Scouting Ithilien
Gandalf has arrived at Minas Tirith, Frodo is climbing through the grey fence of Mordor, Théoden is mustering his Rohirrim, Aragorn is preparing to take the paths of the Dead, everywhere the War is intensifying and Sauron is sending forth his legions.
Scouting forces of Orcs and Evil men are penetrating deep into Ithilien leading the way for the armies of conquest, seeking a clear road for the heavy infantry and the Mumaks that form the core of the Empires forces.
Gondor has a long border and few men to defend it, Fiefdoms beware! Your enemy is upon you!
This is a short campaign to blood my new Empire and Fiefdoms Battle Companies. The idea is to use the road through Ithilien as the connecting theme for a ladder campaign of skirmishing between scouting forces, culminating in a battle in which the battle companies will be one of several warbands.
The road as the central theme works well in a ladder campaign where the forces can fight up and down the road depending on the fortunes of battle.
Many of the scenarios in Battle Companies lend themselves to this kind of campaign Baggage Train, Infiltrate and Assassinate, Plunder the Camp are perfect. Kill the Messenger would also be ideal but not so much solo!
Scenario one is “Hold the Line” the defender will be the Good guys. If Evil win then they progress up the road to meet the defenders at a Stand Your Ground scenario. If they lose then they are forced down the road to a Stand Your Ground scenario. After that…..well we shall see.
The idea of a grand battle is exciting, a variation on Ambush in Ithilien maybe.
The
diversity of Empire well represented with two axe wielding Easterlings, A pair
of heavily armoured Haradrim and two fast moving javelin-equipped Jakhala.
Their leader is Khabaal, the axe and shield bearing Easterling
Orcs of Mordor, the usual crew, two with bows, two with spears, two with double handed weapons and three with shields one of which is Skarrik, the boss
Men of Gondor. I have never liked the PJ take on this
properly medieval culture, so my guys have had the dull grey lobster like
armour pared away and are wearing the bright heraldry of the companies of Minas
Tirith. I did these a long time ago.I would probably do them differently today.Here are warriors from the Sword tower and
the Axe tower. Baredor of the Axes is their leader.The First Game
Mordor v Fiefs
The Orcs will win if they can sneak three off the Northern edge of the table, as they outnumber the Fiefs 9v6 this looks to be an easy win
The Fiefs have to deploy with 6 “ of the centre of the board, they are an outpost, placed to look out for invaders and deter any scouting parties.
Mordor Orcs are excellent sneaks
sneaking and hiding,two things Mordor Orcs do well
The Fiefs face a difficult tactical decision, there are not enough of them to cover the width of the board. The orcs are in three groups of three and can easily pass the Men by. Baredor decides to attack the nearest one with 5 of his men leaving the solitary archer to attempt to pick off one of the orcs on the Eastern flank leaving them without enough to complete the victory conditions.
sneak sneak sneak
“nothing to see here”
For Gondor! But the Orcs have the initiative and they charge first.
Garulf of Lossarnoch is the first casualty
Hectic stuff!
Desperate times for the Warriors of Gondor
If only he could fire twice!
He fired once, he missed both! Meruvin is cut down
Then there were two!
Baragunds last stand
The Orcs are triumphant and only one casualty
The numbers advantage really made this an easy win for the orcs, despite the mens heavier armour
So, while the Fiefdoms Warband retreat to patch their wounds
and recover, the Orcs find a stand of trees just off the road to get out of the
light of the sun and rest up.
Later that day a warband form Minas Tirith arrive to relieve the outpost only to find it abandoned and spoor of Orcs all about. Faredor of Gondor is confused, where are the Men who were guarding this road and more importantly, where are the Orcs?
He soon has something else to think about. Coming up the road he spies Men of the South. The hated Easterlings and the cruel Haradrim are come!
The Second Game
Empire v Gondor
The Gondorians adopt a similar tactic to the Fiefs warband and divide them selves into small groups across the table. They are not outnumbered like the Fiefs were but they are up against the Jakhala and those boys can really run
However, the Southrons all go to the right, Khabaal is hoping to use weight of numbers to overpower one group of the enemy and push through
Jakhala are armed with javelins which are throwing weapons with range 12” and strength of the user, in this case 3
Jihalakhan takes up position in the small stand of trees
Mixing it up!
A proper slogging match ensues
still anyone’s guess! These heavily armoured types are only going to get wounded on a roll of 6
Things are looking grim for Jihalakhan
Oooh…maybe…
It could not have been closer. Dice are strange things. The initiative roll for the Good side was 6 for 5 turns on the trot. These two fought 6 tied turns each failing to wound the other. This was the last turn, the roll off favoured Evil and Jihalakhan injured Sperred, winning the game in the process. Jihalakhan caused 5 casualties! He gets a level up and chooses the path of the Ranger. The Southrons roll on the reinforcement table and gain a Variag!!
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