Rethe 18, 1400 SR

Dear Master Dwarf,

How is the month-long picnic going with the Easterlings in Dorwinion? Are you fattening them up for a fight?

Three days ago a rider of Rohan came charging up to our camp. Upon his news, Morwen immediately called for battle advance into the heart of Fangorn. It's too bad, because I had grown used to our little corner of the wood with its tasty fiddlehead ferns.

You could hardly call it a dawn on the day of battle, the barely discernable shifts in dimness gradually revealing a great host of wargs, orcs, and uruk-hai. Had we been betrayed by Rohan? They were nowhere to be seen as, with a great crash, the evil hosts surged towards us. Surged slowly, I might add, the din of breaking branches and swords ripping undergrowth barely audible beneath all the orcish howling and cursing.

Morwen came to a decision and directed our line to coalesce about some boulders beyond the shorter attacking flank. A steady rain of orc arrows dripped from the leaves above as we archers fired back, but not a shot was rewarded with a proper shriek.


Turn 3

Our right flank paused on a boulder, but Morwen had us clear on to the west at a run. We emerged to find the orc left bearing down on us. On the verge of rounding the enemy flank, we seized the initiative.


Turn 6

Cirdan, Haldir, and I lay down a deadly carpet of fire while Ulwarth limped up to tackle the wargs in the vanguard, Annorem bravely holding the warg to his right.

As the rest scooted by, we heard the sound of hooves on the hill beyond. Rohan at last!


Turn 8?

Dismayed by their losses and the appearance of reinforcements, the orcs scuttled back toward cover, encouraged greatly by the arrows we continued to place in their backs. Haldir marched up one side of the boulder, and Cirdan and I the other, leaving scant area under cover.


Turn 11?

Unfortunately, orc arrows from the depths of the woods now began hitting home, so everyone but Haldir in his cloak followed the retreating enemy wing back behind the boulder. Finally, the Uruks retreated behind a wall of brush around a clearing, and we could no longer spot them.


Turn 12?

After a quick council, Morwen decided to swing our entire army back around to the other flank as soon as the Rohirrim got there. It would take some time for the enemy right to wade back through the woods to flank us. However, when Cirdan and I rejoined Haldir, we found that the enemy had already retreated the extended wing.

Growing impatient, Morwen had the fighters advance until two Uruks were in view. Annorem backed by Balan attacked the one on the left, but, despite besting his opponent's fancy swordwork, was felled by a mighty upswing. Mandos backed by Ulwarth didn't last much longer, his feeble strokes no match for his opponent.


Turn 14?

Meanwhile, Turin had turned a great log to our left into a makeshift barrier, but was no match for the pack of Wargs assailing it. They would have been in our rear but for all Turin's twisting out of their great fangs and Balan's blocking a flanker on the inside. Narvoiolv with a yell beat the wargs to the farther end of the log and then killed them as quickly as they ran up to him.

On the fighters' right flank, Morwen was surprised by archers scrambling across the boulder to leap upon her. We rushed to her aid, but she was long beneath the mass of hacking swords. Much to our amazement, she emerged once more, spitting blood and uttering dire imprecations upon orcs and everything bred from or otherwise associated with them. Seeing the wargs surging at the log on the left, she ordered Cirdan to hold the right and then ran off, black blade glittering like Anglachel of old as it threaded the dim brush. Her aspect was now so terrible that the lead wargs piled to a stop at the mere sight of her.


Turn 16?

Our line back in order, we returned to our grim business. The wargs, chastened, slunk around to our rear as the front line endured another mighty assault. And then an odd thing happened. It seemed as if every Uruk thrust or feint was snagged or tipped away by subtle shifting of branches, leaves, and twigs. It was as if the venerable old forest had awakened and decided to intervene on our behalf. I know it didn't seem so to just us--our opponents uttered surprised grunts and curses of frustration before falling under our weapons.


Turn 17?

Then the wargs were upon us, emboldened by their position. We would not yield, but were beginning to tire and could no longer bring our blood-slicked blades home. Cirdan on the right flank didn't have to--he stared down every would-be attacker as he attempted to pump arrows into them.


Turn 18?

At long last, the enemy began to melt away, but the stragglers fought with renewed ferocity. One warg knocked deadly Narvoiolv out against a trunk and another wounded Ulwarth. But shouts from across the clearing alerted us that Rohan had finally joined the fray, and, thus beset from both sides, our mutual opponent fled.


Turn 19?

Our pursuit was interrupted by an angry cry. One by one we filtered back to the edge of the clearing to behold a scene I could not have imagined. Narvoiolv had come to and now lept about the clearing in a fury, blade lashing out like a flame. But what was truly remarkable was that our intimidating commander now knelt perfectly still on the ground by Mandos, tenderly holding his misshapen head in her lap.

"'Tis a particularly costly command she uttered," whispered Annorem to me, himself badly wounded.

Ulwarth stood close by, blood still oozing out onto the shaft of spear. He noticed that Mandos' hand clutched something inside his ragged tunic. Reaching down, he freed a bit of tattered parchment from the stiff fingers. Turning it over a couple times, he beckoned Balan to read it.

"It's in the ancient style," Balan remarked; then began to read:

The stones of our home have melted,
During this interval before our reunion,
But the holly appears exactly the same.
My desire for you must be made of holly.

All became still in the sunny clearing but the lazy buzzing of insects. Each of us marveled at how an elf could linger two ages apart from those he had loved. Indeed, we wondered why we all linger here in a world that is clearly moving on.

You dwarves may turn to stone when you die, but we elves petrified long ago.

--Aristar

***

Heath made a great decision at the start to pit all his force against the faster moving of the split allied armies. He was going to herd me into a corner and swarm me before Rohan arrived in twenty-four turns (moving 2.5 inches per turn in forest). I'd have to break through to the S if I was to have a chance at surviving.

Noticing he was biased to my left, I made a break for my right. I counted equal rounds to the side of the table, so it would come down to a dice roll. Fortunately, there were some boulders to wrap his massive army around and/or turn into defenses if I was blocked.


On the second round of melee, Ulwarth and Annorem are attacked before they can rejoin the others.

At the crucial moment, I won both the initiative and heroic move roll-off. On Heath's great suggestion, I sacrificed two of my leading elves to pin his fast-moving wargs so the others could get by. Well, not much of a sacrifice, since one elf was my toughest fighter and both lay out of reach beyond the mass of orcs and riders just three inches away. The archers also helped by finally connecting to consistently peel off the first line of his unengaged attackers. Knowing the gig was up (I could now retreat toward Rohan with archers firing as fast as he could advance), he switched to defensive mode and ran to hunker behind the boulders I had just quit.

Heath very cleverly stepped back beyond the edge of the clearing to deny me targets, but then I turned the same trick and used it to prevent all but two from being able to see and charge my warriors as I closed in.

My assault on the clearing should have cost me the game. I was taking a gamble on Elven fight value, but my gradual strategy of staying clear and picking off one enemy model a round, in contrast, had almost no risk. Sure enough, Heath won every fight and the next two rounds of initiative. To complicate matters, I forgot that the underbrush around the clearing did not extend to the boulder, from which he swarmed Morwen (rolling 9 or 10 courage repeatedly). I should have ended up surrounded and near breaking, but he simply could not wound Morwen and Turin on my flanks. Haldir arrived just in time to win a heroic move roll-off to reform the line. I also made a great tactical move and peeled off a fighter on the inside of the log from Turin, thereby forcing barrier rolls on the wargs across the log (and a good thing, too, because Heath produced high rolls, and they would have been wounds to Turin otherwise).



At this point, Heath had buckets o' Might to spend, and I chose not to spend my last one until dire necessity. He pressed two more assaults, but now the elves were winning and wounding on practically every roll. The game now literally in its eleventh hour and Heath  having broken and routing after having lost over twenty models to the Elves' three, we called it a victory for the Allies.

It was a hard loss for Heath. Hard for me to understand, too. The Elves as fighters are relatively inferior to my original Arnor contingent (only Haldir has strength 4) and were in much worse straits being outnumbered, surrounded, and trapped by attackers with strength 4, but prevailed wildly while Arnor in superior strength had their butt served to them three times in a row. I really didn't dare hope to win this one--just lay enough recruits low to win the next one--something Heath obviously also anticipated when he purchased defenses in Fangorn for next turn.

If Heath made a major mistake, it was that he did not resume his "One Against a Thousand" strategy of  focusing on one enemy at a time when I presented him with a second opportunity to use it. He kept half his troops during my assault waiting for Rohan to creep up instead of pouring over the boulder and behind the log in an all-out effort to wipe out one of the allies. He basically showed the restraint I should have adopted, while I relentlessly advanced as he should have. Both armies would have fared much better if the players had been switched! Well, blame it on whatever cruel stroke of fate assigned me these Northern elites for this campaign rather than my beloved Orckind!