The scenario was "Field of Celebrant" from the "Shadow in the East" supplement. With only three hours to play, we did a half points match: orks 400 to Rohan 325. It's an interesting scenario in that a fordable river bisects the board, the orks start out split (and can opt for a late arriving reserve), and up to two thirds may carry bows.
I thought my problem as the ork player was to reunite my army before Eorl and his riders slammed into the force on the far side of the river. I figured there were three strategies Rohan could take. Charge straight into my stranded group, in which case I'd back into the river and let him attack without his charge bonuses. Cross the river on the other side of the table, in which case I'd back into the woods on my side of the table. Or skirmish from horseback, in which case I planned to consolidate my archers behind my shields and try to outlast him.
I considered putting my three archers up to skirmish from the hill and woods on his side of the table, but decided that would only delay the game. I also decided against the reserve, thinking it would arrive too late and unable to attack.
Not having enough shields to cover my front line, I surrounded my valuable spears and bannerman. Together, these would help me to withstand the riders when they charged in.
Jon being Jon, he went for the charge-right-in strategy. He had ten riders with bows and throwing spears on his right, and Eorl with five more riders with throwing spears on his left. His archers advanced slowly, firing.
I split my wargriders and trackers evenly around the woods, with a shaman providing Fury.
As planned, I joined up my forces behind the Celebrant, unfortunately losing all my forward archers and a couple wargriders to deadly bowfire.
Jon, recognizing the futility of his original plan, settled back to exploit his superior bow range. I decided against the bow battle and sent my boys across once more (losing one rider to the swift current of the stream!).
This brought Eorl back out from under his rock. I shifted my attackers right and my archers left, intending to throw my weight on his one flank and shoot up the other. If he backed up again, I figured, I would eventually bottle him up in the corner of the board.
Eorl ended up charging in. Because I unfortunately had left my back right wargriders trapped in the stream, I couldn't relieve the cavalry attacks with them as planned. He moved up his archers into charge position, which enabled me to attack them! I left my ten trackers shots, and they proceeded to shoot out a horse.
Eorl wrested initiative with a mighty move. I decided to conserve my might, figuring my banner and Fury would help withstand the charge. Unfortunately, he opened up the line with his throwing spears and brought Eorl around, trapping my entire right flank! I figured it was all over.
Initiative kept me in the game, forcing Eorl to burn his Might as I brought my trackers into the freewheeling fray! I kept my banner near those who were charged on my right, while my Morannon orks and superior numbers whittled away at the other end.
The orks broke, but thanks to their consolidated position, were able to take advantage of the shaman's better courage. Now the Fury kicked in, saving a couple losses while the Riders broke. I decided to engage those too far to benefit from Eorl's "Stand Fast," but this kept me from gaining my valuable numerical advantages.
When I did leave it open, his stranded riders passed their courage and together engaged my shaman, ending the Fury effect and killing his mount.
Finally, it was just Eorl and one horseman against about ten orks led by the shaman and the bannerman. I surrounded both and it looked like the game was over.
But I couldn't roll a 5 on ten dice, and Eorl kept rolling 6s to win his fights. I finally killed the one horseman, but then the shaman failed his courage test and half my remaining army fled. It was Eorl against four orks.
I surrounded Eorl once more, but again he rolled a 6.
My remaining ork fled, leaving the day to Eorl and his one remaining wound.
This was an extraordinarily exciting scenario, swinging back and forth a couple times. My old rule of limiting to 100 points per hour play worked out very well (particularly as the orks held on well after breaking).
2 comments:
Fun game! It's always great when it really comes down to the wire. That's a truly close game, when both sides are breaking, and priority is sometimes an issue (for the guy who GETS priority!).
100 points per hour isn't a bad way to estimate an LOTR game. Though Jon and I have often finished 300 - 450 pt games in under 2.5 hours. Any more than 450 though, and that's where I find the time starts to become a factor.
Such a rule obviously would make for an ultra-boring 40K game. :) Ryan and I would generally run 1500-point 4 hour games. We've had games where we finished 2000 in that same time. We've also had instances where 1200 took us 4 hours. Much of the excess time came down to rules interpretation and lookup. Sometimes heavy strategy weighed in too ... when the Deceiver was on the board, my game took significantly longer ("Where can I move such that I can avoid contact with that thing for as long as possible! ... While drawing it into LOS and range of my Pathfinders!" :) )
Great writeup!
Oops, then there's the Ork-Eldar games ... which can run anywhere upwards of 4 hours. :)
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