Lord of The Rings SBG- Playing the new books.

Last Saturday afternoon I got the rare chance to get out to the remodeled Chicago Battle Bunker for what can best be called a LotR area players gathering. These type of casual events dont come up too often and since I haven't played any Warhammer coming up on almost a year, This is one of the only things that's going to get me out there. It was a packed Saturday afternoon at the bunkers new smaller footprint of only 22 tables. Which yes sounds like alot, but not in comparison to its previous real estate. Every table was packed, with a variety of games , we had maybe a dozen LotR players from the Chicago, Joliet and Kenosha/ WI areas all in attendance. Great to see and play some of these guys
whom I only talk to at Tournaments or online.

We were all playing the new books and scenarios. Personally I am really liking the new book for my Mordor force as it opens up my lists to be a bit more flexible and include some other stuff that was associated with other lists so they had to be taken as allies. The ones I am interested in are generic troops whom shouldnt necessarily be stuck within certain lists, but thats the way *Legions*was setup so thats way we played it. In the past, if I wanted a pure Cirith Ungol List I was shut out from taking certain troops in accordance to theme. Thats all gone now, Mordor is Mordor and building theme lists is really up to the player.

Once again I was fielding my Tower of Cirith Ungol List, and under the new *Warbands* setup my list was:

Shargat, Captain of Cirith Ungol.
4 Mordor Uruk Hai
7 Orc Warriors w/ Banner
Mordor Siege Bow

Gorbag,
9 Orc Warriors
3 Orc Trackers

Shelob

Orc Shaman on Warg
3 Giant Spiders
8 Orc Warriors
1 Spectre

Trying out new units available, like the Siege Bow as a response to shooting, the Giant Spiders to run along with Shelob as an anti-Cavalry measure and the Spectre just to be a pain in the butt was alot of fun, I have since dropped the Siege bow and added some more foot troops. The list still tops out at 40 models which is a good number under old rules, but quite low for Mordor as tournament list in the Legions era.

My first match up was against Jeff whom I recently played at last Novembers BBB, He was also running Mordor and while Evil vs Evil matches are never my favorite, its a reality of tournaments so I was glad to throw down against a Mordor list different than mine. Jeffs was essentially a Minas Morgul force led by the Dark Marshall, loaded with Black Numenorean warriors, and Morgul Knights then filled out with Orcs..he also had a 12 dozen of so Orc Trackers for shooting, and Grisnak the Orc Captain in there as well.
























It was fun match up, with things like the siege bow randomly hitting stuff and my Spectre doing wacky things like commanding one of the Morgul Knights to move out of formation so I could swarm it with Orcs on their move. We were playing the Domination scenario and we both had broken forces at the end and Jeff just squeaked out a victory over me with a Score of 8 to 7.

I must say the scoring and new deployment rules with the new books are great. GW really took a look at some of the larger issues with the game here to make it more playable in both causal and tournaments. Deployment specifically has new some great tactical decision making woven into it. especially if you find yourself facing a much larger force. Great Job here.

My Second game was against  Chris whom I have played many times now, and made the drive down with the WI contingent. Chris is great painter so always fun to get our miniatures down on the table together (although I was using some wip stuff here, sorry). He brought Gimli, Dain ironfoot and the Dwarf Rangers. We really started mixing this one up early with alot of front line deployment. I had a decent size flanking force with Shelob and Gorbag, against Dain while Shagrat and the Shaman with the Spiders took on Gimli. Chris was really sweating the courage checks for Gimli once we had the big melee going, as I was using the spectre to simply make him take a walk away from the battle. it never happened thou. We were playing "To the death" scenario...we really close to model on model attrition and both broke within a turn of each other. when it was all said and done VP were identical  and it was a solid draw and a great game.

This was basically a test list for Adepticon, I wanted to give my Mordor with Shelob one more go before I come back with good guys in fall. I have recently got my hands on bunch of old metal orcs, which a 100X better models than crappy plastic Orcs. So I am with pleasure repainting a bunch of this army, which should hopefully give this army a bump it needs in the appearance department to compete at Adepticon this year. with my current list, I only need to use about 5 plastic spearmen (and I am looking for metal OOP GW orc spears if you got them?)  and the rest of the Army is all metal, which is great...there is really no comparison when it comes to painted metals vs the early GW LotR plastics, they are just  terrible and to think they are charging almost $2 a piece for them gives me a shudder. I wont both with bitching about prices today..we all know the drill.























Great people and great games, good to see all the armies out this day, mostly good armies on the table other than a pair of Mordors (mine and Jeffs) and some Easterlings.  Adepticon this has an odd solution for the new books and that its you can run either at Adepticon this year..using the old Legions books will give players a distinct advantage over the new books because they be able to avoid the Hero ratio requirement and can spam more troops which is always the tournament "big pink elephant" in the room. Using New scenarios would really help even the playing field on that issue but as far as were told they arent being used and are using the regular Adepticon scenarios...So
I'll roll out my 40 model Mordor army and surely face huge superior numbers..not much I can do about it, I'll just go bring some good looking a well themed stuff and have a great time geeking out on Lord of the Rings.

Speaking of geeking out on LotR, this weekend is Gathering in the Desert run by my pal Tim K in Phoenix, AZ. always an awesome spectacle and event..I wish I could ever get my act together and get out there..but with it always being close to Adepticon, getting away with the wife, kids and business
has made it impossible, I will be checking in spirit looking for updates, Go Mordor!