Getting straight to the pointy ears: 2nd LotR battle of the Ouestfolde Tourney

Battle 2: “Take & hold!”

Main objective: capture 3 fixed objectives and control them undisputedly.
Secondary objective: keep the general near the central objective.

After having psychologically blocked-out the memories of the Ouestfolde (sic) Tourney for over a month, I think it’s about time I carried on the tale of this great clash of armies.

As you’ll remember, after much frustration at not being able to get at the objective due to a corner section of wall and a particularly tenacious troll, I managed to just scrape a minor victory in the first battle by successfully getting half my army –not one man more, not one man fewer- across the enemy’s table edge. I was therefore eager to get stuck into the next battle, in order to gain extra tourney points; I had come to win.

The second battle pitched my valiant Rohirrim against the pointy-eared skirt-wearing tree-hugging eco-warriors known as the Galadhrim of Lothlorien. I hope my opponent will forgive me; so much time has past that I can’t remember anyone’s name.

Unluckily for me, the battle took place at night, so my riders would only have half their movement rate. Unluckily for him, fighting in the dark meant that his archers would only have the same range as my javelins.

Out of the night, they came!

The battlefield was littered with several large dragon bones, which made forming a single battle line impossible. I split my force into 3 divisions; the first, led by the King, would go straight up the centre and secure the objective in the middle of the battlefield. The second would take the objective on my right, anchoring its flank against a massive dragon’s skull. The third, my cavalry and a couple of javelins, would go around the skull and take the enemy in the rear. The elves would thus be caught up in a firmly established killing ground (area marked in black on the first image), between the King’s men, the captain’s unit and the flanking cavalry to the rear. Once I had dealt with his main body of men, I would then send a few warriors to capture the final objective.My adversary had a large mass of dragon bones on his left, which meant that his only way of sending a large squad to hold the objective on my left would mean putting them way out of his right, away from all the fighting. He therefore decided to concentrate all his forces in one area, mirroring to some extent my own deployment. I was feeling pretty confident; all those points he’d spent on bows for those expert elf archers would be pretty much useless, whereas my javelins would still have all their potential. On top of that, during a test game 3 days earlier, my Rohirrim had completely trounced the Frog (Shas’El’Hek’Tryk) using Limey’s elves, so I knew that my warriors could hold their own against elves.

Take out their archers and meet me in the middle!

I sent my men forwards and they duly took up their positions. Of course, the objectives being equidistant between my lines and the enemy’s, we both got to the central objective at the same time. I just managed to get to the objective on my right slightly ahead of my opponent, but his troops were so close that that objective was obviously being contested. He sent 2 men to the objective on my left. I had plenty of time and decided to deal with them later, want wanted to spread the fighting to a third place, as that would dilute the effect of my killing ground.
The elven archers stayed slightly behind, either to serve as a tactical reserve or to deal with my cavalry. Unfortunately for them, it was my cavalry which dealt with them, taking them out relatively easily, before falling on the rear of his army, as planned.

Despite my javelins in the centre managing to disrupt his lines quite effectively, the rest of my warriors were simply failing to make any real impact. The fight was set to last quite a while yet.

And then came the shout I least wanted to hear…”Last turn!”

What??? The organisers, naturally having to juggle with the lunch break, decided to cut the battle short, by at least half an hour.

Result of the battle: the central and right objectives were being contested. I hadn’t had time to get a detachment over to deal with the 2 elves at the objective on my left. Both generals had stayed in the centre, so my adversary won 1-0.

That’ll teach me to deal with all objectives right away. Time is a variable which could have gone either way.

Primary objective Rohan: 0 objectives. Elves: 1 objective.
Secondary objective Rohan: success. Elves: success.
RESULT: Minor victory for the Elves