The Quest for the Lost Dwarven Ring -Rohan and Fangorn

The first scenario, the Gap of Rohan

The Company strikes out from Isengard and must head North towards Ered Mythrin, the Grey Mountains, but first they must go West, across the West Emnet. It’s not long before they are at the outskirts of a small village and are faced with a number of Rohirrim warriors blocking their path. The Company attack, if they are successful, they will be able to raid the village and take any useful artifacts they may find there.

 

The Finger emerge from some trees and charge towards the village.This should be a walk over.

 

Undaunted the Rohirrim warriors hold their ground and prepare their bows and throwing spears. There are only seven of them, this should be an easy victory for the Uruks.

 

How I underestimated the enemy! Or maybe I overestimated the prowess of my own force. 

Two were taken down by throwing spears on the way in. The Uruks won plenty of duels but could not inflict any injuries. Gradually, their numbers were whittled down until the inevitable last stand.

 

The result was close the second time I ran this but I triumphed the third and final time.

Ogbad found a longbow in one of the houses and the warband picked up some additional influence points.

Having raised the alarm, the Uruks run North from the village and seek shelter in the Forest that appears before them.

Scenario 2 The Depths of Fangorn

With the company venturing further in to Fangorn, the sound of horns grows fainter until they can no longer be heard through the trees. Yet the Uruks are from being safe. There are many legends surrounding the mysterious forest, none of them reassuring. Tales of trees that walk, that move, that attack!

 In this scenario the Battle Company has to travel across the table from South to North and escape the forest without suffering heavy casualties. The enemy is the trees!

Each turn the Good player rolls to move d6 trees, d6 inches. The trees have a profile, ST 3 D6, they cannot be injured but are pushed back an additional 1” per wound when defeated in combat.

 

This scenario was far more interesting than I expected it to be. The second run through, the forest opened an inviting passage right through its centre. This meant that either flank was thickly planted and would be difficult to pass through. I really hated the way that my opponent was manipulating me.

Well, I am proud to say I didn’t fall for it, I split the Finger into three groups and eventually enough of them got through to win the day.

It took three games to get through the forest, the warband entering each table from the South and exiting through the North.

 The third run through I was feeling more confident. The forest went back to the “widely dispersed” tactic and the Uruks went along the West side, staying as near the edge as they could.

This time when they came near a tree, they attacked it and using weight of numbers pushed them back as far as possible.

 

They even managed to push one off the edge of the table

They still got in a muddle though! 

One of the trees produced a rare toxic sap and the company found enough to coat all their blades and arrow tips

Eventually they escaped the Forest and continued their run North. After Fangorn the next adventure , a short cut through Lothlorien, will feel like a walk in the park.

The Lost Dwarven Ring

The White Finger

“You hold out your hand to me, and I perceive only a finger of the claw of Mordor.” Gandalf, the Two Towers

Yes…. a White Finger. A finger held up in perpetual defiance. A finger of Uruk Hai, a dirty, grubby , long nailed finger, blood stained and scarred.

I enjoyed the Battle Companies campaign. The game is fun, the rules are easy to learn, at the basic level, but grow increasingly sophisticated as the warband develops more skills. It works well as a solo game which is great for lockdown and is a good introduction to the SBG rule system. Pretty much all the various races and their respective heroes and leaders are represented in the SBG Armies book which provides dozens of prospective enemies and numerous potential campaigns.

The Battle Companies book has an excellent narrative campaign for new good companies and White Dwarf recently published a narrative campaign for starting evil battle companies, the “Lost Dwarven Ring”. This supposes that Sauron has discovered some information that leads him to believe in the existence of an “eighth dwarven ring“ a ring of power.

He greatly desires this ring hoping to use it to tempt Dain Ironfoot to join his cause. Legends claim that the ring was consumed by a dragon long ago, never the less, Sauron sends word to Saruman to procure this ring. The dragon is said to have once roamed the Northern peaks of the Grey Mountains, a region little travelled in recent times, a region of mystery and rumour. The dragon has not been seen or heard of for centuries, if indeed it ever existed at all.

This is a perfect quest for the White Finger. They suffered greatly in the recent campaign, losing both lieutenants and sustaining various injuries. They had a turn of fortunes at the very last game tho with Ogzul, Ugbad and Gargul all promoted hero. They have acquired Gaakh the berserker and Maugak the Warrior and Gorluk himself has developed a few leader skills. At 6 characters, they are a concise, fairly tough company and with a rating of only 99 points suitable for a “starting campaign” where most first companies weigh in at about 99 – 110 points.

Gorluk is summoned before Saruman at Orthanc. “What do you mean, you did not have the luck? Fortune failed you? You have failed me! A simple enough task, find the halflings and bring them to me! An orcling would have prevailed! You drag your worthless hide back here to me to confess your abject failure and maybe the failure of all my desire, better that you had not returned at all! However, a suitable punishment for your inadequacy must wait for a more pertinent time. I have more pressing matters to deal with. And now, of all times, when all my army is on the march into the West Fold and my hold is desolate, I have need of a champion to send on a most important pursuit….well, luck or no luck, you will have to do!”

The campaign has 5 encounters marking the progress of the battle company from Isengard to the Grey Mountains. Each encounter can be fought 1-3 times enabling the warband to develop sufficient experience to deal with the last battle.

As it turned out I had seven encounters but more about that later.

The Campaign Trail