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!!

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.