BGiME #4: “Elven Attack”

With my Uruk-hai painted and a force of High Elves already present in my LotR SBG collection, it was time to see how they fared against one another. My friend and regular The One Ring player, Tom, would command the elves while I led the savage Uruk-hai to victory (or so I hoped). We set the table up to vaguely resemble a roadway passing through a hilly, wooded region, one with hedgerows on both sides of the thoroughfare, and got down to fighting.

The Uruk-hai outnumber the elves in this scenario and wear heavy armor that should be able to shrug off their arrows. My plan was to concentrate on getting five or more Uruk-hai off the Good Force’s edge of the board while preventing the stinking Rivendell contingent from slaughtering enough of my troops to prevent that. The only way to do this was to cover ground quickly, both to reach my objective and to slay the weaker and less armored elves.

My brutal Uruk-hai advance on the elves.

Tom's elven archers got lucky as the Uruks closed, dropping one of my troops moments before the forces clashed. Tom, smartly, backed his forces up, forcing me to cross more ground and suffer additional arrow attacks before I managed to pin down a few Rivendell troops and draw them into a fight.

Stand and fight, you elves!!!

The eagle-view shot of the same stage of the battle. Notice I've not actually engaged any elves yet.

I finally managed to charge some of the elves, forcing them to commit to a stand-up slobber-nocker. The archers, however, continued their slow fade back, firing arrows at any Uruk-hai not yet engaged in battle. I lost another Uurk to elven arrows, but managed to finally bring down a Rivendell elf. There will be tears in Imladris tonight!

Elven blood is spilled on ground fouled with orc blood!

Unfortunately, my objective was not to kill elves, but get orcs off the board. With the elves harrying me with arrows at every step, it wasn't going to be easy. This was not helped by my hasty reading of the rules either! I missed the rule about the role cover--such as hedgerows--plays in resolving missile attacks. Had I known this, I would have advanced in a much different manner, placing the hedges between me and the elven archers who caused so much havok on my orcs.

Arrows have taken their toll and only seven Uurk-hai remain.

Once the two sides were engaged, the Uruk-hai rolled pretty poorly and the Rivendell troops were able to keep me in check long enough to whittle my forces down. Fittingly, it was an arrow that ended the game, slaying the last  Uruk-hai needed to ensure an elven victory.

Victory by an Arrow.

Despite my lose, this was an entertaining scenario. Tom played well and it was nice having two larger forces face off against one another after the previous small skirmish. The fact that we missed the rule about cover means we can play this one again and adjust our tactics accordingly, making a fresh go at things.

With four battles under my belt, I'm enjoying the game and the learning process. It's a shame the game doesn't have much support these days and that the player base in my area is more concentrated on other miniature wargames. Despite these discouragement, I remain committed to both playing more (and have made it an early 2016 resolution to play far more miniature and hex-and-chit wargames in the coming year) and continuing to work my way through the Battle Games in Middle-Earth series of magazines. Next up, we dive into issue #5 with new minis, new rules, and creating a dedicated wargame table.