Lord of the Rings - Dragon Rampant.

So before my nephew departs dear old Blighty for Daneland, he was desperate for another game and in particular another chance to use my Lord of the Rings miniatures. This is sort of a problem as the Men of Gondor and High (Noldor) Elves are individually based and the forces of Mordor are still based up for Horde of the Things ..... So step forward Dragon Rampant! To solve the problem of mixed basing.

To keep things simple as I haven't played the rules (apart from a run through of Lion Rampant - years and years ago) I avoided most of the fantastical rules as I would be running the rosters for both sides. Orcs were light foot, Uruks heavy foot, Trolls bellicose foot (3 figures to a unit), Warg-Riders light cavalry, Wargs were lesser war beasts and the Nazgul General elite cavalry (one model). 

The Elves foot units were 6 figures each Spearmen were heavy foot, Archers light-missiles (with sharpshooters) and heavy cavalry with missile option. The army of Gondor Archers light-missiles, 2 units of heavy foot and 2 units of heavy cavalry- one with the missile option. 

Pointed up there was 50 points of evil and 48 points of good - way bigger than the 24 points for a standard game - and squeezed on to a 3 by 5 table rather that a 4 by 6!

Set up was done as in Kings of War as I wasn't properly prepared (no surprise there). 

Initial deployments!

The little Dane stared advancing across the table - I was hindered by failing my first 2 activations (poor dice in this game is a killer - to be fair that is true of any game involving dice throwing). 

The pictures show the lines moving towards each other - initial charges by the Gondorian cavalry weaken the centre of the Orc line - the trolls not doing much. Out on the left the Elven cavalry force the Wargs back and routed a unit of Orcs and on the right the Warg-Riders were routed by a combination of melee and archery. 

But the attack was causing problems for the forces of good - weakening the cavalry considerably. One unit of Gondorian cavalry down to half strength and the Elven cavalry running out of strength points completely.

Below the final picture of the game where in conceded the field of battle - even though I had routed more units, time was against us and the little Dane has the fight to the death attitude of Harald Hadarda! In any event it would have been a close run thing - the Elven foot were all at 100% and not engaged, but the Gondorians were suffering and the Orcs still had the Wargs running about, 2 units of Trolls, 2 of Uruks, 2 of Orcs and the Nazgul. 

The rules play fast (and I was fairly lax with the spacing and forgetting things) - I will be giving them another bash sometime - but next week is the annual Twilight Imperium event game! 

And Happy New Year!