Battle of the Black Gate LOTR

We played a LOTR battle using About Kings and Heroes, our LOTR adaptation of About Caesar.

Frodo, Sam and Sméagol are on their way to Mount Doom. To destroy the one ring and end this conflict once and for all.

To distract the eye of Mordor, the armies of men attack the Black Gate.

Steven with the army of Rohan, Thomas with the army of Gondor and Peter with a combined force of Rangers and  Númenóreans.

They have 6 heroes, Aragaron, Gimli, Gandalf, Legolas, Merry and Pippin.

When a hero is attached to a unit, the moral is boosted, and they have an extra die.

The armies Mordor  march out to face them. Alberik with a combined force of orcs and Haradrim men.

Marnix takes the centre with orcs, battle trolls  and Uruk-hai. Dirk leads the left with goblins and mountain trolls.

 With no cavalry on both sides to support them, the armies of evil must defeat the amries of men before the ring is destroyed. And the armies of men must survive so Frodo and Sam can reach Mount Doom

Dice are thrown to see how fast Frodo, Sam and Smeagol can advance towards the top.

Archers slow down the servants of Sauron, but once the archers come in contact with the orcs, goblins and Hardrim soldiers, they have to fight or perish. 

The heavier troops stand their ground, and with the help of the heroes they can stay put.

Once the trolls join the fight, the armies of men come under presure.

The masses of goblins swamped the Rohan troops.

Gondor troops stabelize the situation in the centre. 

The Gondorian left flank with the Ranger archers and the elite Numenorians are taking the upper hand on the orcs and Haradrim.

Frodo, Sam and Smeagol  make astonishing progress.

The Armies of Mordor throw everything foreward, there is no time to waste. 

Rohan has to commit it's last reserves, but the goblins keep pushing.

Rohan is at it's breaking point.

Legolas keeps moral high.

Gandalf in the middle of a fight!

Now Sauron's best troops come to the front, the Uruk-hai are joining the fight.

Smeagol has knocked down Sam, and is fighting Frodo.

With the last forces of Rhohan remaing, the orcs have to break the Gondorian troops.
There are only a few turns remaing before the ring is detroyed

But then Smeagol fals into the fire, The Ring is destroyed. With their master destroyed, the orcs run for their lives.

 

Some extra pics of the game.

The Wind and the Lion Game

 The 1975 film The Wind and the Lion is very popular among my wargaming friends, so I thought I would host a game based on the final battle. I used Fistful of Lead Bigger Battles rules. The game started with 63 mounted Berbers charging the fortified village. In the film, set in 1903, the Moroccan Bashir is supported by Germans in spiked helmets. They are holding the Raisuli, a Berber brigand, played by Sean Connery, prisoner. Just to complicate things, a detachment of US Marines, along with Mrs. Pedecaris, who had been the prisoner of the Raisuli but is now in love with him, have freed the Raisuli and are fighting the Bashir's bodyguard and the Germans. It's all complete nonsense, historically. 

Two of the four players had never seen the film, but, without coaching, the game developed a narrative that was close to that of the film. In the end, The Berber horsemen, loyal to the Raisuli were able to triumph over the Germans and the Bashir's bodyguard.

Boxer Rebellion Train Game

 June must be wargame season! I drove from San Francisco to Los Angeles in order to spend the weekend with a good friend whose family was out of town. So, along with another friend, we played three games in two days and watched The Longest Day on DVD. We called our mini-convention Bachelor Wars 2024. My game was a 54mm Boxer Rebellion game from the Colonial Campaigns Boxer Rebellion scenario book by Mark Fastoso called Skirmish on the Rails. In the scenario, Admiral Seymour's relief force is stalled by broken rails in the track ahead. The Royal Marines must provide an escort to the repair party while the rest of the Royal Navy force stays behind to guard the train. Meanwhile the countryside is alive with Boxers who want to wipe out the repair party and possibly damage the train. We used The Sword and the Flame rules. The Boxers presented quite a threat, but the Boxer player was unable to roll to close to combat several times and so the Europeans were successful in their mission. With a different set of rules, it might have been a very different outcome!

Fictive 1813 Napoleonic battle

A French-allied force facing a Russo-Prussian force, to defend a strategic crossroad.

Steven as Prussian, Peter as Russian, Dirk with the French allies Bavarian-Württenberger force supported by french artillery and hussars, and Adrien with the French force.

Prussian and Russian forces were larger than the definding French. The French left were all veterans.

Peter attacked with his 3 regiments of dragoons while his infantry progressed towards the village and crossroad. The charge swept away a battery and 2 Bavarian infantry batalions, receiving themselves heavy losses. The French-allied right was already in big trouble from the start. Steven did, a more cautius advance as his hussars faced veterans French dragoons, but Adrian remaind on his positions.

On the far left, the third Russian dragoon unit attacked the Württenvberger jägers which turned out to be a fiasco. The unit was all but destroyed.

The clash between French Dragoons and Prussian hussars resulted in the dragoons retreating af table. 

Adrien went ofrward with his infantry near the village and was able to push bach the Prussians, but had now the problem of the hussars in his back. Moreover The Prussians were also able to drive of table  the veteran Polish troops on the extreme left. 

The French hussars on the right destroyed in their turn the remaining Russian dragoon unit. Suddenly, a whole new situation was created.  The W¨rttenberger jäger skirmish units could now deploy as skirmishes harrasing the Russian attack columns, that also had suffered heavely from the the remaining French battery.

The remaining Russian drgoons were finished off giving free hand to the French hussars that started to turn the Russian flank. The Russians had been able to eliminate the remaining batery facing them, but were by now forced to take defensive positions!

The Prussians had almost taken the village but had to fall back some distance.  And the Russian were by now desperate to keep their line, while being cut to pieces but the Württenberg-Bavarian musketry.

But for the French force of Adrian, to few troops remained on table.

With yet another batalions destroyed, his command was broken.  The Russians being saved by the bell.

It is a common mistake made by novice wargamers to start the battle with cavalry charges, while it is better to keep them in reserve to exploit weeknesses of the enemy, later i nthe battle. 

 

Knights and Bowmen - April 21th 2024

Some of our team members wanted to start making a new rule for battles with knights.

Steve had some basic "hit and save" rules. Steven brought the Britains bowmen and all other figures are from my childhood, being al arround 50 years old.

As most rule making is trail and error, the first games were done very quickly. 

Some suggestions of players were straight from our About Caesar rule, which is not the intention when making something new. So still much rewriting to do.