Saturday 16 September 2017

Siege of Helm's Deep

 Battle at Helm's Deep, the men of Rohan (with help from Aragorn&co.) must held the red objectives for 15 turns to deny the fortress to the army of Isengard. In order to claim an objective, you must have more models within 8cm than the enemy.
The game was played with 1/72 miniatures using GW's rules.
 Let them come, this fortress will never fall while the men defend it!
 Aragorn & Legolas moved to the hornburg
 While Gimli descended some steps
 The heroes inside the keep came down to help the defenders of the outer circle
 Uruks, orcs & dunlendings move in a two pronged assault
 The ladders begin to rise  as the demolition teams head to the gate
 Aragorn & Gimli reinforce the defenders at the deeping wall
 Using two ladders, the isengardians reach the Hornburg
 While their first troops start to climb the causeway
 With three ladders in place, the evil soldiers rush upwards
 One orc kills a rohirrim and bursts upon the ramparts
 as does a berseker


 After some chopping, an uruk hero brings down the postern gate using his might points


 Aragorn kills uruk after uruk, but he can't be everywhere, and the wall is invaded
 A breaching charge reaches the gate
 The postern is held by Eomer and some men (for now)
 The rohirrim abandon the outer wall to defend the gates
 The deep has fallen! Retreat to the keep!
 A charge is placed on the culvert...
 ...and blown up, blasting away the iron grid

 Eomer & Gamling rally the defenders of the outer courtyard

 But then... boom!

 Theoden is killed in the explosion (recieved six wounds!), but the gate still holds

 An uruk captain has crossed the postern but is now isolated from his comrades
 A fourth ladder is placed on the deep
 The third charge goes off, opening the way into the Hornburg

 Eomer leds the remaining defenders into the breach
 While Gamling fights a losing battle in the postern
 Legolas comes from the deeping wall as the attackers charge from the outer circle
 Aragorn & Gimli keep defending the stairway to the main fortress 
 Legolas is felled by a quarrel from an uruk. His low defence made him a prime target for evil shooting during all game
 Eomer and a lone warrior stand against the mass of foes
 The last rohirrim defending the deeping postern is also killed
 The evil soldiers now batter uselessly the inner gate
 Eomer is alone in a sea of enemies; undaunted, he would keep winning fight after fight
 Time is up! Now to round up the objectives, whoever has more models within 8cm of each claims it
The evil side controls: the inner courtyard objective with 3 soldiers to 1 
 The gate
 The postern
 And the deeping wall 
 The good has only the keep objective
With 4 to 1 the good side loses and must retreat to the caves

This was a surprising game in the sense that the main evil attacks on the deep and the gate didn't decidethe day, but the secondary incursion on the Hornburg, which opened the way to key defenceless objectives on the fortress's backyard.

The retreat of the rohirrim from the outer circle eased things for the bad guys, who then rushed to the stairway and the entrance to the keep. However, the isengardians did also commit some mistakes, such as placing the ladders very far from the objective in the deeping wall.

In the excitement of the moment we didn't count kills for Legolas and Gimli, I can say that both got a balanced score, BUT, Gimli killed an uruk captain, that must make him the winner, or it still only counts as one?

5 comments:

  1. What an exciting game.... figures look great. The new sets of trolls and balrogs look good don't they?

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  2. Great game report! It's good to see the film's set with the book's participants.

    What a way to go for Théoden...

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  3. Yep the trolls are epic.
    And that forgoil sure had a blast ;).

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  4. Wow, what a fantastic castle, love the close ups, impressive, very impressive!

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  5. Great Castle and entertaining photo report! I was interested all the way to the end. Impressed you managed to collect 20mm LOTR figures. Where from?

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