Minas Tirith vs The Last Alliance in Lords of Battle at 600 points.

 We've been doing quite a bit at 600 lately! It had been a while since I ran my Minas Tirith forces and Andrew was eager to give Gil-Galad and Elendil a shot so... we did just that.

Those are some VERY killy heroes. But I like having the numbers AND Andrew has no bows.

Lots of bows to keep 'em honest and high defense... but the list definitely lacks in killing power.

These lists, as always, provided by Andrew's awesome Tabletop Admiral!

Initial deployment. My plan was to dance around as long as I could do pepper Andrew's lines with ranged weapons.

These F6 Kings' Guard really crampin' my style with the banner.

The boys are ready to hold the line.

The big bozza himself.

I do some shimmying around for the first few turns, and Andrew does his best to minimize bow fire.

With two different maneuver elements I would ideally have them strike at the same time. Traps are going to make the difference for me here.

But my rangers get a bit out of position...

Though they successfully take down Elendil's horse which I will not complain about! Madril then puts a wound on Elendil in the same round (needing 6/5 to wound!). Pretty decent opening shots!

Gilly G and his retinue move in.

Finally the lines smash into each other. I am up 6 or 7 casualties mostly from bowfire at this point.

The front line is scattered as my reserve force pours through the gap behind the Last Alliance's lines.

And then Elendil and Gil-Galad get into combat and score 7 wounds between them in one turn. Ouch.

Elendil and Gil-Galad tear through my troops, with Andrew closing the gap in wounds very quickly.

For the next few turns we remain neck and neck with Andrew pulling out slightly ahead...

Before Elendil completely whiffs and I take him down with a charging knight and a trap of warriors... major victory for me there.

As we head into the end game we are tied on 18 wounds. Andrew has an unscathed Gil-Galad and a handful of warriors left. Both lists are broken, but the game goes on for a few turns.

Gil-Galad in my rear wrecking house. We are tied on wounds for 3 turns straight. If the game had ended at any point here it would have been a 1-1 draw.

GG heroic combats into Madril and annihilates him earning a might point back. editor's note- he should have gotten two back here, as I think we overlooked one of the ways he gets it (Blood and Glory and the mission special rule). 

Luck goes my way and I kill every other model of Andrew's except for Gil-Galad. Further, my Knights are able to charge him, negating his charge bonuses.

On the final turn of the game, Gil-Galad whiffs on a 4 high in the duel, and we kill his horse and land one wound on him, putting me two wounds up in the final tally and earning leader wound VPs.

With more wounds dealt, Minas Tirith earns 3 VPs. With a leader wound, we score another 1 VP. Finally, The Last Alliance if broken for 1 VP.

Minas Tirith is also broken earning the Last alliance 1 VP. This makes the final score a 5-1 to Minas Tirith.

Closing Thoughts: What a crazy close game. It wound up being pretty awesome and honestly, came down to that very last duel. I'm fairly certain Andrew rolled a 4 high so the extra missed might may not have made a difference there, but bummer we missed that. Easily could've gone either way.

I need a tattoo that says "MESBG games are not over till they're totally over." I was convinced I was done when Andrew had 4 F6 elves and Gilly G left and was up on wounds. Gil-Galad tearing through my lines seemed completely unstoppable. So, I did the thing where I was nearly ready to call it, then won- my most toxic gaming behavior that I really need to move past. Apologies to Andrew once again for that. 

I do like this list. Boromir is clutch. It's a little grindy, with only Boromir having S3 and not a lot of other killiness (except for the knights) but it's fun to play! For future iterations I'll probably play with the ratio of Knights since the extra banner was totally redundant.