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Tuesday 27 September 2016

Battle companies tournament - Round 4 Part I

Going into the fourth round of fighting the Gondorians have started well, wiping the floor with an unprepared Haradrim company and then lost to the leading goblin company, but still took points from reducing their forces...

The Isengard raiders however have been prepared from their previous battle with the Rohirrim that ended in their favour, but otherwise are hoping to pick up points after resupplying their company.

Isengard vs Gondor (Storm the camp)


Setup.
The Gondorians go on the attack and the Uruk-hai
move to defend the camp entrance.
Arrows are briefly exchanged between the two sides, and one Gondorian
archer swiftly finds an arrow through his throat.
Ingold and his men hesitate on attacking, so Gazlur orders one
of the uruks to flank the Gondorians.
Then Ingold orders the charge!!
But the Uruk-shields simply push the men backwards,
cutting down a man in the process.
Another charge from the Gondorians.
The plucky uruk archer punches another Gondorian into submission.
With the initial Gondorian charge negated, Gazlur goes on the offensive.
An one of the archers nearly makes it into the Gondorian camp!
(Which would have meant a Isengard victory)
With the men staring the face of defeat the Knight
lances an Uruk in the face...
Everyone engaged.
But neither side can gain anything edgeways.
Until Ingold order his men to charge unexpectedly,
allowing the Knight to injure another uruk.
More attacking.
The Knight charges again, trampling yet another uruk.
But a plucky uruk archer manages to wound the last remaining
Gondorian camp defender!
With both sides running low on numbers Ingold musters his courage
and calls his men to Stand Fast! Then the Knight
gallops towards the last uruk archer.
Both uruk archer and Gazlur both fall to Gondorian steel.
As so with the raiders cleared from the field the Gondorians are victorious!

This means that Isengard gain 3 points and 2 influence, while Gondor gain 6 points and 5 influence.

Isengard – Two uruks recover, one will miss the next battle and another is killed. Gazlur recovers and gains +1 fate. One uruk archer is promoted and gains marksmanship.
Having lost a member they use 3 influence to roll on the reinforcement table, and receive an orc warrior with shield.


Gondor – Two warriors recover from their injuries, however two are killed. One warrior is promoted to KOMT2, while CG1 gains +1 might and KOMT1 gains +1 courage. 
Having lost two members they use 6 influence to roll on the reinforcement table twice. And they get a warrior with shield and spear and a warrior with shield. Further they buy a shield for the new promoted KOMT2 (-1 influence).


Moreover the Gondorian company gain a banner due to their victory and killing or injuring all enemy models. This banner is given to warrior 7.

Company Battles Inf. pts EXP (H)
Gondor 3 4 15 19
Moria 3 14 14 8
Isengard 3 6 9 7
Harad 2 0 6 6
Rohan 3 1 0 9

So the Gondorians manage to skip over the Goblins to first place and Isengard over the Haradrim.

It got very tight there, initially the uruks had the upper hand, and almost claimed a cheeky victory if it was not for 1''. Yet the Gondorians had to remove enemies before they could retaliate, and this was made possible by two things: firstly actually having a mounted company member that could manoeuvre across the field easily, and secondly Ingold's blade master special rule.

Next up is Moria vs Harad in To Kill a King!

Until then

Fish

Friday 16 September 2016

Battle companies tournament - Round 3

Rohan Vs Isengard (Storm the Camp)

The Rohirrim had another round to forget, they fought well, killed many but not quite enough goblins and so the goblins snatched another victory. The Rohirrim need a points or they will surely be fighting to not come at the bottom of the pack.

The Uruk-hai, meanwhile got unlucky in the first round and they are yet to form a coherent battle plan. Further they have only fought half as many battles so promotions and experience are short compared to the Rohirrim...

Setup
The Uruk-hai charge from their camp and go on the offensive.
The rider of Rohan makes his mark early on shooting, hitting and
wounding one of the uruk archers.
So the uruks return to their camp, noticing the lack of
warriors to defend it with.
The retreat even further back to stay out of throwing spear range.
Yet still, the rohirrim advance...
Then Eogar calls the charge, his throwing spear narrowly
avoiding Gazlur's head.
But he manages to stab the other uruk in the chest leaving him prone
on the floor, but the uruks respond cutting into two other warriors
and they crawl wounded away from the melee.
The Rohirrim charge bravely again!
With the prospect of breaking the Uruk-hai so close they attack again!
But foolishly, as a leg goes flying through the air and Eogar takes a
blow to the face and left unconscious.
So the Rohirrim are broken, the last man musters himself and charges
fearlessly towards the advancing uruk-hai.
Although he tried to make a stand the last remaining warrior flees
before the Uruks even could fight him...
With the field controlled by the Uruks they gain the victory!!!


Rohan gain no points and 2 influence. Isengard gain 6 points and 5 influence.

Rohan – Eogar and two other warriors recover, ROR gains a Leg wound. No promotions, ROR1 gains marksmanship. Eogar gains +1 strength.


Isengard – One of the injured uruk-hai recovers and the other dies. There are no promotions in there ranks but Gazlur gains +1 courage.

The Uruk-hai use 3 influence to roll on the reinforcement table and they receive an uruk warrior with a bow, further they use 2 influence to buy two shields.

The Rohirrim nearly had the Uruks broken there, much like the battle against the goblins, they couldn't kill that enemy to break the enemy force. The uruks meanwhile were still a little unlucky initially but used effective positioning and managed to reduce the numbers of attackers up to their breaking point.


Moria Vs Gondor (Reconnoitre)

The Goblins have started well with two wins from two and leading the table on points, they have eased past previous companies by using their shear numbers. 

Gondor have taken their first victory over the Haradrim who were expecting it, but they are missing two members this battle, which will be key as numbers will count for everything here...
Setup
The companies move closer and the goblin archers knock their arrows...
One of the goblin archers arrows grazes the neck of a Gondorian.
Ingold ushers his men towards one group of the goblins and are
engaged, allowing the other group to flank them.
Although Ingold takes a nasty cut, he orders the men to attack again!
Both him and a warrior force their opponents into the floor
The other group continue to reconnoitre and the Gondorians continue
to fight the remaining goblins.
Meanwhile Ingold and his company strive to remove the goblins.
But Radmuz leads the other group of goblins manage
to infiltrate the Gondorian lines.
Still, Ingold and co. finish the remaining goblins off!
This gives the Goblins a major victory, by a margin of 3-0!

Gondor gain 3 points and 2 influence. Moria gain 3 points and 5 influence.

Gondor –  The injured spearman recovers from his injury. While another spearman is promoted to KOMT1 (+1fate) but there are no other promotions, Ingold gains the blade master special rule. The Gondorians also expend 1 influence to purchase a shield for the newly promoted Knight of Minas Tirith.

Moria – Five of the injured goblins recover, two however will miss the next battle. Two are promoted, one gains +1fate the other gains marksmanship for injuring the Gondorian spearman on his first shot, otherwise no other promotions and Radmuz gains +1attack.


The goblins had one objective in mind given they had a clear numerical advantage: Get members to infiltrate asap. The Gondorians would either have to spread themselves too thin and risk members being killed easily, or counter infiltrate (as they have a higher move rate), but they went for killing goblins to get points against them.

Company  Battles Inf. pts EXP (H)
Moria 3 14 14 8
Gondor 2 6 9 8
Harad 2 0 6 6
Isengard 2 7 6 5
Rohan 3 1 0 9

So the Uruks move ahead of the Rohirrim, but remain behind behind the Haradrim on experience. The Gondorians move into second and the Goblins hold their position ahead of them, but have fought one more battle.

Interestingly, if Gondor are challenging for first place then they would have wanted to get points of a company, such as Moria. However by the battle tactics employed by the goblins suggests they were trying to get more points on the board and help warriors or heroes gain experience rather than win the scenario...

Next up is Isengard vs Gondor in Storm the camp

Until then

Fish

Monday 5 September 2016

200th Post Special : Lego Star Wars A-Wing Review

So last time my posts got up to the 100 mark I was mid-way through the siege of Gondor campaign and the orcs were attacking Minas Tirith.

This time around I wanted to do something different. It's been bugging me that I only have one post related to Lego...(atrocious right?) Also I need an X-wing in my life. But seeing as they cost at the upwards of £80, assuming you know somewhere good to buy it from, this is not such a plausible idea :(

The next best option was, of course, the A-wing (Feel free to disagree). So I went online, and bought myself an A-wing from Bricklink which came out to around £35 with postage. And so this post will be review of the product. 


This version of the product is the 75003, released in 2013, typical prices are from £35 to £70, however there are other editions available, such as: 
  • 7134(released 2000) (TP £40-50)
  • 6207(released 2006) (fighter doubles up as a pod-racer) (TP £30-60) 
  • 75150 which is technically the latest edition (released 2016), This neglects the typical red colour scheme and includes Darth Vaders Tie-fighter so is much more expensive (TP £60-120)

What you get: Parts for Lego A-wing Fighter, three minifigures (A-wing pilot, Han Solo, Admiral Ackbar), stickers, instruction manual.



Assembly:
The instructions included are fairly straight forward, although sometimes tedious with each double page only including details of one or two brick additions, but such occurrences are rare and otherwise it does not get overly complicated nor simple otherwise.


This part of the instructions was in particular tedious, and could
have been done more efficiently.
It is worth noting that this kit is for 7-12 yo's so the more page-consuming parts of the assembly may actually be benefit a 7-12 yo in construction - but it's been a while since I was a 7-12 yo so I can't make any accurate conclusions here.


Less tedious instructions
Interestingly this item includes stickers for some of the bricks, which I feel adds a certain depth to the fighter. In terms of the minifigures, it was nice to see that the A-wing pilot had two interchangeable faces, one scared and the other serious (shown below).




Otherwise the parts included were designed very efficiently and fitted together quite snugly. 

Here is the completed kit:


Problems:
Choices of Minifigures - Why exactly is Han solo included? Admiral Ackbar is maybe a justifiable inclusion, but Han solo? 

Spare parts - This seems a little pedantic...but, I received 14 1x1 round plates (6 are spares), all from the three different parts of the construction kit when only 8 were actually part of the construction, personally 2 or 3 of these would have been sufficient.



Coffee machine/Water dispenser? - I'm not entirely sure if this is a coffee machine or a water dispenser or anything else, also the glowing green part of the stand doesn't help clarify things apart from suggest that it might be nuclear powered??? Otherwise it would seem so given that admiral Ackbar has a cup. But clarity is not really present here!

Blasters/cannons - The design of the missiles/blasters was relatively simplistic, yes they look like missiles, the attachment of they is okay to use but...there really isn't anything else to them. This isn't so much of an issue except that LEGO, I was expecting something a little less shoddy.


Improvements:
Choice of Minifigures - It perhaps might have been better to include a droid eg. one similar to C3-PO or R2-D2 and a small architecture (apart from a coffee machine/water dispenser?) that represents an A-wing docking station (for refueling or repairs?) instead of Han Solo and Admiral Ackbar.

Stickers - Yes they're great, but maybe this was a chance for 'customers' (For lack of a better word) to add some personal characteristics to the kit?
For example: numbers? different colour strips for the cockpit? Scratch marks/other battle damage?

Ranting over.

Ratings:
Creativity in design - 4.5
Quality of parts - 4
Value for money - 4 (at £35)
Problems - Minor

Overall 4.33/5

These ratings don't really don't show how good a kit this is, bearing in mind a perfect kit is 5/5, this falls slightly short of the mark. This isn't because it did anything major wrong in specific, just some of the little things were left out and it didn't do enough else right.

But otherwise, this kit has done itself justice, and worth a buy!

Until then

Fish

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