A buddy of mine is big into the GW Lord of the Rings game. I mean like crazy big! He has been running games and tournaments in the local area for a while now and is hooked in to the International GW LotR scene. We have been chatting about the game for quite some time and I have been meaning to join in one of his monthly game days, but just have not done it.
Well, he was not going to be detered, so he showed up to our last Wednesday night game night at our FLGS and set up a demo game for some of us to try out. Now, I have done one of these before and have even painted up a Treeman army (which I posted about last year). I even have a backlog of figures to paint for the game (well, these were really purchased to play a hoped for re-release of GW’s War of the Ring…). As such, it did not take much for me to play.
So, with that in mind, he set up a scenario based on a scene from the movie depicting Merry and Pippen escaping into Fangorn Forest during the “Twin Towers”. The table lay out was six by four foot. The set up was that the edge of the forest was along the long edge of the table. In the center, were various outcroppings of rocks. Some tall, some short. Merry and Pippen were located in the middle of the board (bound). Two units of orcs were set up in the middle of the board around the two hobbit (they could carry the hobbits if they wanted). Two units of Riders of Rohan were split up and deployed on each short edge of the table. Starting on turn three, the orcs started rolling for their reserves (two more units of orcs). These would appear at the edge of the woods. To win, Merry and Pippen would have to either escape into the forest or the orcs would have to be wiped out. There was no turn limit.
The game started with the forces deployed. The Rohan cavalry moved up on one side to get within charge range of the orcs. The cavalry on the other side hung back to support the attack with long range bow fire (all the horsemen had bows). The orcs counters by shifting toward the attacking cavalry in the hope of emptying some saddles with bow fire. The two sides shifted to get the advantage.
The orc’ moves allowed them to stay unengaged until their reserves arrived, giving some hope that they could get their numbers to make up for the hard hitting cavalry charges. The archery duel was not going the orcs way and then the cavalry finally closed and the melee began! Unfortunately for the orcs, the initiative rolls were not in their favor and the forces of Rohan were able to get their heroic action in first and get the advantage. With everyone being new players, it took a little longer than planned, so we had to call the game early. With that said, it was clear that the game was going to be a historical outcome (can one say that for a fantasy game?.
- Manteuffel