Original Air Date: April 11, 2011
After playing several times against my own Goblins with my Dwarves, I'm anxious to give them a try against my Wood Elves. I haven't told many people this, but I really like my Wood Elves because they require a complicated strategy to work well. What I haven't told Gaius is that I really don't like playing with them on small maps and with small point values because the true colors of the army come out when you play a 500 point game. At any rate, here are the combatants for today...
Might of Mirkwood: 260 points
Legolas - 90 points
6 Wood Elf Warriors with Elven blades and throwing daggers- 60 points
6 Wood Elf Warriors with Wood Elf spears and throwing daggers - 60 points
5 Wood Elf Warriors with Elven bows and Elven blades - 50 points
18 units, 5 bows + Legolas, 1 hero
Host of Moria: 260 points
Durburz, Goblin King of Moria - 60 points
Cave Troll with troll chain - 85 points
8 Moria Goblin Warriors with shields - 40 points
8 Moria Goblin Warriors with spears - 40 points
7 Moria Goblin Warriors with Orc bows - 25 points
25 units, 7 bows + troll chain, 1 hero
Gaius informed me that according to an army builder, Legolas can't be given armor as part of the Thranduil's Halls army (which we both think is ridiculous, except that Legolas only procured armor after fighting at Helm's Deep...which was when he was with the Fellowship), so he's going to stop equipping him with that armor. In fun games with friends, I'll ask if they wouldn't mind me giving him armor (or if we're ignoring some rules, we'll just ignore that one too), but in competitive games, no armor for Legolas.
The scenario we will be playing is a Storm the Camp game on a board that is 24" long by 24" wide. The map will allow the armies to fight immediately with each having a "camp" at an opposing corner. The camp has a radius of 6" from the corner of the map and the game will end when an opponent has more units in the opposing player's camp at the end of any game turn. A major victory will be awarded to the team that has its hero alive at the end of that round, while a minor victory will be awarded if the hero leading the group is dead. The game will result in a draw if both sides lose their camps in the same turn. Here is the map:
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The map has a mixture of woodlands and rocks, perfect for both armies. Though the Goblins do not like the woods, there are no platform trees in this game, making sure that there is no great advantage given to the Elves (though the Goblins can climb those trees really well).
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After rolling a dice, the Goblins will choose their placement first, while the Elves will have priority during the first round. My Goblins wisely claim a cluster of rocks (top-right) that has the large woods in the adjacent corner, forcing the Elves to claim the smaller woods for their camp corner (bottom left). You can see their starting positions below:
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The Goblins: 23 Goblin Warriors, 1 Goblin King, and 1 Cave Troll.
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The Wood Elves: 17 Wood Elf Warriors and Legolas, Prince of Mirkwood.
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Turn 1: Arrows Fly (Priority - Elves)
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Both armies move towards each other, but only those with bows can hit each other. The Elves begin with a storm of arrows: two Goblins fall. In this battle report, I'm leaving the dead guys down for the pictures so that you can see who dies...works better that way.
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Please forgive the blurriness. In response, the Goblins loose their arrows and only kill 1 Elf.
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Turn 2: The Clash of Arms (P - Goblins)
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The armies have now met in close-combat, though none of the Elves killed any Goblins with their throwing daggers on the charge. On the top left, you can see that the Elves chose not to engage their foes, but chose instead to get a round of archery in before meeting in melee combat.
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In the Shoot phase, the Goblin archers did nothing (hit their own guy in a fight, but didn't kill him). In the Elf Shoot phase, Legolas kills 3 Goblins (paying 1 Might in the process), while the other Elf archers kill 1 lowly Goblin. The Elves on the top-right didn't manage to kill any units, as most of them were targeting the troll (and rolled a lot of 2s and 3s to wound). The supporting Elf spearmen on the bottom right, however, managed to kill a Goblin with spear, making one of the combats terribly one-sided.
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In the combats for this round (put simply), the Elves won every fight and killed every Goblin they faced. Great...
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So ends another round. For those interested, the kill-count is now Goblins 1, Elves 10.
Turn 3: The Hammer Falls (P - GOBLINS!)
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The Goblins charge on the top-left and flee on the bottom right, trying to capitalize on the strengths they have. I've resigned this game to be lost unless the Cave Troll can kill lots of units...fast. Still, I do my best to keep the enemy at bay. As you can see, one Goblin was killed by a throwing knife during one of the charges...bummer.
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In the Shoot phase, nothing happened on the top-left side of the board. As you can see, one Goblin and one Elf were killed on the right side.
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In the Fight phase, the Cave Troll wins his fight and kills two of the Elves he's facing...rolling a 2 when you just need a 3 is a real shame. The Goblin King lost his fight, but wasn't wounded.
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In the other fights, the Elves lose their fights (one fight due to shielding) but none are wounded. Kill count is now Goblins 4, Elves 12. Uh oh...Goblins are one unit away from breaking...grrr. I should also note that at this point, there are 13 Goblin units and 14 Elven units on the board...we're outnumbered too. :-(
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Turn 4: (P - Goblins again)
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The Goblins charge into the rest of the northern group, hoping to destroy them, while some of the Goblins have rushed down towards the Elven camp. The Elves on the right have now neared the Goblin camp, killing one Goblin with a throwing knife in the process. This isn't good, since that means the Goblins are broken and all of my base defenses could evaporate...
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In the Shoot phase, the Goblin archers do nothing. The Elven archers kill both of the spearmen approaching their camp, while Legolas looses 3 arrows at one of the archers in the Goblin base...and brings him down on the third try.
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In the Fight phase, the Troll wins on a tie of 5s and kills both of his opponents. The Goblin King loses on a tie, while his spearman wins his fight, but fails to wound (rolled a 3, needed a 4!). Here is where I made a critical mistake: I should have sent my Goblin King towards my base, keeping those units from fleeing the field. I don't think it would have made much of a difference, but as you can see from the picture above, the Goblin King is now unable to run at full speed towards the other Goblins.
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In the other fights, two Elves killed their opponents, one won his fight, but failed to kill his Goblin adversary, while the Goblin on the rock won his fight, but failed to wound.
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Turn 5: (P - Goblins)
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At the beginning of the round, the Goblin King was unable to get in a position to call a stand fast for the units back at the base, so instead, he charged straight for Legolas, hoping for an epic end. Two Goblins fled the battle, while one of the remaining four Goblins was killed by a throwing dagger. One lone Goblin remains, while two Elves engage him on the rock and two others run into the base. The game will end at the end of this round.
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In the Fight phase, two Elves beat the Goblin archer, but failed to wound him. This didn't really matter since they were winning the game anyway.
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On the other side of the field, the Goblin King loses a fight to Legolas (each paid 2 Might points to tie the match on 6s, but Legolas' Fight value of 6 won the day). Legolas then failed to wound the Goblin King (no Might left to promote a wound dice), but one of the two Elves assisting Legolas (using their Elven Blades as two-handed weapons) wounded the King once (saved by a Fate point). For the other two fights, I forgot to change the units for the picture, but here's how they resolved: The Troll killed his opponent, while the Goblin with spear lost his fight (but wasn't wounded).
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At the end of the match, the Elves had won, losing 7 Elves (out of 18) and killing 19 Goblins (with 2 fleeing). The victory was a Major victory, since the Wood Elves were not broken when they overwhelmed the Goblin camp. A very good day for the Elves, but a very bad day for my Goblins.
Conclusion:
Assessment by Gaius: It feels good to win with the Wood Elves, since they're such an intricate civilization to run. Armor would certainly be nice for these units, but since Strength 2 bows wound them on a 5+, I'm rather happy with how they hold up to enemy fire. As the throwing weapons demonstrated in a few places today, it's great to see the Shoot Value of the Elves not wasted on melee weapons. Legolas was, in many ways, disappointing during this game, but far be it from me to criticize him too harshly.
Assessment by Tiberius: This was an interesting round. For starters, I thought that the open terrain would benefit my Goblins more than his Elves, since there would be nothing to hide behind as his units came running across the field. As it turns out, I only killed one Elf during the charge across the center and only one other while the Elves engaged my units. That was disappointing to say the least. Still, this game has had one good result: I can't wait to finish my Goblins and show my friend what they can really do. With the army increasing from 25 to 50 units by next Christmas, I'm excited to see what they do to a Wood Elf force that only grows by 8 units...it should be fun. :)
Stellar unit for Wood Elves: Wood Elves with Elven Bows and Elven Blades
The Elf units were pretty evenly matched as far as kills go: the archers killed 6 units, the spears killed 5 units, and the swordsmen killed 4 units. Legolas only killed 4 as well, so the units all did very well by categories. The Archers, though, killed 6 units in 5 rounds with only 5 units, meaning that they each killed 1.2 units a piece. The other types of units (with 6 units each) killed less than one per unit, so the victory most clearly belongs to the archers.
Stellar unit for Goblins: Cave Troll?
Usually, I don't like giving the Cave Troll the win because if we think about it, he should be clobbering most of the units. However, of the 7 units killed by the Goblin force, 5 were killed by the Cave Troll and 2 were killed by archers. This means that we could award the "stellar unit" award to the archers, but in all fairness, they lost much of the game for the Goblins - though the other Goblin units didn't help either.
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