Rangers of Shadowdeep - The Warband.

Premise:

For my rangers of shadowdeep warband, I wanted to do something a little different. Everyone seems to choose human or elf warbands but I wanted to create a different narrative for my campaign. I am using my Uruk Hai from the tabletop game 'Middle Earth - Stratergy Battle Game' as stand in for orcs who have come to begin raiding these human lands but the shadowdeep has disrupted thier plans, I will try to slighty adjust each of the scenario set ups. An example is instead of saving a village from the nefarious minions of the shadowdeep its a conquered forward scout base that we have lost contact with and need to reestablish contact and save any captured orcs. Because they will be a swiftly moving scouting force they are loosely based on the idea of Lurtz and his marauding Uruk Hai.

I thought this would be a unique warband to allow me something different to think about and create stories around.

The Ranger:

The protaginist is slightly based on Lurtz but have included some magic to increase his utility.

For my 10 build points I spent 2 on heroic abilities, 2 spells, 2 lots of skill upgrades and then a massive 4 on recruitment points for 142 total. I will try to keep things vague to avoid giving exerts of the rulebook.

Heroic Abilities: 

• Split Cast - Cast a spell on 2 models instead of one.
• Powerful Blow - Extra damage added onto a successful melee hit.

The split cast allows spells to become alot more potent affecting mulitple creatures and powerful blow to reflect the strength of the fighting Uruk Hai.

Spells:

• Heal - Heal a target for 5HP
• Shield of Light - Makes the target harder to shoot 

The heal feels like him bolstering thier resovle with a warcry and the shield of light is like him giving advice to dodge and weave to avoid arrow fire.

Skills:

• Armoury: +2
• Climb: +2
• Leadership: +2
• Navigation: +2
• Perception: +1
• Stealth: +1
• Strength: +2
• Survival: +2
• Track: +2

I gave points to skills that felt appropriate for a scout leader

Equipment:

• Sword
• Shield
• Bow
• Quiver
• Light Armour
• Holy Icon (White Hand Warpaint)

The equipment makes him a bit more defensive in melee but allows him to do ranged aswell as improving my 2 chosen spells to be more potent with the Holy Icon.

The Companions:

Because I have a larger pool to choose from (142) I had a good deal of freedom to choose. I chose; 

• 2x Archers
• 3x Man at Arms
• 1x Swordsman
• 1x Healer

This gives a solid frontline with some ranged support. After seeing a few battle reports, healing seems like a strong thing to have in a warband so I chose a mini with a wardrum to spur on the troops charge to be the healer, it seemed like a great idea thematically and mechanically. I am using Ugluk as the swordsman model because the mini wielding a decapitated head with his sword drawn seems like a perfect imposing figure for a swordsman who is good in melee. The Man at arms are my Uruks with shields and the Archers are self explanatory.

Conclusion:

I am eager to send them into thier first mission. Which I believe will be the single blood moon scenario mainly due to minis already being painted for that. How did you build you ranger? Let me know with a comment!

Why I started this blog!?

I wanted to start a blog to help document my hobby progress but also to help create narratives within the games I will play. I am certainly no video-grapher or comfortable talking for Youtube videos.

I will be posting about painting progress as a push for me to finally start knocking off some of my pile of shame! Trying to use this as a driving force to help break my procrastination.

I am looking at playing Silver Bayonet, Devilry A'foot, Rangers of shadow deep and possibly 5 leagues from the borderlands. Each of them have great settings that I am drawn too but also have decent solo modes which help me take photos for the blog but help to create a story for each battle. So there will be battle reports and perhaps inbetween battle short stories to help me flesh out the characters.

Not sure how it will go, but hopefully wont be too boring!