Battle Report – Ents Vs Bolg and Wargs

by | Dec 5, 2024

Afternoon #WarhammerCommunity I was playing MESBG a while ago. We had a run of playing Star Wars Legion, I mean I've rolled some dice and had a lot of fun but it's mostly everyone else who're playing for real. So it was suggested we nip back to Middle Earth. After a lot of debate about who was playing whom Ben and Otty set up using their warbands for their next Warhammer World tournament and I faced Liam in what may well have been our last game in Shed 1.0. Both his armies, I managed to grab his Ents for simplicity - just 3 of them with Pippin and Merry and he went with Bolg, a lot of Warg riders with Morgul arrows, which apparently Liam claimed were the perfect 'Ent killers'. The mission was to have more models than your opponent in each table quarter - scoring points for each you controlled. I was already stuffed on this one. Maelstrom deployment meant on a low dice roll your opponent chose which board edge you came in on so Liam put two of my Ents on the left hand side so I put Treebeard with Quickbeam and Beechbone. I won priority with Quickbeam making full use of his 8" move to the other Ent's 6". No chance of a first turn charge but I was in the right direction. I was also very lucky as all the Morgul Arrows fell short, failing to wound any of my trees.


A good thing about MESBG is anything under half your model's height is not even difficult terrain. So, those cliff edges were just a step down for my Ents and Quickbeam was able to reach Bolg, who's minions surrounded the treeman. He was trapped, so this was likely to end poorly. Except Liam asked Scott to roll his dice for the duel and couldn't beat my score on around 10 dice! So Quickbeam picked Bolg off his Warg and preceded to use him as a cudgel to bludgeon his mount, and the remaining Orcs and their Wargs. Each kill allowing me to attack again and causing Bolg to suffer another strength 8 wound. As the dust settled everyone was smooshed with Bolg left prone on his final wound - brutal.


I'll be honest now, this game was from 12th September. I started writing the battle report shortly after, hence the detail above but did not finish. So now I'm not sure what happened in the subsequent pictures. I think Liam positioned the Wargs to make it difficult for the the Ents on the hill to join up with Quickbeam. Two Warg riders kept out of charge range and failed to damage with their Morgul arrows/


The Ents continued to club anything they could lay their branches on with Liam's advance force almost decimated.


Meanwhile there was a lot of discussion in the other game as Otty and Ben got to grips with their warbands. 


It would transpire that Otty would go on to win the MESBG tournament at Warhammer World and they came 1st and 2nd in the painting competition. 


As amazing news as that was within a week or so of winning the new MESBG rules would reveal that most of this army would in fact be moving to Legends!


Although this looks like Moria Goblins, they were in fact Khand.


So some of the models will still be valid, as Moria Goblins, but the Great Beast and chariots will saadly have no place in tournament play. And lets not forget that Warg Marauders are also Legends and Otty has 9 of them, including their dismounted figures too! 😩 


This may well have been our last game with Scott. I seem to recall he rolled shockingly bad that night and we had plenty of banter and laughs for just how bad it was.


The Ents moved to get to grips with the remaining Wargs, I think the Hobbits managed to wing one of the riders. Needing successive 5s and 6's their little stones managed to take one out and the Warg ran away.


Which left Liam to scatter his forces out of reach.


With time running out Liam managed to get his Wargs into multiple quarters.


I'm not sure if he snatched the win or we called it a draw. With plenty of time I could have tried to corner the Wargs but with not enough Ents to dominate the quarters it would be far too easy for Liam to outmanoeuvre my slow-moving trees and remain with more in each quarter than I could possibly commit. 


It was a lot of fun and even if I didn't technically win there was a huge sense of satisfaction from clubbing so many Orcs and their Wargs with their leader!