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Introduction
Well chaps and chappettes, these battles in "Middle-Earth Manchester" are coming thick and fast and once again, the need to keep One Ringers up to date with this fledgling SBG community, lures me back to battle-ground battle report!
However, I MUST RESIST THE URGE TO WRITE A FULL REPORT! This really will be a summary, but I hope it provides an interesting insight into what's going on in this little dark corner of this wonderful international community we have! Why can this only be a summary this time? You're about to find out!
Working 9 till 5!
Any Dolly Parton fans here? Well, I'm pretty sure her classic '9 til 5' was referring to 9am till 5pm, you know, the average persons daily slog.
Want to see commitment and enthusiasm to this hobby? Come no further than the scout hut in the middle of a dark, rain battered park in South Manchester, where four bright eyed would be commanders slogged it out from 9pm until 5am in the morning until a winner emerged victorious!
All of us had been working all day and certainly put another shift in last night.
The Battle
The reason we were so late last night, well, as well as a certain someone's tictacs, was that we decided to be bold and got for 2 vs 2 doubles, with each player bring 500pts to the 6 x 4 battle ground.
We rolled sides, the result being the following.
Knighty (Mark) Hobbits + Hashut (Pete) Dwarves
vs
Thermo (James) Rohan + Ste with Feifdoms
I won't attempt army lists and will let the fellas take care of this! If, by the way, you are prefer pictures to these reports, Hashut will be uploading shortly!
The scenario today would be TO THE DEATH - 1 point for keeping banner alive, 3 for breaking enemy, points per wound off enemy leader, game would end when one side reached 25%
Ste and I would select King of the Dead to be our leader, with his high defence, fate, wounds etc and our enemy went for mighty Dain.
Frodo counted as a banner for their army and Angbor had a similiar rule.
It was simply quite stunning the huge huge number of hobbits on the table, in total their army was something like 72 models, breaking at 36!
Clearly, we were outnumbered! I can't remember how many models we had in total, I'm sure one of the guys will help me out there.
As Ste and I faced the battlefield, Angbor's Clansmen warband started centre left, 2 RotN (brought in to fill points gap left by no sons of eorl in the mounted rohan force) were right of this, one in a shooting position behind a wall and another further right in a shooting position behind some trees. Erkenbrand and Eomer's cavalry warbands deployed in the centre right at the back so we could suss out where he would deploy his bows before deciding their course of action. On our right, Forlong lead his axemen and King of the Dead (who would be referred to as The Witch-King at EVERY SINGLE opportunity during the battle!)
Our enemy deployed most of his hobbits his centre right, whilst dain's warband deployed behind a wall in the centre, supported by 2 x RotN and some more hobbits. Dwarf rangers and their captain were far out on his left, whilst Balin and shielded Dwarves deployed in a protective screen in front of the hobbits on his right.
Our basic starting strategy. Stay relatively timid on the left and invite him on under bow fire before countering, keeping the cavalry out of range of all his bows, picking them off in turn. Pot shots at softish targets with RotN. Protect Witch-King but overwhelm the right flank held by his rangers, removing the dwarven bows, then shoot, forcing them to move forwards, counter and overwhelm, getting the wound on Dain but then focusing on softer hobbits to break the enemy.
All well and good, but Hashut's Dwarven Rangers performed outstandingly on the right, really holding up our efforts on the right flank and killing a disproportionate amount of forces, particularly axemen. I moved Erkenbrand's cav warband up to support but slowly for shooting. Slowly his Dwarven rangers were ground down, one hard dude remaining for much of the game but they received little support from Dain's warband at the wall until much later in the game. Ste flirted with taking Angbor forward into the Hobbits but I tried to pursuade him to be patient, since Eomer was moving around to support.
We used Eomer's warband to pick off hobbit archers so they were out of range of one or two at a time, to keep them protected.
The hobbits on the enemy right moved forward slowly under the cover of Gimli's high defence dwarves giving them a degree of cover.
Models down on both sides, we pressed on and it was already approaching midnight. Ste's feifdoms on our right had just about finished off the dwarven rangers bar one (for some cost!) and had started to square off across the field from Dain's warband and hobbits that had stayed behind the wall in the centre.
I had moved Erkenbrand, his bodyguard and more cavalry much further up the board on the rightso we could now turn and make a new front on the enemy.
Meanwhile, on our far left, Angbor and co had retreated back on top of a rocky outcrop in the face of advancing Gimli and scores of hobbits. Eomer had led his horsemen much more advanced on that left flank but (merry or pippin) on pony and the dwarves with shields, as well as maggots dogs moved to cut them off.
The dogs were all killed with throwing spears, gimli charged a single rider only to be counter charged by another as well as a couple of Clansmen and Eomer's cavalry began their charge on the advancing dwarves.
Around this time (after midnight) Ste had to shoot, leaving me to take on the wit and guile of my experienced foes. Ste would not be getting in the same trouble with his better half than I would be!
At this point, taking the right had been expensive but the position wrestled and it was touch and go now in combat on the left. With so few models in total in comparison, I'd say chances for the Rohan/Feifdom alliance looked rather bleak already.
Gimli had won his combat and advanced with others towards the cavalry who were mobbing the dwarves. There were casualties both sides but eventually, the dwarves with shields were bettered and my diminished riders got themselves out of dodge and started aiming to the rear of the board. The hobbits were staying relatively static facing off against the clansmen on the hill and only 3 dwarves with shields were advancing beyond the lines into Angbor warband, who had been the subject of hobbit archers (which had allowed my riders to pick them off in turn without retaliation)
Finally, Dain started advancing after the witch-king (Hashut's got me doing it now... KING OF THE DEAD!!!) who although retreating to allow Erkenbrand to envelope and thus threaten the centre hobbits on their lonesome, was running out of room. I had models on either flank of this advancing force, which had been peppered with bow fire throughout the game, although an advancing Sam on pony, RotN and the dwarven ranger soon took care of that, as did more dwarves winning their fights on the flank against charging riders.
Having split the KotD warband so some moved out to face the left of dain's warband, the Witch-King's guys became isolated and the counter on the flank too late. Conscious of the objectives, I had already begun moving the remaining riders that were with eomer originally on the left flank, up the top of the board with the sole mission of killing the enemy leader Dain. With everything that the enemy had on the left flank so far away with such little movement, all that became important were pot shots at soft targets from my RotN and after some skirmishes between Angbor's clansmen and the hobbits, they started to also move to the right, conscious of the objective and protecting Angbor (our banner). Gimli gave chase.
About this time I was broken and would have to start rolling courage! Erkenbrand's horn was proving incredibly useful... apart from himself who I would roll last for, burning a might on two occasions just to stick around. But the enemy was also close to breaking, and with the KotD and Forlong running from Dain and an Iron Guard, it gave me time to break him too, Erky and his blokes charging and decimating hobbits in the centre, more hobbits being picked off by my Ranger of the North and with those that had split from Forlong and KotD moving back across. Forlong was using might to heroic march away from Dain and iron guards throwing spears... just before Eomer and his remaining chaps to arrive just in time and counter, killing the guard and suddenly the chase was reversed!
If the game had ended there and then, we were on 4 each. So long as I could keep the KotD out of the way, which looked very possible now and Angbor's fleeing warband didn't fail courage (unlikely with Erky's horn) I had worked my way to a point where a draw might be the very worst scenario for me.
With the hobbits smashed, the remaining cavalry came around, smashing Sam on his pony, the hardy ranger who had out performed himself and eventually overwhelming his ranger of the north too. With some shooting also taking out remaining models, Dain had to try and survive on his own.
All his might, a fate and many dead foes later, Dain fought on, surrounded and trapped. His high fight was winning him the contest, against axemen, several WotD, riders of rohan, eomer and erkenbrand. His greatest move, slaying Erkenbrand, who had burnt all in the end and removing the horn that had been keeping me in the game! Some units fled, but a herioc strike against the mightless Dain from Eomer finally won us a fight and with his fate gone, mission was accomplished and Dain took a wound!
Only a model from the game being over, it would benefit me for the game to end now, and with models running, it came. However, the one last chance of grabbing the draw back would Angbor fleeing and losing the point for the banner... no horn of the hammerhand we watched on and rolled... AND PASSED!
The game was over! The casualty count on both sides was beyond ridiculous but the day had been won by the Rohan and Feifdom alliance.
I shook hands with my opponents and another fantastic night of gaming with some great guys finally came to a close... 8 hours later!
It was 5am when we packed away and after giving Knighty a lift home, I got back in at 6.30am... my girlfriend was not happy!
Was it worth the wrath? Definitely! Great effort guys, looking forward to next time!
What will I learn from the game? We will limit all matches at 500pts per side in future!! It was another example too of being focused on the objectives and although it was pretty scabby by myself, I did do everything I could to get in that position to wound an isolated Dain.
So plan just just about worked, but it was a close call!
The beginners streak continues!
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I really like your reporting style 
sounds like everyone had a really good time! 
(And Farmer Maggot's Doggies - curse you Rohirrim! 
)
Game looked like it would be over by 1am, maybe 4 hours of play with a victory for Hobbits and Dwarves (I'm sure my team mate Ste will agree!)
