This past weekend, I had my friend from Toronto visiting! Mostly, we assembled miniatures, as he had purchased two forgeworld Armageddon Pattern Basilisks, which turned out to be the actual worst kit I’ve ever had the misfortune to work on! Luckily, we powered through and got them done. But, he had been wanting to try a fantasy game, as opposed to 40k or something else futuristic. Thinking to myself that this would be an excellent chance to sell someone else on the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game, the trap was sprung. We did a few demo games, and had a blast, but after watching Return of the King, he asked the question every SBG player dreads…”Shall we do a grand siege?”.
In the past, I found that sieges, especially big ones, had a tendency to take literally 5-6 hours, if you were lucky, to get a proper game done. However, either by me now knowing the rules a lot better then my 13 year old version, or us making an effort to play quickly, we wrapped it up in 2 1/2 hours! We didn’t even bother with points; He simply took all he owned, plus a few of my gondor models to aid him, while I took 6 warbands of assorted Mordor baddies. We also came up with the win conditions on the spot, being that of killing either Gandalf or Gothmog, or me getting 50% of my forces in the walls. In hindsight, the outcome of what was going to play out was obvious, but we still had a blast!
In the end, my lack of ladders, only having 4, meant a good deal of my force was doing nothing, while being bottlenecked on the wall. My trolls battered down the gate, but the trolls took up the whole gate and blocked entry for both sides, preventing me from moving in until one side broke, which neither did. I learned that I need far more ladders, I’m thinking 8 at least, and perhaps making or buying 2 siege towers and a proper battering ram. My Catapult reaped a bloody toll, when it hit. In the end, it came down to Gothmog being sniped by Legolas, ending the siege then and there.
But it is interested that it played as well as it did, and I’m looking forward to doing more big battles!
After he left, I primed my Iron Hills Dwarves, using Army Painter Platemail, as I found on my black-primed test mini that I would save a lot of time, and after watching a tutorial online that recommended the spray. I was apprehensive, as the spray tends to go on fairly thick, but the only detail obscured is the spear tips, which I think I can live with.
I think they’ll look fantastic once completed! Dain on the “rocket sausage” will be the last thing I do, if ever, since I’m not terribly fond of the idea of Dwarven cavalry. But the detail on both him on foot and on piggy are quite stunning!
Until next time, may your dice be blessed by Aule, and farewell.
Not by Strength, By Guile 