Summer break is almost over, time for yet another battle report for LotR.
The story: Orcs have been roaming freely in Rohan and Eomer seems to be the only one to do something about that. He sends a scouting force out to track the latest orc warband near the northern border of Rohan. Unfortunately the tables are turned and the scouting force is scattered in a night attack by the orcs. Early next morning the captain of this scouting force, Freogar, and his Lieutenant Haldred look for survivors and try to reassemble their patrol.
The scenario: Freogar and Haldred are both lesser heroes of Rohan. Their task is to move from one encounter site to the next. At each site a card is drawn indicating what is found. Usually a few Rohirrim, some on horse, some on foot. Some encounters also have equipment lying around. As the Rohirrim start out with one point less armor and no horses, finding equipment and riders is vital for them.
Here is the battlefield. The boxes and barrels represent encounters.
And here we see our two heroes walking on the table...
Now the orcs are of course looking for survivors to kill and loot. So each round a d6 is rolled showing how many orcs move on to the table from the hills in the background. A roll of 6 menas that 1-3 wargriders appear from one of the sides. And that happened right on the first turn.
Freogar and Haldred decided to split up to cover more ground quickly before too many orcs could roam the area. Both got lucky. Freogar encountered some riders who had a spare horse with them so he could now lead from horseback.Haldred found a few surviors holed up in some ruins and with them were supplies so the Rohirrim could now use their better armour stat.
The warg riders meanwhile tried to kill off the Rohirrim in the ruins before Freogar could come to their help. However, a heroic movement action not only prevented that but in the end utterly destroyed the wargs.
Meanwhile quite a number of orcs had assembled at the edge of the forrest trying to prevent the Rohirrim from finding more survivors. However, a charge lead by Freogar forced the orcs back into the woods thus freeing the encounter site (which turned out to be a lone footman, but hey, it's all for one here!).
Fighting in the woods was not really a clever thing to do for cavalry and after having lost one of their riders Freogar ordered a retreat from the trees. He raced to another encounter site, finding three footmen while the rest of the Rohirrim started to fall back as they had to get as many men from the southern table edge as possible.
The last rounds saw a desperate fighting withdrawl in which the cavalry gallantly charged into pursuing orcs time and again, giving the footmen time to move south. Two more riders were lost in these rearguard actions but the sacrifice paid off in the end.
In the end 9 men were rescued, 5 fell during the fighting. 27 orcs and wargs were slain, which looks rather impressive. However, it should be noted that potentially 27 Rohirrim could have been in the vicinity, as the number of men found at each encounter was rolled with a dice. So actually the nightime battle and the fighting during the morning cost 18 Rohirrim their life. A high price to pay and these men would be missed ion the days to come...
July 29, 2009, 04:13:26 AM
