The Battle of Samsung Bridge

A soon-to-be married friend of mine (JoeySpike, if you remember him and his Lord of the Rings chaps) had his non-gender-specific do recently. As the best man, I was planning the culturally acceptable drunken public humiliation, but Joey's alternative plan of having a quiet affair at his place won out, because a) very few people actually enjoy being publicly humiliated and b) it would mean me spending less money.

Then for some inexplicable reason we broke out Joey's models and got gaming...

The setup: Jake (left), Josh (top),  JpeySpike (right), self (bottom)

The armies we picked out ranged from the lore-accurate to the outrageous, from Joey's all-Uruk legion of the white hand, through Josh's Gondor/Rohan combo, right up to Jake and me, who fielding Gandalf and Aragorn leading the Easterlings and Sam Gamgee commanding the denizens of Moria.

The Riders of Rohan bravely charge the pike phalanx

We couldn't find Joey's rulebook, so were forced to play the rules as we remembered them, dicing off to decided disputes, such as whether or not archers could shoot pikemen supporting friends in combat but not actually engaged (a 4 said they couldn't). We also decided that all troops were wounded on 5 or six, or 6 only for Easterlings, which rather threw off the game balance.

Further skirmishing between Josh and Jake. The Rohirrim can knock them down, but Josh couldn't seem to make a wound roll all game, poor chap

Still, we persevered! We all started at a corner, each committed to a battle on two flanks  to various degrees. I devoted a mere handful of archers to keeping Jake busy, while Josh went for broke and sent most of his cavalry at Joey's pike block while advancing his main force at the heavily-armored Easterlings of Jake.

"...and my other archers will be shooting at him."

The cavalry charge went about as well as expected, although as pikes don't actually get a bonus against cavalry (as far as I remember at least) had Josh given them more support they could have really made an impact, especially as I barreled into  Joey's other flank with my full force.

I hope to punch through the crossbow Uruks before the flanking force comes over the bridge

Having a cave troll was certainly a help in the fight, and even brave Samwise played a blinder (man of the match) it's a shame he didn't sharpen his frying pan though, whilst he was winning the combats handsomely, he couldn't would for toffee. 

To my immense surprise, even with the pike-Uruks, my forces seem to be winning

Although my worst fears were confirmed as the flanking pike-bearers trooped across the bridge to catch me in the flank, the dice were on my side (for possibly the first time in memory) and I slowly ground down the legions of the White Hand.

The Uruk hai get properly stuck in

Sadly for Josh, that '6+ to wound' the Easterlings enjoyed meant things went a lot less slowly (having both Aragorn and Gandalf didn't hurt...) but Eomer certainly wan't going down without a fight!

With his forces overwhelmed by unfairly superior foes, Josh tries to snatch a little honour by slaying Gandalf

Seeing the writing on the wall, Josh threw his efforts into the combat between Gandalf and Eomer. Glamdring flahsed against the Rohirrim armour, and the great captain of the Riddermark fell. Josh bowed out unfairly into last, but not least, place.

Josh's last model, just after the bloke next to him had been shot by his own mates.

Meanwhile, Isengard and Moria had bled each other near dry, and it was clear that though my victory was almost assured, the remnants of my army would be swept away by the 6+ to wound tide. So, at the eleventh hour they set aside their differences in the face of a greater foe (that and Joey would be sure of second place if my army was wiped out while he still had models).

Not even Sir Ian Mckellen can stop our hot dice!

So our combined armies surged over the bridge, and in a surge of brilliant rolls, forced Gandalf into an early costume change. Unfortunately, the cave troll has already taken two wounds from obscenely lucky Easterling archery and first mine, the Joeys remaining forces were soon slain,

They think it's all over!

So, all in all a win for good fun, but could have been improved by following 'equal' rules, or finding the 'proper' rules, rather than a hybrid. I'd like to finish with an apology for those people who we completely ignored for 5 hours of dice rolling fun, who cannot be blamed for walking out in disgust at our selfish behaviour. Sorry.