I recently fought a great battle with my Uruk-hai against the “indestructible” Dwarves and was very pleased with the outcome, especially since I consider Dwarves to be a “top tier” force (I have lost to them many times and they are terribly popular in my region) and our luck with the dice was roughly the same (although his rolling was worse when it came to reinforcements). I would do a normal battle report except I do not have the technical abilities to make decent electronic maps
and it is difficult to remember all of the events that happened in each turn (and even harder to do them justice without maps).
Here are the two armies:
Legion of the White Hand
Uruk-hai Captain – Heavy Armor – Shield
Uruk-hai Warrior – Shield – 8x
Uruk-hai Warrior – Pike – 10x
Uruk-hai Berserker – 3x
Uruk-hai Scout – Shield – 5x
Uruk-hai Scout – Orc Bow – 5x
2 Might / 32 Models / 5 Orc Bows / [375] Points
Erebor
Gimli
Dwarf Warrior – Shield – 8x
Dwarf Warrior – Dwarf Bow – 9x
Dwarf Warrior – Two-handed Axe – 4x
Iron Guard – 3x
Khazad Guard – 5x
3 Might / 30 Models / 9 Dwarf Bows / [375] Points
Scenario:
The game represented a Legion of the White Hand attacking a Dwarf hold. The scenario was the same as “Osgiliath” in the Two Towers Journey Book with the following rules:
-The game would end after 9 turns rather than 12 turns. (We only had about an hour to do the game)
-All the rules applying to Frodo, Sam, Smeagol, the Ring Wraith (including the one use wail) ect… were not used.
-Reinforcements and the way the sides deployed were still utilized. This means Evil deployed first on up to three table edges and Good could deploy almost anywhere on the map. Reinforcements could enter in on any table edge but could not charge.
-375 points were used and we each had to take one Hero.
- The Objective was to control at least two buildings by the end of turn 9. Control was achieved by being the only one with models on the base of the building or having twice as many models on a building's base as the opponent.
Map:
The map had three ruined stone buildings. One was due west, the other in the north, and the last one in the south-east. They were all equal distances from one another (about 14 inches). The buildings had no roofs and only two walls (at best). There were ladders in place to various floors in the buildings. There was also a large clump of ruined statues in the middle of the map and some rubble scattered about.
Deployment:
Isengard:
-Southern Board Edge: 8x Uruk-hai Warrior - Shield, 10x Uruk-hai Warrior – Pike, Uruk-hai Captain, 2x Uruk-hai Berserker
-Western Board Edge: 5x Uruk-hai Scout – Shields, 5x Uruk-hai Scout – Orc Bow, 1x Uruk-hai Berserker
Erebor:
-South-Eastern Building: Gimli, 5x Khazad-Guard, 3x Iron Guard, 3x Dwarf Warrior-Shield
-Western Building: 7x Dwarf Warrior – Dwarf Bow, 2x Dwarf Warrior - Two-handed Axe
-Northern Building: 2x Dwarf Warrior – Dwarf Bow, 2x Dwarf Warrior - Two-handed Axe, 5x Dwarf Warrior-Shield
Damage Record:
NOTE: Yes, these numbers are accurate. My opponent and I spent a few minutes after the game tallying the death toll.
Good:
20 Dwarves slain – 12 did not return as reinforcements (ie "permanent" death)
Gimli – Suffered 1 wound – Used 2 Might
Evil:
5 Uruk-hai slain – 1 did not return as reinforcement (ie "permanent" death)
Uruk-hai Captain – Suffered 1 Wound – Used 1 Might
Result:
Decisive Victory for Evil
-2 Buildings controlled by Evil
-1 Building controlled by Good
Conclusion:
This was a really great battle to play and a lot of the outcome was a result of a very good tactical decision I made early on and the very poor one my opponent made. From the start I knew I was going to focus on controlling only two buildings. Furthermore, my southern deployment force was set up in such a way that I could easily break part of them off to focus on one or the other of my two target buildings (almost all ended up focusing on the south-eastern building).
Even though the rules forced me to deploy my force first my opponent essentially broke up his force into three equal parts, each in a different building. The south-eastern force was his “elites” along with Gimli while the western were mostly his archers and the rest were in the north. It was smart to leave at least a few models in one building since reinforcements can move in from any table edge. However, splitting up his forces almost equally caused him a very serious problem early on when the weight of my numbers (and my ability to focus attacks with Pikes while his force had no supporting warriors with pikes/spears) caused considerable damage. He ended up moving most of the northern force to the south-eastern building but it took them four turns to get into combat (Dwarves have short legs).
The Dwarf player was a tad reckless with his archers (getting them into close combat rather than stay high in the building and shooting) and a tad aggressive overall. Most of the fighting occurred outside of the buildings as he rushed his Dwarves out. This was not a horrible idea since his goal was to tie me up outside of the buildings with his high defense models and hold out until the game ended (thereby maintaining control of the building). The buildings (as already stated) were little more than ruins and did not provide much cover so there was little defensive value to them. However, he simply failed to initially deploy enough warriors at the two combat zones for such a tactic to work.
Meanwhile, I did a good job of concentrating attacks, trapping models, hitting his defense 7 models with my Berserkers/Uruk-hai Captain, “feeding” Gimli only one warrior when I could, and making sure I had plenty of available models to rush into the two buildings on the final turn. It was very refreshing to see such a high casualty rate among the Dwarves
but not all surprising considering the numerical advantage I brought to bear early on in the game. This advantage only increased as time went on. In short, the battle was a great example of how important deployment and force concentration is.
Again, it was a great battle and I wished I could do a regular report. I hope you enjoyed reading about the set up and results.
So now I want to post the “what if” question. How do you think the outcome would have been affected if we had of deployed different or taken a different composition of warriors? How would you have fought the battle if you were Isengard or Erebor?
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