Graham's Wargames : Middle Earth Clash with Midgard Heroic Battles

Ian came over last night for my first go at using Midgard Heroic Battles for Middle Earth. Set in the mid-Third Age, around the collapse of the Kingdom of Arnor, an Orc host out of Angmar encounters a Dwarven force from the Blue Mountains.

I gave Ian the choice and he took the Dwarves and rolled high, so he was the attacker. This would mean I deployed first, but he took the first move.

The Angmar Orcish host, I used double depth bases for the orc units as it gives the impression of massed numbers and looks more menacing, well just orcish!

The Dwarven force. They look puny next to the mass of Orcs, but these are very hard b***ards!

In the first turn the Dwarves advanced in a calm, orderly manner, keeping the main battle line neat and throwing their skirmishers forward on the wings.

In turn the Orcs rush forward in a somewhat more disorganised manner, whilst the warg riders rush off to outflank the Dwarven line (I miscalculated how long it would take these gits to get into position without a hero/champion to push them along!).

In the second turn the Dwarves charge forward in the centre and the slogging match begins! This was a good move for the Dwarves, not only do they have an advantage for charging (reroll and 1's), it negates and extra dice the Orcs get for charging as they are classed as being Impetuous.

The Dwarves start pushing the Orcs back, their superior armour is paying off.

Except for the unit facing the trolls, who are forced backwards, but with heavy losses on both sides.

The third turn continues with an epic clash as the upper hand swaps back and forth, and the supporting units move into the melee where they can. Leading his hearth guard forward the Dwarf Lord destroys the Orc unit in front of him, first blood to the Dwarves!

On the flanks the Orcs charge into the fray, but with another 2 Orc uruk units wiped out and a hero wounded, for just a unit of Dwarven skirmishers, things are looking bad for the Orcs. Their Reputation is down to 3 whilst the Dwarves still have 6 tokens on their pot! That said several Dwarf units are rather badly chopped up, so could break with a little push.

Turn 4 sees a change of fortune (again) as the warg riders finally get into a position to charge into the flank of a Dwarf unit engaged with uruks to their front. An outstanding results sees the Dwarf axemen wiped out and their hero leader wounded.

The centre of the battlefield is looking a bit empty (because so many units are dead!).

The last thing these unfortunate Dwarf axemen see is the trolls bearing down on them as another Dwarf unit crumbles. At the end of the Attacker (Dwarf) phase, we are both down to zero Reputation. It all depends on the final Defender (Orc) phase of melee. At this point our normal dice throwing resumed as I killed a Dwarf hero and destroyed another unit for no loss at all!