Lord of the Rings Campaign: Osgiliath

General B. and I continue with the Lord of the Rings campaign. This time big old battle in Osgiliath!

Neither of us has (or wanted to build) any of the Osgiliath terrain, so I raided my Frostgrave box for some suitable ruins - I guess Frodo arrived on a bit of a snowy day.

The hobbits venture forth into Felstadt Osgiliath.

General B. had been painting veterans.

To add to his regular Gondorians.

My Orcs made an appearance.

I was quite worried by the amount of shooting.

But plenty of warm bodies were available.

Pretty soon the Orcs were up and at 'em.

And a massive fight broke out.

Gondorian armour was a pain as always, but weight of numbers, and the relative weakness of the rangers meant I was putting men down faster than General Ballroom could bring them back.

Mine were also coming back in numbers.

Soon the forces of darkness were closing in.

And as if things weren't bad enough...

GeneralB. used Faramir and the veterans to try and screen the escaping hobbits.

After a bit I read the rules for banners and shoved it into the fights.

Orc numbers were counting in the third building.

The Nazgul dealt with Faramir.

As the huge scrum continued at the far end of the board

Rangers were going down in numbers.

As the Nazgul blocked the short route for the hobbits.

The Gondorians started to throw men at the Fell Beast.

But then we remembered the terror rules and General B. started failing tests.

The Ringwraith compelled Frodo to stand in the open. And then charged him!

Elsewhere the fight ground on.

Though the Orcs had the upper hand.

Despite Gondorians rushing in the Fell Beast won the combat and (inevitably) directed attacks on to the downed hobbit.

Even Mithril could not save the Ringbearer and the Nazgul shreiked his victory!

What a tense game. The Ringwraith was down to his last two Will when he finally managed to put the pain on Frodo. General B. misjudged things by not using enough Will to resist the Compel that exposed Frodo to attack, but other than that it was a real grind for the bad guys.

Big battles of MESBG can feel a bit like a dice rolling exercise (and there was a bit of that in this game) but the plot to try and halt the hobbits made up for it.

Our next game however may be delayed. Games Workshop seemingly has no stock of Shelob and General B. will truck no alternative to the official model! If anyone knows where we can get one, let me know.