The Journey Begins…Again

And now for the exciting conclusion.

To sumarize, we fought a variety of monsters.  The goblins and orcs came in fast and furious on the form of wargs and small bands of goblins.  There was even an Nazgul that we had to dispatch.  Fortunately, Gandalf temporarily enchanted the party members’ weapons.  Unfortunately, the rear guard was overhwelmed as we rolled something like 13 Orcs over the course of the last turn which kept us from moving several of the main characters off board.

The day started well enough with the Fellowship defeating the odd monster including a Nazgul..

We decided it wise to move the hobbits off board with 2 treasures. Boromir and Aragorn held the bridge in case of attack. This proved fatal.

The rear guard on the road included Gandalf, Legolas and Gimli. They couldn’t catch a break and the Orcs overwhelmed them from all sides.

In the end,  Aragorn joined the fight while Boromir eventually moved over the bridge.  Legolas fell.  Then Gandalf as he retreated over the bridge.  Then Gimli.  Finally, it was Boromir who was swarmed by five goblinoids.  In the after match, Gandalf lost some fingers, Legolas was hurt badly enough that he would spend the next adventure on the sidelines but Gimli recovered quickly.  Aragorn, however, died of his wounds.

With that last death, we decided to start again.  We will tone down the goblins to 1-2 and Orcs we will leave at 1 per spawn.  I think we could have made it through that adventure unscathed if we did not walk straight through the treasure area but rather skirted it with our characters.

Frostgrave LotR: The Journey Begins

My son and I started a cooperative game tonight.  I think this may just do the trick.  We setup a fairly wooded board with a ruin and a hobbit hole.  There is also a river which, ultimately, needs to be crossed to  end the game.  There are 6 treasure locations which, incidentally, are also spawn points.  As per the solo rules, a monster spawns every turn.  Our wandering monster table is 1-5 Goblin (Thug) 6-10 Orc Warrior (Infantry) 11-15 Warg with Rider (Infantry that moves 10″) 16-19 Nazgul on foot (Wraith) 20 mounted Nazgul (Wraith with a 10″ move).

The 4 hobbits are based  on the thug with only a +1 fight and a +2 shoot.  They are unarmed except they can throw rocks out to 12″.  Gandalf is a Wizard but you knew that, right?  Boromir is a barbarian with a 1 handed weapon and a shield (11 armor instead of 10).  Legolas is a tracker with a +3 shoot since he is supposed to be a crack shot.  Gimli is a templar.  Aragorn is a treasure hunter.  I suggested to my son that Aragorn have a bow but he nixed that idea.  Aragorn behaves like an apprentice without spells.  That is he can activate up to 3 figures within 3″ as well as move himself during the apprentice phase.  I setup the board and my son setup the figures.  I was originally going with everyone starting at the hobbit hole but he setup Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas and Boromir on the opposite side of the board.  They have to meet up and escape over the bridge.

This scenario is something of a test game to see how powerful we need to make the encounters.  We both agreed so far that the encounters have been easy, probably because of the piecemeal attacks.

We’ve played 5-6 turns so far on a 4X4 board.

A general overview of the board. Our first creature was a Warg with rider.

Gandalf uses blinding light to blind the warg and the hobbits make short work of him with rocks.

Aragorn and company hear the fighting in the distance and make haste. They are attacked by a warg with rider. That is the second one encountered.

Bilbo and Sam sneak along the flank to grab a treasure. I warned Jack that this might end badly…

You shall not pass! Two of the hobbits hide in the trees, an in game rules add. We also decided that if a Nazgul is within 10″ of Frodo, the Nazgul will go after him no matter who is the closest character.

So far, 4 wargs with riders and 1 Nazgul have appeared.  The Nazgul is wandering in the hills and that suits us fine.  3  of the Wargs have been killed and another appeared on the last turn of the night.

To be continued….