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A new gamer to Lord of the Rings SBG has been contacting me about possibly getting a game in sometime in the future. He happened to send me an email yesterday afternoon saying that he was going to be at our local flagship (Empire Games) to get a practice game in with the Manager there. It's been a few years since he has played last so he wanted to shake off the cobwebs. I thought it would be a good time for my son and I to show up and introduce ourselves and possibly throw down a small game with each other.
So we decided to bring 2-350 point armies with us. My son always plays his Gondor armor, so I decided to leave that army at home and let him choose another army to play. He decided to choose Erebor led by Gimli and I brought along my Cirith Ungor list with Shelob.
The armies consisted of the following:
Cirith UngolShelob
Orc Shaman
Orc Captain
Orc Banner
4x Orc Warriors w/ Bow
2x Orc Warriors w/ Two-Handed Weapon
8x Orc Warriors w/ Spear
8x Orc Warriors w/ HW & Shield
Erebor
Gimli
Dwarf Banner
8x Khazard Guard
8x Dwarf Warrior w/ Bow
6x Dwarf Warrior w/ HW & Shield
1x Dwarf Warrior w/ Two-Handed Weapon
With the armies in hand, we randomly rolled a scenario from Legions of Middle-Earth.
Points: 350
Scenario: Contest Of Champions
To achieve a Major Victory in Contest Of Champions, your leader must inflict twice as many casualties as your opponent's leader or your leader has made one or more kills and your opponent's leader has made none. A Minor Victory is to have your leader inflict more casulaties than your opponent's leader.
Once we rolled the scenario Contest Of Champions, I knew it was over for the Orcs. Gimli was going to start counting down the kills.
The beginning turns were pretty standard. Move up and try to setup counter attacks while trying to get some kills with bow fire. Orc shooting is terrible (hitting on a 5+ and killing a Dwarf on 6) so my chances of any kills from bows were unlikely. The Dwarfs did manage to kill a few Orcs with bow fire.
Once the two lines hit for combat, the tides were turning. Miraculously the Orcs where winning combat and killing the Dwarfs (lucky 6's). Having the Orc Shaman and casting Fury also saved me 3 Orcs with rolling 6's for them to stay alive.
Gimli got within range and charged into my Orc Captain (my leader, since Shelob cannot be used as a leader) and we tied or combat with both of us rolling 4's. With Gimli having the higher Fight Value I knew he was going to win the fight. I thought to myself, should I use Might Points to win the fight and make Gimli burn up Might Points also. I decided to use both points of my Captains Might and change my die to a 6. Gimli thought long and hard and also burned 2 points of Might to change his die roll to a 6. Since combat is still tied, with the higher Fight Value, Gimli win the combat. The dice were not with Gimli. Gimli managed to do 1 wound on my Orc Captain. With the Orc Shaman near by, it was time to try and save that wound. The Shaman rolls a 6. No wounds on the Captain but all his Might has now been used.
The next turn, Evil had won Priority and I managed to retreat the Orc Captain away from Gimli and setup Shelob for the charge into Gimli. It took a few turns, but Shelob managed to slay down Gimli with Gimli causing no kills on any of my Orcs. All I need now was 1 kill from my Orc Captain and I secured a Major Victory.
Well that 1 kill took a long time. Quite a few turns. The rest of my Orcs managed to kill more Dwarfs and even managed to cause the Dwarfs to become Broken, but the Orc Captain still could not get any kills in, even with spear support all I could muster was rolling 5's on the dice. Now I wish I still had Might Points left over.
Finally with just a handful of Dwarfs left on the table, my Orc Captain managed to slay 1 Dwarf and secure a Major Victory for Cirith Ungol.
This was actually a very fun game. Having killed Gimli early on in the game, I thought it was going to end fast, that obviously did not happen. It was awesome to see just an Orc Captain win the game over a named a hero. I'm sure it will not happen again.
Another nice thing was, with my son and I playing, and the Manager and newcomer playing right next to us, a lot of other people came by to watch the games. It was nice to see LotR drawing some attention.
LotR vs. Wotr, as of right now I like them both. Having played my first real WotR game this past weekend, I actually enjoy playing both games. They are two different games, just using the same models which is always a plus. When I want to play with more models and some of the bigger characters, it will be WotR, but for these small quick games, LotR is nice.
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