Battle Report - Harad vs Dwarfs

A week ago my friend Keith, aka "the Hobbit", was in town and had some, very rare, time to play.  Keith is the one who introduced us all to the Lord of the Rings SBG.  Six of us went over to Rob K.'s house where he hosted with tables, snacks and pizza.

The battle, several turns in.  I was having so much fun that I forgot to take pictures.

Keith and I set up on the Edoras table.  While catching up we set up our forces.  Mine was the usual Haradrim while he brought Dain with a warband of iron guard and Khazad guard (? - I don't know dwarves very well).  His second warband was Thorin, Kili, Fili, Oin and Bifur/Bofur (the one with the spear).  We rolled up a straight up fight, so no pesky objectives to get in the way of the blood letting.

Dain leads his line forward.  The dwarves have not seen the lurkers yet.

Nuradan had led his raiders as far as the capitol of the horse lords.  He hated being in their lands without horse of his own, but everything was strangely empty.  As he led his warbands into the city he began to get the feeling that they were not alone, after all.  The Dwarves, issuing out from behind a raised platform, were not what he had expected at all.

The dwarves hacking their way through the Haradrim line.  Dain is on rear guard.  Very valiant.

Their leader, a great king by his armor and weapons, led his personal guard around the left side.  A small band of travel stained dwarves, led by a tall and dour fell handed killer came over the top.  Nuradan split his force, he was able to get a couple of men into hiding behind the platform, and set most of the rest to face the king.  One small warband, under Allawi, was sent to deal with the travel stained dwarves.

The archer line, preparing to close the door behind the dwarves.

Nuradan's archers bounced arrows off of the dwarves, ineffectually, as they closed, while four of the Nazgul's guard moved over to flank the force.  As the dwarves rushed directly against Nuradan's part of the line he began to hope that he could hold long enough for the rest of his force to swing in behind.

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On the right Allawi, the Task master and the wraith were fighting the small band of dwarves.  Allawi had charged the leader (Thorin) who was cutting down Southrons right and left (he killed to models every single turn).  Allawi's flashing scimitar was met with elvish steel, it was all he could do to keep that blade out of his own flesh.  The Nazgul's fell magics helped to keep things under control, but even he was unable to control this dwarf.  Slowly, Allawi's followers started to kill the fell dwarf's companions (only Thorin survived the fight).

Thorin's company, surrounded and fading fast.

On the left Nuradan's line finally closed on the rear of the dwarves.  Their king killed all who faced him.  Nuradan led his men forward with a shout, but was thrown back.  The armor of the dwarves was as hard as the stone of the city they fought in.

The door closes on the dwarves.  Sadly, there was not much left in front of them.

Nuradan could feel this battle slipping away from him.  He had lost too many men and just could not bring down the dwarves.  At the last, the dwarf king struck down an archer in front of him, cutting him in half.  It was too much for the Haradrim warriors and they fled into the endless grasslands.

Thorin was an absolute beast.  He killed two of my warriors every turn, shrugged of being Transfixed repeatedly and won fight after fight.  Dain was Dain.  He's always a nightmare.  This was a fun game, as always against Keith.  It came down, in the last turn, to one model each.  We each needed to kill just one enemy model to tie.  I just couldn't get through the dwarf armor.

I was feeling spent, due to my shoulder surgery four days before, so I headed home after that game.  The rest of them set up a mass battle and fought it out again.

Thanks to Rob for hosting and to everyone else, Keith, Tim and Tony, for coming out.  I had a great time and it was fantastic to see you all again.