Andrew and I wanted to see some more Angmar on the board- but chose to leave Gulavhar at home. Having just seen Theodred's Guard do its thing against Mordor, I was pretty nervous that their throwing spears would just wreck my regular orcs!
Pretty normal orc horde with some spirits. Of course... everyone in Theodred's Guard has Sworn Protector!
Spoilers: I choose Grimbold as my target, my Shaman as my chosen, and the ruin in Andrew's board on my left as my target terrain piece. Andrew has chosen one of my Barrow Wights (the one on my left) as his target. He's chosen Elfhelm to keep alive. He chose the ruin on my right flank as his target.
So. Many. Throwing. Spears.
The lines start to close! I know I need to get into combat ASAP...
But more importantly, I know the weight of the game is on the Witch King's shoulders. I *have* to kill Theodred with magic to have any hope. With him alive, my army bonus and my Dead Marsh Spectres are nullified. On the other hand, if I can kill Theodred and keep the Witch King alive, Harbinger of Evil will really hurt Rohan and let me dictate fights.
So the witch King commits and scores an early wound on Theodred. I use Wither from my Shaman to bring him down to Strength 2 over two wounds. Editor's Note- Andrew pulled Theodred back here, but we both misremembered he HAS to charge. May have wound up better for him overall had he done so! He might have been able to cleverly block himself to prevent it, though. Hard to remember the exact situation.
As the lines smash into each other, the Witch King puts down Theodred on his third black dart. With Theodred dead, Angmar has a huge leg up... but things get worse for Rohan when Andrews dice suddenly and spectacularly fail him. Across 10+ duels he doesn't roll higher than a 3.
My dead Marsh Spectre sends his banner out of the fight on the left.
The ensuing turns see the two sides clobber each other pretty spectacularly. The Witch King is out of Might (having used some for Heroic moves and others to ensure the black darts on Theodred).
A Barrow Wight paralyzes Elfhelmn who falls off his horse. Sporadic fighting across the front continues as both sides head towards being broken.
Now my Terror rules are coming into the play and the Witch King's central location sees Andrew failing plenty of Terror checks, allowing me to trap on fights. They're still regular crummy orcs, so we both still suffer plenty of losses.
Andrew works to protect paralysed Elfhelm. I struggle to land any wounds on him.
Both sides break on the same turn... but Andrew wins priority and loses tons of models to courage checks including my target Grimbold. Ouch.
Elfhelm stands back up, ready to fight...
But the game comes to a close after I manage to sneak a Warg onto my target terrain.
In the end Angmar scores
3 VPs for killing (Well- forcing to flee?) Grimbold.
3 VPs for protecting the Shaman (he's totally hidden in my backfield)
3 VPs for tagging my terrain piece. (Does that count? I think it might say "fully within"? Maybe it doesn't?
1 VP for breaking Rohan.
Theodred's Guard scores
1 VP for breaking Angmar.
3 VP for protecting Elfhelm.
But, Rohan is heartbreakingly close- his target Barrow Wight is 1 wound away, and losing Grimbold to courage is a real bummer.
10-4 in Angmar's favor.
Closing Thoughts: This was a fun game! It felt like a ton of models which is normal for 700 points I suppose. I like but don't love playing Angmar. It's fun to have magic that your opponent can't do much about... but they lack a big hero beatstick to smash the enemy lines. The troll did do some work though, probably close to earning his points back in kills over all. With a mere 4 might in this list... I can't imagine this Angmar list is hugely competitive overall, but it was pretty neat to see!
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