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.

Anyway…we played 750 points so that we might actually complete more than just a couple of turns. We restricted our lists such that there was only the possibility for one Epic Hero and one Legendary formation for each of us.

My army:

• Haldir
• Wood Elves w/logbows x2
• High Elf Archers x2
• High Elf Regiment x3
• High Elf Cohort x2 + Captain
• Ent

Bill’s army:

• Lurtz
• Ugluk’s Raiders x3
• Uruk-Hai w/shields x3
• Uruk-Hai w/crossbows x2
• Wargs w/bows x4
• Isengard Troll

I learned my lesson from last time Bill and I played: don’t spend too many points on Epic Heroes! I chose Haldir for his Epic Shot and his 75-point cost. This allowed me to have more infantry to counter his army’s ability to seriously outnumber me. Again, we just played “Kill Em’ All!” as I think we still feel like we’re getting used to the rules.

I won priority for deployment, so I decided to go first and deploy first. I chose the side of the table where Bill had placed some forests so that I could use them as defensible terrain. I deployed pretty standard where I arrayed my units pretty evenly across the table. I’m thinking in the future, I may mix this up a bit to try and get flank charges.

He moved close enough with Ugluk’s Raiders and the Wargs where the HE Archers and Wood Elves could fire on them. The Wood Elves took out one Warg and the HE Archers took out maybe 2 Uruks. He had to move the crossbows, so they didn’t fire and the Wargs took down a Wood Elf or two (Dammit! I think I forgot their Enchanted Cloaks again!).

Next turn I won priority again and decided to go first. One thing I know would have changed the game would have been to get the Ent out there and into combat. I hid him behind the Wood Elves for a while because I was afraid of the crossbowmen. Per the usual, the HE Regiment and HE Cohort moved right up the middle to face his Uruks and his units did the same. In shooting, I managed to score 5 hits and used a Might point to make it 6 so I could get rid of 3 Wargs instead of two, allowing me to roll 2D3 for push back; a total of 4 inches. The HE Archers fired into the Raiders again, killing maybe 1 Uruk. His crossbowmen fired at the Wood Elves, killing a couple thanks to the defensible terrain. I don’t believe the Wargs did any shooting that killed anything.

As always, here’s where things get a bit fuzzy. The next turn the Wood Elves left the safety of the woods to try and get close enough for Epic Shot on the crossbowmen. His Wargs went into hiding for fear of the Wood Elves shooting. The ent remained hidden behind the Wood Elves (to the dismay of Bill, who feels like monsters should not be able to be screened by infantry; sorry, dude, them’s the rules). The HE Cohort managed to charge the Troll. Lurtz’s unit failed its Terror test, preventing it from charging the HE Regiment. Ugluk’s Raiders also failed their Terror test, but used Ugluk’s ability to pass the test, but lose 4 guys. Haldir was finally able to pull off Epic shot into the crossbowmen, and with the help of the Wood Elf shooting, drove them back a few inches after killing several. In all the hand-to-hand combats, the Elves lost and ended up Disordered. One turn one of the units actually remained Disordered for the whole turn. I then found out how much it sucks to be disordered. The Ent finally came out and charged the Troll and the two of them inflicted no damage on the other.

In the end, I lost every unit except the Ent. It seems I need to work on my tactics a bit more. From what I’ve read on places like Warseer, the Elves should be using their superior movement to get flank charges. I think one of my problems is that I just trudge my soldiers across the field head-on into the enemy. Next time I will try to work on that. I also have the Galadhrim Knights, so next time I might have the speed to pull that off a bit better. Oh, and I won’t hide the Ent either!! Turns out Bill’s army total came to 790 points, but I don’t think 40 points would have made a difference in the outcome.

The awesome thing about this particular battle is that we only had to look up very situational rules, which made the game go much quicker and was a lot more fun. We both agree, though, that Games Workshop needs to put out an FAQ for this game to clear up some ambiguities.

Bill, if you’re reading this, thanks for another great game!