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Rescue the Dwarves!

In honor of the opening weekend of the movie, "The Desolation of Smaug", the local Hobbit/Lord of the Rings SBG group decided to have a special event.  We organized a large multi-player game with the Company of Thorin Oakenshield as the main characters.  Each of the players deployed a small warband of only 200 pts without any named characters (Legolas, Gimli, Boromir, etc.). We used several tables pushed together to create a huge tablescape with room enough for 13 players.  On each table was an objective representing an 'extraction' point.  The goal of the Good players was to escort members of the Company to one of the objectives, where they would be rescued by Giant Eagles.  The goal of the Evil players was to prevent the Good players from achieving their goal. 

Each table had room for 2 Good players, 2 Evil players, 3-4 Dwarves and one objective.

My warband was a small platoon of Wood Elves with a Sentinel and Captain. I was assigned the table with young Nathaniel, who brought a mashup of Galadrim Elves, a Stormcaller, and 3 Sentinels. The Evil players were Art, with heavily armored Easterlings; and big Nathan, with a Cave Troll and group of Mirkwood Spiders. We escorted Gandalf, Kili, Oin, and Bombur.  By house rule, the wizard and dwarves would not engage in combat. 

Upon further review, young Nathaniel's warband was well over the 200 point limit, but since he was on my side, I didn't care.

To add cinematic tension, the dragon Smaug would randomly appear on the table once per turn and attempt to roast all units within 6" of his location.


So, we started the battle with my Wood Elves diving into a large stand of trees with Gandalf and Bombur in tow. The Easterlings moved toward me at great speed with a mounted Easterling drummer providing extra movement.  My bow -armed elves were able to shoot the drummer and the Easterling captain's mount which slowed down their warriors.


On turn 3 karmic justice was dipensed on young Nathaniel.  The dragon appeared next to his warband and burnt up 3 of his elves and poor Oin.


The Easterlings continued press the fight against my elves.  Many wood elves were lost while fighting the heavily armored Easterlings, including the Captain and Sentinel.  But, the Stormcaller successfully fired off a Nature's Wrath spell.  This gave the elves a big push, and held off the enemy long enough to get Kili to the objective.  But, the Eagles would rescue him only on a successful die roll, and Kili could not catch a break.  Meanwhile, young Nathaniel's sentinels were able to chase away big Nathan's troll.


On the final turn, the dragon surprised another group on a different table and burnt two dwarves as the were waiting on the objective for their rescue. I'm not sure if this was considered a victory for the Good side but the results were posted on a white board.

This was a excellent and fun scenario!  I saved a copy of the rules for use at a later time. 


I was very happy to finally apply clear coat to a large portion of my wood elves. I'm usually adverse to applying clear coat to my figs because I never feel like I've completely finished the paint job. Applying the clear coat, means that the figure is 'done' with all the imperfections given a permanent seal.  Does anyone else feel this way or am I a hopeless perfectionist?
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