To Kill a King

"Arvedui was indeed the last king, as his name signifies. It is said that this name was given to him at his birth by Malbeth the Seer, who said to his father: 'Arvedui you shall call him, for he will be the last in Arthedain.'"

Last weekend, myself and a friend (who is still a relatively newbie to the game) decided to run the To Kill a King scenario from the Ruin of Arnor sourcebook. This mission saw him trying to get past the last defenders of Fornost to kill either Arvedui or Malbeth with his force of undead spirits.

A note on proxies. Unfortunately we didn't have many of the models available but didn't want to let that stop us from playing what looked like a fun scenario, so we proxied most of the models. On the Good side; Boromir represented Arvedui, Gandalf was Malbeth and the Arnorian warriors were represented by Gondorians (the guy with the sword being the captain). And on the Evil side; Army of the Dead stood in for Spectres, and a banner bearer standing on a 40mm base represented the Shade. The Barrow Wights played themselves.

The Arnorian defenders set up a loose perimeter around the ruins of the Royal Palace while the spirits of Angmar prepared to assault the side closest to Malbeth the Seer, deeming him to be an easier target than the King. Upon seeing which direction the attack would come from the Arnorians raced to form a defensive line, although a few of them were led astray by the fell light of their foes. Arvedui also suffered from the effects of the Paralyse spell in the early turns, but managed to shrug it off fairly quickly each time.

Several Arnorians were lured into traps and killed by the Spectres, while the Arnor Captain led a sortie aimed at reducing the threat of the Barrow Wights and Shade. Ultimately, he failed to bring down any of these threats, but did knock a wound off the Shade and brought down a couple of Spectres.

After trading kills for a couple of turns, eventually the Arnorian defensive perimeter started to show some holes and offer opportunity to the Angmar spirits to charge their targets. Unfortunately for Angmar it proved too little too late as the defenders killed off the last few spirits, with King Arvedui chasing down the final Barrow Wight to win the game.

Overall a good game that felt in the balance right up to the last couple of turns. Man of the Match performance by the Arnor Captain for slaying several Spectres and putting the Barrow Wights and Shade under pressure. Because I enjoyed playing the Arnorians I'm now sorely tempted to start painting an Arnor army, although it may have to wait a while until I get some other projects off the to do list (*coughKhandcough*).