Escape from the Prancing Pony

Barliman Butterbur, busy with his customers at the Prancing Pony.

Strider and the Hobbits leave the inn early in the moring with the hope of avoiding trouble.

But trouble already lays ahead. Here's Bill Ferny waiting for them at his house in the outskirst of Bree .

As soon as they leave Bree they meet with a pair of Squint-Eyed Southerners, outlands from Dunland at the service of Saruman, and called by Bill Ferny.

The Hobbits run for the forest to hide in there whereas Strider stands in the way and looses an arrow but misses. The Orcs, not seeing the Hobbits, charge Strider who easily finishes them off.

But at the end of the road appears their leader, a champion and tough fighter. Strider wastes no time and charges, dispatching him outright. Meanwhile the Hobbits stay save in the forest.

Bill Ferny swears and attacks Strider but he is no rival for the Ranger.

Some Orcs coming out from the woods spot the Hobbits and charge them, but they are too far and only one of them reaches Strider.

Striders turns back and slays the evil creature whereas the Hobbits courageously charge at the other two Orcs. They get lucky and can kill them, with only Pippin suffering a wound. But more Orcs are approaching down the way!

Strider charges at them and all Hobbits, except Pippin who is wounded, do the same after him. Strider kills one Orc and then charges another and puts out it as well.

However, the little Hobbits result wounded by the only Orc fighting them, who defends his life like a cornered wild creature.

Finally, Aragorn gets rid of the last Orc before more of them come, and they swiftly leave Bree and head for Rivendell.

 

 

Evil Champion and Sorcerer

These two figures are 20mm metal ones from Elhiem miniatures. A generous friend from the hobby gave them to me already painted, but I repainted them at my own taste.

They are good to have more characters in any game, but their detail is not as good as some 1/72 soft plastic ones.

 

 

The Chetwood.

The Chetwood is a forest North of Bree where the Rangers patrol protecting people from dark and lurking creatures that come down from the far North. Rangers of the North, or simply the Rangers, were the northern wandering people of Eriador, the last remnant of the Dúnedain of Arnor who had once peopled the North Kingdom of Arnor. They protected the lands they wandered although their secretiveness made other peoples consider them dangerous and distrustful in Bree and the Shire, where they were known as "Watchers". Here we can see Aragorn and Tuigil clearing several giant spiders' dwellings that have been seen lately. After this, Aragorn will head for Bree and wait for the Hobbits.  

 Aragorn on the left with sword, short bow and Tuigil on the right with long bow and dagger.

They advance towards the first cocoon of spiders in the centre of the map, with one Hazard Token (HT) approaching from the left and another one appearing at the top.

Aragorn kills a spider and destroys the nest whereas Tuigil watches from behind. He spots an Orc scout but misses his shot.

The Orc charges at Aragorn who kills him in combat.

 

The rangers keep pushing North, leaving behind them three HTs but also fighting against another Orc scout who charges the from the North.

 

 

More Orcs are coming and Tuigil keeps missing all his shots!

 

 

And this time Aragorn almost falls down after receiving a telling blow from the Orc's two handed axe!

 

 

Aragorn is severely wounded and after that, a wolf coming from the deep of the woods charges at him. He manages to kill it without being wounded but Tuigil has to come back in help.

 

 

Aragorn patches himself with some unguent and healing herbs and then they resume marching North.

 

 

They reach the second coccon and clear it.

 

 

After that, they head East to finish the last of the spiders' nest but meet some more spiders and Orcs in their way.

 

 

Tuigil finally hits all the shots and kills a spider and an Orc in one turn. Opportunity that Aragorn takes to finish the last cocoon. Then they exit the woods without further incidents.
 

 

 

Now Aragorn say goodbye to Tuigil and set off for Bree to wait for the Hobbits Galdalf told him about.

 

Well, so far nobody has got killed and they gather in Bree and get ready to set for Rivendel. We will see in the next instalment how they progress out of Bree and to Rivendel.

More ratties.

I painted a second set of "Skavens" but this time with the dipping technique. As you can see below, there is not much difference in result when compared to the ones I have painted before, but there is a huge difference in time:

The model on the left has been primed in white and then painted with basic colours and finally dipped in varnish stained, whereas the one on the left has been primed in black and then retouched it with a brush to cover those holes where the spray doesn't reach. After that, it's been drybrushed it in pale grey and then in white, and finally painted with contrast paints. I'd say that each figure on the right took me six more times to finish it than the one on the left!

I also have to say that I made some mistakes painting the latest set and that next time they will turn out better.

In a nutshell, varnish stain dipped figures are faster and cheaper to paint and a much harder finish, but none of this methods convince me. I'm sure it would be different if I used Mixwax but it is impossible to get it in Spain, sigh!

 

The Old Forest

After crossing the Brandywine, they headed for the Old Forest through the Tunnel Gate but after a while, the evil forest misled them and they went south and east until they arrived to river Wythywindle.

The Hobbits start in the middle bottom of the map, the river to the right is the Wythywindle, the building is the house of Tom Bombadil, and the hills at the left top corner the Barrow Downs. They have to leave the table on the upper left corner and through the Downs. There is a Hazard Token (HT) in the centre of the table.

They started moving towards the Downs and the HT did the same, but a new one appeared behind them!

 

The Hobbits moved forward and met the HT who turned to be Tom Bombadil no less (I used the figure of a Dwarf to proxy him), and who offered his help and invited them to his house and then disappeared.

They kept moving north but started to get surrounded by HTs.

 

 

Suddenly they were spotted by a big and menacing wolf who seemed to be very hungry.

They ignored the wolf and run for the house of Tom but then they met with another and even more dangerous wild creature, a grumpy bear. Fortunately, they could reach the safety of Tom's house and after this, the creatures were dismissed by him.

  

One turn later, the Hobbits left the house and headed towards the Barrow Downs, but there they spotted a scout Orc. - An Orc so far from his lair! The enemy is moving fast, we must press on with haste Sam.

Merry and Pipping shot him with their slings but both missed. Then the four valiant Hobbits charged the Orc and together they could overwhelm him.

 

 

But Frodo resulted wounded, they must be more careful.

 

Finally, they crossed the Barrow Downs and exited the area. There was a possbility of an encounter in a Barrow but they missed it.

In the end, the Hobbits were very fortunate as things could have gone far more worse. Luckliy, next time they will count with the help of Strider That is, if he manages to arrive to Bree in one piece!

The Lord of the Rings, parallel adventure.

I did not know how to call it. What I am planning to do is playing solo encounters with the members of the Fellowship through their journey from The Shire up to Gondor or even farther. But it is not going to be exactly as in the books or in the movies as I am going to skip big events and battles, as well as powerful, almost unbeatable characters from the skirmishes such as Tom Bombadil, the Ring Wraiths, the Balrog, the Undead from the Dark Door or Sauron to name a few. My idea is to play skirmishes with everyday monsters so to speak, and see if the members of the Fellowship survive or not; in a fashion to the old PC game Lord of the Rings from 1990 from Interplay, which alsot had that fantastic soundtrack. I mean, it is quite probably that some of them won't make it, and that the One Ring passes from one bearer to another on its way to its final destination. We shall see.

In my mind, I thought about playing two encounters with the Hobbits going from The Shire to Bree, then one with Aragorn before Bree. After that, the survivors will have two more encounters before reaching Rivendell. There, the Fellowship will be formed (I won't play encounters of Gandalf, Gimli and Boromir reaching Rivendell as I cannot remember there were any information about them). The Fellowship will depart from Rivendell and will have one encounter in Moria, maybe another encounter in their way to Lórien. Later, the ambush of the Uruk Hai and then one mission with Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli to rescue Pippin and Merry if they still live. After Helms Deep and the meeting with Saruman, the surviving members of the Fellowship will go to Minas Tirith, but before that I will surely play at least one encounter with Frodo, Sam and Gollum, maybe with Shelob and Cirith Ungol, and probably, if I reach that far, I will think and play some more encounters like Ithilien and who knows? maybe a few more up to Mordor.

I'll be using home made solo skirmish rules for the fighting, and the beautiful book Jouneys of Frodo by Barbara Strachey to get a general idea of the journey and its surroundings when deploying terrain. The miniatures to play are all 1/72 soft plastic soldiers, mostly from Dark Alliance and Caesar, plus the Fellowship of the Ring that it is 3D printed.

This copy belonged to my best buddy who sadly passed away on 2020, and I am going to share this adventure with him as well as with you, dear readers.

 

 

 

Woody End

Hiding from the the Rider, the Hobbits took the path through Woody End south of East Road. The river is The Stockbrook, and they have to cross it to get to Maggot's Farm and then the Causeway. The Hobbits start at the bottom left, on the path, and there is one hazard token (HT) up in their way. More HTs, one per turn, will appear on any border at random: 1d6: 1-3 top border, 4 rightt, 5 bottom, 6 left. HTs can be good or bad things, events or even a false alarm. The Hobbits in the thick wood count as hidden and enemies can only detect them by passing a spotting test.

 

Our little adventurers coming out from their world for the first time.

Suspecting some trouble ahead the compay decided to get out of the path and into the wood but the HT also moved similarly. HTs move at random.

They continued to move East and having sight of the HT they resolved it. Funnily, of all possible things they could meet, it was an Elf. -Look Mister Frodo, Elves!

Another HT showed behind them but I was more relaxed after seeing they will have some help.

The Elf and the Hobbits pushed forwards towards the ford and for a few turns they did not see anybody. Here I made a mistake with my own rules as HTs should have started to appear since the very first turn, and also move straight towards the centre of the table and then at random, but instead of that, they started moving at random since they appeared and so, they ended very dispersed and away from the Hobbits. When I realised about this it was too late so I decided to leave it as it was and give the boys some edge for being their first encounter.

Here are the adventurers about to cross the ford and exit the sector with success. Another reason for  this lack of enemies was that I never rolled 1 to 3 with a d6 for deploying HTs and thus no one came to their front, but from sides and from back, allowing them to escape without any trouble.

Not a very exiting game but we will see how they manage in the next encounter, crossing the Old Forest and the Barrow Downs.