First Middle Earth game with Sellswords and Spellcasters

I played my first game in my Arnor campaign, which I'm currently planning as a 3-game mini adventure (but that could change depending on what happens during the games).

Hallas and a patrol came across a mortally wounded royal messenger close to the Arthedain/Cardolan border. Before he died, the messenger told them that he had been ambushed by orcs and his message pouch had been taken. He did not know the content of the message, just that it was extremely important. Iavasonnen picked up the tracks of 4 Orcs and the group followed them for half a day before locating their camp at the edge of the Barrow Downs.

The orcs seemed agitated and Hallas feared they had been spotted, when he noticed a troll shuffling about nearby. That would account for the orcs' agitation!

As Hallas prepared to lead his men in a surprise attack, Iavasonnen scouted the enemy position. He swiftly returned with bad news, more orcs were approaching, a lot more, maybe a hundred or so. The orcs they had been tracking were obviously just the scouts for a much larger raiding party. They needed to escape fast and get word of the raid to the nearest garrison. The escape route would take them straight through the orc camp!

This game was going to be based on Scenario 1 in the rules Through the Badlands. The party needs to cross the table to reach safety and get word to the garrison. However, one of the 4 orc brutes starting on the table is carrying the lost message pouch, so retrieving that is also important. I was going to give Experience as per the scenario, but also give Renown points for attempting to retrieve the message. Each brute killed and searched had a chance of having the message, the first would have it on a roll of 5 or 6, the second on 4, 5 or 6, the third on 3, 4, 5 or 6 and the fourth would automatically be carrying the message. Characters got 1 Renown point for killing and searching a brute and a bonus Renown point for finding the message.

This has always been a hard scenario to win and I wasn't sure how it would go without a wizard to lob fireballs around!

 The first move went amazingly well, all the characters passed 3 activations! That had never happen before as the party rushed across the table with the orcs still unaware of their presence. Hanar then passed 2 more, failing 1 which meant the orc nearest him started to move closer.

 Now Iavasonnen failed two activations, which bought a horde of 6 orcs onto the table and allows the brute nearest Hanar to charge him. However the dwarf knocked the orc back, slicing him with his axe.

 In the meantime Hallas moved forward towards another brute who started to charge closer in resoponse (1 failed activation). Doltalagan almost flew across the table with 3 more passes.

 The newly arrived orc horde just milled around in confusion.

 Hanar finished the orc off and quickly search him, but no sign of the message!

 Hallas and his follower were charged by the nearest brute at the same time as a hidden orc sprung an ambush on Hallas.

 In the meantime Iavasonnen redeemed himself by taking out 2 of the orc horde with well placed arrows.

 Hallas and the orc brute battered away at one another, each wounding the other.

 Before Hallas' follower finished the orc off with a spear thrust. A quick search revealed no sign of the message here either.

 By now Doltalagan and his follower had closed on another orc brute, whilst keeping a wary eye on the troll.

 Hanar moved across to join Hallas, as the orc horde finally started to advance.

 Whilst more orcs started to arrive. After a vicious fight, Doltalagan killed the orc and found the missing meassage!

 Having made short work of the orcs, Hallas led the way towards the escape route.

 The party made a breack for it as the troll moved closer.

 Another ambush, but Hallas cut the orc down without even breaking his stride.

 All the party had now escaped, save Iavasonnen, who found the troll to be uncomfortably close now. However two passes (and the 20 cancelling out the fail) saw him nimbly slip past the troll to safety.

Leaving a very angry troll behind.

Well this was the easiest game of Scenario 1 I'd ever played, the first time I hadn't had at least two characters needing to be carried off by their friends! The dice certainly helped, just 5 fails in the first 36 activation rolls (I stopped keeping count after that!). When drawn, the cards had also fallen in my favour, only 3 cards brought more orcs onto the table and only 2 Ambush cards in the whole game!

I did not notice the lack of offensive magic, but then I hadn't had to deal with many orcs. The party had only engaged 7 orcs in close combat, killing them all. But still Doltalagan took 2 wounds and Hallas and one of the followers had taken a wound each. We shall see.

To Middle Earth with Sellswords and Spellslingers

I have really been enjoying cooperative games of S&S with Ian, running a D&D style "traditional" party of adventurers. I also fancy some solo games (I often find myself with an hour or so spare, but no opponent) and wanted to do something quite different to the cooperative games. I have always been a fan of Tolkien, and inspired by reading Ethelred the Almost Ready's posts on the Lead Adventurer Forum concerning his Silmarillion set S&S campaign, I  decided to set my solo campaign in Middle Earth.

I've always fancied doing some sort of role-play type campaign in ME, I loved the MERP modules back in the 80s/90s, but never played them, I found standard RPGs to fiddly and time consuming once I stopped being a student. S&S is idea as it's sort of  a role playing game for tabletop wargamers (or is it a tabletop wargame for RPGers?). The thing that popped into my mind straight away was the cover illustration to The Lost Realm of Cardolan module (by the great Angus McBride).

So I decided to set my campaign in the North Kingdom, sometime after the break up of Arnor, either around 1350, shortly after the Witch King has established himself in Angmar but before the destruction of Cardolan, or in the 1640s after the Great Plague and after wights and spirits have occupied the Barrow Downs. I'm probably edging towards the latter time.

My idea is set around the adventures of a Knight of Arnor/Arthedain who is among those tasked with patrolling the eastern borders and keeping the Great Road open. I've always viewed Arnor warriors as looking a bit like those of the Late and Post Roman period. I have a reasonable collection of Late Roman and Arthurian figures, which I'll use for this.

There are a few aspects of the S&S rules which do not gel with a Tolkien setting, particularly the question of magic, so these are the ideas I'm currently considering.

Magic:
I’m a bit concerned that the lack of offensive magic might penalize the characters too much. In most of the “standard” S&S games I’ve played, the ability of a magic user to take out multiple low strength monsters, or to weaken a stronger one before they get into contact has been pretty important in the survival of the group.

One thought to try and balance this that I’m going to try, is to give the party a couple of "faithful followers". These will be just standard soldiers, with no traits. They will be assigned to a specific character and activate when that character does, with the same number of actions that they have in that turn. If they are killed they automatically get replaced for the next adventure.

Potions:
The only potions available will be healing ones, think of it more as a powerful herbal medicine. Potions can be created out of game by anyone with a Healer trait in the same way an Alchemist does in the original rules.

Cleric:
Partly to give the party a chance against undead and spirits, I’m envisaging allowing Clerics as being members of a Priesthood of the Valar. These are more students of ancient mystical knowledge rather than a conventionally religious organization.  PCs with the Cleric trait can also affect evil demonic spirits as they do undead (including barrow wights, ghost wargs, werewolves, etc).  Holy water (needs another name) also affects demons/spirits. I am going to pinch Ethelred's idea of calling the trait Repel Darkness rather than Cleric.

Money:
Cash is quite important in S&S, but I don't think looting the dead for profit really fits in Tolkien's world (at least not for the "good guys"). I'd going to play around with a system of Honour points. This will run parallel with the standard Experience and can be gained by achieving certain secondary objectives. Honour points can either be used as Experience points, or else "cashed in" to get stuff you would normally need money for.

Here are my characters:

Arnor Warband

Hallas: Dunedain Fighter
Sword +1, Armour +1, Leader
A young Dunedain captain tasked with patrolling the Great Road and keeping it open for trade, as well as well as watching for the border for signs of raiders or invasion.

Doltalagan: Dunedain Priest of the Valar
Repel Darkness, Sword +1, Healer +1
Due to the increased sighting of evil spirits, particularly around the Barrow Downs, the priesthood have started sending younger brethren to aid the border patrols.

Iavasonnen: Eriadorian Archer
Archery +1, Sword +1, Buckler +1, Fire into Melee
A veteran scout and crack shot.

Hanar: Dwarf
Strong+1, 2-handed  Axe +1, Armour +1
A younger son of his family, since the captain saved his parent's lives when orcs attacked their camp, Hanar has sworn to serve Hallas until he feels that the blood debt has been repaid.

Soldier: Eriadorian Fighter
No Traits
Rank and file soldiers of Hallas' company.

And some pictures:

 Hallas and Arthedain standards.

 Hallas and some of his unit..

 Hanar, Hallas, Iavasonnen and Doltalagan.

 A Rhudaur hill tribe chieftain and his followers.

 The Rhudaur raiding party get ambushed by our heroes.

 Hanar about to take down a Hillman berserker.

 A bunch of orcs try their luck.

But don't get too far.

I'm hoping to get a game in later tonight.

Sellswords and Spellslingers: The Summoning of an Ancient Evil

Had Ian around for another evening of beer and games, so we decided to get back to our Sellswords and Spellslingers campaign. Our characters have survived a few games now and have all improved their stats (most have +2 on their primary fighting skill, the wizard has now got 2 spells etc). This made us get a bit cocky, so decided it was time to try an expert level scenario and played "The Summoning of an Ancient Evil".

Here is the table layout.  The Warlock of Mount Larunn is in the centre of the stone circle, surrounded by goblin guards (the scenario says ratmen, but I don't have any of those so the goblins were a stand in), and the chaos barbarians are patrolling on the left hand edge of the picture. The characters are out of shot, entering from the bottom of the picture.

And some close ups of the Warlock and the summoning circle. the hooded cultists have no effect in the game, I just put them there because they looked good and I don't often have a chance to use them.

And so the action commenced! Bravely Bold Sir Robin, Christos the Cleric and Sintamo the Ranger rushed (or rather stumbled) towards the stone circle. Eddie Wizzard gathered his awesome power to launch a fireball at the barbarians, only to generate a dull spark...twice! Eldayondo the elf muttered "I think your magic's got wet" as he shot one of the barbarian's between the eyes. "We'll just have to do this the old-fashioned way say" said Gunnar Lanlarolilison the dwarf  as he charged into the barbarians, slicing one in half with his axe. The last barbarian did get a sneaking stab through the armour before being cut down. But with a lot of failed activations on our part the Warlock summoning spell was progressing along rapidly and the goblin guards were rushing forward.

Sir Robin managed to retie his shoe laces and moved up to engage the first goblin, starting to slice'n dice his way down the line. on the other side of the stone circle Gunnar got ready to do the same. Sintamo tried a long range shot at the Warlock.

We had to pause for discussion here, the scenario says the stone circle generates a forcefield that anyone trying to enter must pass a strength roll of 12+ or be pushed back. But it says nothing about shooting into the circle. Being able to pepper the Warlock at a distance seemed to make the scenario too easy, so we allowed missiles and spells to pierce the forcefield, but requiring the 12+ roll to do so.

Sintamo's arrow just bounced off! Eddie now finally succeeded in remembering the correct pronunciation for his spell and launched a fireball into the circle, which exploded harmlessly against the forcefield.  But his second attempt blasted the Warlock backwards. In the meantime Sir Robin and Gunnar were stacking up the goblin bodies. Eldayondo noticed an intriguing casket just inside a nearby burial mound but decided to go back for it later, but Brother Christos could not resist a silver necklace around the neck of the goblin he had just killed, so stopped to loot.

Despite the fireball, the Warlock continued his incantation and a vague shape started to form inside the circle. Sintamo moved closer and took a another shot (3 activations, failed 1) just as the demon took physical form. The Warlock let out a cry of triumph, then collapsed choking as the arrow took him in the throat!

"I killed the Warlock" Sintamo yelled. "What about the ****ing Demon" Sir Robin replied. Roaring the Demon rushed out of the stone circle, Sir Robin and Christos charged into it. In afrantic melee they inflicted a wound on the Demon, but Christos was wounded in return and Sir Robin knocked to the ground twice, only saved by the quality of his armour. As Christos took a second wound Sintamo joined the fray, only to take a wound himself. (It was only now I remembered he has "Shoot into Melee" as a skill, so he could have sat back and stuck the Demon with arrows). "Fireball" yelled Eddie, "Don't you dare!" yelled the rest of the party.

Sir Robin managed to pierce the Demon's scaled hide again and his armour defected the Demon's counter stroke. Eldayondo joined the melee and between the 4 of them they finally managed to kill the Demon. In the meantime, sulking, Eddie wandered over to pick up the casket originally spotted by Eldayondo and discovered a secret message. "What does it say?" he was asked, "I can't tell you, it's a secret!" earned him a headslap from Sir Robin.

A successful mission and the party were surprisingly unhurt, Brother Christos had two wounds and Sir Robin and Gunnar had one each, but they had made a lot of lucky armour and shield saves in the fight with the Demon. If the characters had been unarmoured they would have all been dead!

Unfortunately, once the action started it had been such a good game I'd forgotten to take any more pictures! With plenty of time on our hands, and a couple of bottles of Reverend James still unopened, we decided to play another game. We thought it might be good to try "Through the Badlands" a basic scenario. This is the first scenario in the book, so it's the one most people play first and it's a killer. It's very easy to get caught up in looting bodies (how else can you get money in this scenario?) and end up being overrun by orcs. We lost the entire party the first time we played it and just got one survivor off the second time. When we finally did succeed, half the party were acting as pack mules, carrying off the bodies of the other three!

Here's the starting situation, the party are entering along the left hand edge.

 We had scarely got going when Eddie Wizzard was ambushed, but he cut the orc down.

 Sir Robin when haring across the table towards the nearest orc brute , followed by Eldayondo. Dwaerf got stuck into a small orc horde, when more orcs appeared behind us. Sintamo and Brother Christos turned back and made short work of them. The red counters mark unlooted bodies.

 Sir Robin charged the brute, only to discover that it didn't look bigger because it was closer, it actually was bigger! (I drew a "That's a Big 'Un" card). Still he did his thing and started chopping bits off of the orc. He was very glad of his armour when the orc got a couple of good blows in!

 Having despatched a bunch or orcs, Gunnar now found himself with 2 large brutes approaching to attack from both sides (the second brute is just out of shot).  Not wanting to become the filling in an orc brute sandwich, he charged the brute nearest the party. Although he hurt the beast, he was cut down in return. Eldayondo finished the brute off with a well aimed arrow.

 We were having a lot of orcs turning up (kept rolling 6's for the number appearing) and a lot of wandering monsters. Unfortunately we kept rolling high for these as well and at one time we had 4 trolls on the table! Lucky for us, the trolls were all ahead of us and most of the orcs were coming on behind us (we assumed that the party must have been running away from a large orc warband who were in close pursuit). Ignoring the trolls, who were still some distance away, the party converged on Gunnar's body. Eddie was on form this game, lobbing fireballs around with glee and blasting orcs all over the place. He still needs to get his eye in, he wiped out a horde of 5 and a horde of 7, but three times blasted hordes of 6 and left 1 standing! Perhaps he has a problem with even numbers?

We were very lucky with the trolls as they kept wandering off of the table edge, only for another one to appear nearby. We reasoned that they were all here for a family reunion, but being a bit dim, they had all forgotten exact where they were meant to meet up, so were wandering around looking for each other. In the end, by the time we were getting close to the far side of the table there was only one troll left. He kept spotting characters and charging them, but fortunately each time they managed to out distance him!

As Brother Christos hauled the dwarf's body into safety we realised that the table was almost empty, there was only the wandering troll and a single orc left standing! It should be easy to get the rest of the party away now!

 Except that Eddie got himself ambushed again! This time the sneaky orc cut him down, but Sir Robin was racing to the rescue. Scarcely pausing, he removed the orc's head from his shoulders and scooped up  Eddie's body. More orcs were starting to arrive, so he rushed back towards safety, where Simtamo was waiting to give covering fire if any orc got too close.

The troll spotted them and moved forward, but too late as our heroes slipped away! We had done it, but it was still a close thing, despite our improved abilities and we hadn't bothered looting any bodies. For a basic scenario, this is a difficult nut to crack.

10mm Zulu War with Black Powder

I had Henry over for a gaming day today. He brought his 10mm Zulu War armies and we managed to get two games in, one before lunch and one afterwards. It was a simple scenario, the British had to escort a supply column across the table, or at least fight the Zulus off and prevent them capturing or destroying the baggage.

The British had 2 brigades, each of 3 infantry units, plus a single light gun.  The Zulus had 3 brigades of 3 warband units and a brigade of 2 warbands and 2 skirmishers (Head, Chest and 2 Horns!).

The first game was a outright Zulu victory. The right Horn rush forward and caught everyone by surprise, including the Zulu commander! The British failed their first attempt to form into a line and only succeeded after the Zulu charge fell just short and failed to make contact. (3 moves instead of 2 would probably have ended the game there and then). The British 1st brigade frantically fought the Horn off, but were effectively pinned in place for the rest of the battle.

As the left Horn closed in, the 2nd brigade deployed into line, but due to lack of space, crammed up against the baggage train, only one of then was able to fire at the incoming Zulus. The 1st unit was forced back in disorder and the Zulus crashed into the second rank. To try and make room to deploy the 3rd unit the CinC ordered the baggage forward, where they were pounced upon by a unit of skirmishers, who quickly destroyed the first stand (an unfortunate group of mules). The lead unit of the Head now came up and took out the other two baggage stands in quick succession. As that had been rather a quick game, we fought on, with the British making some astounding Break Tests (one shaken unit lost 3 consecutive routs of melee and still passed every time).

With one brigade broken on each side and the Zulu Chest moving around to get behind the surviving British, we decided it was time for lunch!

After a pleasant lunch and a beer (Wye Valley Brewery's Butty Bach), we swapped sides and played it again.

This time the Zulus came on at a similar pace, with the Horns slightly advanced from the Head and Chest. The British 2nd Brigade quickly deployed into a firing line, but the 1st brigade repeat their performance from the morning and took three turns to deploy and get into position.

The Zulus tried to close with the redcoats, but this time the British firing from the 2nd brigade threw then back and quickly reduced the left Horn to a single unit. 1 broken brigade for the Zulus! The Head moved across to engage the 2nd brigade as the right Horn crashed into the 1st brigade. The Zulu Head overran the gun, but were thrown back by the British firing once again. As the Zulu attack paused, one of the British units moved across to enfilade the Zulu impis. Pretty soon the |Head was also broken without even contacting the British line.

On the other flank the right Horn routed one of the British units in a hard fought melee then pushed the others backwards. Ina bloody round of fighting they broke the British 1st brigade, but became broken themselves from their losses in the same combat. With 3 Zulu brigades broken now it was a British Victory.

For some reason I completely forgot to take pictures of the first game but here is some of the action from the second one.

 The 2nd Brigade deploy

 But the 1st Brigade dithers!

 The Zulu Head advances

 As does the Right Horn.

 And the Chest.

 The British firing line.

Halts the advance in it's tracks.

 What's left of the Left Horn!

The final situation.

French North Africa - A New Project

Having recently completed (for now) my 10mm ACW and WSS projects, I've been looking around for something new to do next. My mate Mark had been on at me for us to start a new project, he'd suggested some ancient armies for Sword and Spear, but we already had 5 or 6 armies between us which I didn't think we'd got enough use out of yet. I was leaning towards something asymmetrical, perhaps 19th Century colonial, but in 10mm or 28mm? Still puzzling, I played a couple of colonial games with guys at the Tring Wargames Club using Black Powder and thought it really worked and was a lot of fun, so I decided this was the way to go. Still wondering about what to actually do, we already had club members with both sides for the Zulu War and both sides for the Sudan. I could go North West Frontier, but that would need some new terrain, and quite big terrain at that!

As these things happen, that's when I discovered Little Wars Miniatures and their 10mm Beau Geste range http://lancashiregames.com/littlewarsstore/beau-geste.html (ironically I found them via a discussion on the Pendraken Miniatures Forum). I've already got 10mm desert terrain for my Sassanid and WW2 armies, so that's one less thing to worry about.
Spotting a really nice little fort now available from Dreamholme Ebay Desert Fort convinced Mark so off we go!

Looking at the army packs, which offered quite a good deal, I thought half a pack would give enough figures for a small basic game of Black Powder. So I ordered one of each and Mark and I split the contents. The Tuaregs are really nice, with a good mix of poses. The French are also good, but a bit limited as the range only has the Legion infantry and machine guns. It is missing mule mounted legionaires, artillery and cavalry such as Spahis and Chausseurs d’Afrique, but I think I can find suitable proxies in Pendraken's 19th century ranges.

This is my share of the haul.

I'm going to use 30mm frontage bases, the regular infantry will have 20mm depth and cavalry and irregular troops will have 30mm depth. In Black Powder terms, I'm thinking of using 2 stands for a small unit, 3 stands for a standard sized one and 4 stands for a large unit. My first thought was to make the French troops standard sized units and the Tuaregs a mix of standard and large units. But, given that a basic Legion unit will be representing a company I'm veering towards using small units for regulars and skirmishers and standard sized units for warbands.

So I'm starting off with some Tuareg warriors. Looking for painting inspiration online, blues are very common, with splashes of other bright colours like orange and green. This is going to be a colourful army!

 As they come out of the pack. These ones are fairly flash-free, others need a bit of trimming, but so far it's all been very easy to snip off from the figures.

 Undercoated in grey.

Painted riflemen. I painted the rifles and flesh in similar, but subtly different shades, but after a wash they have ended up looking pretty much identical.

A finished unit of Tuareg skirmishers.

ACW Action

After a bit of a hiatus, here's another 10mm battle report using Black Powder and the Glory Hallelujah! supplement.

The Rebs have cut the Yank's supply line and the General want's the re-established, fast! Each side start with two brigades on the table, the Confederates have two in reserve, the Union three. Reserves can arrive from turn 2, rolling a separate d6 for each brigade. In turn 2 they arrive on 4+, turn 3 on 3+, turn 4 on 2+ and, if they are really unlucky, automatically on turn 5. The Union (Mark) need to establish an unbroken road link from the road exit on the western side of the table to one of the three road exits on the eastern side of the table. The Confederates (me) need to prevent this.

 The battlefield viewed from the south. The small areas of woodland are classed as dense woods and the fence are linear obstacles and impassable to guns.

The Union brought both starting brigades on the northern end of the table, aiming to advance down either side of the northernmost road, and the Confederates deploy both brigades opposite them. This was a bit of a gamble for the Rebs, if the Union reserves arrived much earlier than their own, there was nothing to stop the yanks seizing the southernmost road and grabbing a quick victory. As it was both sides had reserves on the table by turn 3.

Whilst the starting brigades advanced keenly, the first Union reserve brigade advanced to take position on the road junction, forcing the Confederates to deploy their first reserves to the south, between the two roads and squaring up with the Union brigade. These two brigades took no effective part in the battle, just eyeing each other up with a little exchange of long range artillery fire (well a bit one-sided fire actually as the Union battery was quickly knocked out).

 The 4th Confederate brigade takes position covering the two southernmost roads.

Facing off against the union 5th Brigade.

At the northern end of the table the Union troops rushed forward, or at least the 1st Brigade did. Due to incompetent command (2 blunders in 3 command rolls!) the 2nd Brigade was rather tardy in their support. However, by concentrating on the far end of the line the Union 1st Brigade commander managed to line up his 5 regiments facing just 3 Confederate ones. Showing unusual aggression for a Northerner, he charged the entire brigade into the Reb lines. This could be an early breakthrough and a quick victory for the Union!

It was not to be as the dice gods were not kind to Mark. As the blue line charged in, my closing fire was devastating and inflicted heavy casualties. In the following melee all three units in the Union front line were repulsed and two units routed. In my turn a third regiment routed from the effect of my musketry. So at the end of Turn 3, after just one turn of combat, already one Union brigade was broken.

What's left of the Union 1st Brigade!

Leaving a brigade at the crossroads to pin down one of mine (in reality they failed 4 successive Command rolls and never got a chance to move) the Union threw all their reserves against the northern end of the Confederate line.

Their blundering commander had left the Union  2nd brigade somewhat exposed with the front two regiments taking fire from three Confederate units and a gun battery. With the troops in front of them broken, the Confederate  1st Brigade's artillery joined in and as the Rebel reserves arrived a third gun battery started pounding the unfortunate Yanks. Inevitably the front units crumbled under the barrage and a swift Rebel charge left another Union brigade broken for the loss of a single Confederate regiment.

The Union 2nd Brigade takes a beating!

By now the Union had rushed the reserve brigades forward for a final attempt to break through the Confederate lines. The Confederate centre wheeled across to fire into the flanks of the Union troops as they advanced. The combined fire soon took it's toll and a third brigade reached it's break point without even contacting the Confederate lines. A resounding win for the Confederacy.

The Confederate reserve plug the gap in the line.

The Union reserve prepare to advance for their last attempt to break the Rebs.

Interestingly I'd played the same scenario a couple of weeks before, this time taking the Union forces. On that occasion I attacked across a wider front and successfully isolated one Confederate brigade and destroyed it. That left a gap I could exploit and the game ended with a Union win.