In the week leading up to the game, Tim had debated bringing the Mumakil in his army. I am so glad he did. It really is a nice showcase model and had some really fun rules.

Tim & Joel’s Evil army:

• Easterling Archers x3
• Isengard Uruk-Hai x3
• Easterling Cataphracts x4 w/captain
• Mumakil
• Easterlings x3 w/captain
• Easterlings x3 w/captain
• Khamul, the Easterling

Todd and John’s Good Army:

• High Elf Archers x2
• High Elf Regiment x3 w/captain
• Wood Elves w/Longbows x2
• Galadriel
• Dunedain of Arnor x5
• Warriors of Minas Titrith x4 w/captain
• Warriors of Minas Titrith x4
• Faramir

We got started around 6:30pm or so after BSing around and such. I don’t really remember all the details, so I’ll point out some highlights, which mostly feature the Mumak.

For the scenario, we rolled and got the “King of the Hill” scenario with the short edge deployment. This is the first time any of us have played using these. Looking through the book, they all seem pretty balanced. Basically, we needed to have units within 3″ of the objective on the hill at the end of turn 8. No points are awarded until the very end.

First turn, the Mumak moved forward (using 3D6 random movement) and Tim read off his special rules. What it basically comes down to is that you do not want that thing walking in the movement phase anywhere near your companies. John moved his Dunedain down one flank to try and get some arrows into the thing. Just about everything else moved toward the hill. I believe the second turn the Easterling Kataphracts ended up charging into the HE Regiment. Thankfully, shooting reduced their numbers and Gondor and Rivendell were able to use Might to get rid of that unit. The rest of the game saw our infantry crashing into each other and trying to gain some advantage. Through magic, Galadriel was able to mostly neutralize the Mumak, reducing his courage and then making him test to see if he is allowed to move/shoot/charge that turn. In the end, through shooting we were able to reduce the number of men in the howdah enough to make it fail the stampede roll and it crashed into terrain and disappeared, but not before trampling a few company’s worth of Elves and humans. At the end, it was a draw due to each of our teams having an infantry unit within 3″ of the objective at the end of turn 8.

This is the first time any of us got through 8 turns of this game and at the end I was ready to play again! Joel seemed interested in the game and is looking at getting some stuff for the Mist Mountains army.

As always it was a blast and John’s hospitality can’t be beat!!

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.