MESBG Mordor battles Isengard

This week was back to MESBG in a 650 point match as Nick's Isengard took on my Mordor. It was Saruman against the Witch King in a contest for who could win the heart of the most eligible bachelor in Arda ... Sauron. 

The scenario was 'Seize the Prize' (or something to that effect) which is basically MESBG's version of Blood Bowl - as two forces chase the ball about then try to run it into the end zone. 

The field of battle was the Barrow Downs (don't try and geographically figure out why Isengard and Mordor got there) and I liked my mix of standing stones, felled statues and barrow tombs. 

Mordor started and the sounds of a drum resonated driving the Orcs into a flurry of movement. They approached the objective (possibly a hobbit, rodent or Elvish knick-knack) swiftly picking it up. 

The forces of Mordor flanked their large central force with two smaller forces while a pair of warg riders, led by an Orc Captain on a warg, watched the back and flanks. This was a real threat as Isengard had a similar number of mounted troops and a single crebain flock. 

In addition, Isengard was led by Saruman - whom I had never played against - and had a strong force of fast moving Uruk scouts. The Mordor Orcs picked up the prize with trepidation knowing full well that they would get compelled or just thumped by the stronger Uruks with their superior fight value, strength and armour. And yep ... thats what happened. 

(If you look very carefully you can see the poor little orc bastard compelled out of the line already ... monstered by 5 Uruks. In retrospect I might have marched my battle line beyond the objective and picked it up with a back line orc.) 

The Mordor Orc was compelled, escaped one combat but then Saruman used his palantir to win the next activation. The Uruks took the objective/prize and Isengard did not relinquish it for the remainder of the game. Nick summed up the scenario better than I did and just tried to gum up my forces as best he could. This worked well aided by better fight values, better armour and pikes. He blocked a gap between two fallen statues which took my Orcs significant time to work around. 

I really need to better understand the drum special rules so I can get maximum effect of this movement bonus ... or just how to use it. It would have made a big difference to my lapping about the flanks. 

The centre became a prolonged slogging match as Orcs poured into and around as many Uruks as possible. Fortunately for the Witch King, Nick was rolling quite bad dice to wound and few Orcs fell ... throughout the entire night. Likewise, my two Moranon captains were doggedly killed nothing. 

(Above shows a band of Uruk scouts who would die holding up surging Mordor Orcs in a key sacrifice for the outcome of the scenario.)

I tried to break Isengard but didn't realise that their break point was far higher ... in fact close to their quartered number. While Uruks were falling, it wasn't happening fast enough and the objective was being passed back toward faster troops. 

The Witch King tried to thin numbers with regular black dart spells. He felled two warg riders and took out the Uruk banner. I pressed as hard as possible but it was slow going getting around the flanks. Most of my warg riders were taken out by the single crebain slowing my forces. But the Orcs kept pushing forward trying to break through the armoured Uruks and get at the softer scouts. Here too there were just enough to slow my progress. 

In the centre the fight was desperate. Had I better understood the scenario, how to use my all Orc horde army (I usually had a troll soaking up points) and the high Isengard break point ... I think I'd have pushed less troops into the middle. 

The Witch King's will was getting low and a single Isengard warg, who refused to die, attacked him opportunely draining further will. At this point Saruman was threatened and considered whether he should engage in combat. After a tough struggle with his back to a stone monument, he extricated himself. I was astonished by his seemingly endless will stores and variety of spells. He even threw Sorcerous Blasts against the Witch King felling his horse. (Positioning that ethereal poser is a nightmare.)

I was having a hard time identifying my Orcs from Uruks in the swirling and increasingly chaotic melee. The objective was passed toward a small group of Uruk scouts (about 5-6) who ran down the edge of the table. Saruman followed behind ready to lend support. 

(Above shows Isengard had fallen back reducing their frontage and preventing being lapped around. Even outnumbered two to one - or maybe more - the Uruks died very slowly and those two wargs in the top left of the image were damn near immortal delaying Mordor troops greatly.)

I don't have any images of this final stage of the battle. The Mordor forces struggle to rush archers across to the Uruk scouts who hugged the board edge. The horseless Witch King did his best. Finally, I took advantage of my drummer to rush orcs in and started felling a few of the scouts. Any time I did drop the objective carrier it was simply picked up again and moved on. In retrospect I could have done a lot of things differently ... perhaps trying to compel the bearer or sapping will from Saruman or Snapping his staff  or ... dunno really. After three games I still have not got my head around magical powers. I'm still at the point where pushing a truck ton of Orcs about is fun. 

In any case, my Mordor forces, aided by the drum and interior lines, gained on the Uruk scouts. Now only 3 were left and Saruman trailed behind. Isengard finally were quartered and to great surprise Saruman fled the field but all the Uruk scouts passed their tests. After a hotly contested priority roll ... a draw but I won due to not winning the previous turn ... my chance came to kill the remaining two Uruks. My black dart went off but failed to wound and my Orcs lost the combats being pushed away. 

In the next priority I lost and the final Uruk ran from the field. Isengard won with only two warriors left.  

What a game ... as close as it gets! I had my chance and I blew it! The Witch King blew it! I can't really blame the Orcs ... they're not very good at anything. 

I'm learning a bit more about my army. Placement of the Witch King is very difficult. I'm finding him quite fragile and that will seems to disappear fast. Moving that many Orcs was tough but I think the horde is better than the Troll. There seems to be lots of easy counter tactics to such as model. I greatly value the drums, Morannon Orc captains (though they killed very little in this game) and a smattering of two handed weapon Orcs. Higher fight values are very hard to deal with ... even when you totally surround a figure. Mordor just seems to have lower fight values to most armies - or the Isengard, Iron Hills and Ent armies I've played in any case. I don't think I've figured out shooting yet either ... the lower bow range and poor hit chance makes orc bowmen a risky investment. I only take some due to the phrase and concept of 'honesty bows' in MESBG. Maybe more warg riders would be better than bowmen? 

Lots to learn and I greatly look forward to my next game. It was lots of fun and I did get a thrill from pouring masses of Orcs into and around my enemy. 

 

Mordor vs Iron Hills

(above my main battle line with 12 Mordor orcs, a drummer, a banner (still without a design), 4 two handed weapon orcs and the witch king - now with a horse.) 

My second game with my Mordor MESBG army was fought on Saturday in the wilds of Telarah against my old foe, Nick. He had been busily expanding - or I should really say decreasing - his Iron Hills army. I type 'decrease' due to his army becoming much smaller in model count. This was the result of Dain the pig boy and a rather large, impressive chariot. 

I had no real idea what the chariot could do but at 250 points (in a 600 point game) I knew it would not be nice. As it turns out it could fight, run down anything and shoot anything on the table - and by anything I mean a troll, the witch king, orcs and a Morannon orc captain. All my best stuff in fact. 

Another image above of my Mordor right flank consisting of 12 Mordor orcs in a typical line with spears at the rear. The Troll - who is building a impressive reputation for doing absolutely nothing in both beginning battles - can be seen lumbering in the distance. 

The scenario was 'I don't recall' and this consisted of having to hold as many of the five objectives as possible at the end of the game. This was certain to involve my army breaking but I hoped my superior numbers might win the day. This almost happened in fact ... but the game ended in a creditable draw for both parties concerned. 

The above image shows the initial set up on the dwarves. They held a strong position in the centre of the table. The walls made their position strong but also further hampered their already modest movement ... and I needed to rely on movement to have any chance in this battle. 

Yep, above is 'Numb-nuts' or 'Kills-nothing' ... or some other name denoting shithouse performance. 

These are from much later in the battle. My orcs had flanked the Dwarves and were now attacking from the front and rear. The Dwarf warriors were sandwiched between my orcs and the walls. Many were trapped but ... this didn't really help. The higher fight value, high defence and lack of commitment to killing all hampered the Mordor attempts to beat their foes. 

In the background, my troll was doing nothing to the chariot despite his higher fight value. For much of the game the chariot's impact was limited (except smashing a Morannon orc captain after 3 rounds of combat then killed 8-10 orcs too.) It needs to point in the right direction and my flanking move on the right had drawn its attention away. 

Dain too had been drawn away - and once transfixed or compelled I can't recall - before returning to thump orcs. My tactic with both was to feed a model at a time inter the whirling death machines that both indeed were. Dain is a superb warrior, feeds of enemy might usage and his mount enables him to ignore the one and only disadvantage that Dwarfs have - movement. 

(By some freak of nature it kept snowing wherever the dwarfs were but it was warm for the Orcs.)

The same is true for the chariot as it thumps around at 8" a turn - which is in fact much higher as when its enormous base pivots it easily gains another 2-3 inches each time.. My only hope was winning priority - which is a fools hope as it will always swing - and my magic ... and I stuffed that up when bad positioning let the Witch King get within range of Dain and the chariot. I lost the priority to get him away AND the roll off for the heroic move. The chariot minced the Witch King easily despite his Defence of 8 and 2 fate points. 

Oh, why did I take so many pictures of this bloody useless troll??? 

In the final two turns the Mordor casualties were soaring and I was well on the way to being tabled. I was hoping my force would break - thus ending the game - while I was still standing on enough objectives. This had not been an issue all game - in fact I was holding three for much of the game and had orcs running for a fourth. 

Then the chariot happened ... the troll was decimated in two quick turns after some earlier resistance. The chariot then turned one way, sending 1d6 (6!) bolts shooting across the table gunning down my guys on one objective. I was broken and next turn it turned the other way, sending 5 more blots searing into hapless orcs and another objective was cleared. Then courage did its part causing me to lose another objective. I lost control of three objectives - that had been safely mine all game - in 2 turns. Mordor orcs fell like leaves. My losses went from about 20 to over 30 in a blink. 

I really thought I was 'IN' the game for the whole scenario. This had really hinged on moving away from dwarves (the drums really helped in this), hiding (as shown below ... the two clever orcs on the left were the only ones to hold an objective at the end of the game) and using magic - which is something I did very poorly as the witch king was killed. In retrospect, the chariot could have turned its brutal bolt thrower attack at the witch king at any time in the game gunning him down. Perhaps I was lucky Nick didn't decide to kill him earlier. Maybe the only way to keep him somewhat safe is with a body shield too. In any case, I didn't do this and my leader was isolated and died in one chariot charge. 

It was a good game throughout which required a lot of thought for both of us. I'm only glad it wasn't a game where Mordor had to try and kill its opposition as this is a very hard ask with Iron Hills. On the other side, Mordor did manage to quarter their army so ... not all bad. 

 

MESBG Fog of War Battle Report

Included here are only a couple of  photographs from my first MESBG game with my Mordor army. (The figures are from Oathmark and I'm very happy with the result - The Troll and wraith figure were kindly given to me by my good friend, Nick.) 

It was Mordor vs Isengard at 600 points. Above you can see the battle lines clashing amid the fields of Rohan. No doubt both armies fell to bickering about the true will of their dark master. 

Mordor had a numbers advantage for most of the game as I ran normal orcs. I also chose a banner and drummer along with a troll. The Mordor army was led by the witch king on Angmar in an undignified manner as he was on foot. The mounted model had not been painted yet. 

In this battle we had to kill an opposing hero, while keeping one of ours safe, as well as capturing a piece of pre-determined terrain. Unfortunately, Mordor did not even scratch its target but it did capture some terrain. 

Much of the middle and later stages of the battle did not go well for Mordor as they consistently lost priority rolls. This meant Isengard to freely engage my models in the most advantageous manner for them. Chiefly, this led to my troll achieving little or nothing all game. The superior fight value and strength led to quite terrible casualties for the Mordor forces too. It was difficult to find a nice open area without fields with fences (or rocks) to limit lapping around opportunities. Without such chances, my orcs were simply inferior to their enemies. 

Below the Isengard warg riders circle around behind my army. My two archers look very forlorn and these were soon run down. 

After being hacked up, I found the game a little demoralising and called an early end. Afterward, Nick said it was closer than I thought. I also found in difficult to transition to Mordor after playing Minas Tirith. That army has very little in the way of special rules or magical powers - and Mordor has both. 

However, as normal with a new different army, it always awakens my curiosity to learn how to play them ... and I was eager for another battle soon to figure out this new conundrum. 

 

Minas Tirith Battle Report

(Above show post deployment dispositions with Minas Tirith at the bottom of the image. Before them are the houses that Daddy Denethor said need a tad of flame.) 

Last week's wargame was again MESBG, I game I am loving atm. I was back with a vanilla Minas Tirith force this week. I knew my friend Nick, the mastter of Isengard, had changed his allegience. I also knew he was bringing Iron Hills. I listened to a podcast describing Iron Hills and I wet myself ... and the yellow river of trepidation kept flowing when Nick arrived and confirmed ...

 Dain was leading his troops! 

However, I did have a plan and a theme ... Faramir riding to re-take Osgiliath (the movie version not books.) As we know this didn't end well but Faramir was not facing dwarves. 

Nick suggested we play a scenario from the War in Rohan book (?) mainly to put his new terrain on the table. And didn't it look a treat! Shame my role was to set it afire (to wood this time not a fire 'in our flesh!) The Iron Hills would be stoutly defending against the arson of man. 

Early in the battle, the initiative mainly went to the men and I enacted my strategy. This consisted of riding about quickly to stretch the Dwarves and set fire to anything I could. In the meantime, I would pepper the dwarf line with arrows ... not in hope of actually killing anyone but trying to goad them into precipitous action. The only dwarves I really wanted dead were their crossbows who were a significant danger to my horsemen. 

(Above, a picturesque rural setting ... better introduce it to wood and oil! Then, Faramir will be able to go home with his head held high.)

Here my riders hold back behind a line of shields cautious of the Dwarf crossbows. My rangers press forward as a skirmish line ready to target the crossbowmen. 

The Iron Hills used their shield walls to plug the gaps between the buildings and focus on protecting the rear buildings. Eagerly I sent brave riders forward to commit arson against the homes of the innocent. 

In the centre, I pushed forward my only battle line that I thought could vaguely match combat with the Iron Hills. This was led by Ingold. My plan really involved not engaging with the dwarves and just praying to Manwe that Dain didn't kill too much. As the game developed, Dain Pig-rider struggled to decide where to commit. I tried to use cavalry to give him multiple threats. He could only crush one at a time! 

Please note ... at the top of the above image two Gondorian knights are riding into an unoccupied centre. This would enable them to fan out and set alight several dwellings. One was Faramir, who I only narrowly managed to extricate when Dain charged on his pig of massive conflict. I was very nervous I would lose VP's by having Faramir killed (by Dain.)

Another slightly smaller battle line advanced to just beyond dwarf charge distance. Their job was simply to hold the main enemy battleline in place. 

The Iron Hills shield wall ... or bloody scary formation. And this was the smaller one! 

And then I didn't take any more photo's. Don't know why, but the theme of the battle has already developed. The Iron Hills were hindered by low movement and multiple threats. The Gondorian knights could ride about seeking the gaps in the centre and rear of the enemy while the shieldwall and rangers threatened the Dwarf line just enough to keep them in place. I did get embroiled in combat in one area and lost 5 ot 6 soldiers to the Iron Hills. 

But this was all irrelevant, as the buildings were alight. It was easier to set a fire than extinguish one and the Iron Hills rolled a couple of ones to engulf the buildings in catastrophic flame. In the end all buildings were alight and Minas Tirith had the speed to keep out of range of the dwarfs. We did try some combat and the result was as expected ... a nasty gash caused by beardy warriors. I just couldn't time striking from the front and charging from the back. The Iron Hills heroes on pigs/goats were good enough defence to snuff out this attempted threat. 

A very tactical game with not a lot of combat but it was a drubbing on points - Minas Tirith 10 to Iron Hills nil. 

I retrospect, I should have bragged a lot ... as I think I'll be taking some vicious hits from the Iron Hills in games to come. (I need to speed up my Mordor painting!) 

 

Gondor trims the hedge

 

(Above shows most deployment. At bottom is my command with the knights.)

After few weeks of anticipation, it was back to MESBG. My Minas Tirith was complete (30 infantry, 10 rangers and 8 cavalry + heroes) and ready to fight. My good friend Nick had decided to take Fangorn! 

I was slightly trepidatious ... I mean having a garden is a wonderful thing but when not monitored it can so easily get out of hand. I thought those big ents would smash my little shieldwall apart. 

I thought long and hard and selected the following - 

Ingold + 10 shieldwall, banner and 2 rangers, 

Captain of MT plus 8 shieldwall + 2 rangers + 2 knights, 

Anborn + 3 rangers 

FINALLY a Herald of the Dead + 8 warriors of the dead. 

I was up against 4 ents with Treebeard, Quickbeam and two others. 

Early on the ghosts would face off against Treebeard, 1 woody pal and 2 hobbits. My Dead of Dunharrow were (I thought) my main chance to kill ents. 

Another Ent stood proudly atop a hill, minding a objective and throwing large rocks from the top. 

My rear command, these would plug holes, shoot ents and send my knights around the back to steal the rear objective. 

And it was on! Treebeard smashed into the Dead quickly killing 3-4. My Herald was staying alive but weren't winning fights against the ents high FV. 

On my right, Quickbeam held off a shieldwall led by Ingold. Even with the banner I struggled to gain an edge in duel rolls. 

Then the hobbits descened. I peeled off 4 from Ingold's command to slay them. I killed Merry then Pippin scurried back to safety. 

Ranga Ent turned out to be an abysmal shot and my knights rode for their lives around the back of the table. They were not out of danger yet. This ent was the target of all my fire (I had 8 bows including Anborn.) His ability to add might to a arrow shot would be key soon. 

Unsure of what else to do, I swarmed the ents in the centre, trying to keep in shieldwall. Treebeard responded by swinging my warriors around like a club. However, there were few deaths sustained on the Minas Tirith side. Things were starting to swing against the walking shrubbery. 

I saved might almost exclusively to score wounds on the ents. This began to work. With their fate falling, wounds were starting to mount. The ents might was also being drained. When Minas Tirith finally did win the duel rolls, we were rolling 8 or even 10 dice at a time to wound. The sixes were eventually rolled (and then the 4's too.) Throw enough dice, and luck will eventually follow. 

Then ranga ent fell to shooting. Quickbeam followed soon after succumbing to the sheer amount of hits. My Captain of MT, Ingold and the Herald of the Dead were beginning to score wounds. And despite the size, ents only have 3 (plus a little fate to aid longevity.) 

Before we knew it, Treebeard stood alone. It really didn't matter at this stage. Fangorn was broken and Minas Tirith stood on every objective marker. It was a matter of time before the sheer amount of blows falling would fell this mighty ash/oak/pine/elm ... whatever he his. 

Whenever Treebeard drove us back ... we swarmed back in. The blade of the Herald was a constant threat if unsaved. Enraged, Treebeard surged toward the pesky rangers who had started all the wounds by killing ranga ent. However, this was short lived. Surrounded, the dice rolled were just too many. 

The hedge was trimmed ... the bushes were pruned. 

Certainly not what I had expected, but it was essentially what I had planned for. 

The cavalry were great - as they couldn't be ignored. Minas Tirith defence is high as was the Dead of Dunharrow. The ghosts' wounding against courage - not defence - and the Warden's sword was a twin threat. The bows - while weak - eventually landed wounds. The number of shots over time felled an ent. Anborn's lethal aim was also effective and threatening for the ent player. The ents were fearsome with high FV and Defence BUT they just didn't have enough wounds or sufficient killing ability to get through the larger force. Also, with good courage in both Minas Tirith and Dead of Dunharrow, the ents's terror did not play a significant factor in the game. 

In conclusion, all ents died for the loss of 5 ghosts and 1 Gondorian soldier. 

Was it fun ... hell yes! I especially liked riding for my life as the knights dodged falling boulders racing for the rear objective. Very tense and a funny situation to imagine in the battle.