Bargrim the FREAKIN' AMAZING!
A short work of fiction. All copyrighted materiels belong to their respective owners, as I make no money by typing up this bit of fiction, I expect to be ignored as harmless. Bargrim and his Reavers are my invention; but feel free to use them in your story or game - even as cannon fodder. Just be wary of the Goblin in Red.
This story based fairly closely on a Lord of the Rings Miniature Strategy Battle Game I played; with my Battle Company of Moria Goblins being routed by a force of Rohirrim led by Jen; all but Bargrim were dropped, but he single-handedly inflicted eight wounds and defeated six Men (of the force of twelve), dropping both her main hero (the female Rider) and one of her two secondary heroes, and wounding the third hero. It was feakin’ amazing. We wish we had been taking pictures…
Bargrim; Captain of Moria and leader of the raiding band famed in the Underhall as "Bargrim’s Reavers" swore loudly at the high, hanging dust column that was moving toward him. He had been hoping to sneak back to Moria after being repulsed in an attempt to cross a small river in Gondor to plunder some of the valuables the Men liked to leave in those ‘holy-church’ places. The Men guarding the ford had beaten back the Reavers and forced them to flee Gondor… but to get home meant crossing Rohan and dodging mounted patrols. And one had just seen them.
"Form close ranks! Spears out, archers front! We smash ‘em if they come!" Bargrim shouted at the other sixteen goblins left in the Company. The four archers ran a short distance ahead while the rest of the company made a long rectangle, designed to prevent flank attacks.
"Double-quick, go, go!" Bargrim screamed. He saw a chance - another shallow ford, with two Men protecting it. If he could storm the ford quickly, he could hold the Horse Lords back simply by holding the ford. That would allow the bulk of the Company to escape easily. Now, who to leave behind…
Two Rohirrim scouts crested a nearby hill and began shouting. Bargrim knew that they were calling to their mounted comrades. "Faster!" he hissed, and the goblins redoubled their efforts to race for the ford.
Then, thundering over the crest of a slightly more distant hill, came the patrol: eight more Horse Lords, carrying throwing spears, swords, and bows. Bargrim measured the distance to the ford by eye, and then the distance of the rapidly closing Rohirrim. Maybe, if he was really lucky, he would at least get between the Riders and the ford…
A few moments later, he saw that even that was impossible. It was going to come down to a close-in tussle. "So be it." Snarled the goblin captain.
Then the Rohirrim charged, and with a crash, the fight was on. Bargrim watched with some amusement as seven of the eight goblins on his right were thrown from their feet by the force of the cavalry charge, leaving only his (semi) trusted underling Gratnat standing, waving his spear and shield at the staggered goblins and screaming at them to get up. To his left, two of his subordinates were crushed by horses’ hooves but a lucky goblin, one of the new boys, managed to dodge a flying spear and slashed the rider deeply in the leg, sending the man crashing to the ground with a shout of pain.
Bargrim laughed at the sound - a sound he had always delighted in, the sound of pain, of war, and the smell of fear. "Get up and kill them, you lumps!"
He threw himself at the nearest foe, dodged the man’s frantic swing with the skill he had learned in scores of battles, then gutted the man with his spear. As the horse shied away in fear from the screaming man, Bargrim eyed the situation. His well-motivated Reavers had recovered from the charge and now fighting was general all along the line the formation had held. He felt odd amusement upon spotting Tooth and Gethnat, who had one full set of arms between the two of them, each waving a spear and trying to bring down a Royal Guardsmen who was trying to fight his way towards another foe - a female Man, who seemed to be shouting orders.
Bargrim laughed. "Females do not belong. They too weak. Easy prey!" He lunged over as the woman knocked back Haggry, one of the Reaver’s neophytes. "You beaten by female, weakling! Here how it done!" Bargrim stabbed the spear at the horses’ eyes, making it flinch back while using his red shield to deflect several blows from the furious woman. Then, spotting an opening from the increasingly frantic attacks as Bargrim forced the horse back, he changed his angle of attack and speared her right in the lower torso, throwing her clear off the horse.
"You see, weakling-" Bargrim turned back just in time to see Haggry take a blow to the head from another Royal Guardsman. Bargrim snarled. "Hey! You waste my taunt!" Bargrim launched himself at the Rider, and managed to grab the horses’ tail. The horse bucked and Bargrim went soaring almost straight up. Wailing with an odd mixture of terror and delight in his flight, Bargrim briefly got a glimpse of the whole field of battle, and saw that while the Reavers appeared to be giving as good as they got, the Riders were clearly trying to disengage so they could reform and charge the Reavers again. If they could do so while the Goblin formation was in disarray from the close combat, the Goblins could yet be routed.
Then Bargrim came hurtling back down, and landed squarely on the Guardsman horse’s withers. He laughed with glee and slashed the man’s back open, then kicked him for good measure before dropping off, leaving the man lolling, dead or unconscious, in his saddle. He whirled around in time to the female Man’s horse dragging her off - well, horses couldn’t fight, but it was one less foe to worry about.
Bargrim landed and spotted another Rider nearby who was just pulling his sword out of Uthnanaka’s spine, leaving the Goblin lifeless on the field. Bargrim squealed a challenge and charged the man. The man, surprised by the red-armored goblin’s attack, turned to meet him. The man proved to be a capable foe, and Bargrim ended up dodging under the horse once to dodge a possibly fatal blow before successfully wounding the man, slashing his sword-arm open. Even so, the man simply wheeled away and disengaged - and to his horror, Bargrim saw that the six remaining Rohirrim had massed back into formation, while the two ford-guards had managed to keep the other ten surviving goblins scattered.
The Rohirrim charged, and the wounded man bore down on Bargrim. Goblin-sized shrieks of pain told him that the charge was doing considerable damage to his Company, but he had to finish the Man first! Bargrim side-stepped the charge and managed to deflect the man’s first attacks - the wound was slowing the Man down. This also created gaps in the Man’s defenses, which the cunning Bargrim quickly punched his bloody spear-point through to stab the man in the side. His tough foe gasped in pain and then collapsed in the saddle, then his horse panicked and fled away from the red-armored Goblin.
Bargrim surveyed the scene and saw that Gethnat, normally one of the more unflappable members of the Company, was fleeing towards him - as were two other goblins. Three more fought stubbornly as the Horse Lords trampled over them. The rest lay on the ground in sodden heaps amongst the bodies of a few Man - not nearly enough Men. Bargrim turned with Gethnat and ran with him. "Maybe go some way ‘round?" Asked the one-armed goblin.
Realizing that he seemed to be fleeing, Bargrim halted. "No! We fight!" He grabbed Gethnat to try and force him back around, but the other Goblin tore free to keep running.
Then the Horse Lords were upon him again. Bargrim dodged the charge of one and then a second, then managed to slash the leg of the first. The man roared with pain and wheeled his horse away, then rode down on Curry, easily cutting him down. Bargrim wondered for a moment at the abandonment of the fight when the thudding of closing hooves warned him of fast-closing danger. He did a somersault and felt a blade whistle just over his head, then came to his feet in time to block the next blow. This Royal Guardsman proved to be a less worthy adversary and Bargrim smashed him and his saddle right off the horse’s back with a single lunge.
Bargrim surveyed the scene again. Three horsemen and two Men on foot opposed him and Gethnat, who had put his back to an alder bush and was preparing to try and sell his life dearly. Bargrim cursed - was he the only one killing the foe? "Why do I even bring them?" He raced over to Gethnat. "We get in bushes, fight there - horses not follow. Come!"
Again the thunder of hooves warned him. Bargrim raised his shield and managed to deflect several ringing blows from charging Rohirrim. He then whirled and stabbed one of his attackers in the arm, severely wounding him. The Man withdrew, screaming in a most delightful manner. Looking over his shoulder, Bargrim saw that Gethnat had done poorly - the wounded man’s horse was busy pounding on his armored form with it’s hooves.
Bargrim dove into the brush, glad to be away from the dangerous mounted Men. A crashing in the bushes as the two axe-armed ford guards told him that he was not alone in the brush - and the loud calls from the horsemen told him that they were dismounting and trying to trap him. He grinned. They had no idea what they had trapped, did they?
A moment later, the two ford-guards burst through the brush at his front, while another Man came at him from his left. Bargrim went into a flurry of strikes, whipping his sword and barbed shield around to counter his foe’s attacks, then spiked a ford-guard in the thigh with the sharpened end of his shield. He laughed in evil glee as the Man writhed upon the ground, trying to stem the bleeding - then noted that his moment of distraction had some unfortunate consequences. The last four Men had surrounded him, and were closing in carefully, clearly meaning to coordinate their attacks.
Bargrim gave them his best fanged smile and braced for the assault.
The men lunged in, slashing or hacking as their weapon dictated, and Bargrim lunged towards the wounded Man, seeking to break out of the trap. He felt one blade bite into his back, but the Man gave way to the goblin, who skipped past him, around a couple of trees, and then hurled himself over a boulder to give himself some breathing space. He whirled to face the Man as they strode around the rock - and both sides paused.
Bargrim could see that the Men were exhausted, scared, and one was hurt. He also felt scared, hurt, and incredibly weary. However, his red armor was spattered with the crimson gore of seven men, only one of whom still stood to oppose him.
His mind whirled for a moment at the possibility of killing all four Men and going back to Moria to tell the tale of how he had killed an entire patrol of Men even though they had been ambushed - most by his own hand!
Then he realized that he could tell that tale all he wanted - he was alone. Everyone else was down in the dirt. Bargrim turned and fled for his life.
As he fled, though, he did have the satisfaction of hearing one man say "The Red one’s a devil, I say. Let him go - I don’t want to die over just one goblin."
Back in the Halls of Moria, Bargrim was later hailed as Bargrim the Great, Captain of the (newly reformed) Bargrim’s Reavers, and favored above all but the King in the burning eyes of their missing God, the Balrog of Morgoth.
Bargrim’s stats in this game:
M: 5" F:2/- S:3 D:6 A:3 W:2 C:3 m:1 w:1 f:1
Skills: Blade Mastery Equipment: Spear, Shield XP: 30 Cost: 79
After post-game experience:
M: 5" F:2/- S:3 D:6 A:3 W:3 C:3 m:1 w:1 f:1
Skills: Blade Mastery Equipment: Spear, Shield XP: 39 Cost: 89
"Standard" Goblin in the Reavers, for comparison:
M: 5" F:2/- S:3 D:5 A:1 W:1 C:2 m:0 w:0 f:0
Skills: Equipment: Spear, Shield XP: 0 Cost: 6
Man of Rohan, sans horse:
M: 6" F:3/- S:3 D:5 A:1 W:1 C:3 m:0 w:0 f:0
Skills: Equipment: Axe, Shield XP: 0 Cost: 9
Rider of Rohan:
M: 10" F:3/- S:3 D:5 A:1 W:1 C:3 m:0 w:0 f:0
Skills: Expert Rider Equipment: Axe, Shield XP: 0 Cost: 13
Charge, Knock Down Throwing Spear
This story based fairly closely on a Lord of the Rings Miniature Strategy Battle Game I played; with my Battle Company of Moria Goblins being routed by a force of Rohirrim led by Jen; all but Bargrim were dropped, but he single-handedly inflicted eight wounds and defeated six Men (of the force of twelve), dropping both her main hero (the female Rider) and one of her two secondary heroes, and wounding the third hero. It was feakin’ amazing. We wish we had been taking pictures…
Bargrim; Captain of Moria and leader of the raiding band famed in the Underhall as "Bargrim’s Reavers" swore loudly at the high, hanging dust column that was moving toward him. He had been hoping to sneak back to Moria after being repulsed in an attempt to cross a small river in Gondor to plunder some of the valuables the Men liked to leave in those ‘holy-church’ places. The Men guarding the ford had beaten back the Reavers and forced them to flee Gondor… but to get home meant crossing Rohan and dodging mounted patrols. And one had just seen them.
"Form close ranks! Spears out, archers front! We smash ‘em if they come!" Bargrim shouted at the other sixteen goblins left in the Company. The four archers ran a short distance ahead while the rest of the company made a long rectangle, designed to prevent flank attacks.
"Double-quick, go, go!" Bargrim screamed. He saw a chance - another shallow ford, with two Men protecting it. If he could storm the ford quickly, he could hold the Horse Lords back simply by holding the ford. That would allow the bulk of the Company to escape easily. Now, who to leave behind…
Two Rohirrim scouts crested a nearby hill and began shouting. Bargrim knew that they were calling to their mounted comrades. "Faster!" he hissed, and the goblins redoubled their efforts to race for the ford.
Then, thundering over the crest of a slightly more distant hill, came the patrol: eight more Horse Lords, carrying throwing spears, swords, and bows. Bargrim measured the distance to the ford by eye, and then the distance of the rapidly closing Rohirrim. Maybe, if he was really lucky, he would at least get between the Riders and the ford…
A few moments later, he saw that even that was impossible. It was going to come down to a close-in tussle. "So be it." Snarled the goblin captain.
Then the Rohirrim charged, and with a crash, the fight was on. Bargrim watched with some amusement as seven of the eight goblins on his right were thrown from their feet by the force of the cavalry charge, leaving only his (semi) trusted underling Gratnat standing, waving his spear and shield at the staggered goblins and screaming at them to get up. To his left, two of his subordinates were crushed by horses’ hooves but a lucky goblin, one of the new boys, managed to dodge a flying spear and slashed the rider deeply in the leg, sending the man crashing to the ground with a shout of pain.
Bargrim laughed at the sound - a sound he had always delighted in, the sound of pain, of war, and the smell of fear. "Get up and kill them, you lumps!"
He threw himself at the nearest foe, dodged the man’s frantic swing with the skill he had learned in scores of battles, then gutted the man with his spear. As the horse shied away in fear from the screaming man, Bargrim eyed the situation. His well-motivated Reavers had recovered from the charge and now fighting was general all along the line the formation had held. He felt odd amusement upon spotting Tooth and Gethnat, who had one full set of arms between the two of them, each waving a spear and trying to bring down a Royal Guardsmen who was trying to fight his way towards another foe - a female Man, who seemed to be shouting orders.
Bargrim laughed. "Females do not belong. They too weak. Easy prey!" He lunged over as the woman knocked back Haggry, one of the Reaver’s neophytes. "You beaten by female, weakling! Here how it done!" Bargrim stabbed the spear at the horses’ eyes, making it flinch back while using his red shield to deflect several blows from the furious woman. Then, spotting an opening from the increasingly frantic attacks as Bargrim forced the horse back, he changed his angle of attack and speared her right in the lower torso, throwing her clear off the horse.
"You see, weakling-" Bargrim turned back just in time to see Haggry take a blow to the head from another Royal Guardsman. Bargrim snarled. "Hey! You waste my taunt!" Bargrim launched himself at the Rider, and managed to grab the horses’ tail. The horse bucked and Bargrim went soaring almost straight up. Wailing with an odd mixture of terror and delight in his flight, Bargrim briefly got a glimpse of the whole field of battle, and saw that while the Reavers appeared to be giving as good as they got, the Riders were clearly trying to disengage so they could reform and charge the Reavers again. If they could do so while the Goblin formation was in disarray from the close combat, the Goblins could yet be routed.
Then Bargrim came hurtling back down, and landed squarely on the Guardsman horse’s withers. He laughed with glee and slashed the man’s back open, then kicked him for good measure before dropping off, leaving the man lolling, dead or unconscious, in his saddle. He whirled around in time to the female Man’s horse dragging her off - well, horses couldn’t fight, but it was one less foe to worry about.
Bargrim landed and spotted another Rider nearby who was just pulling his sword out of Uthnanaka’s spine, leaving the Goblin lifeless on the field. Bargrim squealed a challenge and charged the man. The man, surprised by the red-armored goblin’s attack, turned to meet him. The man proved to be a capable foe, and Bargrim ended up dodging under the horse once to dodge a possibly fatal blow before successfully wounding the man, slashing his sword-arm open. Even so, the man simply wheeled away and disengaged - and to his horror, Bargrim saw that the six remaining Rohirrim had massed back into formation, while the two ford-guards had managed to keep the other ten surviving goblins scattered.
The Rohirrim charged, and the wounded man bore down on Bargrim. Goblin-sized shrieks of pain told him that the charge was doing considerable damage to his Company, but he had to finish the Man first! Bargrim side-stepped the charge and managed to deflect the man’s first attacks - the wound was slowing the Man down. This also created gaps in the Man’s defenses, which the cunning Bargrim quickly punched his bloody spear-point through to stab the man in the side. His tough foe gasped in pain and then collapsed in the saddle, then his horse panicked and fled away from the red-armored Goblin.
Bargrim surveyed the scene and saw that Gethnat, normally one of the more unflappable members of the Company, was fleeing towards him - as were two other goblins. Three more fought stubbornly as the Horse Lords trampled over them. The rest lay on the ground in sodden heaps amongst the bodies of a few Man - not nearly enough Men. Bargrim turned with Gethnat and ran with him. "Maybe go some way ‘round?" Asked the one-armed goblin.
Realizing that he seemed to be fleeing, Bargrim halted. "No! We fight!" He grabbed Gethnat to try and force him back around, but the other Goblin tore free to keep running.
Then the Horse Lords were upon him again. Bargrim dodged the charge of one and then a second, then managed to slash the leg of the first. The man roared with pain and wheeled his horse away, then rode down on Curry, easily cutting him down. Bargrim wondered for a moment at the abandonment of the fight when the thudding of closing hooves warned him of fast-closing danger. He did a somersault and felt a blade whistle just over his head, then came to his feet in time to block the next blow. This Royal Guardsman proved to be a less worthy adversary and Bargrim smashed him and his saddle right off the horse’s back with a single lunge.
Bargrim surveyed the scene again. Three horsemen and two Men on foot opposed him and Gethnat, who had put his back to an alder bush and was preparing to try and sell his life dearly. Bargrim cursed - was he the only one killing the foe? "Why do I even bring them?" He raced over to Gethnat. "We get in bushes, fight there - horses not follow. Come!"
Again the thunder of hooves warned him. Bargrim raised his shield and managed to deflect several ringing blows from charging Rohirrim. He then whirled and stabbed one of his attackers in the arm, severely wounding him. The Man withdrew, screaming in a most delightful manner. Looking over his shoulder, Bargrim saw that Gethnat had done poorly - the wounded man’s horse was busy pounding on his armored form with it’s hooves.
Bargrim dove into the brush, glad to be away from the dangerous mounted Men. A crashing in the bushes as the two axe-armed ford guards told him that he was not alone in the brush - and the loud calls from the horsemen told him that they were dismounting and trying to trap him. He grinned. They had no idea what they had trapped, did they?
A moment later, the two ford-guards burst through the brush at his front, while another Man came at him from his left. Bargrim went into a flurry of strikes, whipping his sword and barbed shield around to counter his foe’s attacks, then spiked a ford-guard in the thigh with the sharpened end of his shield. He laughed in evil glee as the Man writhed upon the ground, trying to stem the bleeding - then noted that his moment of distraction had some unfortunate consequences. The last four Men had surrounded him, and were closing in carefully, clearly meaning to coordinate their attacks.
Bargrim gave them his best fanged smile and braced for the assault.
The men lunged in, slashing or hacking as their weapon dictated, and Bargrim lunged towards the wounded Man, seeking to break out of the trap. He felt one blade bite into his back, but the Man gave way to the goblin, who skipped past him, around a couple of trees, and then hurled himself over a boulder to give himself some breathing space. He whirled to face the Man as they strode around the rock - and both sides paused.
Bargrim could see that the Men were exhausted, scared, and one was hurt. He also felt scared, hurt, and incredibly weary. However, his red armor was spattered with the crimson gore of seven men, only one of whom still stood to oppose him.
His mind whirled for a moment at the possibility of killing all four Men and going back to Moria to tell the tale of how he had killed an entire patrol of Men even though they had been ambushed - most by his own hand!
Then he realized that he could tell that tale all he wanted - he was alone. Everyone else was down in the dirt. Bargrim turned and fled for his life.
As he fled, though, he did have the satisfaction of hearing one man say "The Red one’s a devil, I say. Let him go - I don’t want to die over just one goblin."
Back in the Halls of Moria, Bargrim was later hailed as Bargrim the Great, Captain of the (newly reformed) Bargrim’s Reavers, and favored above all but the King in the burning eyes of their missing God, the Balrog of Morgoth.
Bargrim’s stats in this game:
M: 5" F:2/- S:3 D:6 A:3 W:2 C:3 m:1 w:1 f:1
Skills: Blade Mastery Equipment: Spear, Shield XP: 30 Cost: 79
After post-game experience:
M: 5" F:2/- S:3 D:6 A:3 W:3 C:3 m:1 w:1 f:1
Skills: Blade Mastery Equipment: Spear, Shield XP: 39 Cost: 89
"Standard" Goblin in the Reavers, for comparison:
M: 5" F:2/- S:3 D:5 A:1 W:1 C:2 m:0 w:0 f:0
Skills: Equipment: Spear, Shield XP: 0 Cost: 6
Man of Rohan, sans horse:
M: 6" F:3/- S:3 D:5 A:1 W:1 C:3 m:0 w:0 f:0
Skills: Equipment: Axe, Shield XP: 0 Cost: 9
Rider of Rohan:
M: 10" F:3/- S:3 D:5 A:1 W:1 C:3 m:0 w:0 f:0
Skills: Expert Rider Equipment: Axe, Shield XP: 0 Cost: 13
Charge, Knock Down Throwing Spear