Warrior Heroes: Legends - First Game

I had finished my big HotT game last week and needed to keep the table pretty clear for a game of Twilight Struggle I had arranged for today, but I wanted to fit a quick game of something in if I could. I had recently bought Warrior Heroes - Legends from Two Hour Wargames and wanted to give it a go. I knew a bit of what to expect as the core mechanics are shared between most of their rules and figured it wouldn't last too long (as per the company title), so I thought I'd give it a go.

I bought it wanting to use my Lord of the Rings figures with it. While I am happy with the GW rules, I like the solo-friendly nature of THW rules and the fact that they often lead to something unexpected happening. This was to be the case in this game!

I decided I would lead a small party of Gondorian soliders on a border patrol. I used the 'Wandering' scenario which is designed for such things and for traveling between places. You don't have a specific objective in the way that a Raid mission would, for example, but you need to check the area for possible enemies and clear them out if any are found. I chose quite a high encounter rating, which meant there would be a high possibility of other forces being encountered, as well as additional potential contacts being generated throughout the game.

So that's the background, but due to me not thinking about the consequences of how I changed the random encounter tables it all went a bit odd...

My intrepid band set off into the wilderness

The first encounter resolves at the edge of a forest. Another Gondor patrol! We exchange pleasantries, but they want to be on their way and don't join me.

They make their way of the table and I head to the ruins where I think something might be lurking (the large green markers show where potential contacts could occur when within line of sight).

What ho?! Two Gondorian soldiers, clearly shirking their duties. Be on your way!

This place seems to be suspiciously busy with allied troops...

Two more potential contacts. I head round to come into LOS with the one at the top of the picture.

A Gondorian Ranger?! Seriously? This is the most heavily patrolled patch of so called "wilderness" I have ever seen!

I bid farewell to the Ranger and head for the last marker. Meanwhile another is placed on the board due to a random event and resolves behind me...

Two more Rangers! Okay, this is now entirely daft. I guess the commander doesn't trust me to get the job done myself...

Finally! The final encounter and it is resolved as 3 goblins. Hmmm. What a challenge...

The goblins charge before I can react. Pesky creatures...

And are instantly cut down by my trained warriors. End of the game, table cleared...

That was just odd. All those encounters and one measly bunch of foes. It was entirely my fault though. I just picked one of the encounter tables I thought would suit the region and substituted human results for soldiers and rangers and kept the monsters as they were mostly suited to LotR anyway.

But what I didn't take into account was that, in a 'typical' fantasy world, your band of adventurers could easily get into trouble with official forces of a nation. But my soldiers would hardly get into a scrap with other Gondorians, so aside from rolling to see if they would join me, there wasn't a lot of action to be had. As the table I picked  was weighted towards that as a result and the high encounter rating meant most of the potential contacts would turn out to be figures, it was mostly likely that I would end up meeting a whole bunch of allies rather than anything meaty to fight.

Entirely my fault for rushing into the game and not thinking things through! What I'll do is draw up a map of the region and create tables to reflect what kind of enemies my Gondorians might face. Then I am ready to get on with a campaign, one which involves something more dangerous than bumping into a bunch of mates out in the woods...