And so at last we reach the climax of the Ringbearer's quest.
Can Mr Frodo penetrate the Crack of Doom and melt his ring, or will Gollum toss him off?
The miniatures required for this one finally got the better of us. We didn't have 50 Morannon Orcs, or even the 25 Rohan Warriors on foot required. And neither of us fancied buying them. So General B. painted up some characters, we used Mordor Orcs as stand ins and borrowed the men of Rohan. To be fair we've collected and painted everything else for the campaign.
Lady Ballroom did however come up with some red and orange crepe paper to simulate the fiery pit of Mount Doom.
The allied forces set up in a circle surrounded by bad lads, while on the second table Frodo and Sam have to head for a suitable quiet spot where they can get on with tossing.
"Lets head over there Mr Frodo there's a sticking out bit I want to show you"
I hadn't thought about what I was doing so the dead fighty and killy troll was blocked by lots of Orc bodies.
The forces of good were hoping to thin things with shooting. A plan that didn't really go all that well for them.
Soon all was fighting and chaos.
The Orcs got off to a good start with dead men piling up.
Troll still blocked though.
The bad guys have various options to roll to try and slow the Ringbearer down. Either I failed the rolls or Frodo shrugged off the effects pretty easily.
The Orcs were dragging down the men, but the hobbits were making swift progress.
"Come on Sam, I can see a great place for a really good toss"
"See how it juts out Mr Frodo"
Most of the Rohan men with their weaker armour were soon dispatched and at last the Troll could get involved.
Gimli and Eomer bravely took on the hulking brute, driving him back and wounding him.
Hordes more Orcs literally poured on in an unstoppable tide of threes and fours.
The wounded Troll fought back and, grabbing Gimli by his legs, attempted to pull the doughty Dwarf in twain.
Sadly his trousers were made of stern stuff and although wounded he remained whole.
The square was breaking and Orcs were pouring in.
Gandalf got stuck in, easily butchering a pair of Orcs.
Still more Orcs poured in and even Aragorn was wounded.
The hobbits contemplated what to do with Frodo's ring.
"Time for a nice long toss, Mr. Frodo?"
The troll had his dander up and with the Mouth of Sauron freezing Gimli in place he was able to once more grab the dwarf by the ankles and pull.
With a terrible sound the Son of Gloin came apart at the seams.
The fight swirled on and Orcs surrounded the White Wizard...
Despite his best attempts Gandalf was hacked assunder.
However after a lengthy dice rolling process eventually Frodo launched the ring into the fiery pits of Mount Doom and the metaphorical Eagles arrived as the game ended in victory for the Ringbearer.
That was good fun right up until the end, when the somewhat unclear rules for actually winning just saw us roll dice for ages to see which of us would win three roll-offs in a row. We weren't sure if you were supposed to roll off, then play a turn, then roll again, but as it took us at least fifteen rolls before Frodo got the required three in a row, that would have meant bedtime at around 2am. It was a slightly deflating end to what's been a good fun campaign - essentially we could have not played any of he preceding games and just rolled dice for twenty minutes. The fighting bit was good though, and doubtless proper LotR players could have done all sorts of clever things with synergies and spells and Might and whatnot. As it was we just largely rolled dice and took off dead blokes!
So the campaign is over!
What an epic. Starting way back in February of last year we've painted plenty of models, played a load of games and had lots of cinematic moments and good fun. Which is what it's all about.
Thanks to General Ballroom for being an awesome opponent (and doing most of the heavy lifting when it came to painting).
It may be time to give Middle-earth a rest for a bit, but we have another very different campaign lined up.
