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.