I jumped into a game being run by one of my buddies the other night. One of our old wargaming buddies that had moved out of the area was in town for a business trip. He wanted to get in on a game. Fortunately, we had LotR on the schedule!
The scenario was out of one of the campaign books and represented the forward detachment of Riders of Rohan on their way to Helm’s Deep running into Warg riders on the way. The scenario is straight out of the movie.
The War riders included two heroes with nineteen War riders. The forces of Rohan included ten riders, supported by five heroes (Aragorn, Gamlin, Theoden, Legolas, Gimli and Hamen). The game would last twelve turns. The orcs would win if they could kill two heroes. Rohan would win if they avoided this. The game starts with Gamlin and Hamlen in the middle of the table, with Gamlin having only one wound laying on the ground. Three Warg riders would set up within three inches. All the other models had to enter on their side of the table on a roll of three or higher.
We started the game with the Wargs entering first with a majority of their army and attacking the heroes in the center to no avail. Rohan then entered with all but two of their horses. Unfortunately, one of the horses had Legolas and Gimli, who would not enter for four turns). Some long range bow fire ensued with no effect.
The next few turns saw the two forces close in and Gamlin killed while on the ground. Fortunately, Hamlen escaped and could later join the counter attack. Spears were broken and shields shattered! Rohan was lucky and won most of the initiative rolls. However, they were unlucky and lost most of their heroic move roll offs.
The orcs lost their two heroes early and the effect of their loss became more obvious as the game went on.
The fight went into a grind, with each side attacking and defending. The orc spears seemed to have been designed to kill horses, as most of the Rohan riders were de-horsed quickly and had to fight on foot. The Wargs seems quite motivated, as many of them failed to run away when their riders were killed.
The fight continued, but the Rohan heroes tipped the balance and slowly ate their way through the Wargs one at a time. Unfortunately, most of their riders were not as lucky.
When the smoke cleared, Rohan still have four of their heroes and a few escorting riders left (although someone is going to have to find them more horses) and a lone Warg ran off the battlefield. A Rohan victory!
- Manteuffel