War of the Ring: take the Halflings to Saruman!

Hello, i finnally could finsish two decent initial Forces to battle in Middle Earth: a raiding force of White Hand´s Uruk Hai  into Rohan lands with two special prisoners , (I gave them some support in form of Mordor goblins)  and some units of Mounted rohirrim under the command of Eomer, Marshal of teh Mark, exiled by king Theoden under inluence of Saruman´s agent, Grima Wormtongue

The uruk Hai commanded by their leader "Ugluk" need to scape back to Isengard domains with captured hobbits Merry and Pippin,  before the Rohirrim falls on them

I wnated to test this "War of the Ring" beautiful Games Workshop rulebook since some months ago.. (found it very cheap in ebay)

It is a very compact book, really thick with many details, (and gladly including complete army lists and profiles for every faction , race or realm, and many charahcters appearing in the books and movies , as well as many pre-determined game scenarios and lots of beautiful pictures of Games Wokshop nice -and expemsive- LOTR range figures)

At least the "basics" are not very difficult, although at the beggining we experimented some trouble to have in mind a lot of bonus and modifiers and opions pof the special charahcters, as explained later

Actually, at the end only a single dice roll is needed in every shot or close fight! .. What you need for sure is lots of dice as every bonus menas more dice to eh "core" attack value (usually  8 dice for infantry and 2 dice for cavalry when not charging) That meant, good agility in the fights, once you have clear the amount of dice to use 

Let me show you first a good shot of the 1/72 uruk hai forces invading Rohan. (no part of the game still, but good ambientation anyway) 

We agreed a narrative scenario proposed in the Rulebook: 

A "medium" Isengard army  including the prisoners will be starting in the middle of the table, but leaving one side (the wetsern side) totaly unoccupied.

Army list (4 initial formations, around 80 man and 1 reinfrcemtns 

- Ugluk raiders (3 companies)

-Uruk hai scouts (3 companies)

-Uruk hai scouts (3 companies)

After Isnegard deploy, all Rohan forces  (4 units having around 30 mounted men) can be deployed anyway around them , keeping a mimimun distance of 12 (we played cm instead of inches, it worked fine in our small Table) 

At the beggining of turn 3, reinforcements for Isengard arrive: further 24 warriors, can be deployed at any table edge

-Isengard objetive: Leaving the table in the furthest edge with the unit which inclued the hobbits, In case of trouble thes eprisioners can be moved to a iddferent near unit. If the uruk unit keeping Merry and Pippin is slain, the hobbits are free and must move to the Woods (no interaction with rohan riderss, they are busy with the half orcs!)  In the meanwhile however they might be re-capturted by any another nearly not-fighting uruk or goblin unit ...

-Rohan objective: eliminate 2/3 or the Isengard initial force. That means automatic victory. Eomer must however survive

This is how the battle starrted: two uruk formartions giving front line to the scape way (direction West), some goblin archers in support between them 

Third uruk formation in third line as contention force..

Two unit of Rohan riders deployed in front of them  (one of them inlcuding Eomer himself) in order to charge and cointain the scaping march of Ugluk to  the West border, while also two units could attack and harrash the enemy flank from the north

It is part of the game that each player must roll their "initiative" in every round, so you can activate before the oponent or leave him if it interetss you.. That breaks all your strategies for sure, I can swear...

First of all In the north, the Rohirim commanded by Eomer, supported by 2nd Unit in the nort were able to made a succesful double charge fornt- flank to the uruk hai sh  .. However, altought an evil company fell, the  half-orcs resisted too hard (I relaize the defense level was too high in this warriors... very difficult to kill all time. and  as I also relaized later, my men were not having all his capacities at full because of our misreading of the rules, i forgot to add many attack dice!!)

2 Turns were on in this fight and only half of the uruk unit was destroyed while the rohirrim also suffrered several casualties

Things went however much worse in the south: When the captain of the 3tr  Rohan unit ( a guy with big red beard) tried to charge, he found an unexpected "furiocious charte" of the uruks as an ability of theuir leader Uglik,, It was  adisaster for the humans, many casualties, no counter damage , so therefore and suddnely only three brave but defetaed men stood against 3 full companies of uruks

it was too much for the men of  "Red Beard", they were killed till the last man... The way was totally free for the run of Uglik with the hobbts!!!  defeat of the Rohan strategy in this very single moment!!!!

In the north, The double charge was  destroying the uruk formation very slowly, and time was running..  Even Eomer used a might point to engance his Fughting value with an Epic strike and challenged the uruk leader to a Heroic duel.. Which was horribly lost rolling "1! in 1d6!!! Bad luck!!

However some more uruks were falling 

The goblins were making many free shots and taking causalties (also my friend made some cheating using some unallowed abilaities, as I realized too late)

the last Rohan unit, a light-cavalry outrider unit was making some skirmish but not risking so much after the recent defeat of poor " captain "Red Beard" .. rest of uruk and golbins diregarded them and advanced to jpinf the main party 

In the third turn, Mahaur marauders appear in the north and  threathen the rear of 2nd Rohan unit!!







This second unit captain "Green Shield" had some luck, as altough he did not destroy the remaining uruks, they becacme disordered (signaled by the red D4) so that they were much worse at fight; and then he planned the scape before Mauhur reinforcements could hit on his rear...

Truth was that the situation was going very bad for Eomer... He made their men to turn back and hurry trying to intercept the scaping uruks whoi had not oppositon...

Those orc scum are scaping, go fot them!!!

The 2nd Rohan unit and his brave Captain "Green Shield" , were able to make their planned  retreat manouver as otherwise they would have been soon surrounded and hammered between the resisitng original uruk unit and the upcoming reinforcement .. The were even able later  to decimate still the disordered uruk unit form other attack point and killjing their leader on a succesful heroic duel this time

 Here Green Leader, to all riders We are surrounded, evasive manouver!!

Grrrr humans run!!!!!!

The outriders were most of the time not very useful,.. They shot some times, making some causalties.. they finally decided to charge at least on the back of some uruks.. As I had learnt that I had mucho more charge dice than previusly calculated, results were vident; 2 evil companies were destroyed!! However in the next round, the uruk unit spent a might pont to make an "heoric charge" and counter attack my try, so the poor rohan riders were also defeated..

At the very end, only Eomer unit was able to pursue  Ugluk and the hobbits...

Thet could make a hard charge on Ugluks unit rear!!! This time we used all the potential of dice and the comnpanies wer eperfectly arrayed.. Good amount of causaklties among the uruk, losing a full comnpany (only one company rmeiaing for Tohan to achieve the 2/3 goal!! but in the nex round priority went to my friend Gabi, uIsnegard player..

The scaping uruks made again a "double" movmenet facing again theis prosecutors.. They were already too far to be intecrepted by a charge...

That means, the uruk could scape form the table, and Eomer had to flee as Mauhur reinforcements  were arriving at his very back! The battle was over, a victory for Isnegard just when only one enemy company had to be destriyed still (7/8 achieved)

How will be the rest of the Story of The Fellowship and the War of the ring form now on..?

PS- We had a lot of fun, story was good and rythm was fast (5 rounds and everytinh was over) but we found a lot of difficulties in this very first game to have all rules on mind

I was playing as the Rohan riders , and forgot many details and advantages of my troops all the time, which could have turned the result in other way ( I could have shot every round AND charge with my men  as rohirrim ar expert natural horsmen, I also did not relaize I was adding too little extra dice because of charging until I made the final succesful charge to the proud Uruks who suffered the destruction of one company in one strike ..)  Of course I also did not relaize I could re-roll some misses with my Standard bearers..  and so on

Added to many bad dice results (a heroic duel level 10 Vs level 5 was humiliatingly lost rolling "1" in D6) and a very bad encounter when the "containing" rohirrim unit  suffered the unexpected furiocous charge of Ugluk instead of charging.... 

And also my friend, as a good Saruman follower,  cheated several times, as he made the uruk scape from the fight too fast; not apllying the 6 cm penalty , specially designed to avoid this kind of magical disengagements!!! (I guess I was too tired by then to realize that) ,; an also giving the goblins too shot power when not avoided

Well, Rohan lost but at least  unfortunate but brave Eomer has survived..  As a compensation for the continous cheating and disadvantage, lets hope he rallied some fled more men to finish the scaping orcs later !! Merry and Pippin must suffer still for a while until then... 

 More stories soon...