The nice thing about this year as opposed to previous years is that I had some company for the drive and some help with parking and gas costs. Fred was that company, and what great company it was. I had a blast having him ride with me.

We began the con with Wednesday night as Fred needed to get his passes for the weekend. I got to see a few people that evening and even had time to set up the Pulp City boards for early the next morning. Brian was more than glad to help me and I was more than glad to accept. We hung around with Joel as well while Fred was down at the Event Registration booth getting tickets for the things he wanted to do. We ended up leaving around 9 or so, if I remember correctly.

Thursday began bright and early at 8 am with Pulp City demos. Brian and I ran two sessions one hour each serving four people. That’s eight players. The nice thing was that a couple of people who had purchased the actual tickets didn’t show, but we had plenty of people with generics to fill in; one of which was even a local! After the demos, I made my way as fast as possible down to the dealer hall with JR, Brian and some other folks. Brian and his wife had the kids with them, so they had to break off a little early. One of my first stops had to be the Wyrd booth to pick up the Malifaux book and a Fate Deck. Maciej hooked me up with some swag for running demos. I worked a shift in the Pulp Monsters booth from 2pm to 6pm that afternoon doing demos of Pulp City. I got to hang out with the guys from Darkson Designs as well, which was pretty cool. I may need to check out their games. I left the booth at about 5:55 hoping to make it over to the FFG booth to pick up their new Living Card Game (LCG), Warhammer Invasion. I got there and the the tower of boxes was reduced to a mere footstool. I asked one of the booth guys if this was all they had and they told me yes. So, I picked it up. Afterwards, the Wyrd guys were doing demos upstairs in the same room where I’d previously held Pulp City demos for TableTop Gamers (TTG). It was full enough that I didn’t get a demo though. In themeantime Tim and I opened the box and sorted through the rules for Warhammer Invasion. We played a quick 2-player game of Dwarfs vs. Chaos. We found a misprint and had some issues to look up, but it went fairly smoothly. Later, Fred showed up with his Thor on a chariot and we threw down a 3-player game. Some folks at another table were asking us questions as if we were experts, which was pretty cool. Fred’s Empire deck ended up running out of cards the turn after Tim had made two of my sections of my capitol burn to the ground. It was a really fun game even though I normally hate 3-player games.

Friday was again a pretty busy morning with Pulp City demos. Brian again was ahuge help by being there super early and having everything already set up and ready to go. The demos were just as full as the previous day. I spent much of the day just trekking around the dealer hall looking for stuff to blow cash on. I even finally decided on a second crew for Malifaux after asking around about the ones that most interested me aesthetically: Pandora. I was told she was the more “cerebral and annoying” crew, so I was sold right there. Later in the afternoon I met up with Tim, Joel, JR, Morgan and some other folks and we went down to Currito for some lunch. Afterward, Tim walked his bud Kevin and I through the Lord of the Rings skirmish game. I ended up winning the game through making his army break before he made mine break as he had quickly grabbed objectives with Wargs I couldn’t catch up with. Later on Fred showed up with an old school card game called Star Trek: Trading Card Game Second Edition. He said he’d gotten a demo on a whim and that it was a lot of fun. He picked up a starter/booster box for cheap and had been messing around with decks. We played a quick 3-player game with Bryan before he had to start setting up for Ambush Alley. Brian called and said he wouldn’t be coming back to the convention center after running errands due to traffic from the Colts game that evening. I don’t know why they insist on scheduling these things at the same time! Fred ended up going to try to watch Plan 9 From Outer Space, so I tried again to get a demo of Malifaux. I did end up getting to play a game with one of their Henchmen, but he must have been demoed out since he didn’t speak much or help me out with the rules. He did preoceed to beat up Seamus with Lilith and told me that sometimes you have to lose to learn a game. I disagree with this notion, but whatever. Later, I watched a game between Maurice and a guy I’ve met from St. Louis (I hate that I don’t remember his name!). The latter was playing the Pandora crew I’d just bought and Maurice was playing the Zoraida box. I think I learned more from watching this game than the “demo” I’d played earlier. After that I goofed arouns while thinking Fred was at the movie. I found him outside the room sorting through cards, so we headed out.

Saturday morning began with a sigh as no one showed up for the 8 am Pulp City demos. We did, however, have a full set for the 9 am session. It was nice to finally pack up all that stuff and take it to the car. I picked up a few Outcast and Resurrectionist models for Malifaux to supplement the boxes I’d already bought and I bought a box of starters/boosters for the Star Trek CCG to play with Fred. Brian and I did some goofing around and then I had to do another session in the Pulp Monsters booth from 2pm-4pm. Again, it was pretty cool, but a bit exhausting. I then met up with Tim, JR, John, Dan, Brian and Morgan for our big 3,000 point per side War of the Ring battle. Tim brought both of his Mumakils and JR brought the Balrog. The good guys had Aragorn, Boromir, Glorfindel, Galadriel and my first use of the Galadhrim cavalry. Midway through turn 2 I think it was, there was a fire alarm and we had to leave the building. We came back in about 30 minutes (rumor had it the problem was caused by an overcooked pizza in the food court) to finish the game. We didn’t finish until a bit after midnight. That was 6 hours worth of War of the Ring! I ended up in a bit of trouble with the wife as I hadn’t called before 12 like I said I would. Fred finished up at a tournament and then we were on our way home.

As always, Sunday was a bit of a sad day. First of all, Fred and I ran into the biathalon on our way in, which held us up by about 45 minutes or so. To keep from getting too distressed, we went through decks and packs of Star Trek that I’d purchased the day before. Then when we got there, lots of people were vacating the premises. That part is always pretty sad. We tooled around the dealer hall for a while and Fred and I split a box of Star Trek boosters since they were so cheap. We then went back upstairs and sorted through some of the cards. In talking about CCGs, I got my mind set on getting some boxes of the old WARS CCG, which is a bit like Star Wars, but only about $8 per box. I didn’t really buy too much this day, but I did hang out with Bryan, Fred and Joel. We waited around a bit for Tim since he said he’d be around for us to go through the Malifaux rules, but he never showed up. He did say something earlier about having to do some RPG stuff with his wife, so that’s probably where he was. Around 4:30pm, we left the convention center and made for home.

I then spent the evening and all the next day with my awesome wife who never once made a big deal out of me spending money at the convention or spending so much time away from her. How kick ass is that?!

All in all, this Gen Con was one of the best. It was a good mix of hanging out with friends from all over and “working” the convention. Next year will be even better!!

Loot:

• Malifaux: Pandora box
• Malifaux: Killjoy
• Malifaux: Samurai Punk Zombies
• Malifaux: Convict Gunslinger
• Malifaux: Rulebook
• Malifaux: Fate Deck
• Pulp City: Boreas/Seabolt
• Pulp City: Sgt. Bale/Stoner Hawk
• Pulp City: Chronin/Dr. Mercury
• Pulp City: Dr. Red/Howler
• Pulp City: Sister Bedlam/Tangent
• Pulp City: June Summers
• Pulp City: Herald
• Magic: The Gathering: 12 Alara Block packs (4x for $9)
• Dark Age Groundwerks Bases: 2x blisters 30mm, 1x 50mm
• HellDorado: Corvus Tormentors
• WARS: Incursion Starters
• WARS: Incursion Boosters
• WARS: Nowhere to Hide Boosters
• Star Trek CCG: Call To Arms Booster/Starters
• Star Trek CCG: Strange New Worlds Boosters
• Warhammer Invasion Box
• Lord of the Rings: Golfimbul mounted and foot (proxy for Gothmog)
• Armorcast: Dumpsters
• Armorcast: Vending Machines

Thanks to having worked some time for Pulp City and having sold off some minis prior to the convention, the total cost of the weekend was pretty minimal, which is surprising as I’d pretty much purchaed about everything I would have normally gotten.

A few things to note that I wasn’t sure where they fit in chronologically: Apparently, Maciej and some other folks knew what company/individual had picked up Helldorado and were very excited about the continuance of the game. I went by the Alkemy booth to check out the wvae 5 stuff in hopes that I might be interested enough in the game to update the collection. Unfortunately I was not.

My only real regrets were not getting to see off a few friends.

I think that just about covers it!

Oh! As I was talking to Brett, he mentioned the possibility of having an extra Goblinette Hog Whisperer after the con that he’d hook me up with. Later in the afternoon he called and told me he’d be shipping me one when he got home! Sweet!! Not sure if that’ll lead to another crew for Malifaux or just a fun model to paint.

In the week leading up to the game, Tim had debated bringing the Mumakil in his army. I am so glad he did. It really is a nice showcase model and had some really fun rules.

Tim & Joel’s Evil army:

• Easterling Archers x3
• Isengard Uruk-Hai x3
• Easterling Cataphracts x4 w/captain
• Mumakil
• Easterlings x3 w/captain
• Easterlings x3 w/captain
• Khamul, the Easterling

Todd and John’s Good Army:

• High Elf Archers x2
• High Elf Regiment x3 w/captain
• Wood Elves w/Longbows x2
• Galadriel
• Dunedain of Arnor x5
• Warriors of Minas Titrith x4 w/captain
• Warriors of Minas Titrith x4
• Faramir

We got started around 6:30pm or so after BSing around and such. I don’t really remember all the details, so I’ll point out some highlights, which mostly feature the Mumak.

For the scenario, we rolled and got the “King of the Hill” scenario with the short edge deployment. This is the first time any of us have played using these. Looking through the book, they all seem pretty balanced. Basically, we needed to have units within 3″ of the objective on the hill at the end of turn 8. No points are awarded until the very end.

First turn, the Mumak moved forward (using 3D6 random movement) and Tim read off his special rules. What it basically comes down to is that you do not want that thing walking in the movement phase anywhere near your companies. John moved his Dunedain down one flank to try and get some arrows into the thing. Just about everything else moved toward the hill. I believe the second turn the Easterling Kataphracts ended up charging into the HE Regiment. Thankfully, shooting reduced their numbers and Gondor and Rivendell were able to use Might to get rid of that unit. The rest of the game saw our infantry crashing into each other and trying to gain some advantage. Through magic, Galadriel was able to mostly neutralize the Mumak, reducing his courage and then making him test to see if he is allowed to move/shoot/charge that turn. In the end, through shooting we were able to reduce the number of men in the howdah enough to make it fail the stampede roll and it crashed into terrain and disappeared, but not before trampling a few company’s worth of Elves and humans. At the end, it was a draw due to each of our teams having an infantry unit within 3″ of the objective at the end of turn 8.

This is the first time any of us got through 8 turns of this game and at the end I was ready to play again! Joel seemed interested in the game and is looking at getting some stuff for the Mist Mountains army.

As always it was a blast and John’s hospitality can’t be beat!!

First game was Rohan vs. Elves.

His Rohan Army:

• Oathsworn Bowmen x2
• Oathsworn Militia x2
• Riders of Rohan Eored x3
• Theoden, King of Rohan

My Elves:

• High Elf Regiment x2
• Wood Elves w/Longbows x2
• Haldir

First turn, Theoden and the Riders of Rohan were in my face and ready to charge (At The Double! is awesome). In the shooting phase I was able to remove a Rider or two through Haldir’s Epic Shot and the shooting from the bows. Because I thought it would be cool to do, Haldir challenged Theoden to a Heroic Duel after the Riders had already charged with Epic Charge. Theoden rolled 4 over Haldir and Haldir spent a Might to make the difference only 3. The three rolls were 2, 3, and 6. So he managed to kill Haldir and all the Wood Elves, no problem. The rest of the game was spent trying to get a flank charge with the HE Regiment, but they ended up getting in another fight where they were going to eventually be wiped out. I conceded the game at that point.

Because we had lots of time left and Jeff wanted to give his (well painted!) Isengard army a go, we played another game. This time his points came to 465, so I was able to add a little to my army.

His Isengard:

• Isengard Uruk-Hai x2 w/shields, captain & banner x2
• Isengard Uruk-Hai Scouts
• Isengard Troll (Captain?)
• Lurtz

My Elves:

• High Elf Regiment x2 w/captain
• High Elf Archers x2
• Wood Elves w/Longbows x2
• Haldir

Jeff didn’t actually own a model for Lurtz, so he used Legolas, thus dubbed Lego-Lurtz. We didn’t rearrange the terrain or anything and he deployed his army mostly to his right side. I deployed about the same way with the High Elf Archers + Haldir facing off against Lurtz’s unit and the Wood elves facing down the Troll. First turn I used At the Double on the HE Regiment to get in the Troll’s face and in the shooting phase I fired both units at him. Haldir and the HE Archers were unable to do any hits on the thing where the Wood Elves got 7 hits on it. The first roll on the Hard To Kill! chart was a 6, so it was slain. The HE Regiment took many hits from shooting and finally from a charge with Lurtz and were wiped out. Haldir and the HE Archers used At the Double! to threaten the rear of Lurtz’s unit while the wood Elves tried to threaten his flank. Through clever movement, he managed to protect himself and keep their Defense 7. Eventually, Lurtz’s unit was brought down to having one company with 7 models and the combination of shooting from the HE Archers and the Wood Elves finished them off. We called the game at this point.

Both of these were good games and we had a lot of talking about what units we’d like to use next. Jeff says he’ll likely be working on his Isengard from here on in since he does have a lot of stuff at home.

I really enjoy WotR, but I enjoy it more at higher point levels. I think it works well at 300 and even 465, but it’s more fun to be able to throw in those expensive Legendary units and Epic Heroes.

Anyway…we played 750 points so that we might actually complete more than just a couple of turns. We restricted our lists such that there was only the possibility for one Epic Hero and one Legendary formation for each of us.

My army:

• Haldir
• Wood Elves w/logbows x2
• High Elf Archers x2
• High Elf Regiment x3
• High Elf Cohort x2 + Captain
• Ent

Bill’s army:

• Lurtz
• Ugluk’s Raiders x3
• Uruk-Hai w/shields x3
• Uruk-Hai w/crossbows x2
• Wargs w/bows x4
• Isengard Troll

I learned my lesson from last time Bill and I played: don’t spend too many points on Epic Heroes! I chose Haldir for his Epic Shot and his 75-point cost. This allowed me to have more infantry to counter his army’s ability to seriously outnumber me. Again, we just played “Kill Em’ All!” as I think we still feel like we’re getting used to the rules.

I won priority for deployment, so I decided to go first and deploy first. I chose the side of the table where Bill had placed some forests so that I could use them as defensible terrain. I deployed pretty standard where I arrayed my units pretty evenly across the table. I’m thinking in the future, I may mix this up a bit to try and get flank charges.

He moved close enough with Ugluk’s Raiders and the Wargs where the HE Archers and Wood Elves could fire on them. The Wood Elves took out one Warg and the HE Archers took out maybe 2 Uruks. He had to move the crossbows, so they didn’t fire and the Wargs took down a Wood Elf or two (Dammit! I think I forgot their Enchanted Cloaks again!).

Next turn I won priority again and decided to go first. One thing I know would have changed the game would have been to get the Ent out there and into combat. I hid him behind the Wood Elves for a while because I was afraid of the crossbowmen. Per the usual, the HE Regiment and HE Cohort moved right up the middle to face his Uruks and his units did the same. In shooting, I managed to score 5 hits and used a Might point to make it 6 so I could get rid of 3 Wargs instead of two, allowing me to roll 2D3 for push back; a total of 4 inches. The HE Archers fired into the Raiders again, killing maybe 1 Uruk. His crossbowmen fired at the Wood Elves, killing a couple thanks to the defensible terrain. I don’t believe the Wargs did any shooting that killed anything.

As always, here’s where things get a bit fuzzy. The next turn the Wood Elves left the safety of the woods to try and get close enough for Epic Shot on the crossbowmen. His Wargs went into hiding for fear of the Wood Elves shooting. The ent remained hidden behind the Wood Elves (to the dismay of Bill, who feels like monsters should not be able to be screened by infantry; sorry, dude, them’s the rules). The HE Cohort managed to charge the Troll. Lurtz’s unit failed its Terror test, preventing it from charging the HE Regiment. Ugluk’s Raiders also failed their Terror test, but used Ugluk’s ability to pass the test, but lose 4 guys. Haldir was finally able to pull off Epic shot into the crossbowmen, and with the help of the Wood Elf shooting, drove them back a few inches after killing several. In all the hand-to-hand combats, the Elves lost and ended up Disordered. One turn one of the units actually remained Disordered for the whole turn. I then found out how much it sucks to be disordered. The Ent finally came out and charged the Troll and the two of them inflicted no damage on the other.

In the end, I lost every unit except the Ent. It seems I need to work on my tactics a bit more. From what I’ve read on places like Warseer, the Elves should be using their superior movement to get flank charges. I think one of my problems is that I just trudge my soldiers across the field head-on into the enemy. Next time I will try to work on that. I also have the Galadhrim Knights, so next time I might have the speed to pull that off a bit better. Oh, and I won’t hide the Ent either!! Turns out Bill’s army total came to 790 points, but I don’t think 40 points would have made a difference in the outcome.

The awesome thing about this particular battle is that we only had to look up very situational rules, which made the game go much quicker and was a lot more fun. We both agree, though, that Games Workshop needs to put out an FAQ for this game to clear up some ambiguities.

Bill, if you’re reading this, thanks for another great game!

Dan’s Gondor/Rohan:

• 2x Minas Tirith Warriors w/shields & Captain
• 2x Minas Tirith Archers
• 3x Riders of Rohan
• 3x Riders of Rohan
• Faramir
• Fortune: Desperate Heroics (I think)

My Elves:

• 2x High Elf Archers
• 3x High Elf Regiment
• 2x Wood Elves w/Longbows & Captain
• Elladan
• Elrohir

Much like my previous games, we decided to play just a ‘Kill ‘em All!’ scenario. I lost priority for deployment, so Dan had me deploy and go first.

In the first turn, I was able to kill off one each Rider of Rohan, while he was unable to kill but maybe one or two Elves with shooting. The second turn I was able to kill of another Rider of Rohan from each formation and drive them back a couple of inches. Still no charges. The third turn I killed off yet another Rider of Rohan from each formation. Charges worked out where only one of them passed the Terror test, which was the Riders of Rohan versus my Wood Elves. In the first combat with the Minas Tirith Warriors and my HE Warriors, Faramir called a Heroic Duel and a subsequent Epic Strike. Elladan called Epic Strike as well, making us even in the Fight department. We both rolled a 6, so he won by 1 for calling the Duel. He then spent 2 might points to roll 3 times on the chart. He killed off Elladan and two other Warriors. In the following normal Fight, we each killed off exactly 7 enemies making it so the Duel caused him to with the Fight. The HE Warriors passed the Courage test and lost no more guys. The next few turns involved my Elves losing close combat fights over and over and being unable to recover. I ended up losing my whole army.

The worst thing about it was that I paid for the Captain in the Wood Elves, but forgot all about him. So, there was 50 points pretty much wasted. Those 2 Might points could have made at least a little bit of difference, perhaps even killing enough Riders of Rohan to make them go POOF!.

One strategy I failed to use was to have my Wood Elf archers and the HE Archers use the woods on the table for defensible terrain. This would have stopped him from being able to get flank charges on me and would have raised the defense from 5 to 7 on the HE and from 3 to 5 on the Wood Elves. Oh well, something to remember for next time.

A very fun game with a very good opponent. It was nice for both of us to play new opponents.

While I was at the store I went ahead and ordered some Galadhrim Knights so I’ll have some cavalry.

I’m working on a trade right now to start a Mordor army. I hope to use this at Games To Die For as a demo force to maybe get some folks to play. It worked for Infinity and it worked for Bryan with Field of Glory, so I’ll give it a try. Besides, I’m trading off the Warmachine stuff I have lying around as I’m really not interested in that game much anymore.

JR:

• 2x Goblins w/Bows
• 4x Goblins w/Shields, Drummer, and Durburz (the Goblin King?)
• Cave Troll
• 3x Wargs

Tim:

• 3x Easterling Kataphracts
• 2x Easterlings w/Bows
• 4x Easterlings w/Shields
• Khamul, the Easterling

Me:

• 3x High Elf Regiment
• 2x High Elf Archer Regiment
• 3x High Elf Cohort
• 3x Gildor’s Household
• Ent
• Elladan
• Elrohir
• Legolas

I believe I won priority and I had them deploy first, which allowed them to also go first. They deployed with the Easterling Kataphracts on the far right followed by the Easterling Archers and then the Easterling Infantry (with Khamul). JR deployed his goblins starting to the left of the Easterlings with his big block of Goblins (with Durburz) followed by the Cave Troll, the Goblin Archers and the Wargs. I deployed Gildor’s Household opposite the Easterling Kataphracts, the Cohort (with Elladan) across from the Easterling block infantry, the Ent across from the Easterling Archers, the HE Regiment (with Elrohir) across from the Goblins with Shields and the HE Archers (with Legolas) on the far right side.

As usual, I don’t remember exact turn sequence and what happened, so I’ll summarize. JR moved his Goblin Archers into the woods for the extra defense. I moved Gildor’s Household into some woods for the same. Gildor gave his unit +1 Shoot via magic and then cast the spell to push back the Easterling cavalry back a few inches. The Wargs attempted to get close enough to the HE Archers to charge, but all died in the Shooting phase thanks to Legolas and all the shooting. Elladan was killed via Black Dart and Elrohir via a Heroic Duel with Durburz. Over the course of the game, the Elves failed about four Terror tests either through close combat or through charges. One critical failure was when the Easterling soldiers charged from the front and the Cave Troll from the flank. I rolled poorly for the Terror test with the Troll and thus, my Fight became 0. This caused me to loose way too many spearmen. The Eastrling Cavalry tried charging Gildor’s Household in the woods and managed to keep killing one or two Elves, forcing them out of the forest only to reenter it next turn and receive another charge. My rolls on magic never seemed to work out very well, so those actions were wasted for the most part.

In the end, Durburz and his formation were killed off by Legolas and the HE Archers and the HE Cohort were destroyed in the combat with the Easterlings. Gildor’s Household held out in the forest and the HE Regiment lasted until the end with a company or two left. Legolas and the HE Archers survived as well with very few casualties. I lost the Ent as well; at least he made it into combat, though. The Easterlings lost a company from their Shield unit and they lost a few from the Archer unit as well, but Tim never lost a single cavalry model.

I am really liking this game a lot. The more I play, the more I enjoy it. We found a rule or two we’d messed up in that game, so next time will be even more “correct” and probably more fun. It was nice playing WotR with folks who don’t argue about every nuance of every rule. I’m even thinking about getting a Mordor army so I can have two armies for “demos”.

Here’s my list:

• 3x High Elf Regiment
• 3x High Elf Archer Regiment
• 3x High Elf Cohort (w/Captain – can’t pass up 3 Might!)
• 3x Gildor’s Household
• Ent
• Glorfindel
• Elrohir
• Elladan
• Galadriel
• Legolas

Here’s a gross estimation of his list:

• 4x Warg Riders
• 3x Ugluk’s Raiders
• 2x Isengard Troll
• 4x Uruk-Hai w/Pikes
• 3x Uruk-Hai w/shields
• 3x Uruk-Hai Crossbowmen
• 3x Uruk-Hai w/Shields
• Lurtz
• Saruman

I realized about mid-way through the game that I only paid 200 points for the 3 companies of Gildor’s Household, which should have been 280 points. However, after discussing with Bill the cost of Legendary formations, I know he underpaid for Ugluk’s Raiders, so it all evened out in the end. So, it probably should have been a 1,700 point game.

We decided to play a “pitched battle” again as we are still unfamiliar with the rules. I rolled higher than he did for deployment, so he had priority the first turn. In movement, he mostly just moved his units forward. Fortunately for me, Saruman was out of range to use any of his spells. My units moved forward to prepare for shooting. Gildor cast the spell that gave his unit +1 Shoot. Galadriel couldn’t figure out anything to cast. In shooting, he couldn’t fire his crossbows since he moved. The HE Archers fired into the Crossbowmen, killing 3. Gildor’s Household fired into Lurtz’s Uruk-Hai unit and killed maybe two.

Next turn, he won priority and decided to move first. He moved his units forward again and this time Saruman was well within range to lay some hurt. He cast all three spells available to him fron the Ruin list and managed to kill 3 Cohort, the Ent, and cause the Cohort’s Shields to be unusable that turn. He rolled 6s for the effect on two of the spells. My units moved forward very little. Gildor’s Household moved back a bit to prevent Lurtz’s unit from getting too close. He cast the spell to push the unit back and spent a Might to bring the effect roll to a 6. The total they had to move back was 6″. I turned the HE Archers to face Lurtz’s unit. Galadriel cast some spells to reduce Courage and Strength of the Pikemen and used all her Might to make the rolls beneficial (I was rolling terribly!).  In the Shooting phase, his Crossbowmen killed 3 of my HE Archers, Gildor’s household failed to kill anyone in Lurtz’s unit and the HE Archers only did one better on their round of shooting (55 dice and only one sequence of 6 and then 4+). In the Charge Phase, the Cohort Commander called a Heroic Charge and the Uruk-Hai passed their Courage test (even with the -1). Glorfindel called a Heroic Charge and Ugluk tried to interrupt it. Bill won the roll to have Ugluk go first, but failed the Courage test to charge Glorfindel before he charged the Troll. Unfortunately the Troll passed the Courage test. The Warg Riders came in and charged the HE Regiment in the rear. In the following Fight phase, my Cohort lost lots of guys to the Pikemen. I tried to have my HE Cohort Commander duel his Captain, but they tied on the duel, even after spending Might to try exceed his total. The HE Regiment was left with 3 guys and they only killed one or two Uruk-Hai. I realized later that the 3 men left should have been pulled off the table since they were a lone company at less than 50%. Glorfindel put down the Troll he was fighting and sustained no wounds in return. At this point we called the game since it was getting late and (I think) it was clear my army was going to fall.

In hindsight, I’ll try using less Epic Heroes and more infantry as it seems I spent a great deal of points on them this go-around.

It was a pretty cool game. We learned a few more rules and with our knowlege gained from the previous game, we had less things to look up.

A few rules ambiguities that caused issues were:

1) Can a formation step backward without having to turn around?

2) Does a formation have to fight the enemy to their front if they have enemies in the rear as well?

I really like this game and I’d like it more if some rules were FAQ’d to keep weird stuff from happening. I hope to get to play it more. Bill wants to try their beginner-level game of 750 points and only one Epic Hero, so we’ll probably do that next. There’s also a group up on the north side playing on Thursdays, so I’ll probably go there next week.

Primered all my assembled War of the Ring minis. (24 High Elf Warriors, 24 High Elf Archers, 24 High Elf Spearmen, 24 Wood Elves, Glorfindel, Ent and a number of characters)

Made bases for my Flames of War Churchill Crocodiles since when I pinned the trailers on, the joint seemed finda flimsy.

Painted two Flames of War British M10C SP (17 pdr) tanks. Man, FoW stuff paints up super-quick!

Painted my two HQ stands for my Flames of War British army. They only need dullcoated now.

Applied a basecoat of Trollblood Highlight on my Ent. My sexy/awesome and honest critic wife commented that she wasn’t sure about the base color, but I think some washes will make it look more like a tree.

Worked some more on Nuke and Hellsmith. The toxic glow effect still needs work according to the amazing critic-wife, “It looks like a bunch of green worms on top of yellow goop”.

All in all, a lot of progress made.

There are a bunch of rules disputes on the forums around the ‘Net, one of which is whether models/units with the Terror special ability are immune to Terror from other units. Bill claimed he had seen somewhere that Games Workshop had stated that was true, so we went with that, even though I had never heard any such thing. That’s the only rules issue we cleared up prior to the game.

My list was like this:

• 3x Wood Elf (longbows)
• 3x High Elf Regiment (captain)
• 3x High Elf Archer Regiment (captain)
• 3x High Elf Cohort (captain)
• Glorfindel
• Ent
• Elrohir
• Elladan
• Elrond

His list was something like this:

• 4x Uruk-Hai (pikes, banner, captain)
• 3x Uruk Hai (shields, banner, captain)
• 3x Uruk-Hai (shields, banner, captain)
• 3x Warg (bows)
• 3x Warg (shields, captain)
• 3x Warg
• 1x Uruk-Hai (crossbows)
• 2x Isengard Troll
• Saruman
• Lurtz

When I arrived, Bill was nice enough to have already gotten us a space to play and board with terrain arranged pretty equally.  Bill won the die roll, so he said he wanted me to deploy first. I deployed from left to right: Glorfindel, Wood Elves, HE Cohort (Elrond), Ent, HE Regiment (Elladan), HE Archers (Elrohir). He deployed from left to right: Warg w/shields, Wargs, Uruk Hai w/shields (Saruman), Troll, Uruk-Hai w/crossbows, Uruk-Hai w/pikes, Troll, Uruk-Hai w/shields (Lurtz), Wargs w/bows.

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Turn one, we both moved forward in the movement phase. In the shooting phase, the Wood Elves rolled 30 dice against the Wargs w/ bows, killed one company and drove them back 3″. The HE Archers rolled 20 dice vs. the Wargs on the right only killing one model. The Uruk-Hai w/crossbows fired at the Ent, doing nothing. We had no Charges or Fights to work out. We both missed out on Magic since we forgot that magic happens in the movement phase.

Turn two, Bill got Priority and moved the Wargs on the right to flank the HE Archers. ALl of his other units merely moved closer. I moved the HE Archers back and diagonally to the flanking Wargs to try to prevent him from getting flank bonuses in the later Fight. Saruman cast Bolt of Fire into the HE Regiment, killing three followed by Aura of Blinding Light, causing me to have a lower Fight value and Dark Fury allowing him to reroll 1s and 2s in the ensuing combat. Elrond used his Epic Restoration to replace 2 of the 3 HE warriors killed by Saruman. He attempted to cast Call Winds, but rolled a 1 on the effect and a 2 on the Focus roll. In Shooting, the Wargs w/bows shoot at Glorfindel causing no wounds. Again, the crossbows were unable to wound the Ent. The Wood Elves fired into the Uruk-Hai, but caused minimal wounds. The HE Archers fired into the Uruk-Hai and also caused minimal wounds.

This is where I lost track of everything that was going on. Basically, my HE Cohort (thanks to Heroic Charge) charged into his pikemen (dumb) and I forgot to have the Ent charge. His Troll charged the flank of the Cohort. Glorfindel charged into the flank f the Uruk-Hai w/shields (Lurtz) and was killed in the following combat. He caused a few deaths himself, but having him charge ranked infantry was kinda dumb. His pikemen captain called a Heroic Duel, which he subsequently lost by 3. I was able to cause 5 more deaths besides the captain himself. We each caused a lot of wounds in the pikemen vs. cohort fight, but in the end the Elves won. Saruman’s Uruk-Hai were only able to contact one company of HE Archers, but the Archers caused enough wounds to stay in the fight. The HE Regiment went up against a Troll and hung around for a while, though was unable to damage the Troll. In a later turn, his Uruk-Hai (Saruman) and two units of Wargs were able to charge into the HE archers and basically decimate them. The HE Regiment was still unable to kill the Troll. The HE Cohort lost heir combat, but stayed in the fight, though disordered. The Wood Elves were able to cause a few more wounds in the Uruk-Hai (Lurtz) formation, but not enough to drive them back. Elrond was able to drive them back in the Movement phase, but through cunning use of Might, Lurtz got the unit into combat.

We called the game due to time, but I am pretty sure Bill was going to be able to pull off a win.

A few things we messed up:

We didn’t break contact at the end of every fight.

Neither of us really used Might all that much, especially me.

I think we were doing some of the charges and contacts incorrectly.

In my next game, I’ll probably take less unit Captains, except in the Cohort (3 Might rocks!) and use Epic Heroes instead. This should save some points and probably allow me to have more men to fight with as being outnumbered like I was really hurt me. I think I’ll also let the enemy come to me a bit more to allow for more rounds of shooting. Elrond really isn’t that great a character, so I think I’ll be changing him out.

I look forward to my next game of War of the Ring. The rules are really pretty fluid and not as confusing as some might believe.

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