This was a part of Stevie T's 'Becoming Legendary' campaign, and it got me into an interesting battle with a young Dwarf player this evening. So that the rest of the blog makes sense, it's 150 points per side, with no characters (named or otherwise) and a small amount of might, will and fate to dish out to various members of the warband. We play 10-turn games with objectives that are kept hidden from our opponents, or at least that's the theory, and the winner gains experience points and hopefully some skills later on. The latter I'm not too sure about, but here's how the game went:
I set up the 4'x4' board giving a couple of buildings and a fence to one corner, and hills/trees/another couple of buildings dotted in various places around the board. It took me somewhat by surprise, therefore, when my opponent picked the table edge a long way from said corner, giving me plenty of opportunity to sieze defensive positions. A good thing too, since my secret mission was Band of Brothers, which meant that I had to finish the game with at least half the number of models that I started with. I'd literally lined up a spearwall across the walls of the small village I was defending, and had my banners well in range. With no idea of what my opponent's mission might be, we began...
I rolled badly for priority in the first couple of turns and my opponent got to move first on several occasions, however I was in a good position as Dwarves aren't all that fast and he'd have to spend much of the game running across the battlefield in order to meet me. It was therefore an archery contest for the first 5 turns, with my archers doing appalingly and my opponent's rather more accurate dwarves manageing to shoot a couple of them down. I was very disappointed when one of the people he shot down included one of my Serpent Riders, who I'd deployed there as an ambush just in case he was thinking of taking the fight to me. This left one Serpent Rider out on his own, who proceeded to charge a pack of 4 Dwarves. He killed one, and was made short work of by the remaining three, unsurprising really since they consisted of a Vault Warden team.
Elsewhere, the main body of the Dwarves were still a long way from my army 8 turns in, and I decided to bring my Serpent Guard out to meet them. I recognise that this wasn't a sound tactic - my opponent's objective clearly involved killing at least some of my models so I was far better off playing a defensive game - but do you know what? If I'm playing a war game, I want to see a fight! So my Serpent guard pounced on his Khazad Guard, and one of them died almost straight away. However, Harad aren't reknowned for their small-but-elite forces, and there are plenty more where he came from. I moved my banner in to range and tried to take out my opponent's banner and some of his archers; he actually ended up killing more than me and the banner bearer survived. In desperation, he also decided to attack the wall I was defending, a brave move but unfortunately it didn't come off.
8 of my men had to survive, and 10 of them did, so I'd achieved my objective. It transpired that my opponent's objective was to kill 3 of my men with the same nominated model, and he actually got surprisingly close; he chose a dwarf with a bow and he took one of my warriors out at long range, and killed a Serpent Guard in close combat. He actually survived the battle, but with only 2 men killed, it was too little too late for him.
Next time I won't be so quick to try and ambush my opponent's army without support; flinging those two Serpent Riders out into the open was a basic mistake and very costly. I'd have been better off waiting until the fighting started and gone for the banner bearer, this might have given me the edge that I needed in the last few turns of the game.
Not hard to link the story to where it left off last time I played a Rings game, which was when I won a village off Gondor. A small detatchment of Haradrim Warriors had been left behind to keep the village secure, and were joined by an elite company of Serpent Guard. It's been a couple of months since then so the scenario fits as well; having been in one another's company for a long time they will naturally have an affinity with each other and want to keep as many of their friends alive as possible. This wasn't apparently shared by the Serpent Guard, who, when a company of Dwarves arrived to try to regain the town and prove the might of one of their number, decided to jump out from the relative safety of the other side of the wall to show the other guys how it's done. The fact that most of them died successfully proved the Warrior's point. Having defended their village successfully from the Dwarves, it will be interesting to see where their adventures lead them to next time...
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