Totengräber's Workpläce

Bill and I played our second game of War of the Ring last night. Again, he played Isengard while I played my Elves. Bill had purchased a good bit more troops to use such as Uruk-hai Scouts, Uruk-Hai crossbowmen, Ugluk, more Wargs (I think) and maybe just more regular Uruk-Hai. Me, I thought I had enough assembled to make a good 1,600 point list, but I ended up having to use more characters than usual.

Here’s my list:

• 3x High Elf Regiment
• 3x High Elf Archer Regiment
• 3x High Elf Cohort (w/Captain – can’t pass up 3 Might!)
• 3x Gildor’s Household
• Ent
• Glorfindel
• Elrohir
• Elladan
• Galadriel
• Legolas

Here’s a gross estimation of his list:

• 4x Warg Riders
• 3x Ugluk’s Raiders
• 2x Isengard Troll
• 4x Uruk-Hai w/Pikes
• 3x Uruk-Hai w/shields
• 3x Uruk-Hai Crossbowmen
• 3x Uruk-Hai w/Shields
• Lurtz
• Saruman

I realized about mid-way through the game that I only paid 200 points for the 3 companies of Gildor’s Household, which should have been 280 points. However, after discussing with Bill the cost of Legendary formations, I know he underpaid for Ugluk’s Raiders, so it all evened out in the end. So, it probably should have been a 1,700 point game.

We decided to play a “pitched battle” again as we are still unfamiliar with the rules. I rolled higher than he did for deployment, so he had priority the first turn. In movement, he mostly just moved his units forward. Fortunately for me, Saruman was out of range to use any of his spells. My units moved forward to prepare for shooting. Gildor cast the spell that gave his unit +1 Shoot. Galadriel couldn’t figure out anything to cast. In shooting, he couldn’t fire his crossbows since he moved. The HE Archers fired into the Crossbowmen, killing 3. Gildor’s Household fired into Lurtz’s Uruk-Hai unit and killed maybe two.

Next turn, he won priority and decided to move first. He moved his units forward again and this time Saruman was well within range to lay some hurt. He cast all three spells available to him fron the Ruin list and managed to kill 3 Cohort, the Ent, and cause the Cohort’s Shields to be unusable that turn. He rolled 6s for the effect on two of the spells. My units moved forward very little. Gildor’s Household moved back a bit to prevent Lurtz’s unit from getting too close. He cast the spell to push the unit back and spent a Might to bring the effect roll to a 6. The total they had to move back was 6″. I turned the HE Archers to face Lurtz’s unit. Galadriel cast some spells to reduce Courage and Strength of the Pikemen and used all her Might to make the rolls beneficial (I was rolling terribly!).  In the Shooting phase, his Crossbowmen killed 3 of my HE Archers, Gildor’s household failed to kill anyone in Lurtz’s unit and the HE Archers only did one better on their round of shooting (55 dice and only one sequence of 6 and then 4+). In the Charge Phase, the Cohort Commander called a Heroic Charge and the Uruk-Hai passed their Courage test (even with the -1). Glorfindel called a Heroic Charge and Ugluk tried to interrupt it. Bill won the roll to have Ugluk go first, but failed the Courage test to charge Glorfindel before he charged the Troll. Unfortunately the Troll passed the Courage test. The Warg Riders came in and charged the HE Regiment in the rear. In the following Fight phase, my Cohort lost lots of guys to the Pikemen. I tried to have my HE Cohort Commander duel his Captain, but they tied on the duel, even after spending Might to try exceed his total. The HE Regiment was left with 3 guys and they only killed one or two Uruk-Hai. I realized later that the 3 men left should have been pulled off the table since they were a lone company at less than 50%. Glorfindel put down the Troll he was fighting and sustained no wounds in return. At this point we called the game since it was getting late and (I think) it was clear my army was going to fall.

In hindsight, I’ll try using less Epic Heroes and more infantry as it seems I spent a great deal of points on them this go-around.

It was a pretty cool game. We learned a few more rules and with our knowlege gained from the previous game, we had less things to look up.

A few rules ambiguities that caused issues were:

1) Can a formation step backward without having to turn around?

2) Does a formation have to fight the enemy to their front if they have enemies in the rear as well?

I really like this game and I’d like it more if some rules were FAQ’d to keep weird stuff from happening. I hope to get to play it more. Bill wants to try their beginner-level game of 750 points and only one Epic Hero, so we’ll probably do that next. There’s also a group up on the north side playing on Thursdays, so I’ll probably go there next week.