Friday, January 20, 2012

Battle Report - Harad vs Eagles

Last night was the second night/week of league play.  We had a large turnout with nine people getting games in.  Off the top of my head we had two Harad armies, one horde infantry (mine) and one with a Mumak.  There were the Eagles of the Misty Mountains.  There was a woodelf army and an Isengard army.  Two Moria armies, one with a cave troll and one with Black Shields and a Dragon.  There was also a Dwarf army led by Durin.

My game was against Russ and his eagles.  He had six eagles including Gwahir.  I had the same list as last week, Nazgul, Harad King, Harad Chieftan, Taskmaster, horn, banner, 6 Abrakhan Guards, 26 spears and 14 bows.  I don't like the banner.  I will not play it after this round of the league.  I never make my re-rolls with them and even if you accept the odds at 50% I think the 3 inch range is too short to make it worth while.  The horn, on the other hand, paid for itself again last night.  In this case it was the huge number of terror tests I had to take in order to charge the eagles. 

The table, looking towards the Eagle deployment zone, after the battle.




We rolled in LoME and got Meeting engagement.  One goal of the league is to not repeat any scenarios and neither of us had played this one yet so we went with it.  For those of you who don't remember, this is a straight up fight.  Set up six inches in on opposite sides of the board and fight it out.

The first two or three turns Russ moved forward, 12 inches at a time, and I inched forward, volleying at him.  I put one wound on an eagle the first round and my shooting didn't do anything else the entire game.  As an aside, my archers also failed nearly all of their terror tests to charge the eagles.  This was not a good performance for them.
This eagle survived this round of combat, with a bit of a hurting
Russ was finally in position and had a turn when I had priority.  I shuffled around a little bit and he charged in, since I couldn't react.  This is when his dice went ice cold.  The game lasted three or four more turns but to keep it short, I won priority, he only had one point of might.  I ganged up on him, trapped him and chopped him into dinner.  At the end he had Gwahir and one eagle left.  Gwahir promptly failed his courage check, with the Nazgul within twelve inches.  I don't actually remember if that one point of courage would have made the difference.  I honestly believe, with the way that Russ' dice were going that it would not have.  At this point we called it with a Major win for me.  Final tally six dead eagles, four dead Haradrim.
This Eagle did not survive the round

Gwahir, just before he thought better of it and flew the coop

Russ' list is not a tournament list.  He made it for fun in the league.  It only has one point of might.  He has done very well against a couple of armies, mostly cavalry.  I think my list is pretty much his worst case.  A horde if infantry and lots of might for heroics.  It was a good game.  This is not a style of army that I had played against before.  Russ reminded me when the rules got hazy, which was nice.  I'm not used to playing a spell caster so the one time I tried to do something with my wraith it was after the move phase.  This is something I have to get down soon.

I have pictures on my phone (I forgot my camera), so I'll get those uploaded as soon as I get the chance.  They are staged with the stuffed corpses of the eagles since I forgot to take them during the game.  They  show the last three or four turns, which is when all the action was anyway.

1 comment:

  1. It was a good game even though it was pretty much a worst case scenario for me. My dice didn't help out too much but I think you played everything correctly tactics-wise. The eagles get in trouble when they get surrounded and you made the most of that. There are other players in the league that would not have realized that as quickly as you did.

    The Nazgul did make the difference, I rolled a 4 for my stand fast with Gwaihir, which normally would have been enough.

    Also the horn blower made a huge difference as you said. Next time he dies first! :)

    ~R

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