Fantastic Battles LOTR and some fighting Robots

 Great fun today, driving down to Chris's house for a couple of games. First up we played Fantastic Battles with our 10mm LOTR figures from Copplestone Castings. Borrowing one of the scenario's from the author (Nic Wright) who recently released a pdf of siege rules and scenario's Chris set the scene for our Orc and Rohan forces as follows...

“LET ROHAN LOOK TO ITS HORSES”

Following the recent discomfiture of the Nine, a raiding party has crossed the Anduin to steal valuable black horses. King Theoden is unwilling or unable to listen to warnings, and those who still have an eye to danger are looking west towards Isengard, not east to the river.

Never-the-less, a force is hastily raised and sent forth to try to prevent the thefts, and avenge whatever other foul deeds the evil raiders have perpetrated.

When they arrive in the Eastmarch they find burned farmsteads and slain farmhands and no horses at all of any colour. A few survivors are able to point the way the raiders went, though little help is needed to follow their foul path. More disturbing are the wild tales of a dark shadow of fear that accompanied the orcs…

The game uses the Reive and Retrieve scenario from the supplement (see below), with Rohan being the defender, and Mordor the attacker.

A raiding force from Mordor is attempting to acquire horses, especially black horses, from Rohan.

Army size

Both players recruit 660 point armies. In addition, Rohan starts the game with four to six (i.e. 1d3+3) herds of wild horses, each based as an individual company. (We used some bases of Romano British light cavalry i have to represent these.) 

Terrain

Set up a battlefield 20x20bw with one area terrain feature in each quarter of the table.

Deployment

The defender deploys their army within 5bw of their own table edge and no closer than 4bw of either side edge. The attacker then deploys their army within 4bw of their own table edge and no closer than 4bw of either side edge.

In this scenario, all companies must be deployed individually. Companies may not be formed into groups.

The wild horses are placed on the table by the defender after the attacker deploys. They may be placed anywhere between the two deployment zones, no closer than 3bw from the nearest company, and all facing towards the attacker’s table edge.

Special rules

Wild horses are unaffected by resolve and unless contacted by a herding company will make impetuous moves at the start of each of the defender’s action phases. Reroll any results of Over there! Wild horses have a base movement rate of 4bw.

A company belonging to either player is deemed to be herding wild horses, and therefore dispersed amongst them, when touching the wild horse base with both front corners. Once a company has started herding wild horses, they may not voluntarily cease.

The horses and company merge together as a two-company unit in column formation facing the direction of the company. They have a movement rate of 4bw or the movement of the company, whichever is slowest. They may not change formation or intentionally move into base contact with an enemy unit. All base edges of the herding-company column should be treated as flanks for the purposes of shooting and melee modifiers. Herding companies cannot shoot in the Shooting phase.

If the herding company loses sufficient Resolve to scatter, remove the company but leave the wild horses in place on the table.

Victory

The attacker must attempt to drive the wild horses off the table along their deployment edge. Any company that drives a herd off the table is also taken off the table. Such companies have not scattered and do not cause their friends to suffer loss of Resolve. The game lasts for five to ten turns (i.e. 1d6 +4) or until either army breaks. At the end of the last turn, the attacker receives 2 victory points for every wild horse base they have driven off the table whilst the defender receives 1 victory point for every wild horse base remaining on the table. The victor is the player with the most victory points.

Once deployment was complete we were quickly into each others troops and trying to grab the wild horses. I think the whole game lasted 4 turns. 

The rival forces deploy with the wild horses neatly lined up across the centre. 

Dice decided we had 4 bases of wild horses to herd to safety. 

The advance towards the horses. 

Chaos ensues as wild horses are gathered and battle is joined. 

We found that the companies in charge of wild horses were easy targets for being counter attacked by enemy companies as they are deemed to be in column as they try to control the horses and fight at the same time. A better ploy may have been to attack and destroy the enemy first then capture the horses? 

Four action packed turns saw both sides taken to over half of their companies as casualties. Rohan were exactly on their break total but the orcs were almost totally destroyed. Rohan also had control of two herds of the wild horses, the other two herds were still on board running around waiting to be captured so Rohan could claim a victory of sorts despite all the casualties. 

A fun scenario that gave us a very different game. 

I also enjoyed destroying a ringwraith on his fellbeast. 

Chris is also in on the game development of Nic's game of Mech warfare. Chris has started collecting many of the old Battletech plastic figures to play this game. We just had time to try a small game. The rules seem to work well and Chris certainly taught me a good lesson as he outmanoeuvred and out shot me. My luck on the dice also completely deserted me (try throwing 9 dice and getting no 5's or 6's, I managed it quite a few times!)

 Chris also generously gave me some models, a sly ploy to get me more involved no doubt but also very kind of him.

My thanks to Chris for another great day of gaming.