Road to Lothgolin II

After safely reaching the border of the Elves forest, Eilif and his man dismount and try to sneak behind the Orc patrols to get in contact with the Elves.

This is a Defence Encounter played by the rules WHAT but with at twist. This time both sides, attacker and defender, are moved by the game's AI, and I'll be a third party trying to pass through the Orcs and kill as many of them as I can to help the Elves and have a favourable welcome. Eilif and his Ranger companion will start on turn 2 behind Orc units. Also, the three PEFs will be alrady loaded and resolved.

I am using new rules for weapons, armour and other things such as Combat Perks, Co-Stars, wounded characters, etc. from the supplement for WHAT,Crunchy.

Eilif is a Star and Ranger (dual class), with the Combat Perk Critical Hit, Rep 5, AC4, magic Sword of Rage, short bow and knife.

His companion Arne is Co-Star, Ranger (dual class), with the magic Armour of Protection AC2, short sword, knife and short bow.

All Elves are Rep 4. Archers with long bow, AC2, Marksman (3d6 for shooting). Fighters with two handed swords and AC4.

All Orcs are REp 4 except their leader who is Rep 5; their armour vary from AC2-3-4-5 depending on what they are wearing. The are all Rage (3d6 when charging into melee).

Turn 1. Orcs 1 - Elves 3

The Orcs entering in Lothgolin.

Elves keep their positions and then Orcs charge. Some are shot down but others reach melee and slaughter the Elves.

In the centre they suffer more casualties due to cross fire but they finally reach their target and eliminate it.

A closer view of the massacre.

The Orcs on the left cannot reach the Elves and suffer a casualty while another ducks back behind some bushes.

Turn 2. Orcs 4 - Elves 2

After killing the first Elves, the Orcs charge to another group but this time they are stopped with one shot down, another shocked and a third running away in panic. The one standing is killed later on the Elves activation.

The surviving Orcs in the middle with their chieftain charge the Elves infantry, suffering both sides one casualty each and both holding their ground.

On the left the Orcs finally charge and kill the Elves but they pay the price too.

On the Elves turn Eilif and Arne enter the board behind the Orcs and kill two of them with their bows.

Turn 3. Orcs 4 - Elves 6!

Elves do not activate and Orcs charge. Their leader kills another Elf and the succumbs overwhelmed by the Elf superiority in numbers.

The surviving Orcs in the left flank charge Eilif. One falls before them but the other attacks Arne who is down Out of Fight. Then, Einar dispatches the last Orc and finally meets with the Elves.

 

 The Elves are happy to see them and very receptive. Einar is quickly taken to their lord to who he will speak on behalf of his king Einar for an alliance against the invading Orcs.

But first he is allowed to loot all the slained Orcs. The Elves despise registering Orc bodies and let Eilif keep all the loot. He gets 14 Advance Rep d6, one magic Armour of Agility, one magic Sword of Rage (another), one magic Sword of seeking and one magic short bow of Seeking, yay!

P.S. - I think I should have made Orc groups of eight instead of six. That would have made twice as much as Elves, which I think it would have been more balanced and interesting.

Dark Alliance Orcs set 3

Happy Orctober!

Orctober is as good as any other excuse to splash some paint on some Orcs. Below you can see the ten different poses contained in the box, with four sprues like that.

In my view, this is the best box of Orcs from the three sets delivered so far as they have special characters like the female or the chieftain, as well as more dynamic and colourful poses. Regretfully, there are not any musician or standard bearer in the box, nor anything that could be used as a magician.

This time I decided to give them a darker skin tone, more akin to Tolkien's description.

If you look closely, you'll see there is some flock adhered to the figures. This is because in my eagerness to get them finished, I sprayed matt varnish without brushing off the excess of flock first, and when I realised it was too late :(

 

Caesar Wood Elves with swords and others

These Elves are all from the same box with the archers except from one figure who comes from the Adventurer's set, the not Tauriel with two knives (first on the left).

This could work as a guard unit or as linebreakers.

And these are the three units of Elves I painted from the box. There are still enough miniatures for another unit as there are 35 in the box, but I'm done with Elves at the moment.

Caesar 1/72 Wood Elves

These are part of the figures of the Caesar Elves box. Now I'm painting some more  from with two handed swords. 

Seeing the figures so close makes me realise how much my eyesight has worsened as they look splendid to me when I look at them on the table, but the close ups show something different.

Anyway, these figures are beautifully sculpted and with a lot of detail and a very clean cast with almost no flash. A joy to paint them.

Road to Lothgolin

After a successful diplomatic mission in which  you were sent to the Border Kingdoms to get cavalry to fight the Orcs, your king Einar now sends you to try to talk to the mysterious Elves from Lothgolin for an alliance treaty as they are also under the invading Orc threat .

Three of your rangers volunteer to accompany you and the king provides steeds for all (this is going to be my first Encounter on horses!) so you run for three weeks through the North border of Mirish, passing below Gorath and Bal-A-Tor and towards Lothgolin (see map of Talomir).

In the second week they have an encounter with a solitaire Orc who reluctantly agrees to barter with them but what Eilif wants is information. The Orc either doesn't know anything about the Orcs uprising or he is lying, in any case he decides to kill it just in case. After registering his belongings Eilif gets 1 Increase Rep d6.

They finally reach the borders of Lothgolin and explore the border trying to find a safe route through the woods...

This is a Wandering Encounter in which you have to resolve at least one PEF and then exit through the opposite side of the board. There are three PEFs, and being in Wilderness and in a C Area, the Enemy Rating is 5 and that means that Eilif is probably going to meet several groups!

Lothgolin at last!

Turn 1. Orcs 4 - Mirholme 2.

The PEF from the left doesn't move but the two at the top do and one is resolved as soon as it gets in sight. Eilif and his men hide behind a hill to avoid resolving more PEFs.

The PEF (Possible Enemy Force) is a group of seven Orc Wolf Riders!

In their Activation they move as fast as they can towards the men.

Turn 2. Orcs 1 - Mirholme 6.

Eilif is now Rep 6 so they activate first and move out from the hill and reveal another PEF, a Troll! Then they shoot at the Orcs, killing just one. 

One of the Orcs charges and leaves one Ranger Out of the Fight (OOF). Eilif hopes he's snapped his neck as they don't have time to stop and check.

 Turn 3. Orcs 1 - Mirholme 4.

Eilif and his men try to escape bordering the wood and the last PEF is resolved, a group of eleven Goblin archers! The Troll and the Wolf Raiders pursue them, but riding horses is great to run away from the enemy.

Turn 4. Orcs 1 - Mirholme 3.

Afraid of getting surrendered Eilif and his men turn back and charge at the Wolves, killing three of them and making another one flee in terror.

Then the last two Wolf Raiders charge at them but are defeated. The Troll and Goblins hasten behind the Rangers.

Turn 5. Orcs 6 - Mirholme 3.

The Rangers shoot with their bows at the Troll who seek refuge in the forest, then the gallop towards Lothgolin.

Turn 6. Orcs 3 - Mirholme 4.

The Rangers keep galloping are close to reach the woods of the Elves. A new PEF appears and is resolved. It is a group of two Dwarves.

The Troll keeps running after Eilif and the Goblins shoot at the Dwarves who enraged charge and kill two of them, causing another to flee.

Turn 7. Orcs 1 - Mirholme 2 - Dwarves 3.

The two Dwarves charge again and kill two more Goblins. Chop, chop! The rest can take it and flee in despair!

 

 

Now the Rangers activate and prepare to leave the area but they decide to shoot one last time to the stupid Troll. They miss and the Troll reacts charging at them. After so much pursuing he finally gets them!

Luckily, the Troll wasn't very good and the Ranger could kill it. 

Then Eilif's horse throws him to the ground with so bad luck that he snaps his neck; he is dead! He uses his Star advantage to try to survive and rolls 6d6 but only gets one success and now he is OOF. After that he uses his Extraordinary Effort and rolls one more die with success, escaping unscathed by a hair's breath in the end!

Then the Rangers dismount and together head to where the Dwarves are waiting. They are followers of the Black Moon but the men of Mirholme are Neutral, and more than them so they finally talk with them. Eilif spends 1 Increasing Rep d6 in Sweet Talk and manages to get some information from them, making the ER of the area one point lower. They also offer to barter but Eilif is not interested.

Later they check their fallen comrade but he scores two sixes in the After the Encounter Recovery Chart! He is dead and already cold and stiff.

Finally they loot all the Orcs and the Troll, the Goblins are for the Dwarves. They get a magic Armour of Protection and the Sword of Rage. They also collect 6 Increasing Rep d6 from loot plus an extra 1d6 for a successful mission, but they also lose 1d6 for Eilif using his Star Advantages, 1 for loosing one men and 3d6 in his men wages.

Caesar Dwarves

Miniatues from Caesar are great as you can see here with these Dwarves below, and also I can tell you the same about the Elves I've  just started to paint, they are awesome.

Hammer guy seems to be wearing sunglasses but it's just some wash pooling, LOL.

These six together with the other two I painted before make the number for a unit that I'll use as allies for my army, as well as individually for some RPG.

A few adventurers

The Goblin is from Dark Alliance and the rest from Caesar miniatures.

I tried t paint the woman as Eowyn.