Even though they aren't superb, I've been really enjoying seeing the Grey Company on the table lately. With my new Three Hunters, and recently completed Isengard, Andrew took the army of the white hand and we set about playing a match! Andrew veto'd Contest of Champions and I veto'd Control the Battlefield, leaving us with To the Death.
11 models... not a huge force by any means! But, there's a whole heap of might on the board.
Andrew's list. Man, Grima is absolutely devastating to this list!
The battle is set! Outnumbered 4:1. Ouch!
I've removed the trees just for playability- but the stumps mark their locations.
That's a whole lot of Isengard coming my way.
Early on, my strategy was to not let Andrew get crossbow shots. I backed away and peppered his lines. On turn one, I spent 3 might from Rangers but dropped 4 wargs. Plenty of might to go around!
On Andrew's flank, Lurtz calls a march to try to wrap around through the village.
On the next turn, more bow fire drops 4 crossbows!
Finally, the lines clash! Man, Grima is really cramping my heroic combat style!
It really just devolves into fighting all over the place! Lurtz and Vrasku burn off might. For the most part the Rangers are wrecking.. but as the Uruks get into the fight and cause traps, we do start suffering some losses.
Aragorn has his back up against the house and keeps getting surrounded by orcs. He catastrophically fails a combat (rolling a 2 high on 4 dice), then proceeds to fail all of his fate rolls. In one turn he loses all his fate and is on 1 wound remaining. Ouch.
The twins and Gimli are tearing it up! Isengard nears broken, but of course most of their force won't suffer until they are at 1/3.
One by one Lurtz and a mob of uruks pick off my rangers as the rest of my force is tearing through orcs and uruks.
Approaching the late game. The Rangers are surrounded, but the orcs are nearly cleared out. Isengard tips past the halfway point but clever movement from Saruman keeps them standing fast. Saruman blasts Halbarad and then Lurtz absolutely destroys him. This costs me my banner and valuable re-rolls!
Aragorn continues to survive and chews through orcs. His free might is saved for duels and wound rolls each turn, except for the one catastrophe, he fares okay.
The Rangers are down to about half models remaining. Legolas is out of Might. The Twins are standing strong alongside Gimli, and two rangers remain with no might.
Heading into the final turns, Legolas finds himself surrounded and killed. One of the rangers dies to Uruks.
Saruman flame blasts and kills Aragorn. With Gimli and the twins left and Andrew still pretty far from quartered, we call the game.
Andrew scores 2 VPs for having a banner standing, 3 VPs for breaking the Grey Company, 3 VPs for killing Aragorn, and 3 VPs for quartering me (In hindsight we probably should have played this out as he was a bit closer and I did have a bit of might left... but with Saruman running free and just 3 heroes left it would've been an outside chance. Still, these 3 may have swung to me but it wouldn't have changed the game outcme).
I score 3 VPs for breaking Isengard. See above, where it could have possibly swung to 6.
Closing Thoughts: Honestly, this was a fantastically fun game that really could've swung either way! The rangers are tough to use, and had Grima not been right in the center of my force I would've been marching and shooting the whole time and really delaying us getting into combat. I really did enjoy having so much might and so many heroes; even being outnumbered. I kinda want to run them more and really get a feel for how to get the most out of them. Well played to Andrew; he kept the pressure on me and used Saruman expertly. He never let Legolas get a shot on his horse, and really prioritized his spells. Great game of MESBG!
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