Totengräber's Workpläce

I went over to the Game Preserve up at Keystone yesterday to meet up with the regular War of the Ring play group consisting of Jeff, JR and Dan. After BS’ing about the game and some of the armies and rules, Dan challenged me to a game. He brought in some Rohan to beef up his Gondor army to 430 points. He purchased a Fortune to even things up a little more. Here are our lists:

Dan’s Gondor/Rohan:

• 2x Minas Tirith Warriors w/shields & Captain
• 2x Minas Tirith Archers
• 3x Riders of Rohan
• 3x Riders of Rohan
• Faramir
• Fortune: Desperate Heroics (I think)

My Elves:

• 2x High Elf Archers
• 3x High Elf Regiment
• 2x Wood Elves w/Longbows & Captain
• Elladan
• Elrohir

Much like my previous games, we decided to play just a ‘Kill ‘em All!’ scenario. I lost priority for deployment, so Dan had me deploy and go first.

In the first turn, I was able to kill off one each Rider of Rohan, while he was unable to kill but maybe one or two Elves with shooting. The second turn I was able to kill of another Rider of Rohan from each formation and drive them back a couple of inches. Still no charges. The third turn I killed off yet another Rider of Rohan from each formation. Charges worked out where only one of them passed the Terror test, which was the Riders of Rohan versus my Wood Elves. In the first combat with the Minas Tirith Warriors and my HE Warriors, Faramir called a Heroic Duel and a subsequent Epic Strike. Elladan called Epic Strike as well, making us even in the Fight department. We both rolled a 6, so he won by 1 for calling the Duel. He then spent 2 might points to roll 3 times on the chart. He killed off Elladan and two other Warriors. In the following normal Fight, we each killed off exactly 7 enemies making it so the Duel caused him to with the Fight. The HE Warriors passed the Courage test and lost no more guys. The next few turns involved my Elves losing close combat fights over and over and being unable to recover. I ended up losing my whole army.

The worst thing about it was that I paid for the Captain in the Wood Elves, but forgot all about him. So, there was 50 points pretty much wasted. Those 2 Might points could have made at least a little bit of difference, perhaps even killing enough Riders of Rohan to make them go POOF!.

One strategy I failed to use was to have my Wood Elf archers and the HE Archers use the woods on the table for defensible terrain. This would have stopped him from being able to get flank charges on me and would have raised the defense from 5 to 7 on the HE and from 3 to 5 on the Wood Elves. Oh well, something to remember for next time.

A very fun game with a very good opponent. It was nice for both of us to play new opponents.

While I was at the store I went ahead and ordered some Galadhrim Knights so I’ll have some cavalry.

I’m working on a trade right now to start a Mordor army. I hope to use this at Games To Die For as a demo force to maybe get some folks to play. It worked for Infinity and it worked for Bryan with Field of Glory, so I’ll give it a try. Besides, I’m trading off the Warmachine stuff I have lying around as I’m really not interested in that game much anymore.