The Battle of Durin's Tower

Grishnak pointed a ragged claw at the Orc chiefs arranged around him. "Right, da stunties is over der on dem rocks, see? An' wez gunna push 'em off!" Growls of agreement. The dwarves had been expanding their reach through the northern mountains and had begun clashing with the orcs, driving them from rich veins of ore and stopping raids on trading caravans. He pointed his scimitar at the hills from left to right. "Grashak you takes yer gobbos up da left. Razgul, you an' yer boys hit dat big rock in da middle. Me? I'm gunna grab dat pretty rag over der." He pointed to where the Dwarf King's red and gold banner fluttered at the foot of the hill capped by an ancient ruined tower.

Orcs, goblins and trolls deployed.

Overview of Dwarf deployment

King Thain and his shield wall at the foot of the tower

Meanwhile, across the valley, Sami put out his pipe and carefully put it away in his pack. "Aye, seems we're in for a hot day o'work!"

Dani spat. "Ach! What de ye ken about work?"

Grom leaned on his spear. "More 'n youse I reckon" he mumbled.

"Shut it you lot!" shouted their captain, Thorkl Stone Hammer. "Those trolls are coming up fast!"

 

Remembered to get my Nerd Dice out for this!

Both sides at 12 Reputation and approximately 430 points (note spiffy new Reputation Tokens)

The Dwarves got a lot of Armour 4 and Spears as Tribute. Hearth Guard also got Brutal. Orcs and Goblins got Reluctant, and Brittle. Although uruks and Trolls were Brutal. Dwarf heroes were much more tooled up with traits as well. Baldor's sword, Foe-Cleaver is a Legendary Weapon.

Turn 1 

Turn 2, Goblins keep passing their Command Tests to move, unlike the others.

Dwarf Rangers have advanced to try and knock a few Trolls down

Turn 3. Dwarf Rangers caught in a desperate hand to hand with some orcs. But they hold for a turn and wound Razgul. Thain charges down to hit the trolls before they charge him.

Trolls charge up the rocky hillside in the center. Dani, Sami and Gron fight them off, their spears and axes black with troll blood.

Sami caught his breath and wiped his eyes. He hoped it was troll blood on his face. That last one really gushed when Dani jamed his spear into it's neck as he went for the big brutes groin. Dani was bandaging Gron's head now. They returned to their initial position and reformed their shieldwall on the blood slick grass, trying to keep ranks inspite of the massive carcasses littering the ground.

They were pretty spent.There were too many smaller dwarf bodies among the slain trolls. Thorkl told off a quarter of those still standing to look for wounded and dispatch any trolls still breathing.

But the battle now ebbed away from them as goblins approached the hills to their right and another wave of black anger washed up around the King's red banner to their left.

Thain has pushed the Trolls back but his comany is battered

Turn 4 "To the King!" Baldor Foe-Smiter arrives on the field with his Hall Thegns

Baldor arriving lower edge of picture

Thain brings his reserve of Hall Thegns up and smashes the trolls again destroying them.

Beogruff, cousin of Beorn, charges from the woods to take the goblins in the flank. Wargs and riders are hurled like bloody rags into the trees

Beogruff charges the second unit of wolf riders. Even though he's wounded he slaughters them all.

Grimbeard charges downhill into the goblins, wiping them out.

Sensing the crisis is at hand, Thain leads a charge with his other company of spears, smashing into some orc warriors. They recoil and their brittle morale breaks. Orc Reputation collapses to -1.

This, my sixteenth game of 2026, capped off a very Middle Earth themed day. That afternoon Mrs Rabbitman and I took in the Stratford Festival's production of The Hobbit. It is very much a children's play, but they did great things with a minimalist set, effective lighting, and a cast of nine. Yes nine. After Bilbo, Gandalf, Thorin, Bombur, and the Narrator, the other four had to play all the other roles, quick changing from dwarf, to goblin, to Bard, to Gollum, to elf, and back. The monsters were all accomplished with puppetry, which was quite nifty. The Battle of the Five Armies was more ballet or interpretive dance, than epic spectacle, but it was effective. I'd have liked some shadow puppetry warriors or light effect on the background to accompany the actors, but that's me.

I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was far better than those horrible movies that Peter Jackson made. Yes I said what said.

waiting to start: In a hole in the ground lived a hobbit...

Intermission, this is going to be Mirkwood

Mrs Rabbitman and I 

Tractor Support for Tollyn-Maeryn

A friend built this tractor for my Quar last year. He had left over pieces from something he'd made for his 40K Imperial Guard. This is the hull from a Warlord Churchill tank and the turret from a Toonkrieg KV2. I just needed to add a commander's cupola. I had some closed hatches left over from my Toonkrieg Centurions that I had acquired way at the start of the Quar madness.

It looks a lot like a variation of a Baeliog, so I'll probably treat it as such. 

The turret fits nicely with the hull and moves easily. The main gun and the MG in the back of the turret actually move as well.

It took me a year to decide which army to assign it to, which would determine the camouflage scheme, and then to find the hatch in the drifts of stuff shifting around the Basement o'Gaming. Then winter settled in before I could take it outside to spray prime.

I almost gave it to the Gloam-Hyyn. I think it'd look splendid in the same jungle camouflage. But it is a bit big to be in a jungle. The Tollyn-Maeryn needed some tractor support to come out of the trenches. And everyone else has tractors of assorted flavours already. So I didn't need to think too long about where it went. It'll look great taking on Chyweethls and Alitheans too.

The colours are Vallejo German Field Grey, and Vallejo German Camouflage Brown, and Americana Neutral Gray. Tracks are black with a silver drybrush and then a dark khaki drybrushed over that and up onto the fenders.
 

Taking Midgard to Middle Earth

Romans are fun, but all this recent Midgard activity has got me wanting to try my Middle Earth armies as well.

The main stumbling block being basing. So many bases. I can, it seems, quite easily build 450 point armies for Elves and Orcs. For Dwarves I can hit 400 without painting anymore troops by adding an allied giant bear as a Monstrosity. Of course I've got over 2 dozen dwarf warriors in bare metal still.

I didn't think I had enough elves, and was hesitant about dwarves, but if you make your Elf or Dwarf king a Level 4 hero and tool him up with legendary weapons, armour 4, and maybe magic. Add in a couple of level 3 heroes, possibly a magic user it's very easy to hit 450 points. Of course with Midgard you can't exceed 1/3rd of your points on heroes.

The orcs however, need a lot of bases.

I have some sheets of plastic board used for theater posters that make great bases because they don't warp. So I painfully cut out about 20 of these and spray painted them, then glued on cut up fridge magnets.

For the Dwarves I thought that two ranks of 5 looked better with their smaller 20mm bases. So I'vemade six stands with this configuration.

But for the elite, two-handed sword, axe, and warhammer wielding Hearth Guards I felt the wider spacing of two ranks of four looked more sensible.

I've also had a rummage in the Bitz Box and Spare Bases Box made some markers. Extra quivers from the Wargames Atlantic Goths glued on 25mm mdf rounds make nice "Shot" markers.

Extra swords make "Winning" markers.

The Hearth Guard are winning

I also stopped by the Big Box craft store and bought some metal beads for Mighty Deeds and Reputation Tokens. I like the rings, they remind me of Bernard Cornwell's Winter King Trilogy in which Derfal talks about beating the spear heads of defeated foes into rings.

Baldur Foe-Smiter has 3 Mighty Deeds left

Franks on the Frontier

Pasha Dan was available Saturday night for a game and he'd been working on a host of Migration Era Franks. So he brought them over for a game of Midgard. 

His army mustered in at 450 pts and 11 Reputation. So I jigged the list for my A&A 3rd century Romans to match.

Some of Dan's Franks. He's gotten them all very nice sabot bases now, instead of the bare card you saw in previous games.

My cavalry wing maneuvers against Dan's wing that has a unit of mounted Nobles. I'm using the glass beads for Mighty Deed tokens. Dan is using replica ancient coins.

Center and left closing. You can see my super posh square of cereal box that is the "Killing Zone" template. Dice in the holders are marking stamina hits.

My cavalry have gotten stuck in and as you can see are taking a lot of hurt, but so are the Franks

Disaster! Equus is alone, his horsemen dead around him. I should have challenged the Frankish chieftain to Single Combat, which might have at least gained me a Reputation Point before he died.

Oof! Worst "Risk to Heroes" roll ever! Centurion Secundus goes down. The Roman numeral dice are from Dan. Felt nice to roll, but took some getting used to to read. A couple of times 'IV' instead of 'VI' was an issue.

Pushing hard in the center. Carolianus is in the upper right leading a century against the Frankish King and his hearthguard

Pushing hard on the left too. The arrows are my super posh "winning/momentum" markers

The Frankish chieftain on the left, having destroyed my cavalry is now sweeping around to engulf my infantry. That lonely century, attacked front and flank manages to survive and hold out long enough.

Action in the center

The decision point. Eastern archers are getting stuck into hand to hand. Both sides are equal at 5 Reputation tokens still in their goblets.

The Frankish king (marked by the blue draco) takes a 3rd and final wound, causing Frankish Reputation to plummet!

In a desperate attempt to get some Reputation, Dan's mounted chieftain charges Carolianus and challenges him to single combat. Carolianus wins the fight!

All very exciting. At the end the Roman Reputation was still at 4 or 5, and the Frankish Reputation was now at -5. I'm sure I was helped by Dan operating under the dreaded New Army Curse. He'll probably thrash me next time.

I really do need to do a rummage through the Bitz Box and make some nicer "winning" and "shot" markers. And Stamina Loss markers. And measuring sticks. And maybe a nicer Kill Zone template.

But this was Game 15 for the year! I'm doing pretty good on that front for sure.