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

So it begins… [LotR Battle Rep!]

After much dithering, I’ve finally led my men through a tourney; the Ouestfolde (sic) Lord of the Rings Tourney in Brittany!

Some frantic painting at Midnight on the eve of battle allowed me to field my planned list in full; I don’t think too many people noticed the missing details on several of the models, given how many tactics and strategies were going through our minds. Note that I've named my captain Hygbeorn.

This was my first tourney, but I took great pleasure in beating the Frog, who usually bests me, during a practice run 4 days before the tourney; both of us used our tourney lists.

After sallying forth to Rennes from our stronghold in Nantes, city of the Dukes of Brittany, the Frog, his cousin (King in the Moria) and I arrived to press our rights through military strength on the local populace. We were greeted by a room full of nicely decorated tables, enthusiastic enemies and the sound of “Waaaarrgh!!!” cries as Warhammer 40K players battled it out beside us. A cup of coffee, a can of energy drink and I was ready to take on my foe.

What follows is my account of the first of the four battles.

Battle 1: “Bring him to me!”

Main objective: Capture a spy and take him across the enemy’s table edge. The spy moves randomly (2D6 & dispersion die).
Secondary objective: Get half your men across the enemy’s table edge.

In this battle, my valiant Rohirrim fittingly came up against Valentin’s Uruk-Hai of Isengard. The spy was placed in the centre of the table, in some ruins which had 2 walls; one closed corner facing towards one table edge, one open corner facing the other edge. My opponent won the roll to choose sides and wisely decided to take the side with open access to the ruins.

I formed by battle line up so as to send one of my wedges around each side of the ruins. He placed his main battle –a troll and a solid line of pikes- out on my right, a group of 6 warg riders in the centre, a captain and 3 beserkers just to my left and a small group of crossbows way out on my left. To war!
I moved my line up and, rather predictably, split it into 2 army corps; Théoden on the left, Hygbeorn on the right. My enemy sent a troll to block access from my right side of the ruins. His next actions took my by surprise; he split his riders into 2 groups of 3. One group sensibly went to knock out the spy and capture him... The other charged straight at Théoden and his group of guards! They were swiftly dispatched.

His second unorthodox move was to send his whole army corps even further out on my right, rather than set up a defensive cordon around the spy. Perhaps he intended to secure a passage along my right flank or to guarantee that he would achieve the secondary objective.

Sound the charge!
Whatever his logic of thinking, I was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth, and duly sent Hygbeorn’s whole army corps to take out the troll and smash my way through to the spy, while Théoden took his men around the left side of the ruins to annihilate the same party of beserkers, dodging crossbow bolts along the way.

What happened next vexed me greatly. On the left flank, all went perfectly to plan. On the right, I successfully help off his whole army corps with a handful of men and my cavalry, with only minor losses. Having attacked the troll, I was unable to inflict anything move than a flesh wound on him, and was forced to slip a few troops past him to take control of the spy.

Breaking the stalemate
My opponent decided to dodge my pincer movement by going up the steps of the ruins, in an attempt to jump down on my side and run for the edge of the battlefield. I countered by sending the King and 4 men to await them.

On the right flank, I took all of my men out of the fight with his main corps… all but one man. One valiant Royal Guard stayed and did his duty by giving his life to delay the Uruks. His comrades rushed on the troll, in a last ditch attempt to secure the spy.

Cutting losses
With time running short, I realised that it would be mathematically impossible to kill the troll, take the captive and make it across the board. I decided to cut my losses and secure the secondary objective. My enemy came to the same conclusion, but a few lucky arrow shots, along with previously inflicted damage, had whittled down his numbers too much for him to achieve it.

I needed to get 19 men off the board. The turn before last, 18 had got across, and a rider, last man near the edge, was about to cross the board… Wham! A crossbow bolt shot his horse from under him! If I rolled anything but a 6 on the last turn, then he would be unable to make it across the edge in time and the result would be a draw. I rolled the die… and got a 6!

Primary objective Rohan: not achieved. Isengard: not achieved.
Secondary objective Rohan: achieved. Isengard: not achieved.
RESULT: Minor victory for Rohan

Not a bad start, though I had hoped for better. Damn that troll!

Cold steel on the plains of the Eastfold

Hear ye! Hear ye! Here follows the account of a battle (not part of th mini-tourney series) in which my valliant Rohirrim took on the pretentious Faramir's insolant Godorian troops (fielded by Teutonico). In what is turning into a prolonged quarrel between the Steward of Gondor and King Theoden of Rohan, Faramir has been tasked with leading a raid on the Eastfold. Theoden swiftly mustered a defence force, centred around his loyal Royal Guard, to contain the threat.

Pitched battle. No special rules. The battle ends when one sid falls below 50% of its initals numbers.

Reinforced by 5 men at arms from Dol Amroth and three Archers of the Citadel (represented here by 3 elves), the army of Minas Tirith decided to adopt a formation with 2 distinct ifantry columns in 3 ranks (swordsmen, spearmen, pikemen), supported by archers on the flanks and a squadron of knights on their left.

Opposite, I set up my Rohirrim infantry in one continuous battle line, choosing to drop my usual Saxon wedge formation in favour of having the flexibility to react to my enemy's moves; this was the first time I'd been up against someone using those tactics. Behind my infantry line, I placed my cavalry. My archers took a position up on the hill on my far left.

While either side'sarchers traded arrows in the face, Gondor's two infantry blocs advanced and close together, allowing just enough room for an infantry figure to pass between them. My main line advanced to envelop the men of the White City. This tactic Teutonico was employing may seem somewhat strange, but there was a very coherent logic behind it. One of the main weaknesses of large infantry blocs ranked three deep is that the men can block each other's movement, creating unnecesary casualties (see Agincourt 1415, amongst others, where the Frenchmen in the rear ranks pushed their firends in the front rank onto the English blades). Divided his formation into two blocs allowed Teutonico a certain freedom of movement, whilst maintainng the advantage of a 3-rank block.

Gondorians and Rohirrim fell in equal numbers; my Royal Guards took some punishment, whilst Teutonico's flanks suffered. When I sent my riders around his right flank, he did something incredible; his spit his cavalry! Against what I thought to be sound advice (this was only a friendly, after all),he sent three knights to tackle my 6 riders led by a fully armoured Theoden and his three other knights against my javlinists. I was gobsmacked at such foolhardiness. Both Tonico and I moved our archers in at a steady pace, sensing that some well-placed reinforcements could well swing the deadlock.
Given the situation and the presence of cavalry amongst infantry, some heroic actions were called for. As you can see from the above dice, I lost both my heroic charges and had to suffer the cavalry charges and inconvenient fights as a consequence of this. In spite of this bad luck (no doubt payback from my previous fight against Teutonico, in which the roles had been the other way round), my men stood their ground. This did nonetheless mean that Theoden's riders were held up by 3 knights and some infantry for a turn. What insolence!
As things hadn't moved on during that turn, another turn of heroic actions was inevitable... and once again, I lost the rolls for the order of the actions. As a result, Theoden's group was blocked for yet another turn! The audacity of it all! What gaul these French have! (Get it? Gall/Gaul...groan) The archers from both sides gradually joined the fray, to the great misfortune of more than one brave soldier. The troops were still dying in equal measure in both armies. I've never been in such a closely fought battle before!
At long last, Theoden managed to hack his way through the enemy lines to charge into their rear, accompanied by his remaining two riders.This allowed me to take control of my left flank, using the newly arrived archers to block Teutonico's two knights in that area. On the other hand, his archers, supported by two other knights, dominated my right flank. Despite the losses, Gondor's two initial formations were still clearly visible.

But, Alas!, all good things must come to an end. Although the battle had been fairly balanced all the way through, Teutonico managed to put me below 50% of my initial strength, thus winning the battle with a cool margin of 4 men. Congratulations to him; he deserves it. Throughout this game, he managed to prove the effectiveness of his new formation in 2 blocks, as well as show me the exeption to the rule "never divide your cavalry if it's in small numbers". I'm grateful to him for the lesson.

A small note as to the perils of static grass battlefields; the dice actually can land on an edge, as we saw with this jaw-dropping roll which came at a crucial moment!

Joe the Barbarian, hoping this batle rep' proved entertaining.

The story continues

We continue the saga of our 4-player tourney with one of the second heat battles. I’m counting on Shas’El’Hek’Tryk to write up a battle rep for his stage 1 fight against Teutonico.

Scenario 2: "Take and hold"

In this scenario, each side vies for control of the 3 static objectives on the battlefield, as well as trying to capture its opponant’s banner by carrying it off the field by any edge possible.

Teutonico Vs BarbarianJ

This match saw my humble Rohirrim taking on the steel-clad might of its former overlords of Minas Tirith, led by Faramir. The Steward’s cadet son sought to bring the former vassals to heal, whilst Theoden of Rohan intended to prove himself the last of the great kings of men of the Ouest.

I set my Rohirrim up in a continuous ligne, in the centre of my deployment area, with the riders behind my right flank. Teutonico adopted a classic Gondorian formation, with a central bloc in two raks, swordsmen, then spearmen, with his standard and heroes in the middle. Hi archers were opposite my very sparse left flank, whilst his knights were behind the cabin. The three objectifs are represented by the piles of rocks along the centre of the battlefield.

The Gondorian archers immediately advanced, both out of a lack of targets and in order to seize control of the objective on my left flank. I dispatched a small group of warriors, led by Eowyn, to hide behind the hut, where they would await the opportune moment to contest the objective. The two amry corps opposite each other in the centre went forth, the troops of the White City occupying the ruins, my left flank anchored by the cabin. Teutonico decided to divide his cavalry into two groups of three; one going behind the cabin to threaten the group hidden behind the hut, the other passing in front of the cabin to launch itself at my main battle line. Relieved by the absence of archers opposite them, my riders straight away made the most of their freedom of movement to take the objective on my right flank and threaten the flank of Faramir's soldiers, who were hiddenamongst the ruins.

The Gondorians brought the fight to my left flank, attacking the group behind the hut, reinforced by the three knights on that side. Eowyn and the handful of peasants were set for disaster. The knights of the White City who had thrown themselves towards the central battle line suffered the peril of massed javlins; thrown fom their saddles, they were quickly put to the sword. This allowed my main battle line to push back the soldiers of Minas Tirith towards the ruins, on the defensive. My riders, on the right flank, managed to outflank the enemy, one of them fighting his way through to the standard bearer, slaying him and stealing the banner of the White Tree. Some lucky dice trows contributed towards my victory in the centre of the battlefield... but that luck was nothing compared to the jinx Teutonico suffered on the left flank! Despite the charge of his three other knights and the great superiority in numbers which his men enjoyed, Eowyn held her position with her feeble escort of javlinists.Incredible given that I'd counted the loss of the flank as a foregone conclusion and necessary sacrifice in favour of the other two objectives. It is important to note, however, that although my lucky dice rolls held back Teutonico's men on the left flank, Teutonico never allowed me to be a threat to his control of the objective held there by his archers.

At the end of the battle, I held the centre and the right flank, one of my riders had made off with the enemy flag and Teutonico was reduced to less than 25% of his initial numbers. Teutonico's archers were too far away from their .

I think that Teutonico's main mistake was in dividing his cavalry forces into two groups, thus dissipating their power. I learnt threwpast experienes to avoid such a move... but in another more recent battle, he showed me he exception which makes the rule.

RESULT: 2 objectives (2 x 3pts) + Standard stolen (4pts) + Enemy brought under 25% of his initial numbers (2pts) = BarbarianJ 12 - 0 Teutonico = MAJOR VICTORY for BARBARIANJ

A good game; Teutonico suffered greatly from poor luck.

Let the tourney begin!

Welcome to the first of 6 battle reps focusing on a mini-tourney which took place in Novembre between 3 members of this blog (Shas’El’Hek’Tryk, Teutonico and myself) and a member of the French Warhammer Forum, Nero. This is the first time we’ve tried a Lord of the Rings tournement, so we took this as an opportunity to develop some house rules for a tourney system, which I will be publishing later on.

The order of the battles was decided at random, with the following results :
1. Nero Vs BarbarianJ

Shas’El’Hek’Tryk Vs Teutonico

2. Teutonico Vs BarbarianJ

Shas’El’Hek’Tryk Vs Nero

3. Shas’El’Hek’Tryk Vs BarbarianJ

Nero Vs Teutonico

Scenario 1: "Hunters and Preys"

In this scenario, each side has 3 messengers, whose identity is unknown to their opponent, which they must get across their opponent’s table edge. Points are also awarded for slaying the opponent’s messengers and reducing the enemy below 25% of their initial numerical strength.

Nero Vs BarbarianJ

With my favourite Lord of the Rings army, which, by a happy coincidence, is also my only Lord of the Rings army, I opted for a 2-section deployment. Theoden would lead his Royal Guard and a handful of javlinists in the centre, whilst the 6 riders and the rest of the javlinists took the left wing, behind the clump of foliage and the tower. 3 lone javlinists went round behind the cottage, to hold-off any potential break-trhough on that side. As you can see from the photo, Theoden formed his guards up in my typical Saxon wedge formation.

Opposite them, Nero drew up the Rivendell elves, led by Elrond’s twin sons, in 3 groups. I naturally used the cover offered by the terrain as much as possible to advance threw the storm of arrows, trying to outrun the Nancy skirt-wearing elves with my riders. Only 5 elves (of whom one was one of Elrond’s sons…God alone knows which) managed to get between my riders’ squadron and the way out. Amongst these riders, as you’d expect, was one of the messengers, but my opponent couldn’t be sure of how many messengers were in that lot.

In the centre, Theoden led a general advance, hoping to be partly shielding from the archers by the ruins. The 3 brave javlinists on my right flank went to block the exit corridor around the back of the cottage.

By way of a response, Nero shifted his archers towards my left flank, to support his spearmen behind the watch tower. He also sent a couple of elves behind the cottage on my right; possibly a feint, but who knows? The main corps of his army went forwards, led by the other of Elronds sons to engage Theoden’s troops. I suffered some minors losses to shooting, but nothing important… exept for one of my messengers, taken out by a lucky elf who was left none the wiser to his actions! I’d thought the messenger safe amongst the crowd hidden behind the ruins, but my opponent saw a chink (now now, no racist jokes, please gentlemen). At that time, I guessed that his messengers must be grouped in the centre of his army.

This was wen things started to heat up! Most of my left flank safely made it to behind the tower. A few javlins managed to take out some elves, but only two of my riders were still alive, one of which being the only messenger on horse-back. This brave pesant was gallantly resisting the onslaught of Rivendell’s elves! I noted with some glee that Nero had started to sweat ust as much as me; did he have a messenger in that area? Or was it simply that he was getting worried that one of mine would manage a break-through? It all fell to a couple of lucky throws of the dice.

The centre of the battlefield was a fine example of what Voltaire called “heroic butchery”! I thankfully had the advantage of numbers, but, given the rate at which the elves were cutting into my mud-covered pesants, I didn’t know how much longer I’d be able to hold it out in the centre. My only solace was the absence of horses in his army. What an advantage steeds are in this type of scenario; they allowed me to pretty much choose where I wanted the fighting to take place.

Behind the cottage, two javlinists arrived into contact with two elf spearmen…and promptly impaled one of them by chucking a javlin at him during the charge. The remaining elf was held in check by the two brave lads, allowing me to play mind games with Nero, sending the third around the front of the house, knowing that he could do nothing to stop him. Was this man a messenger? No… but Nero suddenly looked panicked; how was he to know it?

The chaos in the centre continued, with the Royal Guards trying to kill as many elves as possible in the hope of killing a mesenger. There was no time left for anyone to reach either table edge. Alas! It turned out at that end that I had killed none of my opponent’s messengers, whilst he killed my last, in the form of a valliant Royal Guard! Thus, at the battle’s end, I was below 25% of my initial numbers, leaving the elves in numerical advantage, despite having started off with very few men compared to mine.

On my left flank, the last two riders fought valliantly, supported fiercely by the newly arrived javlinists, but this couldn’t save them, as the last messenger died under the numerous elven spears. We should note, however, that the elven heroes really didn’t earn their keep in this game, as they delivered very few pivital kills, having to rely instead on their rank and file troopers to do all the work. For once, I was rather please with my riders’ performance; they’re ideal for this sort of scenario, even if my Rohirrim suffered their usual fate of not being able to deliver killing blows against tough (or indeed any) armour.

Time, then, for the butcher’s bill. It turned out tat the reason Nero had been sweating so much was that, in order to contain my riders, he had to make the tough decision of sending two of his messengers into the fray! He was, luckily, able to keep them in the second rank, in relative safety, but this type of problem is symptomatic of elite armies; too few men to be able to comfortably protect V.I.P.s.

The end result was thus: 3 slain Rohan messengers (3pts for Nero), no slain elf messengers (0pts for me), no messengers evacuated by either side (0pts & 0pts) and the Rohirrim reduced to fewer than 25% of their initial strength in numbers (another 2pts for Nero).

Nero 5 – 0 BarbarianJ = 5pts difference = MAJOR VICTORY for NERO

Joe the Barbarian, what an intense game!