Gary Con X: Beren and Luthien escape from Angband, First Age: 466

As mentioned in the previous post, I attended Gary Con X this past March. While most of my time was spent running games, I squeezed in a bit of tabletop wargaming. Orc’s Drift has already been covered, but the second game I played in was near-and-dear to my Middle-earth-loving heart. It was a scenario based on the story of Beren and Luthien, specifically the flight to Doriath following their escape from Angband. It was one of the final events of the con and well-worth the wait.

The scenario used the Chainmail rules rather than the SBG, but was otherwise a wonderful chance to get some Middle-earth miniature gaming done on the road. The referee and scenario designer was Kevin Cabai, a Tolkien fan and an experienced wargamer. He really knows how to construct a Middle-earth miniatures battle that is both entertaining and steeped in Tolkien’s work.

The premise was the Beren and Luthien were almost to Doriath, but the forces of Morgoth were closing in. To protect his daughter, Thingol and his allies take to the field beyond the Girdle of Melian, forcing the servants of Morgoth to engage them. The delay may allow Beren and Luthien to reach safety. Beren and Luthien used hidden movement rules (movement was tracked on paper and known only to the player controlling the duo and the referee) and Angband employed orc trackers to try and pinpoint their location on the board. In the meanwhile, the orcs, wargs, and trolls of Angband marched on Doriath. Would Beren and Luthien reach safety or would the forces of evil extract vengeance and possibly reclaim the lost Silmaril?

I was on the Evil team for the scenario, placed in command of three units of trolls. After running games all weekend, bashing and lumbering was about all I could handle tactically, and I feel I did a good job commanding my forces. I’ve never had the pleasure of using the Games Workshop trolls on the table before, and even though we were playing Chainmail, it was still a great deal of fun to wade into a company of dwarves and start squashing them into jam.

My brutes also had the honor of slaying King Thingol, after being forced to slowly plod through dense woodlands when a unit of wargs cut off my advance. Stupid mutts. But our dogged patience was rewarded when we engaged with the High King of the Sindar and laid him low with a high roll of the dice. Not a bad way to end the last event of the convention.

Ultimately, evil scored a minor victory. Beren and Luthien were slain along with Thingol, but in the end, Carcharoth escaped with the Silmaril in his belly, granting the wolf the game.

A small farm. Are Beren and Luthien hiding within?

Orcs search the farm only to be delayed by tasty morsels, requiring them to lose a turn.

My trolls ignore the farm, eager for battle.

The Forces of Angband move towards Doriath as the hunt continues.

The Forces of Good enter the field to stop Morgoth's minions.

Warg riders and trolls clash with dwarves. The stubborn dwarves fought to the death, slowing my trolls' advance.

Engagements everywhere!

Still dealing with dwarves. Will this fight never end?!

Dwarves, elves, and orcs fight in the middle of the field.

Thingol (the Glorfindel model) leads his troops against a unit of wargs.

The trolls begin their long slog through the forest to reach Thingol.

At long last, we battle the Sindar king.

It was a short battle.

Orc's Drift

A week ago, I was in Wisconsin to attend Gary Con X, a gaming convention held to remember the life of game designer and co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, Gary Gygax. It was the seventh Gary Con I attended and it was good to be back in the gaming motherland.

Gary Con is a mixture of role-playing and miniature wargaming events (the former having evolved from the latter). I usually run RPG sessions while I'm there, but play in miniature wargaming events as I seldom get the chance to play by classic wargame rules such as Chainmail.

After seeing it set-up and played several Gary Cons in a row, I finally got to experience the glory that is "Orc's Drift." This is an alternate history historical miniatures wargame scenario where the British defending Rorke's Drift find themselves not under siege by the Zulus, but by a horde of orcs fresh from Isengard. I was duly elected the war-leader of the orcs and, despite having to leave 15 minutes early, led my forces to victory over the vile British invaders of the sacred orc motherland. I mostly did this by agreeing to whatever strategy was proposed by my fellows and trying to roll high on the dice whenever possible.

I stopped by the table later in the con and noticed that the previous game had a lot more orc casualties, leading me to believe the British won that game. I'll take our early Friday victory as a testament to my superior leadership skills and the valor (or bloodthirst) of my under-commanders.

While the game uses Chainmail rules to resolve the battle, the figures are all from the Games Workshop line of Lord of the Rings SBG miniatures. Seeing them arrayed out on the table and facing off against stiff-lipped British infantry was a hoot-and-a-half. Winning the battle was even better. Below are some photos from the event. You can watch the battle-mad orcs advance, hungry for man-flesh, and their eventual overwhelming assault on the British outpost.

BGiME #10: Making a Rohirrim Building

This is perhaps my favorite “Modelling Workshop” to date. Issue #10 provides detailed instructions on making low-cost but good-looking houses for Rohan. Their appearance, however, is generic enough to suit most Dark Ages or medieval periods, and they can easily pull double-duty as a Western European structure if your wargaming tastes lean towards the historical as well as Middle-earth.

The basic box shape of the house means you can use any rectangular object of the correct size as the building’s base. I followed the instructions and used some old tea boxes, but anything close to that scale would also work. If you’re overly ambitious, you could even build the base from scratch with heavy cardboard or foam board.

The roof “thatch” is ordinary spackle diluted down to a toothpaste consistency and painted on. Once laid down over the cardboard roof, lines are etched into the joint compound with a toothpick to give it the correct texture. Painted properly, the fake thatch looks fantastic and has so far proven durable.

I know later issues of Battle Games in Middle-earth demonstrate other methods of building Rohan structures, but I’d be surprised if you can make them for cheaper. It took me roughly a week of on-and-off building to create, texture, and paint these up. A long weekend of steady attention would probably suffice if you needed them faster. All in all, these are amazing terrain pieces. Combine them with the watch beacon from last issue and you have an eye-catching Rohan or Dark Age hamlet for your tabletop battles.

Under Construction: You can see the balsa wood trimmings and dried "thatch" roof ready for painting

Spackle covers the base to give it texture as well.

Painted with flocked base.

I like the horse-head roof emblems, but would probably make them from foam board or balsa wood if I had to do it again.

The doorknob is a drop of hardened white glue painted silver.

A good view of the "thatching."

Rear view.

BGiME #10: Batch Painting

This issue’s project is a bit of repeat. Back in issue #4, we received our first sprue of Uruk-hai to paint, doing so using the skills and paints we had at that point. Now, a few months later (in the original release schedule, anyway), we’re given 10 more fighting Uruk-hai to prepare for the tabletop. Issue #10’s “Painting Workshop” is primarily concerned with getting these half-score models finished and ready to fight as quickly as possible.

The Uruk-hai are some of the easiest SBG models to paint. A good spray primer has them ready for their base coats in no time flat, and the majority of their armor and weapons can be dry-brushed a dark metallic. A little edging with a brighter silver paint gives the impression of sharp edges and wear, then a coat of dark flesh for skin tone and you’re ready to base them and field them. The servants of the White Hand are pretty formidable with their heavy armor and high Strength scores. I’d personally recommend them to any newcomer wanting to play the SBG quickly.

Below are the ten Uruk-hai I painted for this issue. I’ve also included a comparison photo showing one of the models I painted for issue #4 alongside a more recent paint job. In this case, you can see I’ve started doing a little more work on my bases, using an Earthshade wash on the sand to make it look more like soil and not a day at the beach for the Uruk-hai. The newer paint job is also brighter. I believe this stems from me using a lighter metallic as a base and instead washing the metallic with a sepia wash to age the armor. The differences aren’t too great, however, and I can field both on the same table without them distracting from one another.