Battle Companies: Orcs vs Gondor

Yesterday my youngest decided he wanted to play with his newly painted orcs to see how well they would do on the battlefield. I pulled out my trusty old Battle Companies manual and put together a Battle Company for each of us.

He picked a standard Mordor force (3x Orc with shield, 2x Orc with spear, 2x Orc with 2-handed weapon and 2x Orc with bow) and I had a standard Minas Tirith force (2x warrior with shield, 2x warrior with spear and shield, 2x warrior with bow). As usual, we only used Fate (we still have to learn Might and Will stats properly) for the leaders of each warband.

I let him set up the table how he wanted it and away we went...

The orcs...

Minas Tirith...

Gondor started with priority, so the sword and spear armed troops advanced towards the centre of the board to try to gain some advantage around the farm house. The archers peeled off to the right wing to engage the orc archers and flank the main body of warriors. The orcs huddled together trying to find cover on their way towards engaging the men-at-arms.

A little more manoeuvering and the Gondorian archers had the orc archers in their sights. An exchange of arrows saw little in the way of danger to either side, but the warriors that clashed in the centre of the farmstead exchanged blows and a Gondorian swordsman and spearman fell in quick succession to the savage blows of orc scimitars.

 

 

The orc archers had by now got their bearings on the Gondorian archers and stuck one of them with a well aimed arrow. In the centre of the village, the Gondorians, now surrounded, saw more death as their leader bit the dust (failed Fate roll). A further flurry of combat saw the last remaining, extremely outnumbered Gondorian spearman not only win the combat but also dispatch the orc leader - things had become quite blurry by this time...

 

 

On the flank, the last remaining Gondorian archer fell to the well-placed orc shafts and the now hopelessly outnumbered and totally surrounded final Gondorian man-at-arms was cut down by the remaining members of the orc warband.

 

This game was a total disaster for Gondor. Five rounds and completely wiped off the board. I have never seen so many fives and sixes rolled in a game! The lad had a little dice rolling ritual that seemed to work for him (but not me when I foolishly tried it) - left hand up in the air with fingers crossed and right hand mumbled into saying the result required.

Also, if these newly painted figures had been mine they would have suffered from newly painted figure defeat syndrome. Not for my son - the new paint jobs positively made them shine. Sour grapes, moi? Surely not!

Moving swiftly on. We have played quite a few games of straight fights now, and we ar efairly familiar with the basic rules, so I think it may be time to set up a campaign. I had a chat with my son and outlined how Battle Companies actually works for a campaign style game. He is up for it. So, next time he is over, we will sort out a new Battle Company each, name them and read up on the other stats (Might, Will and so on) we have not covered yet.