Middle Earth

Ken has recently discovered the GW Middle Earth game, and fancied giving it a go when he passed through Wollongong this week. So he brought it down to the club and Caesar and I had a game each.

Caesar had never played it, Ken has played a couple of games and I played it a few times back when it first came out - more than 15 years ago I reckon. That's a way of saying that we kept it simple and probably made a lot of mistakes because none of us really knew what we were doing.

Ken put together an Elven force led by Elrond and some Uruk Hai led by Saruman. I took the Elves in the first game.

We each had a couple of warbands led by a minor (or not so minor) hero, and then a single big personality figure. Both Elrond and Saruman could use magic.

Early approaches ...

First combats. Elrond gave the Elves an edge here, using a spell which knocked the Uruk Hai flying just as the lines engaged.

Elven archery thinned out the Uruk Hai warband ...

... before the lines closed.

The Uruk Hai had crossbows, but got very little chance to use them.

One of the Uruk Hai heroes did a great job holding off Elven attacks.

Saruman posed dramatically, but a lack of familiarity with the magic system meant that Ken probably didn't use him as effectively as he could have done.

Lurtz and Elrond got stuck in, with the Uruk Hai hero coming off worse.

Even Saruman got into close combat.

Poke!

It ended much as you'd expect, with the white-robed wizard being chopped into little pieces.

More fighting ...

... and some uneven fights.

With the death of Saruman, and eventually Lurtz, Ken conceded this first skirmish. The Elves lost a single archer.

Caesar took over the Elves and Ken played the Uruk Hai again.

This fight seemed more even, with the Uruk Hai inflicting a few casualties.

But once again the forces of evil where whittled down, until a lone Uruk remained. He did a sterling job, and even held off Elrond, but eventually he was polished off.

Ken's got some lovely figures, and the game ran fairly smoothly even if none of us quite knew what we were doing. We could have done with a quick-reference to check the Strength vs Armour thingy, and more knowledge of what spells we had available would have probably given the Uruk Hai more of a fighting chance.

Thanks to Ken for hosting a fun evening, though.