Battle Report - Ambush near Erebor

Hello Folks,

Time for another Wednesday Wargaming Battle Report! This week we are playing The Lord of the Rings / Hobbit Game and Stan has joined us.

For this weeks scenario we are doing a bit of the I guess Northern War of the ring. Saruman has sent some forces on a raiding mission to see if he can steal some good metal from towns around the lonely mountain to improve his forces. They have ambushed a plucky group of dwarves, can take the loot right off their corpses!

Basically we have some of Thorins company that have survived and a few iron hills dwarves being assaulted in a modification of the Ambush at Ithilien scenario, this time the good guys must escape. We have Dwalin, Bifur, Bofur, Nori and Dori, facing off against an Uruk Hai Shaman, an Orc Captain, an Dundelanding Captain and their respective forces. We decided that good guys get a point for escaping heroes, and bad guys get a point for dead heroes.

Starting positions, Dwarfs way back in the village happily walking down the road and baddies everywhere. Orcs on the left, eveil men on the right, and Uruk-Hai down the middle.

Don't take long for things to start happening, evil men and orcs flanking, and Uruk Hai coming down the middle. I kept them a bit back so the dwarves could have a chance for a break out, not reallying wanting to just forces a scrum in the middle really.

The dwarves strike hard, the evil men are just melting away, and the heavy dwarven army proves very tough to crack indeed.

The Net closing in, some dwarves are tying up the orcs while Dwalin and the fighty types are just routing the evil men. Get a few kicks in there now and then, but all the might and fate from the hero dwarves are keeping them healthy.

The Uruk Hai berserk actually got the better of Dwalin here I think and had a chance to make some strikes. Other Uruk Hai taking there time to walk down the road.

Dwalin decides he has had enough of the captain of evil men, and just absolutely murders him with his big hammer. The Uruk Hai starting to come in thou. At this point the Dwarves have achieved the break through on the evil men, so they can turn it into a running battle if they want.

But feeling pressured they decided to form a shield wall instead. I guess that is a pretty dwarvish thing to do.

The Uruk Hai try to break through, and get some murder going. Picking battles with the berserker and pikes. I got a good solid wound on one or 2 of the dwarves and killed an iron hills guy but not much. Defense 8 is a bit much!

The Orcs fair a bit better eventually killing 2 iron hills dwarves.

But our forces dwindle and are eventually broken along with our sprit, being evil they are not super courageous.

So it is not long before we are routed. But although none of the Heroes died, also none of them escaped, so by our set up I guess it was a draw, or maybe we can say a minor win for the dwarves since they broke us.

It's really tough it seems to make scenarios with Thorins company, they are just so many points and that is allot of really solid heroes. They don't have any real weak links in there, the lot of them are 840 points for all 13! Probably would be better if we took the normal versions instead of the champions of erebor as they don't all ahve the crazy high defense.

Hopefully I will get the 3 trolls for Roast Mutton done soon and we can try that which should be great, otherwise I guess they will have to fight the elven  alliance!

Thanks;
Mike