First "real" battle

Galadrin · **Posted:** Mon Jan 13, 2014 9:51 pm

Hi Guys

Had my first "real" battle on the weekend and I was so excitied, I had to write about it!

My friend was down from Brisbane for the day , I hadn't seen him for ages but he is a big LOTR fan so in between other activities we got in a bit of gaming. We played through the Ambush scenario from RotK (3 Men of Minas Tirith vs 4 Orcs) to show the basics, then had a small battle.

It was not technically legal but we were pressed for time. I just wanted to add in a hero each to see how that changed things.

He took the Men of Minas Tirith, while I took the noble Orcs of Mordor who were looking for revenge on those wicked men of Gondor for killing off the poor innocent Orcs in the Ambush scenario earlier....

Minas Tirith Force:
1 Captain
12 Men or Minas Tirith (even split of Bows, Shields and Spear/Shields)

Mordor:
1 Goblin Captain (My orc captains arn't finished yet)
14 Mordor Orcs (Mix of weapons)
3 Moria Goblins (to even up the points)

We just played to the death, didn't worry about scenarios

And we had an absolute ball. The game was very up and down but in the end I wore him down and the Orcs were victorious!

It got pretty funny once we were both broken. Luckily for me he had stayed near his board edge so my Orcs had a few turns of running to try and make their courage rolls. I kept enough on the board to win once his last guy ran away.

Highlights:
The Goblin captain surviving being surrounded several times (One round 8 rolls to wound failed to inflict anything!)

The "Invincible" orc, who survived numerous arrows, spear and sword thrusts when outnumbered, only to be killed when he and a friend were supposed to beat up a weak archer

Shooting into combat, I didn't kill anything (on either side) but it was still fun!

The Goblin captain making his courage roll and helping the army to "Stand Fast" shows why heroes are so important, despite Goblins courage being so terrible!

There are a few questions that arose but I will post them elsewhere. I might see if I can put up some photos later.

Thanks for letting me share, and post your memories of your first battles. I would love to hear them.

whafrog · **Posted:** Mon Jan 13, 2014 10:02 pm

Congrats, glad you enjoyed the game, and hope you enjoy many more!

One thing:

Galadrin wrote:

It got pretty funny once we were both broken. Luckily for me he had stayed near his board edge so my Orcs had a few turns of running to try and make their courage rolls. I kept enough on the board to win once his last guy ran away.

Sounds like you're using the very old Courage rules. Since the One Ring book, the Courage rules for being Broken have been that you remove the model immediately if it fails. You don't get to run away and try again. This makes heroes (and horns) even more important.

Gene Parmesan · **Posted:** Mon Jan 13, 2014 11:10 pm

Glad you had a good time. I played so little over the years that each move had to be referred back to the rule book, took forever!

The first game I played was Weathertop way back in October 2001. Before the first movie was even out. GW had a launch night, and I played against a dude from my school. I remember the scenario played out pretty much like the book. Got me hooked anyway, although I became far more interested in the painting. Still don't play enough to know all the rules.

Druzhag · **Posted:** Tue Jan 14, 2014 1:01 am

my first game was against uruk-hai warriors, against my goblins...my friend was intimidated by my cave troll and made a senario rule called shining sun when i got there. It made my cave troll stay in a cave the whole match :sad:

...but i still won though :twisted:

JamesR · **Posted:** Tue Jan 14, 2014 1:03 am

My first real battle was a 5 player fight lol. I played Elves led by Gil-galad, I had an ally as Gondor, an ally as Rohan, and two opponents playing as Orcs and Uruk-hai. It was very fun.

I just realized my first real game was the battle of 5 armies... lol

Edit: they were all my models lol

Druzhag · **Posted:** Tue Jan 14, 2014 1:29 am

So then how many do you have? i have somewhere over 400 and my backlist is terrible.

Galadrin · **Posted:** Tue Jan 14, 2014 1:48 am

whafrog wrote:

Sounds like you're using the very old Courage rules. Since the One Ring book, the Courage rules for being Broken have been that you remove the model immediately if it fails. You don't get to run away and try again. This makes heroes (and horns) even more important.

Yes indeed, my "newest version" is the original RotK book. I really should look at updating to the hobbit rules sometime...

JamesR · **Posted:** Tue Jan 14, 2014 3:28 am

Druzhag wrote:

So then how many do you have? i have somewhere over 400 and my backlist is terrible.

To be honest I have no real idea, I do know it's more than 550 (and if everything goes to plan I'll be picking up another 250-300 soon for cheap lol) And as for the backlog it is ridiculous. Used to not be too interested in painting but now it's my favorite part but I don't know if I'll ever catch up at the pace I paint. I don't have a "speed paint" setting lol every model gets 100% effort now-a-days.

Goldman25 · **Posted:** Tue Jan 14, 2014 4:33 pm

As far as I can remember, my first major battle was a Last Alliance, me as Good versus my dad, throwing the majority of our models on the table. I'd probably done others before then, but this was the most memorable. We took over our kitchen table, and lots of models were proxied since we didn't have everyone we needed (we proxied the model of a Helms Deep Aragorn as Gil-Galad, Warriors of Rohan were added Numenorians, and Orcs, Goblins and Uruk-hai were all the same, since this was before ROTK and the release of plastic Mordor Orcs). To win, either Sauron or all four Good heroes (Elrond, Isildur, Elendil and Gil-Galad) had to be killed.

It came down to my remainding forces surrounding Sauron, having killed all the orcs, and charging him every turn. Sadly, I lost, since Sauron was just too tough, even with a dozen or more Elves, Men and Heroes hitting him! It took about six hours, and was such good fun, even though I did start to get a bit frustrated at how Sauron's Ring kept saving him at the last moment.

First "real" battle

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