To Thranduil, leader of the Free in Greenwood
From Ásaros on Dol Gwaihir

I am pleased to report that Sind Fëan and its allies have beaten off a second orcish army and prevented the reenslavement of South Greenwood. This despite the fact that several contentious dwarves stomped off into the forest on the eve of battle.



The enemy appeared as expected in the woods to our NW.



We briefly entertained the idea of sending our skirmishers in to harass them, but then decided to keep them close to our vantage point.



The dwarves constrained the enemy advance greatly with their artillery, even if they weren't allowed a single shot.



Eldamarin and Vanquessë picked off spearmen as they dropped back. This would greatly inconvenience the goblins when they would try to attack up the narrow defiles.



As the goblins emerged blind onto the top of Dol Gwaihir, I ordered everyone to back away quickly from our position, stranding half of the assaulters.



Not coincidentally, this opened up a firing lane for the ballista. The goblins scurried in surprise as the dwarves, who had been carefully aiming all the while, fired a giant bolt at them!



Lumbotir had been too far forward and was still visible to the attackers. The fairly large specimen of goblin in the lead hesitated at the sight of him, but then charged in heroically.



The archers failed to pick off either spearman, but I grouped our fighters to make sure the enemy captain did not survive!



For a moment it seemed as if the two groups of goblins on top of the hill would manage to catch us, but Trotter and his rangers with a mighty effort cleared out quickly enough behind for us to keep pulling back ahead of them. The dwarves also finally connected with their machine, harming no one, but plopping one goblin down on his butt, yowling in terror at a large bolt poking through his shield!



These things unnerved the majority of the attackers, and we urged their hasty departure with a few potshots. Meanwhile, the rest of us bowled over the group that had mobbed Vanquessë. We were too late, but fortunately he suffered only minor wounds.

He was our only casualty, while we wiped out about half their force. I don't expect them to return anytime soon.

For Freedom! For Greenwood! For Gwaihir!
Ásaros

***

Battle Notes

My defense was surprisingly successful given the number of adjustments I made in this battle.

First off, Heath called foul on the number of archers/artillerymen I had on the table. I argued that the extra artillerymen did nothing to improve my ranged capability, but I did admit that I had reinforced my troops in weasily fashion and, valuing my Elven archers more, removed the extra dwarves. This gave him a 50% superiority in numbers and (I thought) a fair chance at winning this game or at least putting enough of a dent into my recruits that he could follow with a war of attrition.

After a bit of indecision, I set up on the hill instead of at the end of the S woods. This was probably a mistake in that it allowed Heath to advance without taking a shot from the ballista. On the other hand, he was forced to squeeze his troops between the limit of my firing arc and the swamp, breaking his front and allowing my archers to pick off spearmen as they filtered by.

When he reached the defiles, I was in no way certain that he would not simply clamber over the rocks and descend on me in a mob. The terrain looked unscalable to me, but not necessarily to a goblin player! I resolved the issued by resorting to my strength--my longer legs!--and give the goblins the runaround while the archers continued to pick them off. By happenstance the dwarves, who had gotten an early start toward the far end of the top of the hill, were in perfect position to support, and the archers had transferred their crossfire setup to the hilltop just in time.

I won initiative to pull back out of range, but Heath used a Might to attempt to catch me. At this point, he had only two goblins that could see enough to charge, and I had put both my terrifying elves out front, so I decided to conserve my Might. One goblin captain failed, but the other with enhanced Courage just made his roll. Now I had a fighter tied down in front and could not move my whole army back as I had wished.

I stacked the deck as best I could (the archers had quit killing their targets about midgame) and managed to kill off the attacker, who turned out to be the best captain Heath had on the table.

I won initiative again, and this time, with 2/3 of the gobbo army ready to attack, opposed Heath's Mighty Move and won the roll-off. All he could do was chase after me, and then the ballista hit. I had just enough clearance with its superior accuracy to target the rearmost goblin, but hoped it would scatter further forward in his group. The dice turned on me: I rolled a 6 for scatter, a 1 for distance knocked back, and a 2 to not wound. Annoying, but it discouraged the reformation of that deadly goblin mob.

At this point, I had equalized the numbers while retaining cohesion and positional advantage. Heath thought about pressing the attack with his handfuls of goblins, but then thinking about his lengthening odds and being close to his retreat zone, decided to bow out. He extracted a token casualty from the archer I had left too close to one group, but I used my last might to catch up with them and wipe them out.

The hero of the game was again the ballista that, despite having harmed not one person in two games, had a huge influence on Heath's decisions. That, and the initiatives all turning against him when he wanted desperately to force a melee.