Dear Master Dwarf,

It seems like ages ago, after our great victory in Fangorn, that Morwen called a council. She anticipated that the enemy would not release his grip on the old wood so easily. Although we could have used a respite after all the hard fighting, none wanted to see the forest slip easily again under the dark shroud of corruption!

We considered our options. We could use our speed to keep clear of the mass of their troops while sniping all the while, but the fast-moving wargs could keep us far enough at bay to effect little harm while the main body of their troops slowly enveloped us. We could put a boulder behind our back to prevent getting surrounded, but would be trapped all the same when the Uruks crushed us against it. Then Annorem made the suggestion that we locate high ground to defend.

This seemed like a very promising idea. The wargs would not be able to scale it, depriving the enemy of a significant portion of their forces. Cirdan, Morwen, and now Ulwarth having shown abilities to intimidate the enemy could spread themselves along the top to keep the enemy at bay. Those that held back or failed to scramble up to attack us would block the ones behind them, limiting the number of attackers to repulse and providing easy pickings for our archers at point blank. And finally there was the height advantage we would have in every fight. If we were beaten, it would be at a heavy price. Or so we figured.

Despite our preparations, the enemy surprised us, a company of warg-riders having slipped behind us. We didn't dally, but put our plan into action, racing directly to one of the designated defense points. The flanking warg-riders slunk off and laid down behind a log.



Once we all managed to climb the rock (Cirdan slipped twice), we started peppering them with arrows. It was too difficult to spot them, but the rest of their army was behind the cover of a brush-choked clearing. Nonetheless, I think we nicked armor a few times.


Turn 8? Effectively four ITW rolls to targets behind the log six inches away (one spotting, one forest, one log, and one laying down in forest)! The elves still managed to get three arrows through...

They paused when they poked out of the clearing. We spent a short time trading shots to little effect, though Cirdan was wounded.


Turn 9?

Then their fighters surged forward, and we quickly shifted positions to receive the attack. It was not easy on the crowded rock, especially with our captive blocking passage!


Turn 12?

We archers also shifted over. We prefered to pick off Uruks to orcs.

Ulwarth, as strongest fighter, took the center. Morwen covered the right side of the rock while Cirdan took the left. Due to difficulty of maneuvering, there was a fatal little gap between Turin and me. There being only dismounted wargriders on our side, we were not overly worried about it.


Turn 14?

At this point, things went disastrously wrong. Perhaps the leaves hid Ulwarth and Morwen; perhaps the attackers kept their eyes down, but only a couple Uruks showed any compunction about attacking them. Their entire line was upon us undaunted, and without any of the trouble we had getting up the slope!


Yellow indicates the attackers that rolled terror.

I don't remember much; just an orc scampering up most unnaturally on three limbs with shield held out before him with the fourth. I was astonished to see him dragging a short club behind him, but then he lashed out with it below his shield and pried my feet from their precarious perch. Down I went, tumbling down the hill to oblivion, but I still saw him whirl like a dervish in mid-air to knock a surprised Morwen from her position. Thus from the first stroke we lost every advantage we had imagined we had, the enemy having mounted the rock quicker than we had in the face of our defense. Our flank now having lost height advantage and not protected by Morwen, Cirdan tells me it was rolled up quickly. Too many orcs had gained the top to push back off again.

A moment later, Ulwarth was downed on the spot by a ferocious attack by the warg-rider leader.


Turn 15?

Narvoiolv in customary fury and backed by Balan (honored be their memories!) actually forced the orc hero back off the rock, but then fresh disaster befell us on the right. The orc beachhead now beholding Morwen chop up my attacker preferred to pile on Annorem, so she rushed in to relieve him. Something must have tripped her up and she fell prone before her attackers, and in this position her customary agility did not spare her the enormous cleaving blows that afterwards rent her armor, and she apparently rolled down insensate beside me.


Turn 16?

We archers performed poorly through the battle, but now were exhausted, Cirdan and Haldir missing three shots point blank on an orc charging in on them. The orcs now in solid possession of one side of the rock did not allow us the chance to reform our line. They charged across to the other, cutting down Turin, Annorem, Narvoiolv, and Balan one after the other, without receiving a single wound in turn.


Turn 18? Narvoiolv's turn to die.

Cirdan, seeing as how the hand of everything seemed to be turned against us, made a last stand at the height of the rock to give Haldir a chance to escape. Most unfortunately, Haldir (may his memory be honored!) attempted to drag our prisoner with him, and the orcs spurred on by their captains apparently overtook him.

Only half of us managed to escape that scene of destruction, and I alone remain unmaimed, save for minor cuts and bruises suffered in my fall. I drag the pallets for Ulwarth and Annorem as Morwen and Cirdan stumble grimly and silently behind.

It was a dark day for Fangorn, Rivendell, Rohan... indeed the entire region, as our losses have made us incapable of holding the enemy's hand there any longer.
--Aristar

***

Battle Notes

As Aristar says, this was one of those rare (even for me) battles where absolutely everything went wrong, no matter how I slice it. I was simply outshot and outfought despite all the defensive and skill advantages I had.

Dice? Cirdan and Haldir fail to hit an orc charging in on them. Morwen rolls a 1 against a 2, then both her assailants roll sixes to take both her wounds. Haldir rolls double ones in his last moment. And the list goes on... Actually, that last started a stream of five ones on six rolls into the post game injury rolls, wiping out over a third of my BC.

Initiative? I had it at the very start of Heath's assault and one other turn. Otherwise, in the dozen or so turns from the time Heath left the clearing until I was down to two models, it was all Heath. Not that it would have mattered--he had might to burn and could make sure I could never try to reform my line or regain the barrier, but I would have preferred him doing that than saving it to kill Ulwarth and Haldir.

Rules errors? All against me. Spent the entire game trying to shuttle people past my prone captive, when it turns out Haldir could have just stepped over him.

Also, Heath probably should have rolled a climb tests for the privelege of attacking Ulwarth at the unterraced, three-inch part of the hill. There's actually an inconsistency in the rules here between not having to test to fight over a barrier less than model height and having to test when moving up or over an obstacle more than half the model height. Not that, for all his testing, Heath blew a single climb roll until the game was practically over.



More importantly, we got into the discussion I knew we'd have about terror at a barrier. I mentioned how we decided an attacker could charge in if an adjacent terrifying elf were engaged, but we never said how this probably doesn't apply if that elf is the only target of subsequent charges. Hence, first round, Ulwarth received two attacks and Morwen three from attackers that didn't have to roll terror against them. Heath thought terror would be too powerful at a barrier if more than one had to test, but later I realized, that's what they would have had to do normally if the barrier hadn't been there! So putting my terrible elves on top of a height basically wiped out their terror capabilities, one of the two things I was really counting on for this battle.

In Morwen's case, this was compounded when Aristar's attacker took his spot beside her on the first round of barrier matchups. All I could remember was that the rules do not address this specific case, so decided he could then attack Morwen in the second round of barrier matchups. Not only didn't he have to roll terror against her, but now turned her one-on-one fight into combat vs. multiple opponents WITHOUT benefit of the barrier. Of course she lost, and as Aristar ably explains, this was a major defeat, losing the barrier irretriveably at the outset, as Morwen's retreat cut off possible reinforcement. So much for the other main thing I was counting on for this game.

Well, now that I've thought about it, the barrier rules are designed to allow only the DEFENDER multiple attacks, never the attacker. They don't intend to give winning attackers what basically amounts to a subsequent heroic attack. This is confirmed by a case that IS described, multiple attackers on one defender, where the winning attackers must be separated by a space from any defenders inside the barrier. Major, major goof. In light of the other factors described above, it probably didn't cost me the game, but it most definitely cost me a better showing.


Heath ponders what I have wrought!

Despite these things (which I had no control over), the game was a lot of fun (other than having to reset the models repeatedly after they had cascaded from the hill) and quickly resolved (we got through over twenty turns in little more than four hours). Overall, I'm happy with my plan of battle and with how I played it, other than getting Haldir killed for no good reason in the end within two clear moves of my retreat zone. Keeping him alive WAS my main objective for the game, after all. 

Thus, my momentary loss of the big picture costs me my last ambition from the beginning of the campaign. I knew I couldn't hope to hold my vast empire with a handful of BCs, so I concentrated them in the central forests, where I could capitalize on the elves' ability to move freely there. Of my three objectives, I handed Mirkwood away to an inferior BC (another poor impulsive decision!), botched the Dol Guldur attack, and now with loss of Haldir have lost any hope at Fangorn (short Heath abandoning it). This means I cannot take the offensive again until I can save enough to buy a new army and march it up to the front. So... see you there in a (long) while!