The Search For Faramir

Previously on Ambush in Anorien - "We saw him vanquish the troll, my Lord, then he charged into some orcs and we lost sight of him....."

Orc scouts fire on advancing Gondor search parties

In our last game, orcs have ambushed Boromir and Faramir and their patrol in a swampy, wooded region in the far north of Gondor. Faramir was in the thick of the action, fighting orcs and a mighty troll, while Boromir tried his best to marshal his men to safety. Back at camp, they realised Faramir had not returned, so hastily organised a search party. The Gondorians spread out to search for the fallen captain, but almost immediately were harassed by orcs scouts, shooting from the swamps. Braying horns from the woodlands sounded as more orcs appeared.

We played this game using Dragon rampant rules, with the fugutive scenario borrowed from Lion Rampant. There are six pieces of difficult terrain which the Gondorians must search. The first search is successful on a 6, the second search on a 5+, and so on. Once the fugitive (Faramir) is found, he must be escorted off the table to safety. It's one of those scenarios which can be over very quickly if an early search is successful, or drag on for hours if they have to get across the length of the table to search every last bit of terrain.

"Shoot the filthy horse riders!"

As the orc commander, I had brought plenty of light troops, which are good in terrain and fairly fast on their feet. I wanted to push forward quickly to harass the searches. There was little chance of preventing a rescue in the two swamp areas near to the Gondorian camp, so the scouts raced up to the middle of the battle field and took up positions in the shallow pool and the toppled statue, hoping their heavier armed comrades would join them at some point later. Luckily for me, the first two searches had failed and the Gondorians had to advance into the midst of the orc forces.

The disadvantage of light troops, of course, is that they are not well armed and hardly likely to stand up to a charge from heavy knights. One unit of light foot orcs routed, though the knights paid a toll and were now under half strength. This was the perfect opportunity for the heavy foot orcs, led by the general, to finish them off. Or so I thought......three dead orcs later and a double 1 roll for their courage test, they legged it too. Half of my foot troops lost to a unit of pesky knights! Obviously the battle scribe was positioned in one of these units as no more accounts of the battle survive (camera battery dead).

"The ladz will be along soon, keep shooting"

The orc scouts in the centre of the table did a good job of hampering the searches, aided by a handful of failed activations by the Gondorians. Boromir stepped forward and scattered these pesky archers, but then spent several turns cleaning the blood from his sword. In the pool area, orc scouts doggedly loosed off volley after volley, Gondorian rangers feeling the effects and hampering their search efforts (more failed activations as they flailed around on the slippery banks of the pond). Eventually, the search was successful. Faramir was found floating in the reeds of the pool, luckily face up, and was dragged to safety by his loyal rangers. Horns sounded to signal the retreat to camp, but this only attracted the orcs to join the chase.

Sadly for the orcs, their force depleted, there was only a unit of warg riders and a heavy foot left to take up the chase. The warg riders raced round to cut off escape on one flank, but the foot orcs were too slow to make up ground on the other flank. Faramir stumbled and limped his way to safety, though Boromir had fallen as a result of his many brave charges into combat and being peppered with scout arrows! A victory for the Gondorians, of sorts. The fate of Bormir we will have to determine in another encounter.

A most enjoyable game, even if technically the orcs "lost". For me, gaming is not necessarily about the end result, the score, but about the whole experience - the lovely terrain, the lovingly painted figures, the tales you tell, maybe a little banter thrown in. If you can get all that, then all of the players have won. Incidentally, if you have been admiring the terrain, it's all part of Matt's gaming dungeon. The game mat is a faux fur throw, with a couple of cans of green spray paint used to supply some colour variation. Full details here.