Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been a bit busy recently with things so it's been about 3 weeks since I last rocked up at Otty's shed for some game time. After some suggestions that a change in venue is forthcoming it would seem like he's started, but more on that at the end. In the mean time
Liam from Blue Warp Studios is continuing his unofficial one man challenge of painting every Middle Earth faction! I mean he's also muscling in on my Dark Angel territory, but they're not the only children of the forest he's been working on - he has Ents! A couple of the characters and kitbashes and then a week or two slap-chopping and flocking them and here were are. He and Ben teamed up with the trees while Otty and I went Isengard. Don't ask me what mission, I wasn't paying attention! But half your army is within a 6" strip on one side of the centre, the other half is in the 6" strip on your board edge and vice versa. This is partway through turn 1 where I'd deployed my orc scouts and crossbows thinking Liam might split his force and not get a turn 2 charge on the Ballista - my tree-killing 'ace in the hole'. It turns out he didn't split his force, or even bother with the Ballista - just went from my scouts.
The Ballista managed to hit, avoid the inbetween and actually hit Treebeard, rather than scatter onto the other character Beechbone. Ultimately I had to use the Ballista captain's Might point to get the wound off. But then the trees just started stomping on Orcs.
The other three surged up the battlefield, thanks to Quickbeam calling a March. He's 'fast' with an 8" move but he was moving 11", with the two other trees marching 9". They'd be in my lines next turn.
And as you can see there's a lot less there now. It didn't help that Merry and Pippin actually killed an Orc throwing stones at them. Otty is his bringing his force into the mix, but the Ballista couldn't hit a barn door after it's initial promise. W got lucky and won a duel against Treebeard, who was trapped and we started to do damage, but by using all his fate and might he was still alive on 1 wound.
Our casualties started to pile up, made even worse by the amended Demolition Charge rules. It transpires you can only set it off, if you're in range of two enemy models. Otty just couldn't position them in such a way to set it off without putting the team in danger of being charged before they could. It was mightily underwhelming, almost as bad as the Ballista.
But we pressed on and thanks to repeatedly trapping the trees some crossbow and scout orcs managed to fell Beechbone "TIMBER!" Yes, they then neatly stacked him into a woodpile.
A turn later and Quickbeam also succumbed. Now you may get the impression we were turning the tide. and on paper perhaps we'd made a comeback. We were 1 point behind, and if we killed Treebeard, who only had 1 wound left, we'd be 2 in front. But the Orcs were broken, the Demolition Team dead and the hail Mary, of shooting the Ballista at Treebeard, which hit, but had an 'in the way' for the Demo Charge... but hoping it would set it off - wound 4+ and explode on a 6. We wounded the charge on a 6 and got a 5 to explode! No joy.
We continued on way past sensible o'clock, but it was such a great game. Our dice were shocking. Ben's rolling was obscene. Any time he needed a 6 he got one. Every duel I had with him if he rolled first he got max 5 and my roll would be max 5, meaning he would win the duel thanks to the Ents having a higher fight value. Even when Otty did win a duel we couldn't convert. The two dead Ents were anomalies rather strategic wins. But we had so much fun, I'd say it was a blast, but that brings up bad memories of the Demo Charge. I can't see that in Otty's lists in future.
Here's a few more pics of Liam's Ents. There are a couple more to make the full list.
And lastly, Otty has been busy extending the decking around his summer house. The gaming shed is currently up past the bush at the back and we're walking on his grass which can be a bit messy. The shed itself is having its roof removed to reuse the wood in a larger structure, with the current shed becoming Otty and his wife's workshop. It's all going to be mighty epic in the end.
