Riders of Theoden vs Rivendell 600 points - Breakthrough

 

Andrew and I are gearing up for a small local league being run amongst our friends. He's using Rivendell, and I decided to go with Rohan. I was pretty rusty on Rohan and Andrew was trying out Arwen Undomiel for the first time so we agreed to a scrimmage game ahead of our actually scheduled game on Sunday.

Per the league rules, we rolled randomly for 3 scenarios and rolled off to determine veto order. We rolled Contest of Champions, Breakthrough, and Control the Battlefield. Andrew won the dice off to veto and got rid of Control the Battlefield. He knew Cavalry had a big advantage there. I quickly veto'd Contest of Champions because Glorfindel is an absolute monster and Theoden is... not. So, with that decided we setup for Breakthrough and got started!

The board after deployment

RIDERS OF THEODEN LEGENDARY LEGION

• Theoden with Armored Horse & Shield
• 4x Royal Guard with Horse & Throwing Spears
• Eomer with Armored Horse, Shield, & Throwing Spears
• 4x Riders of Rohan with throwing spears
• Gamling with Horse and Royal Standard
• 2x Royal Guard with Horse & Throwing Spears
• Dernhelm with Throwing Spears
• 1x Rider of Rohan

RIVENDELL

• Glorfindel with Asfaloth and Armor of Gondolin
• 4x High-elf Warriors with Elf Bow and Spear
• 4x High-Elf Warriors with Shield
• 2x High-Elf Warriors with Shield and Spear
• 1x High-Elf Warrior with Shield, Spear, and Banner
• Arwen Undomiel with Horse
• 2x High-elf Warriors with Elf Bow and Spear
• 2x High-Elf Warriors with Shield
• 2x High-Elf Warriors with Shield and Spear
• Cirdan the Shipwright
• 2x High-elf Warriors with Elf Bow and Spear
• 2x High-Elf Warriors with Shield
• 2x High-Elf Warriors with Shield and Spear

Rohan rides forth, just out of charge range and lets loose a volley of throwing spears under fire from elf bows. The opening shooting phase sees one royal guard die, Dernhelm's Rider of Rohan un-horsed, and Arwen unhorsed and wounded. A fortuitous opening to put a wound on Arwen as I was very scared of Wrath of the Bruinen.

Seeing the opportunity to kill Arwen, heroic moves are called and Rohan wins the dice off. I'm not keen to get stuck in so early, but taking out Arwen is too juicy of an opportunity. Eomer charges her and strikes up once she's spear supported.

The view of the board after the charge on turn one.

 

Glorfindel calls a Heroic combat but initially fails to win the duel roll against this Royal Guard! He must burn a second point of might to win it. He then handily offs the Royal Guard and, with an opening in the line I missed combined with the speed of Asfaloth charges Theoden in my rear rank! Eomer dispatches Arwen. Theoden takes a beating from Glorfindel, but manages to survive with 1 wound left. 

On the following turn, Eomer and a Royal guard rally to the king, trapping Glorfindel while riders across the board do their best to shield. Cirdan's Aura of Despair puts a real damper on my regular Riders- there were so many failed terror tests! On the flipside, my throwing spears were HOT. I think in total I probably killed 6 or 7 elves with throwing spears between charges and skirmishing.

Theoden calls "Death!" and strikes up. Glorfindel uses his last point of might to strike up. Theoden rolls to fight 10, but Glorfindel only strikes to 8. 4 wounds are put on Glorfindel, but he passes two fate rolls and so survives into the next turn.

Dernhelm sorta just screwin' around on the flanks.

With no might left on Andrew's side of the the board, it becomes a real melee. Theoden and the Royal Guard face Glorfindel alone as Andrew peels Eomer off with a spearman. Theoden uses his last point of might to Strike up, and only rolls a 2- tying Glorfindel! But, unfortunately for Andrew, the elven blade does not win him the tie and Glorfindel goes down. 

Hey check it out, it's Dernhelm!

As we move into the late game, Rivendell is broken and Rohan moves to do some mop up. Suddenly Rohan's dice go absolutely wild and elves die in droves on the last turn of the game before either one of us can really position to hold objectives. When assessing the board, I did not think it possible the game would end that turn, but rather that there was at least one more... then the throwing spears became laser guided tomahawks and Andrew's dice went ultra cold.

The final result was a 4-2 victory for Rohan. Rohan had 2 points for the leader kill, 1 point for holding the rear objective, and 1 point for breaking Rivendell. Rivendell scored 1 point for the leader wound, and 1 point for holding the rear objective.

I'll be honest, I think there were more than a few weird dice flukes in this game... BUT that is exactly the type of thing small dice pools allow for. Thankfully they went my way in this game... we'll see how they do when we play our "for real" league game on Sunday.