Headed up to Nottingham today to join a merry throng of chaps to play a couple of Silmarillion games using two 'work in progress' rule sets. Both games were set during the Fifth Battle of Beleriand, Nirnaeth Arnoediad - 'Unnumbered Tears'. Both scenarios were originally in Miniature Wargames magazine written by Graham Green, rule writer, figure painter/converter/sculptor extraordinaire. Graham ran the Last Stand of Hurin and the Men of Dorlomin using his figures (well, plus my trolls) and his rules, which was basically the last act off the battle. James Morris ran Gwindor's Charge, the opening part of the action. In the real battle, the Elves and men took a complete pasting. Would we repeat 'history' today?
My first game was Hurin's Last Stand. I took the evil force along with a chap called Matt. We took on Tom WD who commanded the Men plus a couple of units of Elves. The scenario was basically that the Elves of Gondolin were retreating from the lost battle and Hurin, his brother Huor and their warriors were to hold off the Orcs to allow their escape. A couple of Elf units were on hand to lend ranged support. The evil army had the option to recycle units to represent the unending stream of troops available. We basically had to control the two fords over the river and as as secondary objective, we had to capture Hurin for Morgoth. If we could get Huor too, so much the better! Everything else had to die!
In the event, Tom threw some shocking dice and the valiant men of Dorlomin died helplessly and very fast, but the Elf archers eventually slowed us down enough so that we couldn't control both fords by the end of turn 8.
Great game and Graham's rules worked pretty well. they are very different to what I'm used to, but I quite enjoyed this, the second time I'd played with them. I only took a handful of pics of this small-scale game. The men in these pics are Graham's conversions of Oathmark humans with greenstuff cloaks, replaced heads and mail armour sculpted from greenstuff over the models' original armour.
After a hearty pub lunch, it was on to the second battle. This was Gwindor's Charge with James Morris' home-brewed rules. The Orcs had been tasked with drawing king Fingon's Elf/Men army out from their position in the wooded hills in order to facilitate their destruction by Morgoth's reserve forces. To do this, they had dragged Elf captives in front of the Elves and decapitated them. Unfortunately, the brother of one of the captives was in the Elf line at this point. Enraged by the murder of his brother, he led a colossal attack with his cavalry, followed by most of the Elves and men. Determined to exact revenge, he headed straight for the Orc leader who had murdered his brother. That was the Elf objective - kill the murdering Orc and get as many units off the table through the Orc lines as possible before one side or other ran out of 'reputation', which is how James' rules determine victory. The Orcs had to stop them! Once again, I fought on the side of evil. A handful of my Orcs were in the horde (we had SO many Orcs that mine, other than heroes and a few archers, weren't needed) but my Elves were in the opposing army.
In the end, we held the Elf charge, with only King Fingon's cavalry unit looking certain to exit the table before the game ended with us losing our last reputation token. We'd certainly held the Elf onslaught (which is more than what happened in the 'real' battle) so we claimed it as a minor Elf victory - tens of thousands of Orcs and evil men would soon be arriving to reinforce our line and overwhelm the hated Noldor and their allies!
Here are the opposing battle lines at the start of the game...
Gwindor's charge...
...which is eventually held with the destruction of his personal retinue and much of his heavy cavalry.
Here are some more pictures from the battle, including my Elves in the alliance battle line.
Fantastic day! Really enjoyed both games. We're planning another later in the year and our collections may make an appearance at wargame shows during the year!
