Helm's Deep is the Rohan Stronghold and the place of the last stand of the Rohirrim. Theoden King with few guards and the people of Edoras came to find refuge. At dust the King orders every man and boy who can carry arms to be ready for fight. The hordes of Isengard will fall upon them to eliminate them. The Rohirrim must hold. At the last moment some hundred Elves came to honor the ancient alliance of men and elves and to fight alongside men for one more time. At the third day, at dawn, Gandalf arrived with Eomer and his riders. At that final moment Theoden with few survivors made a heroic exodus.
" Let this be the hour when we draw swords together. Fell deeds awake. Now for wrath, now for ruin, and the red dawn. Forth, Eorlingas! " Theoden King before the exodus.
We played the Helm's Deep battle using 280 miniatures in total. To win the game the Good side had to keep three out of five objectives. The objectives were five deep red stones inside the castle. On the opposite side, the evils had to conquer three of the above stones. To achieve that an evil warrior had to stand next to the stone for a turn. The game had 20 turns. At the end of the twentieth turn (the moment when Gandalf, Eomer and the rest appear) we count how many stones each side posses. The one who has three is the winner. The evil force consisted of 210 warriors, 2695 points all together.
Evil force:
An Assault Ballista with a Siege Engineer and its three crew members
A Battering Ram
2 Uruk Captains with 23 Uruk-hai warriors each
2 Uruk drummers
2 Uruk banner-bearers
Vrasku with 15 crossbowmen
Lurtz and his 15 Uruk scouts
32 Uruk pikemen
4 Uruk demolition teams consisted of 8 Sappers and 4 Berserkers with torches
11 more Berserkers with various weapons accompanied the above teams
16 Sappers more
Wildmen Chief and 24 Wildmen of Dunland
Thrydan, a banner-bearer and 15 Dunlendings
Good force consisted of 70 warriors in total, 1076 points. The rate "attackers:defenders" is 3:1.
Good force:
King Theoden with 16 Rohan Spearmen and 16 Rohan Archers, stand inside the Keep
Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli
Haldir with 16 swordsmen and 16 archers
We needed a Siege Tower for our game. I have one from the time I was a child, a Timpo medieval siege tower. It was in my mother's house attic for 35 years! Its condition is not bad at all (just the rear wheels are missing), so after such a long period of time it is back in action again!
The Battle:
The Elves manned the left walls of the castle while the Rohirrim manned the Keep. The evil warriors moved holding their ladders and pushing their siege tower while the Elves welcomed them with a rain of arrows. Legolas', Haldir's and the Elf Archers' priority was to aim the demolition teams and especially the berserkers with the torches. A lot of them died trying to reach the walls. At the other side of the castle Rohirrim threw numerous spears to the Uruks of the battering ram. They suffered huge losses but they were so many and every time newcomers replaced the fallen ones. Finally they managed to reach the gate despite the casualties. At that point, Theoden with a few brave Rohan warriors made their exodus to face the enemy. Although they had a cover fire from the Rohirrim, who manned the Keep, they died all. Of course they managed to delay the Uruks to reach the gate for a couple of turns.
The fight for the walls was tremendous. Thrydan stepped the walls first while the Elves shooted non stop. The battering ram reached the gate as well despite the huge casualties. At that point the evil casualties were two times more than that of the good ones. Unfortunately, among the good side casualties were Theoden and Haldir. Theoden and a few brave Rohirrim died in front of the gate trying to stop the battering ram attacks. Haldir and some Elves died on the walls when three demolition teams managed to activate their bombs. The rest casualties of Rohirrim died from the Ballista and the crossbowmen shoots. They shooted every turn from a safe distance, that is why till the end of the game they did not suffer any losses.
Finally, many of the evil warriors managed to step on the walls. Since that moment, Aragorn, Gimli and a few Elf swordsmen, who just watched all the previous turns doing nothing, became killing machines and scattered death among the attackers! Aragorn held his position, killed Wildmen Chief and protected the centre ladder of the castle while Gimli protected the stairs on the right part of the castle. The rest Elf swordsmen and Legolas ran to help the Rohirrim to defend the Keep.
When the Uruks broke the main gate and entered the Keep, the Defenders did their last stand to defend the red stones. At the other side of the castle Gimli won all the fights and killed many of the attackers. He killed Trydan as well.
By that point we had reached the twentieth turn. Although Gimli continued to kill many of the attackers, he did not manage to stop them all. A couple of Dunlendings passed and reached the stone which Gimli had to protect. The attackers on the centre part of the castle had reached another stone from the moment they stepped on the walls. The attackers needed one more stone to win the game. And they got it! They won the fight for the interior gate and the stone was theirs! They had to hold it for a turn, but we ran out of turns, we were already at the twentieth! Was it a draw? No, we (the defenders) accepted our defeat. We did not have Gandalf and the rest cavalrymen to save the day anyway. The conclusion: Helm's Deep fell.
If you want to see all the photos of the battle please visit:
http://dramatickatastases.blogspot.gr/
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