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
2. Teutonico Vs BarbarianJ
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!
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