Original Air Date: March 13, 2011
In today's match, I wanted to try out my new Uruk-Hai (so new, most have only been base-coated, but two arrived painted, so my army isn't completely without color). To give them a good test, my friend Gaius is using my army of Wood Elves. The game will be played at 440 points and the armies are as follows:
The Might of Mirkwood: 440 points
Legolas, Prince of Mirkwood with armor - 95 points
Boromir of Gondor - 105 points
8 Wood Elf Warriors with Elven blade and throwing daggers - 80 points
8 Wood Elf Warriors with Wood Elf spears and throwing daggers - 80 points
8 Wood Elf Warriors with Elven bow and Elven blade - 80 points
26 units, 8 bows + Legolas, 16 throwing weapons, 2 heroes
The Fist of Isengard: 439 points
Uruk-Hai Captain with heavy armor and shield - 60 points
18 Uruk-Hai warriors with shield - 180 points
16 Uruk-Hai warriors with pike - 160 points
1 Uruk-Hai warrior with banner - 39 points
36 units, no bows/throwing weapons, 1 hero
We rolled to see what kind of game we were playing. Look at one of my earlier posts to see how a scenario is selected.
So far, Gaius and I have played a Domination and "Brawl" game (variation of "Meeting Engagement"), so hopefully today we'll get something different. After rolling a dice, the game will be a "To Kill a King" scenario, and as a refresher, this will require each army to kill the target "king." For the Isengard side, that needs to be their Captain. For the Mirkwood side, my opponent Gaius has elected to have Legolas be the King (which is a real bummer for me, since he'll probably be well shielded by units).
I've got my work cut out for me, but this will be the best test I could do for my new Isengard force (except perhaps Reconnoiter, which would be bad, bad, bad...). At any rate, the Elves won the roll to select placement first and so they chose their side of the map and the map is as follows:
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Legolas will be near the center of the woods at the bottom-right, while the Uruk Captain is one of the fully-painted Uruks at the top right. This should be interesting...
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Starting positions: Elves (as explained by Gaius)
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Excuse my friend's blurry camera shot. At the bottom right corner, Legolas leads a company of five archers, two spearmen, and two swordsmen. They trust to the woods to provide them with much-needed protection from the strength of the Uruks, hoping that their ranged weapons will kill off most of them before combat begins.
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My friend's hands were unstable yet again. Here, Boromir leads a company of 4 Elven swordsmen and 4 Elven spearmen, protecting the exposed side of the Elven woods.
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This will be the last blurry shot in a row, I hope. Here two swordsmen and two spearmen provide protection for three Elven archers, who will try to pick off pikemen from the Uruk phalanx.
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Starting positions: Isengard (as explained by Tiberius)
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At the top right, the Uruk Captain and his banner bearer lead a company of six Uruk-Hai warriors with shields. Once clear of the rocks, they will form a wedge formation, which will not only protect the captain from archery fire early, but will also allow them to minimize how many units may be targeted by throwing weapons.
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I must say, I am proud of the Uruk phalanx. This block of troops is 8 units wide by 3 units deep, which means that most of the units in front are trapped, but when they win, they really mess up the enemy.
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Here's an up-close shot of the Uruk far right formation, which simply has four Uruk-Hai warriors with shields, looking to distract fire and provide a flanking attack against the Elves on the hill. They don't really like their job, but the pay is decent, so they stay.
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Turn 1: The Arrows Fly (Priority - Isengard)
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Both sides move towards each other and a few archers shoot. One of the Elves on the Elven left kills one of my Uruks with shields at the end of the phalanx formation while Legolas kills the Uruk with shield in front of my captain. Thankfully he was out of arrows at that point and his friend's arrow failed to come anywhere near my captain (he rolled a 1 to hit). Current number of dead Uruk-Hai: 2.
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This is a close-up of my Uruk advance on the right side, captain and banner leading five Uruks (formerly six because of the archery of the Elves) into the frey!
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Turn 2: Daggers in the Daylight (P - Isengard)
I really didn't want priority, but I guess now I need to work with it. Still, I advanced my phalanx and have decided that to finish this army, I either need Lurtz or crossbows, because I'm tired of being shot at like a turkey.
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One archer near Legolas (second rank, right unit) killed an Uruk-Hai warrior with shield (grrr...) and Legolas (second rank, left unit) takes one arrow and aims for the captain. He hits the captain automatically, but here's his roll to wound...
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I'm so happy right now...
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An Elf archer on the left side killed an Uruk pikeman (who no longer had shield support). An Elf with throwing dagger near that archer killed an Uruk with shield in the phalanx (I feel like I'm really losing guys) while Boromir's band killed two Uruks with shields with their throwing weapons. One of the Elves in the trees killed one last Uruk with shield with a throwing weapon. Total number of dead Uruk-Hai: 8...I need priority next round.
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Turn 3: The Sound of Clashing Arms (P - Isengard!)
I don't know if you as the reader believe that God exists, but He does. Ask me about it sometime. Here, I receive priority and prepare to charge the Elves for the first time in combat! This should be interesting.
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As you can see, some of my Uruks didn't make it into combat...silly woods. Legolas managed to kill the two pikemen who were charging into the woods at the top right, while two Elf archers near him managed to kill two Uruks with shields (the two closest to the bush near the top left). I'm beginning to lose my archery protection, but thankfully no pikes who were supporting units were killed, so I' have several attacks where I have 3 attack and wound dice!
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Here you can see that there were three phalanx combats. Boromir's combat was resolved first, since he called a heroic combat. Here was his roll to win the fight:
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I only rolled a 5 high, so he used another Might point to win the fight and double his wound dice against my trapped warrior. Despite rolling 6 dice, only one successfully wounded me (minor relief) and he then charged into one of the fights near him. He won that fight easily and with no need for help from his Elven friends, Boromir killed that Uruk too (who was surprisingly trapped).The only phalanx fight left was the group of units in the left-side fight (see picture above). I won the fight, but look at my wounding dice...
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When you only need 1 dice to have a 4, 5, or 6 on it, this is not a good sight.
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I only won one other fight that round and failed to wound. In the other fights, I only lost 1 pikeman, so I'm still confident that we can reach legolas before we're broken. I look over at my dead pile and hope I don't count 18 bodies...I count 16...consider this game over.
Turn 4: Confidence is Shattered (P - Elves)
So not only am I 1 turn from breaking, but now the Elves get to move, which means Legolas will be unreachable. Surprisingly, they don't move too much on that flank, banking that I won't reach them, I suppose. The Elves elsewhere managed to kill 2 Uruks with their throwing weapons, reducing any semblance of a phalanx that I have to two-deep ranks. During my move phase, I can basically only move my captain and his squad AND my force is broken. Thankfully, the captain passed with flying colors.
During the Shoot phase, Legolas uses a well-placed arrow and a Might point to kill my banner-bearer...I'm not pleased right now, but thankfully, there were no other archery casualties.
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Both my captain and Boromir call heroic combats this round. By dice roll, we determined that my captain would go first and he attacked an Elven spearmen (who was using the shielding rule with his spear). With the Elf rolling a 6 and me only rolling a 5, I pay my last Might point to push it to a roll-off. The score is a 5 and I lose. Though the Elves did score 1 wound, I saved it with my fate point...the game is now officially over.
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In the other fights near the captain, I lost an Uruk and I won but failed to wound (how am I doing that?), but in the phalanx fights, I killed 2 Elves and lost 2 pikeman (Boromir killed his unit rather decisively, but forgot to call a heroic combat). Up on the hill, I lost 2 pikes and killed 1 Elf archer. Kill count, in case you were interested, is now Elves 24, Uruk-Hai 3.
Turn 5: Hard Pressed on All Sides (P - Isengard)
My captain decided to stay and called a Stand Fast! for the one Uruk near him. I charge units as best I can, but I have 12 Uruks left and I'm up against nearly twice that many Elves...
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Legolas moved to kill one of my Uruks that engaged a spearman, but he failed to kill him (he rolled a 1). Thankfully, the two other archers who shot couldn't kill anyone either.
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My captain was fighting 4 Elves and I decided to resolve his fight first. Both sides rolled 6s and the roll-off went to the Elves. I was trapped and they needed 2 6s to kill me...they got 1, so I survived.
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Boromir (bottom right) needed to pay 2 Might points to win his fight (didn't call a heroic combat, so he still has 2 Might points left in his store). It always makes me happy when only one unit faces death against Boromir and he needs to pour out Might points to kill the unit, but since I can't beat him, it's getting annoying that he's plowing through my troops.
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The other fights were less than glorious. I killed 2 spearmen and a swordsman, while Gaius killed a pikeman. 6 Elves are now dead, while 26 Uruks are dead. Not good.
Turn 6: A Bitter End (P - Isengard)
My captain passes his Stand Fast! and the Uruk near him begins to charge. Apparently (Gaius didn't correct me on this), I didn't test for all of my unit's courage last turn. I think Gaius was having pity on me, but this time, 4 Uruks fled. My few remaining Uruks charged Elves, but we were going to get pummeled.
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Gaius was really taking it easy on me. Instead of overwhelming my units, he pulled his archers out of the woods and started moving them towards the center of the board. I think he was contemplating making a big chase out of the thing (or just didn't want to gang up on my guys that much). I was grateful either way.
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During the shoot phase, Legolas failed to wound my captain while he was in combat. No other archery was possible.
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During the Fight phase, my Captain really lost his fight, but wasn't wounded by his opponent, since he used the shielding rule. My trapped Uruk-Hai in the woods survived a beating from his Elf attackers, while my trapped Uruk-Hai on the hill won and killed an enemy spearman. Boromir killed his opponent and a few Elves killed another pikeman. My final Uruk survived an attack from 2 Elves using two-handed weapons (they won with a high dice of 2 after I rolled a 1).
I decided here to call the game, as my Captain could die during any archery round and I had not yet reached Legolas.
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Here's the map at the end of the game. You can count 4 Uruk-Hai remaining and a whole lot more than 4 Elves ready to fight (I think there were about 20 units left on his side).
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Conclusion by Tiberius:
Ok, so the phalanx was cool, but the archers and throwing weapons killed far too many for it to be effective. Against an army of Elves, my Uruks need either a handful of crossbows or Lurtz (since I'm making a 500 point force and only have room for about 60 more points). Of course, once we get to 500 points, Boromir is traded out for Gandalf, so archery will be much more difficult. Still, the presence of some archery would be very helpful. Beyond that, the Uruks lasted well against the beating they took from the Elves in close combat, but were always being cut down by their archery (whether the damage was suffered in the Move phase or the Shoot phase). Perhaps with different terrain, life would have been better, but the woods didn't play much of a role in the game today, besides preventing a charge from happening (though the same units would have probably met the same results a turn earlier if it hadn't been for the woods).
Conclusion by Gaius:
After narrowly losing the Brawl game to the Dwarves, this victory was sweet. The throwing weapons worked beautifully, softening up the enemy before they engaged us (giving us a unit advantage, actually), and the Elven bows took down several Uruk-Hai before they came near the rest of the melee troops. I particularly enjoyed how Boromir worked with the army, though he was never able to blow the Horn of Gondor, since he was usually fighting one unit (backed up by others). Still, it was a fun (and fast) game. It probably would have been more fun if we were playing with an adapted rule that forces couldn't be broken, but we'll try that another day.
Elven unit of the day: Wood Elf warrior with Elven bow and Elven blade
The Wood Elf archers are amazing. Not only do they hit on a 3+ (better than average), but they also wound their units at the same strength value which they would if they were in close combat. I had forgotten that I had equipped these archers with Elven blades, since usually, I don't equip them with them. Today, though, it probably would have been helpful, since cracking open the Uruk-Hai warriors with shields was a tough ordeal. They were fun, though, and never cease to amaze me.
Uruk unit of the day: Uruk-Hai warrior with shield
These units needed to be wounded on a 6, which stopped at least 3 kills from happening early in the game. In close combat, these guys would occasionally not only win fights and kill Elves, but they would also survive attempts to wound that didn't include two-handed weapon attacks from Elven blades. I like these units, but really need bows (or a hero with bow like Lurtz) to protect them from archery (where I lost a lot of them).
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