Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 dsteingass wrote:
.>And interestingly, the scenario in the rulebook calls for 5 Great Eagles plus Gwahir right? lol

think so, yeah

So I played an 800pt vs 800pt vs 800pt game today.
my army:
Gwahir
Eagle
King
10 Dwarf warriors
King's Champion
3 Vault Warden teams
Elladan and Elrohir
8 Rangers of Arnor

Opponent A's army:
Khamul the ringwraith
10 easterlings
Dragon Knight
4 kataphracts
Uruk-hai captain
4 crossbowmen
2 trolls
5 Warg riders
Easterling captain
7 easterling bowmen

Opponent B's army:
Khamul the ringwraith
Some character (forgot the name)
12 easterlings
Captain
12 easterlings
Dragon Priest
9 easterling bowmen

The deployment was me on the left side, opponent A on the right, opponent B at the back and the hill at the front (objective was to get the most men on the hill by the end)
First few turns, the armies moved towards the hill, A keeping all his infantry and his wargs facing opponent B, who then duked it out for a while as my dwarves moved up onto the hill.
Opponent A's kataphracts (heavy cavalry) charged my dwarves, who held the line and slowly killed them off.
Both opponents realised what was happening, so they ganged up on my outnumbered and surrounded dwarves on the hill, as the rangers gunned down the enemy bowmen.
The huge swirling clusterfeth on top of the hill (my dwarves definitely starting to buckle) was interrupted, as always, by the arrival of the eagles, who killed several men, but were kept from the ever shrinking circle of green-cloaked dwarves surrounded by the gold-armoured easterlings.
Game ended after three hours, with a grand score of:
10 of opponent B's men on the hill against 9 of mine and 7 of opponent A's.
I'd like to think that if the game had continued, the easterlings would have forced a stalemate with each other (B probably winning by a small margin), and my eagles slowly but surely picking men off the dwarves, while the rangers charged in and swayed the odds in my favour, but ultimately my opponent's use of might to alter movement and combat led to the cornerstones of my army (the king, his champion and the eagles) being cut off from the main force.

edit: forgot not-quite-men of the match:
for my army, it's probably my lone spearman, who stood up against two trolls and three easterlings for two turns straight, killing one and holding an entire flank alone, stopping the remainder of my men being trapped.
For opponent A, it's probably Khamul, who held up 4 dwarves for about 6 turns of combat, not really killing anyone but being a constant thorn in my army's side.
For opponent B, it has to be his lowly unnamed captain, who stood up to, and killed, an uruk-hai captain, 3 easterlings and a dwarf warrior over the course of 5 turns.

*phew* three hours of gaming one battle...how do you keep staying motivated to wait such long hours? i get tense just playing a regular game of cards^^

 Viktor von Domm wrote:
*phew* three hours of gaming one battle...how do you keep staying motivated to wait such long hours? i get tense just playing a regular game of cards^^

If I'm having a good time, it just flies by- when I'm not, I usually try and hurry it along a bit, and f I'm having a miserable time, I make some excuses and leave

lol... so we can deduce from the amount of time spent it was time spent in pleasure?

 Viktor von Domm wrote:
lol... so we can deduce from the amount of time spent it was time spent in pleasure?

Yup, it seldom isn't but usually the game's a little less interesting- this was a three-way battle full of forged and broken alliances and lots of good and bad luck each side, resulting in a close and hard-fought victory

i can only assume how complicated it must be to develop a strategy against two oponents...

It got confusing when the two easterling infantries charged each other in a swirling melee
with me, it was kinda simple- sneak up the hill while those two batter each other, defend said hill from any attackers.
I was the victim of bad luck- because opponent B had won every game we'd played with him, me and A decided to not exactly gang up on him, but prefer to attack him if we had the choice and it was reasonable.
Because I'd done that a couple of times previously, I decided to make it look like I wasn't teaming up, so I fired a bowman at A's crossbowmen, which I rolled a double 6 for and killed- A then took that as a declaration of war and assaulted my unprepared army, and I couldn't say why I shot at him without giving the game up to B

lol... clver strategy it seemed...but if your teammate/oponent doens´t read the signs then every clever plan is futile... too bad... could ahve been quite the lecture for B otherwise...

true
In other news, I'm planning on building a valley board some time relatively soon (gathering stuff next week), hopefully getting it built before the end of march (depends how quickly me and a friend get everything together and build)
It's basically gonna be 4' x 3', with the last 1' x 3' being the valley, which'll be about 8" wide and with ledges up the sides for archers.
The valley will end in a dwarven gate, and there'll be a river about a foot into the board on the opposite side with three bridges on.

something like this:

green being the defender's deployment, red being the attacker's.
The valley's a different size to the others because if it were any bigger it'd look weird, and it wouldn't need the corners to be cut out because it'll be removable for when we feel like a regular game

Just played a game today:
Ally:
Legolas
8 wood elves w/ bows
Haldir
4 wood elves w/ spears
4 wood elves w/ elven blades

My men:
Murin and Drar
2 Vault warden teams
10 Iron hills warriors
Gwahir
Eagle

Enemy men:
Khamul (ringwraith)
Dragon Knight
6 easterling cavalry w/ war drum, 6 shields and banner
10 easterlings w/ 10 shields, 5 pikes
Uruk-hai Captain
2 trolls
4 crossbowmen
1 beserker
7 easterlings w/ bows

Basically the deployment kinda went awry- Elves were in the top right, with the uruks top centre and easterling cavalry bottom right surrounding them.
My dwarves and eagles started bottom centre, with the enemy easterling infantry starting top left.
Objectives were top right (easterling-held), centre (no-man's) and bottom centre (dwarves)
Basically the elves got slowly but surely wiped out, but held on long enough for most of my dwarves and my eagles to take on the trolls (losing an eagle but killing both trolls) and holding off against the easterling cavalry and uruk-hai, winning that objective.
Unfortunately, the easterling infantry managed to rob the dwarf-held objective by having six men on the objective to my five (though I could probably have taken it back next turn if it went on), and the top right corner was held by two easterlings camping out for the game
We said we'd finish at five, and at five a turn ended in which we held two objectives out of three, but we didn't notice and were into the next turn when we realised, so a moral victory for us good guys, but an actual victory for the forces of evil due to player error

I still haven't finished painting my Dwarves, here you've played a bunch of games!

normally once or twice a week
not really in a painting mood the past couple of weeks, more in a gaming mood

nice looking sketch for the table... we´ll definatly need more sketches^^

aye, it's kinda rough ATM, but hopefully over this weekend we should be talking about materials and sorting it out, then possibly next week buying 'em.
The main board's kinda easy- 4' x 4' sheet of wood, cover in sand, spray black, drybrush as stone with patches of grass.
Then there'll be the river, which we haven't decided whether or not it'll be modular (i.e: movable or embedded), modular allowing better aesthetics, but modular being, well, movable.
There'll be a stone bridge (not sure what we'd make it out of though) and a wooden bridge (lots of coffee-stirrers).
A ford, which'll basically just be a shallow patch of river with rocks on it for men to try and cross.

Then there's the valley itself, which we're not too sure on.
Pink or blue polystyrene would allow more detail, but we'd need something along the lines of a 12" x 12" x 18" block, and cutting that much would be a .
then there's regular white polystyrene, which would crumble and decay quite a bit, even with a coating of PVA.
Then there's good ol' paper mache, but that'd be fairly imprecise and we'd still need something for it to lay on.

so in conclusion, we don't know
we're going to be talking to our GW manager to take a look at what we've come up with this weekend.

Hey chief,

Just dropping in to say I finally looked out my lotr stuff. There is much less than I thought so I think I dumped a lot but I'll have a think about where I might have more.

So far I found 6 incomplete Riders of Rohan, a troll, Sauron and Mount Doom Elendil and Isildur. I believe the last pair are quite rare now.

If your interested reply here or pm me.

Oh no Shrike! You don't need solid foam, it's the understructure, so just cut small manageable strips and then glue them together. ou'll likely be covering it in spackle or filler. Foam cuts like butter with a sharp knife! Much easier than you might think!

aye... and slice it like plasticcard... only score and then snapp it for straight edges...at least that´s what works for me...

dsteingass wrote:Oh no Shrike! You don't need solid foam, it's the understructure, so just cut small manageable strips and then glue them together. ou'll likely be covering it in spackle or filler. Foam cuts like butter with a sharp knife! Much easier than you might think!

I've only previously tried to cut it with a poor quality craft knife and a tenon saw (which probably wasn't great either), and it could just be my pathetic excuse for upper body strength
thought didn't really occur about doing 'em in strips and gluing 'em, that sounds good

Viktor von Domm wrote:aye... and slice it like plasticcard... only score and then snapp it for straight edges...at least that´s what works for me...

ah, thanks for the advice

so... have ye strated yet?^^

Alas no, and I'd forgotten about a family outing tomorrow, and a few of us have a game planned at the store on friday, so it's looking to be next week

d´oh....

aye

Had yet another gaming session:
First game pitched mine and an allies' forces:
Gil-galad
12 warriors
Elladan and Elrohir
6 bowmen
King
3 Vault warden teams
13 dwarf warriors
Murin and Drar
Gwahir
Eagle

against two enemy forces:
12 Kataphracts
Dragon Knight on horse
Dragon Priest
20 easterlings
Captain
Captain on horse
7 Bowmen
Amdur, lord of blades on horse
4 Kataphracts

Basically went something like this:
- We stay put and gun down a few easterlings per turn
- Easterlings charge, centre (guarded by the elves) gets hit hard due to an easterling phalanx letting all 12 men attack 4 elves (the rest not being able to push a gap to even the odds), meaning they are steadily killed
- Left flank (vault wardens, king and a couple of elves) holds out against , but after the middle folds, the infantry from that peel round to attack them, and ultimately surround and kill off the defenders (albeit taking several losses, including Amdur)
- Right flank (13 dwarves, Murin and Drar), somehow, manage to hold off against 12 Kataphracts, a captain and a Dragon knight, despite being up against superior fighters, on horseback, and outnumbered, for almost the entire game (the last two dwarves, surrounded, outnumbered and knocked to the ground for three turns) get finished off.
- Eagles, having tried to fly around and attack said cavalry from the back, got tied up for three turns fighting four kataphracts sent to slow them down, and were then killed by the bowmen, a captain and the dragon knight trapping them (though, again, they did take some men down with them).

In the end, our forces (due to extremely bad luck down the center) just couldn't push through the enemy lines and were constantly fighting outnumbered and trapped, while the enemy forces (due to the war priest giving them, in effect, a 5+ invulnerable save) just kept getting back up- we must've killed a dozen of the easterlings which got back up. If these two pieces of bad luck for us had gone differently, it'd have probably been a closer defeat (probably bowmen and a few isolated cavalrymen vs. the elven heroes and a few isolated dwarves), and maybe possibly a narrow victory if my eagles had been luckier and survived another turn or two.

well, my order of Dol Amroth knights (these fellas):

arrived today.
Well, briefly- the postman turned up with 'em but no one was home, so he left 'em back at the post office sorting place a couple of miles away, which is annoying seeing as he could've hidden them or given them to a neighbor instead, but hey.
I'm hopefully going to pick 'em up tomorrow.

Can't wait to see them!

I can't wait to play with 'em!

In future news, after I get Imrahil (ordering next week, getting him the week after), I'm going to be picking up this pack:

Not really for Durin on the left, but for his Bodyguard, Mardin, on the right- I'm planning on converting him into a king- that bald, eyepatched head is just too awesome
plan is to remove the spear, rotate his left wrist 90 degrees (and give him a shield on it), then replace his right forearm with one holding an axe, pointed outwards, kinda like my captain vault warden fella:


Then a long period of slowly buying four men a fortnight for my gondor army will ensue (£16.00 for four is pricey for my lowly income), followed by faramir (who I'm still puzzling over how I'll make him- I want him with armour, but I'm not a fan of his helmet, and these are the two models for him:

If I feel like splashing out on the money, I might buy both and stick the bare head on the armoured one, or I might just stick with the (much cheaper) leather armoured one.

Well, after two weeks since the last update, I have assembled a list of everything I've done:

as you can see, I've been immensely busy
Hopefully pics at some point of said men between now and saturday, nothing special, but then nothing special's really happened recently...

but then nothing special's really happened recently

beside life in general