Now For Wrath

First of all, thank you to everyone who's watched our video battle reports so far ! We're hugely grateful and will continue to improve! This battle report is available in video form here , and while it represents a big improvement over our first; I can tell you that the next one is an even bigger leap in quality so thanks for sticking with us!

I couldn't believe how long it's been since I ran Rohan- and in particular the Riders of Theoden. I was pretty excited to put them on the table! Andrew brought the Black Gate Opens with his new love for the Mouth of Sauron. We rolled for scenario and came up with Recon. We almost re-rolled since that feels  like a big advantage for Rohan... on the other hand could two hurling trolls win the day? In the end we stuck with it, even assuming it might be a tougher fight for BGO.

  I've been pretty excited about painting Suladan for some time. I just really dig how different  the Serpent Horde are. More bright colors; very little armor, etc. So, finally, I put brush to model and got to work.

Over the holiday break, I was able to get a game in with Adam- who I always enjoy playing! We first played at a 600 point tournament , and again for a fun game where he ran a horde of Uruk scouts . I decided to take the Great Beast out for a spin again- and also wanted to try the Witch King on a Fell Beast after doing a full 360* on thinking it's a worthwhile purchase. We rolled for scenario, and got Destroy the Supplies which is quite possibly my favorite of all of the scenarios.

After much of my recent painting, it was only logical to get Razgush, Dwalin, and Thorin on the board! Also, I hadn't run Gwaihir in a while and he did show up at the Battle of Five Armies so it was also thematic. Andrew, on the other hand, is continuing to hone his Razgush list, this time opting to go oppressive with the spellcasting with both the Mouth of Sauron and the Witch King, while having the Witch King pull double duty on the Fell Beast.

We've been pretty smitten by Razgush lately, as you can tell from some of our recent battle reports  and I've finally gotten him painted. I also knocked out Muzgur... and maybe pulled the trigger on a bunch of Moria stuff to try out Assault on Lothlorien. I am usually late to the party on things like that, but it will be fun to have a super meta army in our collection beside Angmar.

Andrew and I called our previous game early as it was going pretty lopsided very quickly and decided to get in a second one. I thought it'd be fun to throw Iron Hills on the table again and whipped up a quick list while Andrew laid out a new board. We rolled for scenario and came up with Capture and Control which is one of my favorites.

I still owe y'all a post with pictures from my New Zealand honeymoon, BUT let's get back to business and post up a battle report, eh? Andrew has been tinkering with a Razgush + bats Mordor list, and wanted to put it on the table. Bit of an experiment; are the bats worth it? Let's see! I whipped up a slightly  less sweaty Rivendell list; leaning into the theme of "Elrond and kids". Today we rolled for pool and then veto'd within that pool, settling on Recon'.

Quick post today! Sorry for the radio silence, just got back from my honeymoon- which included a brief stop in Middle Earth! I'll do a full Hobbiton post shortly. For today- here's the last models I painted before galivanting around the world for a few weeks!

 Elendil and Glorfindel's combined forces meet the Witch King's orc host on the field of battle! I was pretty excited to finally try the Last Alliance of Men and Elves on the table. I had hoped to have my Numenor spearmen finished, but my last few weeks have been so crazy I didn't manage to knock them out in time so, their "modern day" Gondorian spearmen are in their stead for this battle report. Apologies for the far-off proxy, it is not common practice on this blog!

Finally, the Shadow to the East has been unleashed! As the dark lord Andrew marches his evil forces to war, the Noble and good Gondorians under Steward Steve were ready to stand their ground and take the brunt of the dark forces' initial bid for control of Middle Earth.

For how often Mordor and Angmar see the tabletop on this blog, it felt like a crime not having any of the Nazgul beyond the Witch King. So, I decided to pick up the best looking (in my opinion) Nazgul pack and remedy that.

Finally managed to get another MESBG game in! Feels like it had been forever. Initially, I planned to run Galadriel, Lady of Light in our game tonight... but her Fortify Spirit ability felt like too hard of a counter to Andrew's list, and so I decided instead to try Gwaihir for the first time. Andrew was running a fun combo of Mordor and Isengard, leaning heavily into two of the best spellcasters in the game with very decent infantry.

After my previous defeat at the hands of Connor's Dwarves , I was not looking forward to this matchup! The bears are, some of the boogeymen of MESBG and my "not-so-great" Beast was going to be no match for them! Here we go!

Connor and I got in a league game over a nice weekend of gaming! He's running Army of Thror with all the "Th"s. Thorin, Thrain, and Thror. With so many dwarves, I was pretty scared to get into combat and just watch poor sweet orcs die horribly.

Our local season 3 league is officially begun, and Andrew and I are up first! So, our lists are a rematch of a few days ago , but this time "for real". This time we rolled for Contest of Champions (hmm Gwaihir vs the Witch King? I veto'd), Domination (Andrew Veto'd) and Lords of Battle. I felt on my backfoot with Lords of Battle, but figured the Great Beast could maybe keep me caught up... the game did not go how I expected. Gandalf's in the Danger Zone

Well, this was a doozy! With two really cool new models done ( Gwaihir and the Great Beast ), Andrew and I were keen to see them on the table. We did the veto system, with Andrew nixing Domination and me killing Fog of War, which left Hold Ground.

After my first game at the Richmond Open , I couldn't wait to come home and paint this wonderful model that's been sitting primed for a few months. I'm going to play quite a few games with it in the coming weeks, so stay tuned to find out if it's really a GREAT beast of Gorgoroth or if it's just an okay beast of Gorgoroth.

  After getting a good night's sleep, I was primed and ready for day two! Day one was not horrible - 2 wins and a minor loss with 2 games left. Could still have a shot! Navigate back to part one if you'd like to see my list; otherwise without further ado, let's jump right in.

This past weekend I had the privilege of playing in the Richmond Open Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game Grand Tournament! This was especially awesome because Richmond is my home town- pretty rare that I can hit a big event and sleep in my own bed! There were just shy of 30 players over a 5 game event.  Before I get into it, a HUGE thanks to Robert for running the event. His tireless dedication is a real driving force in our local community. Big thanks also to Chris who was his XO, and a friend of mine who really helped cement Andrew and I getting into the game. Thanks also to Josh who volunteered his time to help run the event as well; ditto to all the folks who brought terrain tables.