It had been quite a while since the Dark Lord Sauron saw the tabletop, and he has yet to make an in-game appearance on this blog so I was happy to play him! Andrew and I rolled randomly for armies, and he came up with The Grey Company.
Normally, the Grey Company is tedious to run due to tracking all the stats, but after stealing some loom bands from my daughter, we came up with a much simpler method. A red band for might having been spent, a green for fate, and a blue for will. Boom, done.
Ugh, man. Sauron being 400 points is rough. I left 6 points on the table because both warbands were full, but I was excited for the Black Numenorean Marshal.
Andrew's list was only 15 models, but 23 might plus Aragorn's freebie? Could be nasty!
For scenarios, we rolled up Heirloom of ages Past (which I veto'd) and Contest of Champions (which Andrew veto'd... more on that later). That left us with Destroy the Supplies.
The board! Man,
that elven tower is beautiful. With my overwhelming numbers and a drum, I knew the fight would be on Andrew's side of the board.
This is it! This is every single one of Andrew's models.
Just an absolute horde of orcses.
With plenty of cav to keep the pressure up on Andrew.
And finally a drum to make everything work. I didn't mind Sauron trailing the army, and the Marshal could still keep up with the infantry.
The first turn of shooting saw Andrew un-warg three of my Warg riders.
Sauron was just out of spellcasting range on turn 1.
On turn 2, Andrew called a heroic resolve with Aragorn, and Sauron failed to get a drain will off on him. Andrew's turn 2 shooting was totally ineffective.
On turn 3, the lines clash! I have a warg rider kill a ranger with a throwing spear and land on the objective. Orcs swarm on the right-most objective which is protected by the Twins and a handful of rangers.
the twins fight back to back, ready to slice through the thralls of Mordor.
On the left flank, a Warg Rider charges the Ranger tasked with holding the objective, and defeats him in combat.
In the center, the lines clash with Halbarad and Aragorn holding strong. Andrew has no choice but to give up the left most objective on the following turn.
On the other objective, Sauron decides to focus his attention there. He tries to hit Elladan with a Chill Soul, but Elladan resists with both will, gaining one back on the roll of a 6. Then Elladan loses a fight to two orcs; and after spending both fate and 1 might is left with one wound!
The central objective is just obscured by the darker tree. Andrew's right flank is starting to collapse; but orcs are starting to die in droves.
Aragorn cannot get a heroic combat to go off. Both sides suffer casualties but Andrew is very much keeping the central objective alive.
On the right, Orcs dwindle. Sauron is engaged by a Ranger and... loses the fight.
The Black Numenorean Marshall, after having taken down 3 rangers, charges into Aragorn being just shy of getting onto the objective.
As orcs fall around him, Sauron continues to do nothing. Calling a Heroic move and trying to hit Elladan with a Chill Soul... rolls the 4 high and Elladan spends his last Will to successfully resist it. Elladan is now left with no might, no will, no fate, and 1 wound remaining.
All of a sudden we realize Barad Dur is dangerously close to quartered. Of course, breaking them is tough, but the game may draw to a close. Andrew knows if he kills my banner and quarters me quickly he can eke out a draw. And, if he can get a cheeky wound on Sauron, even a victory! Aragorn is able to tie up the Marshal and my banner. He successfully kills the banner and un-horses the Marshal! If Halbarad can survive, Andrew can get the banner points!
Elrohir bravely faces the Dark Lord- winning the fight but failing to wound.
But my right flank has totally collapsed.
Andrew ties up Sauron for another turn with Elrohir. Spectacularly, Barad Dur ends the turn 1 away from quartered.
But brave Halbarad holding the objective against all odds...
falls to too many Orc blades.
The Grey Company finds themselves broken and unfortunately I failed to get pictures of two turns in a row where the Twins and 2 rangers trap Sauron and beat him. Across two turns, Andrew rolls 40 dice needing a 6/5 to score even 1 wound... and rolls a single 6 on those 40 dice. Sauron survives unscathed.
Aragorn loses a fight while surrounded and trapped. I roll 5 wounds and Andrew passes all 3 fate keeping Aragorn alive on the same turn that I lose one final orc to quarter me.
Whew! This actually came a lot closer than I expected. At one point a draw looked very possible, but then Andrew tipped past broken (2 VPs for Barad Dur as we were not broken), Halbarad died, and Aragorn lost an important fight to get wounded (1 VP). Finally, I did managed to score one objective for 2 VP more.
5-0 in a game that really got quite interesting towards the end!
Closing Thoughts: Honestly, using bands to track the Rangers was WAY BETTER than trying to check the marks on their bases. All of a sudden I'm excited to give them a shot.
Sauron killed one ranger all game. Not one spell went off, and he lost 4 out of the 5 fights he was engaged in. Whoof. BUT overall my dice weren't too bad unlike Andrew who had characteristically horrible dice. I think had his dice been more average this would've been a lot closer.
On that note, in hindsight, I think we both realized Contest of Champions may have actually been a better choice for Andrew. Having to spread over 3 objectives was a tough order- but with all of his might he could've made something happen in a straight up fight.
All in all a fun one and I look forward to more!
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I am trying to catch up on your posts and I was reading this one I thought... Numenorean Marshal? I think I have that. Sure enough, quarteremaster 3D!
ReplyDeleteIt's a great model! I think the file is intended to be a Nazgul, but works great as the black num marshal... just wish he had a lance!
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