Faramir - Heavy Armour
Captain of Gondor - Heavy Armour; Shield
4 Guard of the Fountain - Shield
6 Ranger of Gondor
16 Warrior of Minas Tirith - Shield
11 Warrior of Minas Tirith - Spear; Shield
12 Warrior of Minas Tirith - Bow
2 Warrior of Minas Tirith - Banner
5 Knights of Minas Tirith
Knights were bit of a oddity concidering scenario but I thought I could use them to counterpunch when retreat would begin and thus delay orc swarming or maybe use those lances to punch through troll hide.
2 Easterling Captain
2 Orc Captain - Shield
1 Uruk-Hai Captain Mordor - Shield
4 Easterling Warrior - Shield
8 Easterling Warrior - Spear; Shield
2 Easterling Warrior - Banner
6 Morannon Orc - Spear; Shield
1 Mordor Troll
32 Orc Warrior - Shield
32 Orc Warrior - Spear
16 Orc Warrior - Two-handed Weapon
16 Orc Warrior - Orc Bow
1 Orc Warrior – Banner
1 Orc Warrior - Banner
7 Uruk-Hai Warrior Mordor - Two-handed Weapon
1 Uruk-Hai Warrior Mordor - Banner
Bloody lot of orcs, hefty continent of easterlings providing solid core, hard hitting group of uruk hai's and annoyingly huge store of might. Oh and a troll. Yup I'm in big trouble. We skimped on terrain except for tower(for which we used the tower part of my WIP castle) and the defensive lines. No appropriate terrain for LOTR so...(epic scaled hills, statue and buildings would look real odd in LOTR to say the least
).Anyway I spread half the forces evenly along the line, prefering missile troops and heroes and putting one banner on other flank from tower. Think I might have made slight mistake here...Probably ought to have left missile armed troops(or atleast reqular ones. Rangers with F4 could probably have stayed there...) near tower and have more sword and shield warriors at front line. Orcs deployed in wiiiiide line and indeed we had to take all 5' of board to use but since I could deploy evenly enough even then(over 50 warriors to begin with is handy thing to have
) didn't mind. Anyway he put all archers on my left, troll and uruk-hai's in center, flanked by reqular orc group on left(my POV). Left of orcs came second easterling block and morannon orcs. Then from right of trolls another group of orcs, then easterlings and finally 2 more groups of orcs.Turns 1-2 were dominated by relentless march of orcs. First shooting phase started nicely with death of 2 morannon orcs but after that rest of game my shooting did nothing. I had trouble to even HIT let alone wound...Orcs picked off defender or two with volley fires(and orcs are supposed to be lousy shooters...).
Turn 3 saw first charges with few orcs here and there charging against defences. In a serries of combats that would set the style for rest of game my right flank suffered heavily while left one drove orcs back with hefty fighting. Mordor troll punched through 2 defenders like they weren't there...Uh oh.
I should have by now started to shift more defenders toward right but noooo...Too dumb for that.
Turn 4 and orcs launched into my lines with full effort(also of note is that this was 3rd roll of priority I lost in a row...). I decided to commit 2 knights and counter-charged troll who had engaged lone archers. But sure enough troll rolled that dreaded 6 and all 3 gondorian fighters were smashed to ground. Oooow! On right things started to escalate with first orcs having got past defence lines(ah if only Faramir had been close enough to initiate meaningfull heroic move but breakthrough had come too far from him...) and surrounding my defences. Dreadfull gap had already appeared on my lines and while left flank held nicely things were looking bad...
Turn 5 and combats continued furiously. Once more troll launched against my lines, attacking 2 defenders from behind while fronts were engaged by yet more orcs. 2 more knights charged rear of troll while 2 bowmen joined the fray. Last knight charged against orc that had got through barricade by killing(alone) guard of the fountain court(gee). This turn was bit of relief for me since troll died(surrounded as it was. All he got was 5, all I got was 5 but both had banners. His reroll didn't help but mine got 6...Yea!). I cheered at that but as it was on their left my lines were broken...My lines were being broken big time and I STILL hadn't got 300 I needed to start retreating...
Turn 6. Pretty much same here. Left part was fighting like possessed and were holding own and actually giving better than receiving despite being outnumbered and often surrounded! However from right was coming a SWARM of orcs toward me(something around 30+ had started to outflank my forces!) In center captain killed 2 uruk-hai's(another mistake. I used might point to kill one). Right side was pretty much cleared from gondors barring from Faramir whose fate had saved him twice already. I lost 2 more knights this turn so had only one more left. At the end of this turn I FINALLY got past the 300 and could start the retreat...
Turn 7. And as before in all turns before this I lost priority. So I'm gonna declare heroics! So would he. I won roll off so captain led dozen or so warrior on left toward safety. Orc captain on right led his forces in heroic move(before faramir could even try) against my poor old Faramir(who btw counted as Imrahil for scenario rules). However in combat faramir drove enemies away. Everywhere orcs tagged my warriors where they were and tried to get past them to remove way toward safety.
Turn 8. At last I won priority but 2 captains(orc on left, easterling in center) led their forces in heroic move and tagged most of my warriors. Rest simply backed off. On right Faramir actually killed 2 enemies and cleared sort of a path toward safety!
Turn 9. Priority once more for orcs and I regretted using might point to kill uruk-hai for it was much needed...Faramir however spent point to move him closer toward action and engaged yet another orc. And then was surrounded. In combat he only got 5 while they got 6 and being already wounded and without fate and surrounded I opted to use last point of might. He killed two more orcs but at this point it was of little comfort since he had no clear route anywhere anyway.
At this point I had about 18 or so warriors left all told...
Turn 10. I got priority once more but, sure enough his heroes led their forces in heroic moves and voila! My troops were pretty much completely surrounded. Faramir was also skewered in spears and after few combats we opted to quit. My 15 or so warriors would need to carve a path through hordes of orcs, 5 captains who still had 4 points of might left(uruk-hai captain had 2, one orc captain another and one easterling captain last). There were no chances and time was getting late anyway.
So miserable defeat for good guys. Where went wrong? Well obviosly deployment was bit of skewered. I should have favoured right side concidering left would get reinforcements. As it was right flank fell, Faramir didn't get away safely due to that and my army was surrounded and road to safety blocked. I also wasted point of might on reqular captain.
Oh and Faramir should have abandoned right side the second it was obvious it wouldn't hold. But without priority that was pretty much impossible without wasting precious might...Bugger.
Man of the match: Either Faramir who, despite eventually being surrounded, won combats and killed them with rather nice frequency, or the reqular captain who also had decent enough kill rate and also managed to led his forces in desperate breakthrough toward goal. Also troll deserves mention for though it died pretty soon the carnage ensured that a) knight reserves were dealt quickly and b) it opened rather big hole which was filled with orcs quickly and this divined the forces in two annoyingly quickly.
