Battle for the Lonely Mountain

 So, the start of hopefully a common occurrence, I made the trip over to Brent's house and we threw down some dice with my Smaug, spider, and warg oh my! vs Brent's Unexpected Party. Both of our armies were under 20 models, both have won top painting awards, so at least they look good while they lose....

 Here is Brent's Unexpected Party, I suggested this match-up to finally put his army to their official test. If they cannot go against their book context opponent, then they have no hope at all. As I was coming off playing no games for more than a year being abroad and finishing school, it was a good way to get back in the groove.

 Brent had a pretty standard terrain set up and my faster force advanced in the first couple turns with priority no being an issue. Gandalf cast his normal blinding light and terror aura.

 My spiders and wargs quickly get into position to trap Brent's small force with Gandalf immobilizing Smaug.

 With Smaug looming, Brent took a chance and immobilized the spider queen, thus leaving Smaug free. The photo above is the aftermath of a fire blast in which a couple "iron guard" went poof and Gandalf had to burn some might and fate to survive. The spider queen lost her fight and quickly died to Thorin and his Captain.

 Here is when the fight got messy. My wargs and spiders were doing their job and dying and Smaug won the roll off for a heroic move and quickly pinned Gandalf.

A little history lesson in my luck with Dragons, mind you only Dragons, not Drakes; His main tournament appearance at a Baltimore Games Day, he took 1 wound from a goblin captain after blowing his dice roll. He then proceeds to roll snake eyes for his courage check and without enough might or will to boost, he runs from the battle on his first and only wound. With that in mind we continue the battle report.

Thorin dispatched his spider with a heroic combat and moved to help Gandalf vs Smaug. I rolled the below dice, thus losing the fight with three 1s and one 2.

 Brent then rolls his wounding dice, and scores 4 wounds... great.

 I used 2 fate and saved both while making the other two courage checks successfully for once.

The fight went on for 2 more turns with Smaug dealing out some death but with no might left he lost a fight and took 3 more wounds in which he only passed 2/3 of his courage checks and fled the battle to fight another day! Or die to an arrow from a pesky lake folk archer....

It felt good to roll some dice again and look forward to more games at Brents. After brushing the dust off my books and dice next time the gloves are off and we are playing for keeps with real armies as we play test new armies, scenarios, and such for the upcoming Bilbo's Bash and Adepticon.