Josh chose Dwarves, although eneded up allying in some Rohan as he forgot all his plastic miniatures. I went for a Goblin alliance (Moria and Misty Mountains) as it gave me a chance to field a whole load of newly painted miniatures. Each army was 1000 points.
The scenario we rolled for was domination and it gave us a chance to use my new river pieces and the bridge as an objective.
The only photos I managed are of the board immediately after set up:
The goblin hoard had 91 miniatures to the Dwarf 56, and the numbers certainly had an impact. The end result was a clear victory for the Goblins who brought the dwarf army to 25% with a loss of only 20 something minis. The Spider Queen made her debut and was amazing taking down a number of grunts plus Balin (original rules), a Dwarf King and a Rohan Captain. She suffered no wounds.
I have to put it down to Josh not having his whole army with him (particularly bows) as we normally have very close games.
Afterwards we discussed the new rules and concluded the following:
- Monsters are now very powerful - should they be easier to target when shooting?
- We don't like the new shooting rules - particularly for throwing weapons. We will probably ignore the -1 modifier in the future.
- The hand weapons gave some good variety, but would be tricky in the bigger games we also like to play.
- The new rules for spear support seemed good, but they took a while to think through - calls for more games I think.
