Friend of Foe?

And we're back for the second game of Battle Companies. This week we were joined by a new player who took the Dwarves into battle. As it was still early in the campaign, there wasn't any disadvantages to play through and none of the other companies had gained any upgrades yet. With an even number of players, we set up the board and went to war. For this game we played for treasure markers. 7 counters on the board, each scoring 1 VP if held at the end of the game, additional VPs were awarded for killing enemy Heros and remaining unbroken at the end of the game. The game would randomly end after 2 companies had broken, the winner being whoever had the most VP. Nice and simple for 4 players and pretty brutal as you'll see.

The Alliance advances to grab their first treasure and readies themselves to march on the Goblin lines.

The and Orcs and the Dwarves storm forward to claim some treasure of their own.

The Orcs enter ruins in the center of the field and make for the treasure. Meanwhile, the Orc archer takes up a vantage point, holding the warband's existing loot and waiting to snipe off enemy troops.

Battle is joined as the Goblins and the Alliance clash over treasure. The Goblins were able to claim the contested marker first, but now they had to defend it.

Seeing the loan Orc atop the ruins, a Goblin hero and his underling attempt to rob the Orc of his loot.

The Elves and Men take down several Goblins and force the screaming runts back up the hill. Though the Goblins still hold 2 treasure to the Alliances 1, they are fighting a losing battle.

The Orc Leader is dropped by a Dwarven arrow, but the remaining Orcs take to the following combat with glee. Dwarf armour proves the better as no casualties are inflicted.

The Goblins and the Orcs on the top of the ruins exchange blows, but neither side can break their opponent. This duel would continue for several turns.

Once again, Elven martial prowess shines through and the Goblins are forced to retreat from the Alliance's line, holding onto only 1 of their treasures and losing nearly half their number.

The Goblins flee to the ruins, hoping to scale the walls to safety before the Alliance can catch them. The Orcs break off from fighting the Dwarves, seeing the men and elves as softer targets. the Elves also hold 3 treasure markers, making their deaths even more profitable the Orcs.

A free-for-all brawl breaks out as Dwarves and Orcs scale the ruins to defend their gains. The Alliance forces are caught between the charging Orc and their pursuit of the Goblins who have been backed against the wall, unable to escape.

The Orcs make their strength known to the Alliance and break their force, pushing the game one step closer to it's end. Pinned in, the Goblins fight all the more furiously to survive, dealing out some hurt to the Alliance before their own losses cause them to break. As an Orc pushes a Dwarf hero from the top of the ruins, the battles ends with the screaming profanities of the tumbling Dwarf.

The Orcs hold 3 of the treasure tokens and have slain several enemy heroes for a loss of only one of their own, scoring 7 VP at the end of the game and taking the win. The Dwarves and the Alliance score 3 VP each and the Goblins only scored 1VP from the single treasure they held onto.

After the battle, the Alliances efforts proved beneficial as all 3 of their heroes gained their first advance. The Elf took to the path of sorcery and the Numenorian Sgt. embarked on the path of the warrior, while the Numenorian leader began his journey to becoming a great general. The Orcs also gained some advances. The Uruk Sgt. had carried the battle for the Orcs after the fall of their leader and would now continue as a warrior to be feared. The Orc archer found his calling as a scout and has ambitions to be seen as an assassin before the campaign is over.

Now some of the heroes have gained some skills, and a bit of personality too, I thought it would be cool to get some models built to represent these stand out individuals. I'll post some shots of these as I go later in the week. I just hope I can finish them before we next play.

Painting... Turnips?

A short update on what I've been painting this last week. Some of you on the twitter may have noticed, amongst the wargaming community, the #turnip28 bouncing around. What is it? No freakin' idea, but I like the look of what people have been doing with it. After some research and a brief chat with someone that knew more than me on the topic I learned what I needed to get involved myself. In a nut shell, Turnip28 is a game themed around (for lack of a better term) Post-Apocalyptic Napoleonics. Yeah, how do you like that? The rules are still in development at the time of writing this, but I recommend checking out what people have done. On that note, here is my contribution.

I present the Gleebland Wandering Garrison. I've plans to add a war wagon and a few more riflemen before I'm done, but for those interested, give Turnip28 a search. There isn't much more direction I can offer at this stage, but it is growing fast and it's definitely a project I'll be going back to over the next few months.


I've also finished off some Rohan infantry and an extra rider that I found hiding in my bits box. Just so I can say I painted something intentionally and didn't just get detracted by dirty riflemen in medieval helmets.

Company Assemble!

Once again this clouds gather over Middle-Earth and me and the boys set forth to carry out the will of our respective masters in a few games of battle companies. When I presented this game to them I promised them the wonder and action they'd come to expect from the movies with the chance to level up there heroes to the equal of this guy...

...Or even this guy if they were lucky.

But I neglected to mention that everyone was going to start out as this guy.

Looks like my sales pitch worked however and we picked our companies from what I had available and went to war, but not before someone made an off-hand joke about the Wombles and it ended up sticking as their company name.... so..... first up from Cirith Ungol, The Wombles of Wimbleton

Last Alliance of Pony Team 6

And from Moria, the Smurfs

On to the first game! We set up evenly spaced from each other, the objective was to be the last warband standing. Our early moves saw everyone move into favorable positions. The human/elf alliances took up defence around the house, using barrels and the hedges to prevent them being flanked. The goblins began clearing the wall, but held their position. The uruk and orc murder squad barreled forward looking to smash whichever player got too close first.

The goblins strike out at the elves, hoping to cause some damage before everything gets a bit crowded.

The orcs prepare to deal out some real carnage of their own and form up into ranks.

The goblins failed in their attempts to slay the elves and fled to the safety of their own lines before they could be dealt punishment. The orcs made their choice and assaulted the goblin mob, hoping to break a few heads before the elves got too close.

As the forces of the Last Alliance wade into the melee, the goblins withdraw behind the wall, hoping to use their numbers and the barricade to their advantage.

Meanwhile the orcs and the forces of order begin to take chunks out of each other. Eventually the orcs manage to separate the Numenoreans from their elven allies and attempt to use their numbers. The elves jump the wall and flank the goblins, breaking their resolve and setting the stunted fiends to flight.

That just left the men and elves to deal with the surviving orcs. With their uruk leader having fled earlier in the battle, the remaining orcs decided to follow suit. There would be another day to slay men and elves.

First game was a great introduction for everyone and the boys were quick to grasp the rules. Everyone is excited for the next game as the post battle sequence awarded a few bits of kit to the evil warbands and the Last Alliance gained a new member. No upgrades to speak of, but every warband is a man down next game due to injuries.

I've had the urge to play Battle Companies since the first book was released, but it took lockdown to happen so I had time to play. Still, not going to complain and I'm looking forward to next time.

Hunting With Chums

This weeks game night was Kill Team. Not much to write up about this as we used at a bit of a practice game to get Paggy familiar with rules and as a refresher for me and Abe. The mission was to hold the central objective and 1 other objective to score VP and we played 80 point teams.

Always a good bit a fun and carnage to be had in Kill Team.

Forth Eorlingas!

Just an update on the Riders of Rohan today. Painted, varnished and based this afternoon, just before the rain hit us in the evening.

Next will be Theoden and some warriors on foot. That'll start me off nicely for some small games in the house without having to buy anything.

Killing Time

A pretty quiet week on the hobby front. I've been taking advantage of the nice weather to go for walks and clear the cobwebs. That said, I've made a deal with myself. I really want to build a Dunland army for LOTR, but I've got plenty to build and paint as it was and I had 3 Evil armies already. So the deal was, I paint the Rohan army that's been sat in a box for ages and then as a reward, I'll get myself a Dunland for use alongside it at the next Into The West (hoping things are going ahead by then)

Onto the painting then. Horses are done, shields are done, riders and Eomer are in progress.

I've been enjoying painting these so far. I was worried that these would be a slog for some reason, but once I started, I've become excited to finish them.

I did buy War in Rohan to get a complete idea of what I'd want in the Rohan army after the Riders and Eomer and I'm kinda thinking of have Helm Hammerhand take the lead. It does lead to a lot of the Riders being left out, but it's a cool model and a different take on the Rohan army.

That's it for now. More next time.