn't do a full fix on them, so there are still lots of the original "wrong" bits, and I won't be shading or highlighting them, nor will I be varnishing them, but I may put a little bit more effort into the bases. I think littlun will be pleased with these...

The shields were also a bit of a mess, so I just shaded them a very dark grey and free hand painted an Eye of Sauron on two of them. It was a one-time attempt with no touching up - hopefully I have emulated what an orc paint job would be well enough.

I am not a great fan of green orcs, but as some were painted a kind of green and some a kind of dark red, I just went over them roughly with a similar colour.

I daresay he will ask me to do this for each of his small armies (he has about 120 or so second hand figures). It will keep me out of mischief at least until I can summon the muse to get on with my own lead and plastic miniature mountains.

Felt Battlemats

After the loss of so much of my scenery a few years back, I thought I would look at purchasing some stop-gap items to make the table look a little better for forthcoming games. After looking back at the last couple of battle reports, I thought that the first thing I needed to get was a battlemat.

With a battlemat as a purchase in mind I perused the websites of all the main suppliers of tailor-made solutions. There are some really lovely pieces out there, but they are well out of my price range as I am currently on a very limited budget.

So, I thought to look at haberdashery stores for my inspiration. For a mere £6.71 or so per item (plus £7.95 postage, which was actually very reasonable coming to the UK from Europe), I managed to find a German company online ( https://www.myfabrics.co.uk/felt.html ) that supplies 3mm thick felt that is 90mm wide but can be cut to size in 10mm measurements (minimum of 50mm). Thus, I was able to buy three 90mm x 90mm sheets of fairly sturdy felt that fit almost exactly onto my dining table (when not extended out). I decided to go for Dark Green, Grass Green and Slate Grey...

Forest and wildlands (Dark Green)...

This sheet will be used for battles in the wilderness; the dark forests of the Great Weald of Doggerland, the grasslands of Rohan and many others.

Cultivated and grasslands (Grass Green)...

This sheet will be used for battles in more cultivated areas; The Shire, parts of Gondor and more civilised areas on habitation.

Hills, mountains and cold wastelands (Slate Grey)...

This sheet will be used for battles in Frostgrave or hilly/mountainous regions.

All three are actually very nice colours in the flesh and work well for what I need them for.

I will hopefully be playing a game or two this coming weekend, so will let you know how well the different mats fare.

Orcs vs. Gondor II

Somewhere else in Gondor : Around Lunchtime

Another game was played today. We are using the standard One Ring ruleset with forces approximately the size of a Battle Company. Again, my son set up the table how he wanted it and we played the same forces as those on the table on Thursday.

A reminder, the forces were as follows (but captains' names changed for this scenario)...

Orcs:

Grashnik - orc captain (Battle Companies stats)

3x orc archers

3x orcs with hand weapon and shield

3x orcs with spear

Gondor:

Foromir - Gondor captain (Battle Companies stats)

2x archers

3x warriors with hand weapon and shield

2x warriors with spear and shield

Grashnik had heard of the demise of the other part of the warband (see what happened in the last bat rep). However, he knew he was smarter than Griknash, and he was also a bit more cautious. There was another abandoned farmstead in the next valley over - he would destroy the second Gondorian patrol that had been spotted a few days before, and then meet up with the remaining orcs from the other half of the warband to destroy the remaining hated man things. He set up his warriors in a more compact formation and awaited the arrival of the second mannish patrol.

The two warbands spotted each other at either end of the road that passed through the farmstead. Foromir immediately ordered his men into an attack formation and advanced rapidly upon the orcs. The orcs, under their more cautious leader, peeled off to either side in order to gain advantageous spots from which to wear down the men with their arrows.

This tactic worked, as after a couple of volleys, Foromir, who was rapidly advancing towards the reluctant orc warriors, took an arrow to the throat and fell. The Gondorian men-at-arms saw their leader fall, but resolutely advanced on their foes. They managed to make contact with a small knot of orcs and took down one of their number in revenge.

However, the orcs were buoyed significantly by the death of the enemy leader that they charged into close combat causing another stout Gondorian to fall. Encouraged by this easy defeat of so many enemies in quick succession, the orcs threw caution to the wind and attacked the dwindling Gondorians with greater ferocity. However, they didn't factor in that men were made of sterner stuff than orcs and they over-reached and were pushed back leaving Grashnik surrounded and alone. He was quickly cut down by the Gondorian troops, but as they had in turn now left their flank unsecured another brave human warrior fell. 

 

At long last, the Gondorain archers began to find their mark, and another orc fell to the dust. The orcs began to panic and started to shoot into combats to try anything to take down the hated men. An orc warrior was felled by a black shaft from his own comrade and this caused the rest of the warband to take notice of just how many of their fellows had fallen.

 

The remaining orcs took one last swing at their enemies and turned tail, but not before another was felled as he retreated.

The remaining Gondor men-at-arms gathered together once the last orc had disappeared from sight and drew breath. They discussed what to do with the bodies of their comrades and the orcs. They decided to strip the orc bodies of valuables and put their weapons into the freshly dug graves of each of their brothers. The orc corpses they left for the wolves.

This battle went the full ten rounds we had set aside for this game. Again, the sides were evenly matched but tactics played an important role again. The orcs played a more conservative game and this helped them. The Gondorians were more reckless and their early losses showed this. This battle saw more combats where troops ganged up on their enemies. This seems to be a decent tactic to reduce enemy warbands steadily one soldier at a time.

Again, I decided not to take too many pictures of the battle as it would have slowed everything down, but jotted down what happened in each round so that I could knock up this missive.

 

For the next battle we may go for other factions or maybe swap sides - it depends on what my son wnats to do. I was thinking of putting the survivors from both Gondorian patrols together, and have them hunt down the remaining orcs plus a few reinforcements.

Orcs:

Balgor - orc captain (Battle Companies stats)

5x orc archers

2x orcs with hand weapon and shield

2x orcs with spear

Needs some reinforcements (maybe half a patrol, but a few extra weapon types? - 1 archer, 2 heavy weapon, 2 spear). We will check available figures for this warband and adjust the order of battle accordingly.

Gondor:

Baramir - Gondor captain (Battle Companies stats)

3x archers

4x warriors with hand weapon and shield

3x warriors with spear and shield

 

After this battle, I may set these two warbands up as proper Battle Companies and proceed to tell their ongoing stories whilst introducing the additional rules.

The Final Stand

I leave him alone for five minutes and my littlun sets up his figures in an imaginary scene. I asked him to tell me all about it and he said it was the last stand of a Gondorian patrol against a horde of orcs.

Here's a couple of pictures I took as he played it through (in his imagination)...

As the orcs were killed, they were replaced, but the Gondor troops weren't. Alas, eventually, the patrol was to be no more, but they held out heroically for a very long time.

This scene was set in the wilderness of Middle Earth. The battle took place on a small hillock, upon which the men of Gondor sold their lives dearly against the hordes of Sauron's minions.

Orcs vs. Gondor

Somewhere in Gondor : Around tea-time

Long story short, I have my youngest staying with me until Sunday prior to him going back to school on Monday, and he has been very keen to play what he calls the "Tabletop Game". I don't have much scenery available but I handed him the box and said set it up. He sorted out 10 orcses for himself and 10 Gondor troops for me from his own collection, and laid out the table as per the image below...

I did a quick mental calculation and thought that my force was a wee bit better than his, so I took away an archer and spearman to make it a little fairer. The forces were as follows...

Orcs:

Griknash - orc captain (but used stats as per Battle Companies)

3x orc archers

3x orcs with hand weapon and shield

3x orcs with spear

Gondor:

Baramir - Gondor captain (used stats as per Battle Companies)

2x archers

3x warriors with hand weapon and shield

2x warriors with spear and shield

Griknash knew that there was a Gondorian patrol in the area, and presumed that the hated man-flesh would soon cut through the valley by a small, abandoned farmstead. He set up his warriors in a wide sweep in order to take advantage of the men as they advanced through the hamlet. He split his forces evenly with one of each troop-type in each squad.

Baramir was getting tired of the grumbling coming from his patrol. They were thirsty and tired from trying to hunt down a known orc force that were harrying the local area. He whisht his men to be quiet as they approached the farmstead and approached the settlement cautiously.

The Gondorian archers who peeled off to the left flank with some spear support soon found themselves in a dangerous cross-fire, and after losing one of their number in a very one-sided fire-fight decided to try to rejoin Baramir and the rest of the warriors in the centre of the settlement.

Encouraged by the easy defeat of the Gondorian archers, the orcs advanced greedily upon the rear of the retreating warriors. In the distance they also caught the yells of fear from the hated man-things, so hurried to join the rest of their warband who, from the sound of it, were also having equal success.

Baramir called his troops onto his position and decided it would be best to take out the orc leader in the hope that the rest would flee. Close combat ensued, and this proved to be the undoing of the orcs. Two warriors fell in quick succession, and then by ganging up on Griknash, felled the orc leader very soon thereafter. Unfortunately, another stout Gondorian warrior fell to the blades of the orcs.

Things also did not bode well on the large hill to the south for the orcs. They successfully shot down a swordsman, but the close combat Gondorians closed in on the final orc rear guard. The orcs were soon put to the sword.

 

Upon seeing the very rapid demise of their leader and three of their compatriots, the remaining five orcs turned tail and fled into the hills to lick their wounds.

Baramir drew in a deep breath and looked around at the carnage that was was left after the encounter. He had three dead troops (one archer, one swordsman and a spearman) to bury and five orcs to dispose of. He commanded his men to dig quick graves for his men and then build a pyre to get rid of the orc bodies. Each of his dead warriors was buried with the weapons from the orc corpses and a few words were said to speed them on their way to the afterlife.

This was a very short battle (7 rounds played out of ten) but fun. I think the sides were evenly matched but tactics played an important role. The orcs managed to roll mainly sixes in the first four rounds, but then their luck changed and the rolls became more equal overall. The Gondorian archers couldn't roll anything but ones, but the ganging up of the heavily armoured warriors against single orcs led to them winning in the end. By sheer weight of dice rolls was Gondor able to prevail, but I think the orc player has learned a thing or two here, so the next game should be a lot tighter.

I decided not to take too many pictures of the battle as it would have slowed everything down. However, I briefly wrote down what happened in each round so that I could knock up this little narrative.