I spent a lot of time thinking of various scenarios involving a chase across the board, rules for controlling wild horses and random movement of the same. Then I checked Nic's latest document on the Facebook group, and realised the Reive and Retrieve scenario pretty much did what I wanted. So with a bit of colour text (and an increase in points as Bodvoc had some new Rohirim to show off), to battle.
The two forces face off, herds of wild horses grazing in between them
The Rohan army
.
and the hordes of Mordor
.
Both sides advance towards the herds. Rohan captures the first herd
The view of the early battle from the Rohan side
Mid game the Mordor troops are all over the place. Shooting (and Resolve loss due to a lost company takes it's toll). In return, the orcs struggle to hit anything.
Again, the view from the Rohan side. The defenders seem much more organised.
The Rohan cavalry slowly advance, picking off the orcs as they go.
Nearing the end the orcs have finally started to bring down some of the Rohirim, but have lost all chance of capturing any herds.
I don't have any pictures of the end phase; I was busy enjoying the triumph of Rohan. It was very tense, in the last turn the Witchking was charged by several companies, including the Rohan general. Both leaders went down (though the Witchking will, of course, return), causing both sides to break in the same turn. At the count, Rohan had two herds, with another two running free, so had won. Sauron will be looking for different mounts for his most trusted captains in future (though the Witchking hardly merited such reward after his performance in this game).
I really enjoyed the game, despite struggling to make any headway against the enemy. At the end I was surprised to have broken the Rohan army; Def 5+ is really tough, especially since in this scenario all companies were single companies, no multiple company units. The orcs' main strength, their numbers, was hard to bring to bear, and I failed to hold on to any of the captured herds. Irregular infantry make poor herders with the -2 to Melee (and +2 to the opponents) when attacked.
My main mistake though was the Witchking. I included him partly as a nod to the passage in the book placing him near the Anduin (Spoilers - Legolas shoots the flying mount) but mostly to experiment with how I thought he should work. I tried a character company with a mage lord on a dragon with flying, fearless and terrifying. Being a character company meant he never got to use curse as he was always moving. terrifying proved ineffective against Res 6 elite cavalry, though the -2 to melee was nice, it offset their ferocious charge and master of horse somewhat.
Next time it might be a dragon with passenger, though that does risk the Witchking being taken out on that pesky double 6 roll.
I must point out that Bodvoc played a far cleverer game than I did. His deployment alone helped him capture two herds early on.
Being on horses also helped us catch some of the wild horses first.
ReplyDeleteThat too. I kind of had the wrong army for this scenario, but warfare isn't fair. Still lots of fun.
DeleteAlso, the wild horses seemed to tend to run towards the Rohan forces even though we randomised their movement. Can't say I blame them though.
DeleteOh, we'd have looked after them very well....
Deletegood lord. reading this making me go back to my epic 40k days.
ReplyDeletei wanna see u do the battle of helm's deep, that would be a brutal gauntlet match.
Thanks. Nic, who wrote the Fantastic Battles rules is currently working out siege rules, so that's a possibility.
DeleteOne thing we definitely do want to do is the Battle of Five Armies, though we'll need quite a few more minis for that.