Scouts!

Sometimes map building is pure joy but I do believe it takes a mood. My younger son and I sat down the other day and three hours later finished a map that I’d often dreamt of.

The map had a river through the center, fairly wide, but it had cliffs on either side. A great gorge - full of water at the bottom and faced with high bluffs.


the three bridges over the gorge

There was a fairly gentle build on either side up to the cliffs- we actually ran out of swamp land terrain hexes building it. Then we put three bridges over the canyon to make things interesting. We also included rough trails around the heights on both sides too, so there were five ways of getting past/over the gorge.

My eldest son tried to be nice. It’s a beautiful map, he said, one of the nicest you’ve ever made, but I don’t think it will work well for a game. It will take too long to climb up. I thought he’d made a good point and so I put a road way up the centre of each side.


Jandarian forces races up the slope

We usually leave a map up for a week or two and play on it a dozen or so times. We’d just finished with a rather nice map- swamp water streams all over and trees which impeded movement like crazy and made every decision strategic.

I’d had some memorial moments with Jandarian troops on the shore defending against marauding orcs. But this new map, the canyon of my dreams, proved to be less than I’d hoped.


forces struggle upwards...

We started by playing a variant of Erathi basin where you have to earn points and the dead are reborn through starting zones or graveyards. Truly it took too long for troops to get up the cliffs, even with the roads. We’d tried using horses too, for speeding movement but the whole battle seemed more an exercise in moving than anything else. We didn’t finish the game, which is something we never do.

The map sat unused for several days, no one suggesting we play again. Finally it came out- everyone wanted to play, but not on that map. My younger son and I decided to use it one last time to play a scenario that no one ever wants to play but he and I.


orcs hungry for blood

The scenario is loosely based on the battle we call “scouts” in the Lord of the Rings Two Towers movie. A human force, usually Jandar must traverse the map with ten refugees. An orc force must stop them.

The victory condition is 6+ refugees across the map alive is a victory for Jandar; 4 or fewer an orc feast. I’ll admit we’ve played this scenario before and the orcs always win. Could it be that the movies aren’t true?


Sentinels block a bridge

For this game we decided to use order markers to represent the refugees on the map. These order marker refugees had 5M, 0A and 2D, and they could ride horses.

I chose Aragorn, who has an attack aura, the Sentinels of Jandar, my favourite female hero Saroth, the Nights’ Watch and the Arrows of Jandar. And horses- not enough for everyone, but I thought if I could get up the height first I could block the bridges with the sentinels and then pick off the orcs with my archers.


Mounted archers shoot the orcs

My younger son took orcs. Lots of ‘em. A nasty orc leader, arrow gruts, blade gruts and Isengarde wolves for them to ride on. They rode straight up the hill to meet me.

Everything went according to my plan. The sentinels blocked the bridges, Aragorn used his ranged attack and we shot at the orcs. The orcs made determined attacks against the sentinels but not much happened. Then an arrow grut got a lucky shot and shot Aragorn’s horse out from under him and he was stunned. The sentinels began to fall.


orcs in disarray

Slowly, the orcs began to battle their way across the bridges. The Night’s Watch stood firm- orcs were falling, but not enough.

The orcs broke through and I tried engaged them to keep from the refugees who had gotten half way up the hill and then thought better of it and were now trying to hide.

Maybe I could still win if some could sneak through. But that’s a fool’s hope, isn’t it? Stupid orcs have disengage, right?

The Jandarians were smashed, and the orcs came swooping down the hill after the refugees. Going up the hill is slow but coming down is very fast. A 100% win for the orcs.

It’s time to take that map down. We’ll no doubt play the scenario again, and no doubt I’ll play as jandar and lose again. At least I’m dependable?