We have quite a doozy for you today! First, I should mention, I intend to give this Rivendell list a break soon. There has been the ongoing escalation league and this has been my list- but the final for that is coming up soon so there should be a bit more variety around these parts!
First up, Andrew's Mordor list which will look familiar from our last outing.
The mission is assassination. My target is Kardush and my assassin is Erestor. Not sure why I didn't choose Boromir, to be honest, except that I assumed Andrew would focus on him.
In fact, as I found out quickly, Erestor was Andrew's target while the Troll Chieftain was his assassin.
Deployment is pretty normal. Given that he can deploy right up to the center, I decided to give myself a few rounds of bow fire before we clashed.
Standard elven battle line formation.
Just a straight up horde of orcses.
Top of two. Bowfire dropped 3 of Andrew's 4 trackers (after two saves to channeled fury). Kardush slurped up the lifeforce of the 4th tracker.
Top of 3. On the previous turn, Guritz called a march and Rivendell pulled back just a hair out of charge range.
By the end of turn 3, however, massed bow-fire takes down the Witch King's mount! I figured if it's all Morannons on the front line and I need 6s, I might as well shoot for the moon. I was hoping to get lucky and strip away some fate from the Witch King, but killing the Fell Beast really limits Andrew's options.
On the top of turn 4. The lines are finally about to clash.
And clash they do! Boromir tries to reposition to push to the far flank in hopes that he, Glorfindel, and the Knights can push a breakthrough while I can keep the troll fed just enough to tie him up.
Over the next few turns the battle develops. Glorfindel burns through his might, but cuts through some warriors on the left before bogging down on Defense 6 Numenoreans and Morannons. Boromir is an absolute machine, killing a few orcs a turn and heroic combatting. By now, I realize Erestor is Andrew's target as he becomes the focus for Black Darts and Flame bolts... but his luck holds. He pushes forward cutting through Andrew's line.
Glorfindel and the cavalry desperately try to force a hole in the line.
But the D6 is just too hard to punch through. Glorfindel has multiple turns of causing no wounds.
As we reach the mid game both sides suffer losses. Andrew catches my banner out without a buddy and black darts him. Boromir calls heroic combats every turn, and is chewing through warriors. Erestor is holding his own- and the troll is being kept fed with warriors.
Boromir heroic combats... and both morannons live thanks to channeled fury. Frustrating! Although in hindsight we may have done this slightly incorrectly, as Boromir had 8 dice looking for 5s and we only rolled fury once to see if the model survived rather than once per wound.
As we enter the late game, both forces are broken. Andrew is throwing everything at Erestor and he is hanging by a thread. The troll is working his way towards him but Glorfindel and Boromir are bogged down.
The game continues for a few turns as both forces keep falling apart.
The Witch King flees the field, but Kardush' fury keeps the orcs in line. But then the troll reaches Erestor... and the result is unsurprising.
Dramatically, after Erestor falls to the Troll, the game ends. Ouch!
The final tally is 7 VP for Mordor for killing their target with their assassin, and 1 VP for breaking Rivendell. Rivendell scores 2 VP for killing the Witch King (or... well.. making him flee in terror), and 1 VP for breaking the Mordor force.
Closing Thoughts: Man, Morannons are just a strong match up against elves! I often consider two-handing, but the chance of losing the fight is scary when Morannons wound on a 5+! A little math-breakdown here.
Edited: Leaving my bad maths for posterity, but it's actually worse! Morannons are a very favorable matchup vs elves. An elf with the front line feinting and two-handing makes the fight roughly a coin toss with similar odds to win/wound.
- Statistically speaking a 2-deep battle line of elves (front rank and spear) vs a 2-deep battle line of Morannons (or any model with lower fight) has a 61% chance of winning. Followed by a mere 33% chance to roll a wound (Including a feint which doesn't add much).
- Conversely, the Morannons win 39% of their fights, but have a 44% chance of causing a wound (excluding special strikes)
- Thus, in any given fight elves have a 19% chance of causing a wound while Morannons have a 17% chance of causing a wound. Pretty even matchup- especially when you consider that elves are outnumbered.
All of this math might be wildly off- please don't hesitate to correct me!
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