First game was Rohan vs. Elves.

His Rohan Army:

• Oathsworn Bowmen x2
• Oathsworn Militia x2
• Riders of Rohan Eored x3
• Theoden, King of Rohan

My Elves:

• High Elf Regiment x2
• Wood Elves w/Longbows x2
• Haldir

First turn, Theoden and the Riders of Rohan were in my face and ready to charge (At The Double! is awesome). In the shooting phase I was able to remove a Rider or two through Haldir’s Epic Shot and the shooting from the bows. Because I thought it would be cool to do, Haldir challenged Theoden to a Heroic Duel after the Riders had already charged with Epic Charge. Theoden rolled 4 over Haldir and Haldir spent a Might to make the difference only 3. The three rolls were 2, 3, and 6. So he managed to kill Haldir and all the Wood Elves, no problem. The rest of the game was spent trying to get a flank charge with the HE Regiment, but they ended up getting in another fight where they were going to eventually be wiped out. I conceded the game at that point.

Because we had lots of time left and Jeff wanted to give his (well painted!) Isengard army a go, we played another game. This time his points came to 465, so I was able to add a little to my army.

His Isengard:

• Isengard Uruk-Hai x2 w/shields, captain & banner x2
• Isengard Uruk-Hai Scouts
• Isengard Troll (Captain?)
• Lurtz

My Elves:

• High Elf Regiment x2 w/captain
• High Elf Archers x2
• Wood Elves w/Longbows x2
• Haldir

Jeff didn’t actually own a model for Lurtz, so he used Legolas, thus dubbed Lego-Lurtz. We didn’t rearrange the terrain or anything and he deployed his army mostly to his right side. I deployed about the same way with the High Elf Archers + Haldir facing off against Lurtz’s unit and the Wood elves facing down the Troll. First turn I used At the Double on the HE Regiment to get in the Troll’s face and in the shooting phase I fired both units at him. Haldir and the HE Archers were unable to do any hits on the thing where the Wood Elves got 7 hits on it. The first roll on the Hard To Kill! chart was a 6, so it was slain. The HE Regiment took many hits from shooting and finally from a charge with Lurtz and were wiped out. Haldir and the HE Archers used At the Double! to threaten the rear of Lurtz’s unit while the wood Elves tried to threaten his flank. Through clever movement, he managed to protect himself and keep their Defense 7. Eventually, Lurtz’s unit was brought down to having one company with 7 models and the combination of shooting from the HE Archers and the Wood Elves finished them off. We called the game at this point.

Both of these were good games and we had a lot of talking about what units we’d like to use next. Jeff says he’ll likely be working on his Isengard from here on in since he does have a lot of stuff at home.

I really enjoy WotR, but I enjoy it more at higher point levels. I think it works well at 300 and even 465, but it’s more fun to be able to throw in those expensive Legendary units and Epic Heroes.

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.

JR:

• 2x Goblins w/Bows
• 4x Goblins w/Shields, Drummer, and Durburz (the Goblin King?)
• Cave Troll
• 3x Wargs

Tim:

• 3x Easterling Kataphracts
• 2x Easterlings w/Bows
• 4x Easterlings w/Shields
• Khamul, the Easterling

Me:

• 3x High Elf Regiment
• 2x High Elf Archer Regiment
• 3x High Elf Cohort
• 3x Gildor’s Household
• Ent
• Elladan
• Elrohir
• Legolas

I believe I won priority and I had them deploy first, which allowed them to also go first. They deployed with the Easterling Kataphracts on the far right followed by the Easterling Archers and then the Easterling Infantry (with Khamul). JR deployed his goblins starting to the left of the Easterlings with his big block of Goblins (with Durburz) followed by the Cave Troll, the Goblin Archers and the Wargs. I deployed Gildor’s Household opposite the Easterling Kataphracts, the Cohort (with Elladan) across from the Easterling block infantry, the Ent across from the Easterling Archers, the HE Regiment (with Elrohir) across from the Goblins with Shields and the HE Archers (with Legolas) on the far right side.

As usual, I don’t remember exact turn sequence and what happened, so I’ll summarize. JR moved his Goblin Archers into the woods for the extra defense. I moved Gildor’s Household into some woods for the same. Gildor gave his unit +1 Shoot via magic and then cast the spell to push back the Easterling cavalry back a few inches. The Wargs attempted to get close enough to the HE Archers to charge, but all died in the Shooting phase thanks to Legolas and all the shooting. Elladan was killed via Black Dart and Elrohir via a Heroic Duel with Durburz. Over the course of the game, the Elves failed about four Terror tests either through close combat or through charges. One critical failure was when the Easterling soldiers charged from the front and the Cave Troll from the flank. I rolled poorly for the Terror test with the Troll and thus, my Fight became 0. This caused me to loose way too many spearmen. The Eastrling Cavalry tried charging Gildor’s Household in the woods and managed to keep killing one or two Elves, forcing them out of the forest only to reenter it next turn and receive another charge. My rolls on magic never seemed to work out very well, so those actions were wasted for the most part.

In the end, Durburz and his formation were killed off by Legolas and the HE Archers and the HE Cohort were destroyed in the combat with the Easterlings. Gildor’s Household held out in the forest and the HE Regiment lasted until the end with a company or two left. Legolas and the HE Archers survived as well with very few casualties. I lost the Ent as well; at least he made it into combat, though. The Easterlings lost a company from their Shield unit and they lost a few from the Archer unit as well, but Tim never lost a single cavalry model.

I am really liking this game a lot. The more I play, the more I enjoy it. We found a rule or two we’d messed up in that game, so next time will be even more “correct” and probably more fun. It was nice playing WotR with folks who don’t argue about every nuance of every rule. I’m even thinking about getting a Mordor army so I can have two armies for “demos”.

I also worked more on Nuke and Hellsmith for Pulp City. I really need to get these done soon. Nukes toxic look was not really working for my (awesome! gorgeous!) wife/critic. The darker primary green just looked bad to her. This morning, I added some Trollblood Base to the flourescent green I’m using and went over the green parts. I think it looks pretty smooth and less “chalky”. I hope it looks better to her, too.

This morning, I also washed over the Ent with Thornwood green as I’d previously basecoated him in Trollblood Highlight. It looks more like a tree now. I may do some highlighting and such on him and then I need to paint the leaves, moss, fungus and the base (with a dead Uruk-Hai).

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.

There are a bunch of rules disputes on the forums around the ‘Net, one of which is whether models/units with the Terror special ability are immune to Terror from other units. Bill claimed he had seen somewhere that Games Workshop had stated that was true, so we went with that, even though I had never heard any such thing. That’s the only rules issue we cleared up prior to the game.

My list was like this:

• 3x Wood Elf (longbows)
• 3x High Elf Regiment (captain)
• 3x High Elf Archer Regiment (captain)
• 3x High Elf Cohort (captain)
• Glorfindel
• Ent
• Elrohir
• Elladan
• Elrond

His list was something like this:

• 4x Uruk-Hai (pikes, banner, captain)
• 3x Uruk Hai (shields, banner, captain)
• 3x Uruk-Hai (shields, banner, captain)
• 3x Warg (bows)
• 3x Warg (shields, captain)
• 3x Warg
• 1x Uruk-Hai (crossbows)
• 2x Isengard Troll
• Saruman
• Lurtz

When I arrived, Bill was nice enough to have already gotten us a space to play and board with terrain arranged pretty equally.  Bill won the die roll, so he said he wanted me to deploy first. I deployed from left to right: Glorfindel, Wood Elves, HE Cohort (Elrond), Ent, HE Regiment (Elladan), HE Archers (Elrohir). He deployed from left to right: Warg w/shields, Wargs, Uruk Hai w/shields (Saruman), Troll, Uruk-Hai w/crossbows, Uruk-Hai w/pikes, Troll, Uruk-Hai w/shields (Lurtz), Wargs w/bows.

photo_060409_005.jpg

◄ Back

Next ►

Picture 1 of 9

Turn one, we both moved forward in the movement phase. In the shooting phase, the Wood Elves rolled 30 dice against the Wargs w/ bows, killed one company and drove them back 3″. The HE Archers rolled 20 dice vs. the Wargs on the right only killing one model. The Uruk-Hai w/crossbows fired at the Ent, doing nothing. We had no Charges or Fights to work out. We both missed out on Magic since we forgot that magic happens in the movement phase.

Turn two, Bill got Priority and moved the Wargs on the right to flank the HE Archers. ALl of his other units merely moved closer. I moved the HE Archers back and diagonally to the flanking Wargs to try to prevent him from getting flank bonuses in the later Fight. Saruman cast Bolt of Fire into the HE Regiment, killing three followed by Aura of Blinding Light, causing me to have a lower Fight value and Dark Fury allowing him to reroll 1s and 2s in the ensuing combat. Elrond used his Epic Restoration to replace 2 of the 3 HE warriors killed by Saruman. He attempted to cast Call Winds, but rolled a 1 on the effect and a 2 on the Focus roll. In Shooting, the Wargs w/bows shoot at Glorfindel causing no wounds. Again, the crossbows were unable to wound the Ent. The Wood Elves fired into the Uruk-Hai, but caused minimal wounds. The HE Archers fired into the Uruk-Hai and also caused minimal wounds.

This is where I lost track of everything that was going on. Basically, my HE Cohort (thanks to Heroic Charge) charged into his pikemen (dumb) and I forgot to have the Ent charge. His Troll charged the flank of the Cohort. Glorfindel charged into the flank f the Uruk-Hai w/shields (Lurtz) and was killed in the following combat. He caused a few deaths himself, but having him charge ranked infantry was kinda dumb. His pikemen captain called a Heroic Duel, which he subsequently lost by 3. I was able to cause 5 more deaths besides the captain himself. We each caused a lot of wounds in the pikemen vs. cohort fight, but in the end the Elves won. Saruman’s Uruk-Hai were only able to contact one company of HE Archers, but the Archers caused enough wounds to stay in the fight. The HE Regiment went up against a Troll and hung around for a while, though was unable to damage the Troll. In a later turn, his Uruk-Hai (Saruman) and two units of Wargs were able to charge into the HE archers and basically decimate them. The HE Regiment was still unable to kill the Troll. The HE Cohort lost heir combat, but stayed in the fight, though disordered. The Wood Elves were able to cause a few more wounds in the Uruk-Hai (Lurtz) formation, but not enough to drive them back. Elrond was able to drive them back in the Movement phase, but through cunning use of Might, Lurtz got the unit into combat.

We called the game due to time, but I am pretty sure Bill was going to be able to pull off a win.

A few things we messed up:

We didn’t break contact at the end of every fight.

Neither of us really used Might all that much, especially me.

I think we were doing some of the charges and contacts incorrectly.

In my next game, I’ll probably take less unit Captains, except in the Cohort (3 Might rocks!) and use Epic Heroes instead. This should save some points and probably allow me to have more men to fight with as being outnumbered like I was really hurt me. I think I’ll also let the enemy come to me a bit more to allow for more rounds of shooting. Elrond really isn’t that great a character, so I think I’ll be changing him out.

I look forward to my next game of War of the Ring. The rules are really pretty fluid and not as confusing as some might believe.

The rules for War of the Ring (WotR) seem like a simplified Warhammer Fantasy Battles. Rumor has it that the next edition of WHFB will be similar to WotR. I like the rules so far from justthe reading of them. Some highlights:

• Everything can be pre-measured. Charges are a die roll plus a standard modifier based on unit type.
• One roll for hitting and wounding.
• Models are effectively wound counters for the company.
• In close combat, monsters fight first then cavalry and finally infantry.
• Epic Heroes are not tied to specific units and can move around.
• Heroes have Might points and can spend those on heroic actions.
• Spellcasters automatically get their first spell off with no roll needed. Subsequent spells have to succeed with a Focus roll based on the spell previously cast.
• No wheeling like in WHFB. As long as the unit doesn’t move more than their Move value.

Looking around on the ‘Net for army lists and such have shown that the Elves are probably the least represented fo rthe Good armies and it seems lots of people want to play Evil. So far I have nearly 2,000 points thanks to the (awesome) wife “letting” me order some stuff.

I am really looking forward to this game and with a few folks at the store being excited and buying models, I should be getting a game in really soon.