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!!

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.

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.

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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.