Battle Report - Harad vs Galadrim (Warbands)

This last Thursday was the last night of the league down at Collectormania.  Only Jonathan and I showed up to play, and he was about to leave when I walked in, twenty minutes late.  He suggested that we try the new warband composition rules.  I threw together a list and off we went.

The Galadrim were led by Rumil, who is the default choice of all Galadrim players.  He was asssisted by two captains, one mounted.  There were the usual five knights (2 with bows), the phalanx and the archers.  He had 36 models total, though we discovered later that he had been playing two short.

My list was the serpent's sting list from the blog.  I was able to look it up on my phone and just copy it to paper.  I wanted to test the Haradrim Warriors of Kharna with their shoot of 3 accompanying the Betrayer with his poison re-roll on a 1-2 instead of a 1.  In the interests of full disclosure, I went into this game expecting the 2 point upgrade for Kharna warriors to not be worth it.

We rolled Lords of Battle as the scenario.  Cause as many wounds as you can.  Points for expended fate as well.  Once one side is broken, roll a d6 every turn and the game ends on a 1-2.  The new scenarios have alternating deployment, which we both liked.  Coupled with the fact that, on average, half of your army will be in the forward half of the board it gets the game rocking sooner and adds some additional tactics during the deployment phase.

Initial Deployment.

Here is the Galadrim Phalanx, led by Rumil with the archers off to the left.

League Night

Today is league night at Collectormania.  Last week I had to change my list and drop my Far Harad in order to comply with the league rule that you can only have one ally.  This rule was a holdover from the first round of the league when there were a whole bunch of new players and they wanted to keep it simpler for them.

After some discussion we have decided to open it up to the normal army building, Legions of Middle Earth, rules.  This will help people prepare for the Mayhem in the Mountains tournament in September.  They will get to build tournament legal armies and play against them as well.

After all of that, I have decided to keep my list the same for the rest of the league.  I'll be sticking to a list of Harad with a Nazgul allied in.  This will force me to learn to play the less great aspects of my army without the Far Harad crutch.  It will also simplify my painting and give me something to work on for the next round of the league.

I'm actually pretty sure I'll be able to stick to this decision, though a total shellacking tonight could test my resolution.

P.S.  I'm totally going to try to remember my camera tonight.

Battle Report - Harad vs Galadrim

Last Thursday Jonathan and I played my first game of the league. It was a reprise of the game from the week before, his Galadrim led by Glorfindel and Rumil against my Haradrim. I was tripped up at the last second by the League rule that you can only ally one faction into your army, a rule I believe we should change, by the way. Consequently I was forced to drop my Far Harad and went with a list that consisted of Bob the Budget Nazgul, a Haradrim King, a Haradrim Chieftan, a Haradrim Task Master, a banner, a hornblower, six fat guys (Abrakhan Merchant's Guards), fourteen archers and the rest spears for a total model count of 56. We played Domination with the MitM change of only three objectives.

I had a big hill in my deployment zone. there was a ruins between my zone and the objective to my left. The rest of the terrain, of which there was a lot, did not really factor in the game so I'll leave it off. I made a lot of mistakes in this game. Jonathan only made a couple. He, again, got a well deserved win with a minor victory. One more turn would have given me the minor but two more would have made it his game again. This was a real nail biter and I found myself thinking about it quite a bit the next day, which is the mark of a great game, to me.

We started off with a general advance on the part of the elves towards the left and center objectives. The elven phalanx headed towards the left while the cavalry and archers, with Glorfindel riding along, went towards the center. I left my archers behind the hill, firing in volleys most of the game (mistake number 2, I waited way too long to start firing directly). I split my force with a strong infantry force heading towards the left objective and a smaller force going over the hill and towards the center, (mistake number 1. I shouldn't have split them the way I did and had too many high value units in this group with no meat shields.)

My volley fire was average over the course of the game but started out strong. I killed both knight archers and another model in the first round. I got rid of most of his highly prized archers over the course of the game with volley fire. Jonathan killed all of my fat guys with arrows, a very disapointing development but well deserved the way I left them hanging out in view.

I pushed my infantry up into the ruins, about twelve inches short of the left objective, and stayed there. This was where Jonathan made the only real mistake of the game. He brought his phalanx up and charged me. Between the wall bonus and some good use of transfix/compel, I kept Glorfindel out of the fight, killed Rumil and managed to bounce the phalanx. Jonathan realized that he didn't need to fight me and pulled back to the objective, still too strong for me to sally out and contest him.

He also shifted his archers and remaining knights to hold the other two objectives. this is when I realized that the reason I was feeling outnumbered was that I had 15 models hiding behind the hill. I marched my archers out to contest the center and right objectives. Killing Rumil had made me a happy little Haradrim. I had also put a wound on Glorfindel with a Black Dart, something generally frowned upon in tournament play. Most players consider it too risky for too little pay off. Now Glorfindel found himself facing down a haradrim gatling gun of fourteen poisoned bow shots. This is where I made mistake number 3. I rolled all the dice at once. I killed the hell out Asfaloth but didn't have enough left to finish off the elf, though I did put another wound on him. I would have been better off taking the individual shots. The reason I did this is becase it was almost 2100 and I had Rhys (7yrs old) with me. I had already gotten a testy phone call from Mama and 2100 is closing time, though Chris very nicely and characteristically offered to keep the store open for us. So I was rushed. I took another turn to kill Glorfindel. Another moral victory in my eyes.

I managed to take the right objective and was one turn away from having more models on the center objective. I had broken but my hornblower more than paid for himself. Jonathan was one model away from breaking. I had moved my Nazgul up so his phalanx would be taking break tests with no heros on a -1 courage. He was moving troops up to the center objective, who would start arriving a turn after I controlled it. We survived the roll on the first turn after I was broken but the second one ended the game.

More Test games

I played another game of LotR the other night.  We are all fine tuning our armies and just trying to get some practice in.  This time I played against Chris Ward, who is always a fun opponent.  We rolled randomly for scenarios and got the night fight one, which is my favorite.

Chris has a nicely painted Uruk army led by Saruman.  I was anxious to play against him because I do not have a lot of experience vs magic.  In addition to Saruman there were a captain, a handful of crossbows and an equal mix of shields and pikes as well as three berserkers.  His model count was 37.

I was running my new list.  Faramir, Captain of Ithilien with rangers and Osgiliath veterans.  My model count was 50.  I really feel the lack of might in this army, with only Faramir's three.  On the other hand the 12" banner, fight 4 within six inches of Faramir and the high model count all work well.  Faramir's better stats are nice too.

As I said, we rolled for a scenario and got "Ill met by moonlight".  We each divided our army in half, with a hero forward.  We were playing on part of the Osgiliath table.  I say part, because we only had some of the tiles and none of the scatter terrain.

Chris had Saruman, the five crossbows and berzerkers forward with the rest of his numbers split, pretty evenly, between pikes and shields.  I had Faramir, all of my rangers and veterans forward with only veterans to the rear.

Chris had to set up first and he built a firebase in a ruin in the very center of the table.  I placed my rangers to each side of that, with veterans in front.  Faramir, valiantly, hid behind a ruin so the crossbows and Saruman couldn't start the game by crushing him.

The first few turns were fairly even.  Our shooting was effective, as usual in this scenario.  The +1 to hit meant he was killing rangers on a 3 and I was killing Uruks on a five.  I had more shooting his was better.  It evened out.  He rushed everything but the crossbows and a couple of shields towards my right flank, which is where Faramir was now.  Both of us were moving our reinforcements up as fast as we could.  My left flank archers were sliding up towards his table edge.  In the way rolls were saving his crossbows, I only killed one through shooting the whole game, though his normal warriors and a beserker were not so lucky.

We finally engaged on the right flank, Saruman threw out a scorerous blast which killed one veteran and knocked over a couple of rangers.  The first round of combat was pretty tame.  Faramir got in one charge, killing two Uruks.  Saruman then blasted him six inches.  Faramir lost his horse but was unhurt, and no one was behind him.

Chris had moved his reinforcements over towards the brawl, dropping a couple off on my left flank, with the crossbows and their guardians, and a couple more in the center, forming a wall between two buildings.  I split my reinforcements, just about evenly, between my right and the center, with a couple heading over to help my left flank out.

Things were looking pretty bad for the forces of good.  Faramir was locked down every turn.  Chris had more models in the main fight and many of mine were squishy rangers.  We then had two brutal, for the Uruks, turns of combat.  In the first turn I killed six Uruk Hai.  I blew away nearly his entire center formation, between the buildings, opening up my route into his rear.  I killed a couple in the main fight, evening things up there enough for me to hold my own.  I also gained clear dominance in the flight on my left flank.

The rest of the game was just me closing the trap on the Uruks who were pinned in on my right.  I broke him but Saruman's standfast meant he didn't have to take any tests.  The fact that he had no room to maneuver and that I was coming at him from, literally, all four directions, meant that almost all of the fights were going my way.  With F4 and a reroll out to 12 inches Chris just couldn't win enough to make a difference.

Chris had some bad rolling going on in the end there, but I think my banner is what made the biggest difference.  In the end, the last turn, I killed Saruman when I jumped him with nine dudes.  He rolled a 1 for the fight, which was not really epic at all.  I offered to let Chris re-roll it, since that seemed like a sour note to end the game on, but he stuck to his guns and took the 1.  We hit 25% over the rest of the turn and the game was over.

I was not broken so it was a Major victory to me.  We didn't keep track of the kills for our heroes, but I think Saruman got one or two and Faramir got two or three.

On my side, I was really pleased with how my army worked.  I really feel the lack of might in the late game, with only one hero.  On the other hand the F4 is pure gold.  The 12" banner really paid off in this game, though this is the first time that it has.  Ranger shooting was as good as always and the large numbers were really useful.  I shielded more in this game and that helped me stay above break until the end.

For Chris, as he said, "I don't know if my army sucks or not with rolling like that".  I had two good rounds of combat that pretty much determined the game.  Saruman was good, making all of his spells and fighting off my troops until he was really, really, outnumbered.  There were a couple of places that Chris could have played differently, but with his center getting blown away in one round of combat there was not much he could have done to salvage it.

It was a fun game, as always against Chris, and I learned more about how my army works.  I'm pretty sure this is the list I will take to MitM.

Slacktastick

I've been slacking.  I not only haven't been updating the blog but I haven't really been doing much, at all, hobby wise.  I started a new job July 1st.  It is killing my soul.  I have no energy left at the end of the day.  I'm getting to be in great shape, working off all of the angst though.

Today I got in a game of LotR.  Keith had an, unexpected, day off and gave me a call.  I arranged to meet him down at the shop for a game.  He brought his Dwarfs and I brought my Gondor, with a twist.  I have been trying the new Faramir, Captain of Ithilien.  I changed out all of my Warriors of Minas Tirith for Osgiliath Veterans.  This means they have fight 4 within six inches of Faramir.  Along with this he acts as a banner for them and the rangers within 12 inches.  I had to drop my horn, Cirion and my knights to get him in but he seems to be worth it.

Keith and were play testing one of the Scenario's for  Mayhem in the Mountains.  This is the one I wrote a battle report about earlier, on the Bree table.  Each player divides their army in half.  Hero's have to be evenly divided.  One half deploys between 18 and 24 inches in, the other half up to 3 inches in.  This puts half of the force toe to toe with the enemy.  Night fight rules are also in play so bows and crossbows can only shoot 12 inches but they get plus one to their roll to wound.  This makes bows MUCH more powerful than normal.

We were also playing with table layout for the Osgiliath table.  We have five 12 inch squares of ruins, which work well, but we both think we need some barriers, walls and barricades as well as some difficult terrain we can throw down.  We also need to bevel the edges of the MDF that the ruins are based on as the square edges caused us quite a bit of positioning problems over the course of the game.

I only have one hero, so had to place him up front.  I also front loaded all of my rangers into the forward force, with the rest filled out with Veterans.  I placed them as far back as I could, but they were easily in charge range of the Dwarfs, if Keith got Priority.  Keith had Dain and Gimli, with Gimli forward.  He also had a mix of Khazad Guard, Iron Guard and Dwarf Warriors.  At the last minute I convinced him to try Dwarf Warriors with bows instead of Rangers.  I'm not sure how well that worked out, since the plus 1 to wound made all shooting better.  More play testing is probably called for.

Happily, I won priority.  Gimli promptly called a heroic move, countered by Faramir, who won the roll off.  One Veteran engaged Gimli, putting an end to his move.  Everyone else fell back while Faramir repositioned to a more central position, closer to where Gimli was.  There was some combat to Faramir's right, and my rangers started picking off Dwarfs like it was cool, which it was with me. 

Keith had 40 models in his army, while I had 50.  From the first turn on, I was ahead in the body count pretty much the entire game.  Dwarf armies rely on their awesome armor saves to stay alive.  With the shooting rules in this scenario, that is not as much of a factor for them.

Combats were going my way, my reserves were moving up faster and I had fire superiority.  Keith's front line was not holding up very well and Gimli was not killing anything.  By the time Dain and his boys got up there were not many of the first line Dwarfs left.  Dain managed a Heroic combat into Faramir.  Sadly, for Dain, Faramir had charged that turn, though a different model.  This gave Faramir four dice, instead of three, letting him win the combat, knock Dain down and put a wound on him after using up his fate.  This was the only charge Faramir got in the entire game, getting charged by Dain or Gimli every turn after that.  Dain died in the next round of combat but Gimli lasted the rest of the game. 

Once I broke Keith his Dwarfs started to fade, though slowly.  It took several more rounds of combat for me to kill enough to get him to 25%.  It is actually easier to kill Dwarfs with shooting, in this scenario, than it is with a sword.  That plus one on the die roll is better than the +1 strength of a hand weapon over my shooting.

I walked away with a major win.  Any time I get anything better than a loss against Keith I'm thrilled.  He is a great player, probably one of the best in the country, since he took second at Adepticon. 

I think we are both very happy with the scenario.  We have played it twice, on different tables, and it worked very well on both.  It changes the game a lot, forcing players to think on their toes and develop new tactics on the fly.  The table needs some more work, but it is going to work out well once we add some more terrain to it.

I needed a good game to take my mind off of work and this, as always against Keith, was a great game and a lot of fun.  I feel very good about where we are with the tournament preparations.  I hope we have people actually show up.