Dice Tower

Due to a lack of time and, indeed, inclination, my hobby time has shrunk over the last six months. Although I am more than happy to have been in solid work now for nearly two years, it is taking its toll  on both my health and the time I used to have available for hobby related stuff.

My health has been a little up and down recently, with several long-term running related injuries compounding each other and resulting in an MRI scan being required on my right knee. A lot of rest and lower intensity training since November 2021 has led to most of the injuries healing but I am still under the physio to sort the last bits and bobs out (and these will take a long time apparently as I am not getting any younger). Add to this a great deal of work stress, and stress from other illnesses (which I won't go into at the moment), what time I could have available to game with is usually spent procrastinating.

That said, I have been doing a little bit of hobby related stuff over the last six months, in that I have bought a few items to add to my growing pile of projects. Most of my purchases/Christmas gifts were rule/sourcebooks of one sort or another, along with a few figures and paints. I bought my youngest son, who has an uncanny ability to score a six almost every time he rolls a die, a Dice Tower for Christmas, in the hope that his relentless sea of sixes would be somehow curtailed.

It is a lovely, if expensive, piece of kit that makes absolutely no difference to my dice rolling ability, which is and always has been really poor. But, my son's incessant runs of rolling sixes has been slightly curtailed in that he only rolls a six every second or third dice roll now instead of every other one! I call that a success :-)

Over the last weekend we had a really good chat about what we wanted to do gaming-wise this year. We both agreed that lots of figures had to be painted and scenery built so that we can play slightly larger games than the skirmish sized ones we currently play. So, we agreed that we need a proper gaming mat, plenty more trees and bushes etc., and to paint enough figures to make a couple of armies to play a larger scale game like Dragon Rampant or something similar. We think a campaign would be a good way to go too.

We got to chatting about re-purposing my large collection of Lord of the Rings figures to fit into my own gaming universe. There would be a few major factions, and a couple of minor ones who can ally with the larger armies when/if necessary.

Humans 1 (major faction)

Heavy Infantry/Cavalry (Gondor), Light/medium Infantry/Cavalry (Rohan), constant allies (Wolfen)

Humans 2 (major faction)

Heavy Infantry/Cavalry (Easterlings), Light Infantry/Cavalry (Haradrim), summoned allies (Ushabti)

Orcs (major faction)

Heavy Infantry (Uruk Hai), Light Infantry (Mordor Orcs), Heavy Cavalry (Warg Riders), Light Cavalry (Fell Wolfriders), constant allies (Moria goblins and trolls)

Humans 3 (minor faction)

My son wants to build a "Celtic" army that includes his Welsh and Irish (as well as a few Saxon figures)

Dwarves (minor faction)

Hobbits (minor faction)

Fomorians (minor faction)

As to how this pans out over the coming months, who knows? If my lethargy doesn't kick in too much, then hopefully we can get some of this achieved and get to play some larger scaled battles by the end of the year.

Tame the Beast

On Sunday, my youngest son and I decided to get our old Lord of the Rings figures out and play a Battle Companies scenario of Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game. From the older Battle Companies supplement, we randomly rolled Tame the Beast, which we have played before, but this time the outcome was totally different.

The small Gondorian warband, under the control of Damril, approached a small village from the east. They had heard rumors of a great beast that was attacking farmers and stealing their livestock, and wanted to be rid of the monster before it could do any more harm.

Ushnar, the orc brute approaching from the west, had also heard the same thing, but he was of a different mind. He was hoping to gain from the chaos caused by the beast, but also wanted the glory of slaying it.

Damril and his faithful band of Gondorian warriors...

Ushnar's warband...

The orcs were spotted by the troll and it charged them with a roar of wild glee. The orcs were in line of sight and nearest to the troll, so they were charged as per the rules.

Whilst the orcs were busy trying to fight their way out of the troll's attack, Damril ordered his men forward.

After several rounds of combat (no less than 20 dice were rolled by the orcs without a single 6!), the orcs were forced to give way and slowly retreated as their losses began to mount.

Damril kept his men at a distance whilst hoping that the orcs would whittle down the troll's strength so that they could then move in for the kill.

In the meantime, the Gondorian archers made mincemeat of their bow wielding counterparts...

Until only one orc skirmisher was left and the rest of the orc rabble turned tail and fled...

This didn't work out too well for the Gondorians as they now felt the full brunt of an angry troll that had been attacked (but not injured) and was looking for another chance of vengeance.

The Gondorians fought bravely but slowly lost ground, and soldiers, to the enraged troll.

The orcs' courage had failed them, and all turned tail and fled the village except for one lone archer.

He too fled the scene moments later, leaving just a handful of Gondor's finest to face down the troll.

They too thought that running away was the better part of valour, so the field was left to the triumphant troll.

The game ended a draw as neither side was able to down the troll.

We both enjoyed the game although we made a couple of minor mistakes with the rules as we hadn't played for a while.