Tuesday Night Gaming

Plastic Legions HQ, 5/26

Despite the Legends of the High Seas campaign its been a relatively slow month for me. Games Workshop new policy of store hour cutbacks have prevented me and countless others out there from being able to game in their shops. Even thou I want to come in and spend my money there I can't, because getting there before it closes to buy some paint is hard enough forget about trying to get a game in...The Chicago Battle Bunker closing at 8pm was the nail in the coffin for me. Outside of a special event.. like a tournament that I plan on for months or having a very rare free Saturday. If I do get a Saturday free..Oak Park runs its events for beginners on weekends and getting to the battle bunker is traffic nightmare there and back so I barely have time to get a full game in before I need to leave. My options for playing WFB are now limited to twice a month at my own hosted club night (glad I got my fill with those 18 games in the month before Adepticon because I wont be seeing 18 more games of Fantasy outside a tournament until probably 2011).

Tonight was return to a classic, The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game..this is the game all the rule sets for those Historical Skirmish games I talk about are based on. This game simply rules and its too bad it never got more popular..While I like the new War of the Ring, lets be honest. GW wrote WotR to help try to sell the huge amount of unsold back stock of product they had laying around because they were not capable getting the game to catch on due to the terrible way they marketed it. Again- I like War of the Ring but its overly simplified and walks a razor thin line of throwing all strategy aside to pure luck by the crazy number of dice thrown. Whether Lord of the Rings SBG falls into the no mans land of the Specialist Games still remains to be seen..GW has more than likely run the course of potential supplements or are close to it..thankfully the new models are dual purpose and you can get alot of milage out of both games.

Tonight I played a pair of 500Pt SBG games, Billy (not Bill, Billy is the other Bill) brough both Umbar and Harad and showed me why Sauron made them his allies and not his enemies.

Mordor vs Harad - Domination

Mordor

Shagrat
3 Uruk Hai
10 Orc HW& Shield
8 Orc Spear
Orc Capt.
Orc with Banner
6 Warg Riders , HW & Shield, Bows
Troll

Harad

Suladan
Hasharin
Raiders
Serpent Guard
Infantry with Spears

In Domination the objective is to capture 4 specific points on the board...in this game it was each corner, we both deployed in opposite corners so we had to defend our own corner while trying to capture the others. Billy deployed in the city, while I deployed outside on the beach. Although Billy won most of the Priority rolls..he put alot of man power on killing my troll which allowed me to spread all over the board..my Warg Riders managed to do plenty of damage this game removing three of his intercepting Raiders allowing me to capture the church with infantry and send some Warg Riders after his own base removing the lone defender with some arrows. My Orc Captain led his own assault team to remaining quarter, and although he couldnt climb to save his life..his men held off the deadly lone Harshin long enough for Shagrat to break the will of Harad and start the courage checks..The Assassin routs..I know have all four control points.. The game continues and Suladan battles his way back..causing me to rout and many of my troops start to flee the battlefield. I lose one Objective due to routing, Shagrat and Suladan have an epic throw down and while the Castellan of Cirith Ungol goes down..his men holdfast and games ends with Mordor the victor.


(1st time I've got to game on my Osgiliath Table, while its still along way from being done, its slowly coming together and quite playable in the rough shape its in and I am currently working on 12 x 12 " city tiles of different textures (cobblestone, Flagstone, Brick) to really bring it to life I should be updating soon.)

Mordor vs Umbar- Contest of Champions

I ran the same list, this time Billy brough Dalamyr, an Assassin, Captain and Bosun with a bunch of Corsairs and 8 Arbalesters. Fate and Luck abandoned Mordor this time..as the Arbalesters shredded both my Troll and Warg Riders like pincushions. Without their support and my forces split, My Orcs were eaten alive my Corsairs, Shagrat couldn't convert anything losing numerous fights to a "hand of fate" die roll, while Dalamyr was stacking up Orc bodies like firewood for the winter..Once the routing started it was all over..Shagrat proved why he's the toughest S.O.B Orc hero in the game, He sticking around until the very end (most of it surrounded)..but eventually Mordor was tabled.



( I've changed my Walls to these pieces for the table, much more practical to play on, plus they are taller and look the part)

As you can see from my brief recaps while I brought the same army and we played on the same table- both games were completely different. Billy's heavy support (the Arbalesters) was devastating and while my superior number and Cavalry won me the day against a smaller more specialized Harad force..I was softened up enough to get crushed when I met the seasoned Pirates of Umbar. Both these game were dynamic and exciting and its the kind of stuff you often don't get a chance to appreciate in the larger format games like WFB,WotR, 40K, etc.

We also had some Warhammer Ancient Battles going on. I've been struggling getting my Celt Army built..I am not loving the models from both Wargames Factory and Warlord Games that I have. Both have significant issues that bug me and when you are building tedious multi part plastic models you'd better love what you are doing or you will go nuts. I still love the game but am debating dumping all the plastics and just going with Foundry's Models..I am so impressed by the recent Foundry stuff I got...That a 1000 points of Foundry Celts would be simply amazing to paint, however its pretty steep luxury at around $300 USD to replace the $80 of plastic troops I have built. Anyway I gave up my WAB game to Chris since we had an odd number of players tonight. He and Rich did the Arab vs Celt rematch and the Arabs carried the day once again..With a new WAB campaign open to all being hosted by Adeptus Windy City and the new book coming this year..I expect to see alot more WAB ahead..what models I will be using is another story.

All in all a great night we were missing some bodies but I expect to see us back at close to a dozen for the next meet.. That's it for now, June is coming and June is about the Empire!