Horses for courses

 Hi all,

While remote gaming will hopefully continue for the near and mid-term future (barring some interference from the Traditional September Hurricane), in-person gaming is likely coming to a close for a while.  There is a decided nip in the air, we're getting more rain, and the wind is growing teeth.  That said, I managed a flurry of games around the end of August and beginning of September, including Cub's first game of Flames of War (the subject of a future post).  Among those were a couple of games of Lord of the Rings SBG, both of which I lost, but, as usual with SBG, were fun games with plenty of thinking involved.

Rohan deploys.

The first game involved a couple of firsts for me; it was the first time I'd played with Eomer (who's the best combat character for Rohan, although probably a second tier fighter across the whole game), and it was the first time I'd played against a war machine (in this case, a Mordor catapult).

That big gap in the line?  Yeah, that's from one catapult shot.

Turns out, the latter was a bit of an eye opener.  On the first turn of the game, my opponent dropped what amounted to a perfect shot right in the middle of my line.  Several dead riders, and unhorsed heroes, later, I had to radically reassess how I was going to proceed in the game ;) !

All shots are from the Mordor side of the table.

Eomer, Eomering.

This left me with a bit of a quandary.  Scoring points in the scenario meant taking an objective behind his lines, and harming his general (although, amusingly enough, I spent the entire game confused about who his general was), while preventing him from doing the same.

On the plus side, Eomer was still on his horse, had a couple friends, and turns out to be a complete beast.  He ended up in a 3(or 4?) on one in his first combat, and won ;)

Riding to ruin, and the world's ending.

The catapult continued to be a  . . . . presence . . . on the battlefied, although he never connected with it quite as well as that first shot.  In the end, he pulled it out, but had the game gone another turn, I'd likely have pulled out a win - which wasn't bad, given how things looked at the beginning of the game.

That catapult.  That damned catapult . . . .

A few weeks later, we got in what I hoped would be the revenge scenario, my Mordor vs. his Numenor.  For those less familiar with SBG, or LotR in general, Numenor is the "olden times" human kingdom, and Elendil and Isildur are the father-son combo who, along with the elves, stood against Sauron in the second age.  In other words, they are top-tier raging baddasses, which sadly, Mordor generally lacks (beyond the Big Man himself, whom I don't take).

Odd deployment on this one.  Our forces were split into opposing corners, and we had to chase objectives across the centre line of the table.

Playing against the dynamic duo is generally an objective game.  Can you get ahead on points / position far enough that when they contact your lines (and it's really, really hard to stop them), you can soak the casualities until the game ends, and edge them out.  This time, the answer was "no".

In retrospect, I should have raced for the centre, using the "march" option.

I find playing against Numenor with Mordor rather similar to playing my Beasts of Chaos in AoS against . . . well, anyone, in that you pretty much forget the attrition / killing stuff element, and just play for the objectives.  This one was pretty tight until the final turn, but he managed to break through with Elendil, my "control" resources were exhausted with my Ringwraith's will depleted, and had the game continued, he would have simply pulled ahead.

As it was, his troops are superior to mine, and I couldn't bring the numbers to bear to offset that advantage.

I alsways forget how much I enjoy SBG until I play it.  It's mechanically solid, very much objective based, and "thinky" without being oppressive.  Although there are a few dud minis in the range (why, oh why, did they put Morannons in the starter box?), there's also some that are just gorgeous, and the line as a whole had weathered the years well (the older sculpts are what, 20 years old?).

The painted stuff is mine.  Yes, I did just throw shade on my buddy ;)

It also fits nicely into that "mass skirmish" scale of game.  A large army is maybe 3 dozen models, which is entirely manageable, even for a slow painter like me.  I've now got (more or less) fully painted 700 point lists for both Rohan and Mordor, which is enough for a "big" game, and am at the stage where I'm adding characters, and thinking about new projects - like expanding the Galadhrim I ran for Battle Companies a while back (the "small skirmish" version of the game - thing LotR Mordheim).  Plenty to keep me occupied, anyways.  Assuming we weather the upcoming hurricane, I might even squeak in one more game before the winter.

Elendil, demonstrating why it took a corrupted Maiar of the first rank to take him out.  Those two orc archers are not going to do the job.