Hail, Theoden, King!

Hi all,

Got in my first, "full game" game of Lord of the Rings the other day with Rohan.  I've played them extensively in Battle Companies (the narrative / skirmish version of the game), but this was the first time I've had enough painted to be comfortable dropping them on the table.

The Rohirrim ride forth.

I took out 500 points of Riders, led by Theoden, Gamling, and Eowyn, against my buddy's brand new Corsairs of Umbar army, led by a (generic) Ringwraith, Dalmyr (the Corsair "big name" character), and a couple of bosuns (minor heroes).

Theoden inspires the troops.  Finished him up the other day, lovely model.

It was smashing fun.  Rohan bring to the table what I love, mobility, and flexibility.  The can shoot, fight, skirmish and charge; not the best at anything, but pretty good all-round.  About the only thing they don't do well are numbers / horde tactics, and for that, I have Mordor.

Both sides worn down.  I'm looking to take out his characters at this point.

We played a scenario (the game is very much scenario / objective driven) in which we were both trying to escape across the table, getting points for models we moved off, and wounding the opposing leader.  This actually presented me with a fairly interesting tactical problem, in that while my all mounted force could easily run rings around my opponent, if I simply ran across the table, I'd lose.  He outnumbered me to a significant degree (about 2:1), and the game ends when a force is broken.  In other words, if I ran across the table, he'd be able to do the same (although it would take him longer), and he'd end up with more scoring models than I had.  I had to not only get my guys across, but also whittle his down enough that he couldn't outscore me!

With at least moderate success.

This led to some fairly cagey play in the first half of the game, where I used my speed and range to try and whittle him down, and then a series of charges, counter-charges, and melees in the second half as he tried to break through, and I looked for advantageous fights.  Rohan does well on the charge, but is vulnerable to being bogged down and mobbed, and it was a solid learning game for me, as I worked out how to use heroic abilities to keep my Riders in a position to choose fights.

The more I play this game, the more I enjoy it.  We'll be starting another Battle Companies campaign this week, but I'm also hoping to get in some side games with full armies, so likely to be coverage of SBG in the future.

FMB