The Battle for Helms Deep

Okay, so a few weeks ago I gathered my gaming friends together to celebrate my birthday with a big War of the Ring (WOTR) game on my helms deep board.

I actually did the same thing last year for my 24th birthday but forgot to take any pictures of it, so after get the terrain down from the attic and dusting it off, I got the camera out. So, considering that I haven't posted anything in a long time, I figured that I might as well upload them all here.

This is not going to be a battle report but the captions will hopefully give some idea as to the shape of the game. I also never posted a picture of the complete fortress after I finished building it, so here's one...

My Helms Deep terrain board.

The Board is set.

The War of The Ring rules were used- with a few changes to allow for seige warfare.

The Battlements gave a +3 bonus to the defender. Also attacking models gain no additional dice for charging or supporting whilst attacking up a ladder. The Gate was 'Very hard to kill' and defense 8.

Too expensive to use as individual heroes Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli played as 'The Three Hunters'.

Haldirs elves held the Deeping Wall.

To win, the Good side needed to kill 75% of the Uruks companies. However, whenever an evil company was destroyed a dice was rolled, on a roll of a 6 it returned from the evil board edge!

Destroy the world of men- The Evil side could win in one of two ways. They could destory 75% of the defenders companies or kill any two of Aragorn, Theoden or Gandalf.

The Game begins with a free volley of shouting for the Good side.

At the beginning of every turn a dice is rolled and the turn number added to it. If the result equals 10 or higher Gandalf arrives.

If the uruks can get the bomb to the culvet in the wall then it automatically explodes (following the usual bomb rules from the rulebook).

Pikes cannot be used during the first turn in which Gandalf arrives.

The attack begins.

After a few hours of play the first wave has been completely destroyed. However, the second wave has breached the wall and has a foot-hold on the ramparts.

Gimli and Legolas are both killed in the explosion, but Aragorn stands alone defending the breach.

The Uruks prepare to storm the gap in the wall.

At this point in the game the Gate has yet to break (despite taking three would counters).

The Uruks take the wall.

When all seemed lost, Gandalf arrived!

The Pikemen manage to get themselves lined up just in time.

Can the Riders turn the tide?

The Riders of Rohan crash into the rows of pikes (which have no effect this turn).

Many dice are rolled.

It doesn't take long for the Uruks to be over-run.

In a desperate gamble, the Uruks attack the gate with the siege ballista and hit!

The Uruks storm through the shattered gate and are able to complete their objective before the riders could finish them off.

Victory to the Evil side!

This was a very close fought battle, with the players constantly trying to figure out who was winning.

Early on the Uruks took huge casualties from the masses of arrow fire but these were mostly aimed at the lightly armoured orcs and scouts in the first wave. By the time the Fighting Uruk-hai reach the walls the defenders had already used some of their might points and their companies were somewhat depleted.

Argueably the most heroic moment was when Haldir charged from the wall to protect Aragorn, after the bomb had exploded, and was killed by beserkers.

In the end the riders where unable to do enough before the Uruks killed 75% of the defenders. Had the game continued to the death, it could have possibly been a different result.

The Second World War in 20mm

As the early posts on this blog show, the main wargame which i play is warhammer fantasy but i also enjoy a few other games as well. For some time now i have play Lord of the Rings, the War of the Ring and Bolt action. With the majority of my gaming friends away at university or having a break from the hobby i've had to put aside fantasy for awhile and focus on these other two.

I do think its a shame that Wotr wasn't more of a success as i personally really enjoy it. Afterall there are some great, huge battle scenes in lotr with massive armies squaring of against each other- this is what i like to recreate on the battlefield.

Having gotten my friend into the idea of wargaming on a semi regular basis i've been playing alot more Bolt Action, which we both find interesting because of the 'historical' element behind it. Bolt Action is designed to be played in 28mm but i find that it works perfectly well at 20mm and means you can fit more troops on a regular 6" by 4" board. It also has the benefit of being incredibly cheap at this scale.

 

Airfix 1/72 8th army

   Being more into terrain building than miniature painting these days i wanted to build something that could be used in 20mm for BA and in 25mm (i think that's what it is) for Lotr sbg and Wotr. I'd also decided to 'hold fire' on any big project for a little while and instead make some 'scatter pieces'.

First up, are the woods!

I was able to buy some lazer cut mdf bases for pretty cheap from wargamestournaments on ebay.

I think they are supposed to be movement trays but they make great bases for my interchangeable trees.

Using a nail a made a hole for the trees to glue into and then sanded the base.

I sprayed all of the bases brown.

And then drybrushed it with a lighter brown tone.

A little flock and static grass to match my modular boards.

The Boards got flocked later.

Some woodland scenic's clump foliage helped to break up the large blocks of colour.

And provide plenty of 'cover' of for troops to advance behind.

The clump foliage is best applied with a hot glue gun, for durability.

I can change the type of forest, by changing the trees.

These were very easy to make and woods are always useful pieces of terrain for wargaming. I intend to make another batch of these so that i can completely cover a board in woodland if the game requires.

I also made a few 20mm BA specific terrain pieces to add some flavor to my games- A crashed Focke-Wulf, a wrecked stuart tank, some small scatter-able pieces and a large crater.

Pieces like this can be quickly placed to add character without getting in the way or over cluttering a board.

D-day landings anyone?

whilst i was buying bases for the woods i also bought these.. perfect for smaller pieces.

Having bought some DAS airdry clay, i decided to make to terrain.. to see what it could do.

I raided my bits box and found some ammunition boxes.

This was very easy to make, just a case of piling up clay around the outside.

It was made to fit any of my weapons teams.

Some sand and flock and it was finished.. personally i think its too green, so will probably change it at a later date.

Plastic soldier company stuart tanks come with enough bits to make 3 tanks and half of three more.

Using the spare bits i made this...

To hide the half with i didn't have, i sunk it in the DAS clay.

Some sand and a bit of paint...

As i do with all my 8th army stuff, I covered it in Army painter strong tone (seen here before being dulcoated).

For this piece i used an old Focke-wulf I half built when i was a kid.

It was in a pretty poor condition, so it was perfect for use as a wreck.

As with the other pieces, the clay could be shaped, to form a crash 'crater'.

Some sand and paint... plus a few bullet holes..

I used dark tone army painter ink to 'weather' the plane.

Large pieces of the plane had gone missing over the years, but this just added to the damaged look.

sadly the clay did warp the base as it dried, something to be aware of next time.

Again, i'm not convinced by the colour of the flock, but it'll do for now.

These pieces only took about a week of work to finish and most of that was because i was being slow and lazy. At some stage i will come back to them and probably reflock them or add some foliage as i'm not 100% happy with them.

The woods will probably see the most use as they work for the lotr sbg (or the hobbit sbg as its now called). I have also made some Bocage for 20mm games, which i will post at some point and i am currently working on a large 4" by 2" river module which can be used for my Pegasus bridge board and will also work for the 'barrels out of bond' scenario i've heard is in the desolation of smaug book. I'll try and get into the habbit of uploading WIP pics as a slowly complete it.

Feel free to comment :)