Two games in one day – what is going on? No photos of this one I’m afraid.
Tom took Isengard and I took Gondor – 1500 points a side as we were trying to learn the game. On turn 1, the troll managed to beat Boromir’s Minas Tirath warriors to a pulp but took a wound with Boromir spending might to do it, and I managed to roll a ‘1’ in 3 different panic tests (but forgot that I could re-roll them due to having banners). The only fight that Gondor won was the Knights led by Faramir against Sharku’s Warg riders, where they slew 5 for the loss of one.
On turn 2 Gondor got priority. Knights against Warg Riders again, but Faramir forgot to declare Epic Fight and though there were only 3 Warg Riders left after the fight, they stood, so the Knights could not sweep around and take the pikes from the rear as planned. The troll fell to Boromir’s formation with another point of might on the hard to kill table. The Ent appeared in the wood beside the Knights, but as it was occuppied by Tracker archers, it had to go outside on the flank of Lurtz’s phalanx – needless to say, Lurtz turned to face and the Ent was hacked down in the charge it had to make. The Court of the Dead King and Uruk-Hai warriors between the Knights and Boromir wiped each other out, leaving a large hole in the line for both sides.
On turn 3, evil got priority. On the right flank, the Rangers were attacked in their wood by Uruk-Hai, but used a point of might to make the number of casualties equal so the combat was inconclusive. The Knights finally wiped out Sharku’s Wargs, but it was too late to interfere in the combat which would decide the game – Boromir’s Warriors against Lurtz’s Uruk-Hai phalanx. Boromir called Epic Duel (giving him 2 duel dice) & Epic strike raising his fight to 10 – Lurtz had to follow suit with Epic Strike (he had already played Assasin’s Strike to lower Boromir’s resilience to 2) and the dice were rolled – Boromir rolled 2 6’s against Lurtz’s 3, giving him 4 rolls on the duel table. He rolled low though, and caused numerous casualties on the formation but only 2 on Lurtz, which were discarded as he had resilience 3. In the ensuing melee, the weakened Uruk-Hai formation command company went to 50% and Lurtz died with them. This left Gondor in possession of the hill, and not enough Uruk-Hai to mount a counter attack, so game over.
I think we played using the fight value of a hero wrong – we were giving it to his company in defense as well as attack, but Tom thinks it should only be used in attack, and that the company base value is used in defense – I think it should at least be the captain’s, but we’ll check. (Tom was right….)
This War without an Enemy 