DBA- War of the Ring

Finn and my first try of War of the Ring using DBA

I had enough Urak Hai bases for HoTT WoTR but not for standard DBA, so we only used 9 bases per side.

Rohan:

• 5x Riders of Rohan (Cavalry) including general
• 3x Rangers (Auxilia)
• 2x Rohan bowmen

Urak Hai

• 4x Urak Hai scouts (warband) including General
  
• 1x Urak hai crossbows
• 2x Warg Riders (Cav)
• 2x Trolls (elephants)

Finn set up as he wanted and as it turned out the terrain was a bit close together (will remember to make it more open next time).


The Urak Hai and allies prepare to advance.


Both armies advance and things are already getting congested.


The Rohan bowmen concentrate fire on a troll with disastrous results for the troll!- it dies!


The warg riders try to battle the rangers (auxilia) in the marsh- not a good idea! Again they were doubled and die.

With Finn I tend to work out the combat factors and put a die with that number showing behind or beside each base. We then roll our dice, he adds up the scores and works out the results- a bit of simple maths while he is playing. See wargaming can be educational! In this case the auxilia started out as a 2 (and rolled a 6) while the warg riders had a base factor of zero so no die needed, and rolled a 4!


The remaining troll attacks the bow (and recoils) while the warband attack the Riders of Rohan and they stick.


Having seen off the warg riders the rangers gang up on and slay the crossbows to win the game. Not a good start for the trolls!


Thoughts and Changes
I quite liked it, to me it had a good feel, and more variety in troops types than HoTT and so I think has a better fit for WoTR than is HoTT. The magic and heroes of the proper WoTR game aren't exactly my cup of tea and I think this will work better for Finn until he's a bit older. He might want to try WoTR again in future but this should work in the meantime- thanks Mark Davies for the idea.

Not sure whether to use the warg riders as Cavalry or light horse- we might try them as light horse next time.

For some reason we started using 1 inch= 100 paces, next time we will revert to our normal 2"= 100 paces.

I will also make sure Finn sets up the table to have a bit more open areas.

More Reinforcements
Tonight I have re-based:

• 4x Rohan militia (spears)
  
• 3x Urak Hai with swords (blades)
• 3x Urak Hai pike (uncompleted)

So next time we'll be able to use a full 12 elements per side. This week I hope to finish off re-basing enough Urak Hai swords and pikes for a second command (for Big Battle War of the Rings- BBWOTR).

Once they are done I'll add another 4 bases of Riders of Rohan and so be able to do a second command of those as well.

Craig