Opening of the Ways

Last night I pitted my Kingdoms of Men army against T'Other One's Undead in the Opening of the Ways; the fourth battle in Mantic's Edge of the Abyss summer campaign.

The armies assemble with the strange old tower and the petrified wood in between them.  Already the portals are beginning to glow in anticipation.

The Undead army (looks lovely, if that's the right word)

The Kingdoms of Men

The Undead advance.  

The men largely stay where they are, realising that if they can hold on to the portals nearby, they only need to grab one more.  Archers take the top of the hill in the hopes of peppering the mummies before them.

The knights on the left flank rise to the bait of the wights and zombies, meanwhile the cannon crew mutter about stupid cavalry blocking their path.

The wraiths have already taken out the handgunners (without them firing a shot, oh well), and then tackle the shieldwall.

Th mummies have eliminated the archers, and then charge the spearmen.  Meanwhile the knights have wiped out the wights and sneaked past the zombies.  In an impressive display of dressage, the scouts shift to their right to expose the zombies to the cannon.  Unfortunately the crew were less accurate with their shot.

On the right flank (and only partially visible here), the other knights fight a series of battles with the fast moving werewolves.

Excitement (and lateness) took over and the last phases of the battle aren't shown.  After the final Undead turn I was ready to quit, having lost all my objectives and seeing little hope.  However, T'Other One persuaded me to fight on, and my knights on the left flank destroyed the zombies, simultaneously denying him the objective and claiming it myself.  The cursed pharaoh managed to hold up my knights on the right, wavering them and preventing them trying for the objective behind the tower (already removed in the above photo, along with the soul reavers holding it).  Afterwards I realised I forgot to use their Headstrong rule, which might, possibly, have got them moving and allowed them to charge the pharaoh, and maybe even, with luck, over him and into the soul reavers.  Lesson learned.

So an undead victory.  Which might hasten Mantic to make the Nightstalkers army, as that was what was lurking behind the portals.

The game was great fun, my army performed well, hindered by some poor choices in deployment. The battle necessitated a broad deployment to control objectives, but that meant many of my units were unsupported.  The woods didn't help either, and the tower proved a challenge for maneuvering. 

Prior to the battle I debated taking an army standard rather than a second wizard.  In the end the wizard played, largely because he was painted.  Both wizards kept up a useful barrage of spells.

I'm always surprised at how fast the undead get into contact.  The combination of fast troops like werewolves and wraiths, and slower zombies and skeletons (but watch out for Dark surge) I find hard to counter.  Their Lifeleech (boosted in this scenario) also helped.

Fortunately, the men proved resilient and Very Inspiring is an excellent thing. They just couldn't quite make it at the end.