Battle Report - Harad vs Gondor and Dwarfs

The Thursday night league at Collectormania has come and gone and I got in another fun and interesting game.  I was there early and Micah showed up.  I haven't gotten to play him yet so we agreed on a game.  600 points using the old composition rules but he, kindly, agreed to my request to play one of the new scenarios.  We divided our armies up between our heroes, to serve as our warbands.

This is turn two.  You can see each of the warbands in action.  Boromir and the two Knights are just visible behind the wood, top right.

The Knights and rangers battling the Mahud.  Almost everyone in this picture was dead by the end of the game.

Micah rolled a 1, "To the Death".  This scenario is a full on knock down, drag out death match.  You get points for breaking your opponent and not being broken.  You play to 25%.  You get points for wounding the enemy commander and more for killing him.  You get points for having standards on the table.  This last one is a half assed attempt by GW to get people to take banners.  The actual way to do that is to make the rules for them attractive.  If they worked at six inches, I'd take them.  With a three inch radius, they are not worth it.  I digress.  Rant concluded.  The other interesting factor in the new scenarios is deployment.  I placed first.  It's an "I go, you go" deployment.  I rolled and got a one so I had to place my first warband in the 12" closest to the center of the table.  On a 1-3 you have to place in the center 12".  On a 4-6 you can place anywhere on your side of the table.

Micah's army was Boromir, mounted, five or six Knights of Minas Tirith, nine rangers of Gondor with a Captain, an avenger with four crew and an upgrade that let him roll two dice instead of one for the number of shots.  The Dwarf contingent was a captain and eight (?) Iron Guard (?, the dudes with two hand weapons and throwing weapons).

My army was the same as last week.  I have to get as many games in with my Mahud as I can while they are still fun.  I had to place first and put Bob (the budget Nazgul), spears and Abrakhan guard down in the center of the table, in the forward 12 inches, but as far back as I could get them.  Micah put his Avenger in the center with the knights and Boromir.  I next placed my 12 archers, with my Haradrim King, on the hill in my left rear deployment zone, but also in the center 12".  They were a little bit crowded.  Micah placed his Rangers and Captain on the center line, all the way on my right flank.  This would give him some good shooting into the center of the table, where it was looking like the fight would take place.

I next placed the rest of my spears, with the Taskmaster, on the left flank, in front of the archers.  Micah made his last drop by putting his dwarfs behind a piece of scenery just in front of the Taskmaster's band.  This is where I made the decision that determined the rest of the game.  I put my Mahud right in front of the Rangers, separated by one inch.

Micah got priority, as he did all but one turn the entire game.  I called a heroic with my Mahud Chieftan and piled in on his Rangers.  My Mahud did not kill a lot each turn but they stuck around there the entire game, eventually getting down to just the King left.  The Knights attacked the rear of my Mahud while Boromir led two others around the back of a copse of trees.  Bob led his band over to reinforce the Mahud, sending two spears and two Abrakhan Guard to deal with the Avenger.  Bob used transfix to keep Boromir locked down, I managed a wound on him.  The rest of the two warbands slowly but steadily hacked through the Rangers and Knights.  Boromir killed the half troll, who had managed to kill a single Ranger the entire game.

This was right before the Nazgul's warband piled in from frame left.

Micah didn't get a single shot with his Rangers.  He got to fire the Avenger three times.  He killed three spears in the first turn and, I think one spear the second.  He got one kill the third.  My archers killed all but one of his crewmen, who was finished off by an Abrakhan Guard.  Once they were out of targets they piled in on the Dwarfs while half of them sauntered across the table to get into the Boromir fight.

The Dwarfs.  They killed most of the Haradrim engaged with them in this picture.  The archers piled in and turned the tide.

The Dwarfs were the stars.  Their two attacks, a F4 with D6 and throwing weapons allowed them to chew through quite a few Haradrim. In this fight too, however, numbers eventually told.  I was, finally, able to get both the Taskmaster and the King onto his Dwarf captain, both with spear support and two archers on him as well.  That took care of his leadership on that side of the table.  The Mahud King had killed the Gondorian captain with the Rangers, leaving Boromir the lone hero, who was locked down by the wraith.  Micah did not lose a single model to courage checks since the Dwarf Captain and Boromir manged to make their standfast rolls every time.  By the time I killed the Dwarf captain he was at 25% and the game was over.

This was a very fun game.  Micah was a good opponent and fun to play against.  His army suffered from a low model count, since he had Boromir and the Avenger.  He did not seem too pleased with how it played but we both agreed that he should not make a change based on one game.  I liked the new scenario.  I'm not too impressed with the victory points and can see TO's (Tournament organizers) making some changes to scenarios to liven things up a bit.  I loved the new deployment rules.  They make for a very different game.