Now for wrath...Now for ruin...and the Red Dawn: The Battle of the Trollshaws

Thursday 1 May 2014

The Battle of the Trollshaws - Part 1 (scenario and setting)

In preparation for the Battle of the Trollshaws, I thought I would post a few photo's of the drawn up battle lines and explain some of the special house rules being used in this scenario.

First up, here are some photos of the battle lines drawn up on the field. Angmar are to the north (left of the picture below) of the map, and Rhudaur are on the southern edge (right below) of the map.

The battle field has some important features. The river Mitheithel runs down the western part of the battle field (left on the image below). A small Rhudaur settlement is located on the southern edge of the map next to the rive. It is walled, offering defended status to units defending behind the wall. The settlement has a watch tower that can hold two units in it (units are considered to be fortified within the watch tower).

Four hills are also located on the map, one holding a ruin (defended terrain for units), one wooded hill (treated as forest and also as defended terrain for units), another hill that is an escarpment (treated as defended terrain to units on the hill and the escarpment is impassable). Finally there is a hill (treated as defended terrain) that has four burial mounds/burrows located on/around it (more on this below).

A close-up of the watch tower and the deployment of Rhudaur troops can be seen below as they look towards the oncoming Angmarim forces.

Below is a shot of the ruin on the hill (units are regarded as defended when on this hill) and the invading Angmarim forces.

A view of the drawn up battle lines of Rhudaur (below).

Rhudaur Rangers waiting "off-field" until it comes time to deploy them can be seen below.

Arnor Rangers have the 'Ambushers' house-rule. This allows the player controlling them to be able to deploy them on the battle field during the start of their command phase. The Rangers can be place either on a table edge of the players choice, or directly in any terrain feature that confers either defended or fortified status to the unit. If that terrain feature is already occupied by other units, and no space is left, then the Rangers can be placed next to the feature. If the feature holds an enemy unit, the Rangers must be placed 4D6cm away from the enemy unit. This means that the Rangers could appear very close (4cm) to the enemy unit or up to outside of Initiative charge range, but allows the Rangers to be within shooting range of the enemy. As they deploy at the start of the Command phase, they can use Initiative or be commanded as normal once they appear on the map.

Here's another shot of the Rhudaur settlement below. Fields are Flocked Felt Fields by Holtz Mats by the way.

The hill with four burial mound Burrows (from JR Miniatures) can be seen in the next two images below.

The Burrows have special usefulness to the Angmarim. Should the Angmarim general, a Cargul, get within spell range of these mounds, it may attempt to summon Ghostly Legion warriors to do Angmar's bidding. The house rule is that if the Cargul can get within 15cm of the burrows, during the Shooting (Spell) phase it may attempt to call forth the Ghostly Legion warriors. To do this, add one dice for each of the Burrows within 15cm of the Cargul (up to a maximum of four dice) and on a roll of 5 or 6, one unit of Ghostly Legion warriors will appear in base contact with the Burrow. The Ghostly Legion will appear but won't be able to be moved until the Angmar players next Command phase. This represents the summoning time it takes for these warriors to appear. The Angmar player had to pay for these units prior to the battle, so its a risk as to whether they will appear on the battle field during the game.