This weekend saw a little more Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game action in the form of another Battle Companies confrontation between my youngest son's Gondorian company and my orc company.
My son set up the table and we decided on a fight to the death scenario rather than select one from the rulebook. In the end though, a narrative grew out of it and it became more of an ambush set by Gondor upon an orc patrol.
The starting positions saw my son hide all of his troops from sight of the orcs. So, I decided that I should approach the village as if I did not know they were there.
My orc archers on the right spotted the Gondorian archer over the back behind a tree and shouted across to the Black Numenorian leading the party to warn him of their presence. A general advance began on the village with a small squad of three orcs peeling off to hunt down the lone Gondorian archer.
The three orcs harrassed the archer, but one of the double-handed axe wielders fell to a Gondorian shaft. First blood to Gondor. The rest of the orc company ran forward and the Gondor patrol sprung their trap. It was a bitter fight but the orcs had the better of the Gondorians in the end. The Black Numenorian with his F4 made the day (this is the first game ever that the Fight stat came into its own - the extra point of F for the orc commander proved pivotal in a couple of important melees).
The Gondorian forces were whittled down, surrounded and butchered over the course of just a few rounds, but they kept making their Courage rolls until there were just two soldiers left. They high-tailed it out as soon as their combats were over.
This was a solid victory for the orcs; orcs lost one two-handed axe wielder (out of a starting 10) for the price of two archers, two swordsmen and two spearman (out of a starting 8).
We used the new dice tower to make the dice throwing fairer and this time it actually worked in my favour. The usual plethora of sixes every other roll by my son was nullified and the dice gods actually favoured the orcs this time.
It was a fun game and over in the space of around half-an-hour. A nice afternoon's treat just before lunch.
