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.

Helm Deep- FINISHED.

At last, i am finally finished. At least, the main structure is finished... there are still some final details that i need to get around to (a couple of doors/stairs etc.) but i'll get around to that in a couple of months time, for now i'm done :)

Bored of creating cliffs and itching to build something i started work on the causeway.

The causeway was built from scraps of polystyrene and then covered in polyfilla
(this time i chose to carve the brick work whilst it was drying which save ALOT of time!)

As i had predicted, creating a gradual slope whilst bending to one side was very challenging.

Once the filla was dry i undercoated it all with black paint.

Followed by a heavy drybrush with slate grey.

Back to the detailing, i textured the edges inside the keep with sand.

This looks abit odd now but once painted just adds texture.

Using woodland scenics liquid earth pigments (Burnt umber and slate grey) i began to paint the rocks.

This is an incredibly quick method of painting cast rocks and looks very realistic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SfP4RpcDYw  They have lots of videos
on youtube explaining how to use their products.

The one issue i encountered was that the pigments did not colour the polyfilla
i had used to fill the gaps between rocks. This was fixed later using watered down black paint.

Whilst fixing the rocks i undercoated the entire base black.

The inner walls were painted to match the deeping wall.

And the seams between the rocks and walls were tidied using watered down black paint.

The bridge was sanded to fit between the wall sections and then undercoated.

I drilled three small holes into the inner wall for the bridge to pin into place.

On the bridge, i drilled holes to match and glued in place pins made from paperclips.
This way the bridge could be removed for storage.

The bridge was a detail i almost left out, but i decided it would make an interesting gaming
element and i wanted to remain true to the weta original.

Supports were added to the inside of the keep to add some structural integrity.

The steps were cast and glued into place, later the polystyrene was polyfillered and the brickwork
carved (again whilst drying)

As a continued to raise the tower height, i began making a framework for the connecting rock face.

I remove the piece and began casting/shaping to rocks to fit. The rocks were attached with No more nails.

I tried to use up my spare rocks, including the originals i used when i was first experimenting
with colours. As a result this one ends up looking slightly different, but simply added to the realism. 

The rocks covered 3 sides of the framework and were fitted around the wall sections, tower and keep

Due to the weight of the section (all the sections end up very heavy) i had to add some supports inside.

Polyfilla was again used to fill in any gaps.

I added an old Eaglemoss figure to represent the statue of Helm Hammerhand.
I spray painted it at a later date.

Almost finished!!!!!
The Tower was primed and painted- the roof is even removable :)

I painted the rocks to match the others. (Notice the one which is slightly different)
I blended the two types with i few washes, to make it look more natural.

And with that, the fortress was finished!

It took me about 10 months, from start to finish.
(Although i did stop working on it for a few months in the middle)

At some point in the future i will probably redo the cliffs to the right of the fortress,
replacing them with cast rocks like the others.

I added three gargoyles/lions-head things to the keep for extra detail.

In the next couple of weeks i shall be inviting several friends around for the day to play a huge War Of The Ring battle on it, using adapted rules for sieges and special senario objectives etc. My younger brother and I did a play test of the game yesterday, which took about 7 hours- The basic rules work but some things did need slight altering to make the game more exciting/balanced.

I hope you enjoyed watching the build as it progressed and i think i've got the bug as i plan to host a couple of large scenario games throughout the year. Currently deciding between Orthanc/Isengard (including dam and orc mining scaffolds) or the Black Gate as my next big project.. Hmmmmm.. both have their merits but the idea of a dozen ents running around the board just makes me giggle like a little girl.

I shall try to take some pictures of the Big Game so you can all see it when its covered in painted troops and being attacked by approximately 400 orcs/uruks (still painting most of them though!)

Please feel free to comment/share or ask me question if want..

Until next time :)