This week I would run my new (new-ish) Cirith Ungol army while Nick would leap from the walls of Minas Tirith to invade my lands. It was one of those battles that should never happen as each army was designed by GW to represent a specific place that each never left.
With those continuity problems out of the way ... Nick was running about 30 Atop the Walls figs for his 700 points. He had Gandalf, and Pippin, Irolas, a bolt thrower (with speedy shot), around 12 citadel guard with the rest tin cans (oh, and two cavalry just to be annoying.)
My Cirith Ungol had 47 models. In truth, I didn't know what I was doing. I had Shaggy, Ballbag, Shelob, a shaman and a task master. For troops, I had around 14 Uruks (4 with 2HW ... I didn't own any more) with the rest Orcs. Oh yes, I also had a banner and a drummer. I mainly took the shaman as I thought I would coming up against Boromir and his horn ... bloody courage tests.
And off we raced ... we played ... a scenario. It had 5 objectives equally placed around the board that needed to be captured. I knew that I needed to mix up my Uruks and Orcs as fast as I could - to secure the animosity rules - but terrain blocked this for a while.
More dispositions of the evil army above. The small marsh that has formed around the ruined wall was an impediment to mixing Uruks and Orcs. I used the drummer for two turns to boost my speed pushing around 8 Uruks through the swamp to unite with the Orcs.
The citadel guard stood proudly on the hill ... fingering their quivers.
Gandalf took a central position behind a line of tin cans.
To the rapid sound of drums, the Orcish line lurched forward. I was primarily concerned by the low defence value of my soldiers. Only D5 and D4. At the back the task master was ready to crack his whip. I tried to shimmy around to the left to make use of a gateway in the ruined wall on the left. It is always difficult in MESBG to use numbers. Its a much easier game to pick a high FV and defence army then try to plug up a gap.
The above shot shows the intervening wall that was making wrapping around the good shieldwall very hard. At the very top, the pesky Gondor cavalry can be seen. Far off the bolt thrower moved into position. After just one shot, 4 Orcs perished. In another turn another 4 were dead. It was going to be a short game ...
Shelob had lurked around behind the archers ... but I really didn't know what to do with her. If I continued to travel around the flank, I opened myself to the bolt thrower. After Shelob takes a wound, she must roll a leadership test. If she failed, that was it. I hope my big spider would claim at least a couple of kills.
The battle lines near. Gandald began to sorcerous blast my standard ... I knew I should have taken two!
At the bottom of the above image, the Uruks cower unwilling to come out from behind cover. This would have opened them to fire from the citadel guard on the hill. At D4, this didn't seem like a good option. It retrospect, it was exactly what I should have done. It would had solved a later envelopment issue and drawn down the guard from the hill. (And may have avoided what would soo happen to Shelob.)
Then, I charged with Shelob. She got surrounded. It was a really short sighted move from me and was going to have simply obvious repercussions. Yep, the game was going to be quite short indeed!
The fight began. Orcs fell. Quite a few. My losses were now about 15 to 20.
Bolt throwers kill Orcs faster than ... most things really. Should have attacked this with Shelob.
Battle raged. The compressed space - between the ruined walls - played into Gondor's hands. Also, my bad positioning worked too. I had not left a corridor open for Shaggy - clearly my best fighter. By the time I did engage with him, the game had basically slipped past.
Shelob exploded as the citadel guard won the fight (I really needed to roll a 6 on three dice ... not impossible by beyond my skill it seems). They rained down about 7000 wounds onto Shelob, despite her defence 7, as they had +2 to all their rolls.
Why did I use her so badly? I'm an idiot AND my limited mind didn't grasp how I could have utilised her movement rules. I could have run along walls to engage. Then again, Shelob is limited with needing line of sight to charge ... not like those glorious werewolves that I've become used to using.
By now, the kills were really racking up. I was getting closer to the 26 needed to break. Gondor lost very few for most of this short game but slowly they were adding up (around 12 or so I think.)
After splatting Shelob - supposedly terrifying offspring of Ungoliant herself - the citadel guard began a merry gambol down the neatly clipped green sward toward the objective. All they had was a few Orcish archers to dispatch just around the corner.
My archers waited ... they had shot like absolute shit all night. They had few targets - not much point trying to shoot Shadowfax.
Gandalf plugging a hole. I just couldn't shake out of this position. I really should have boldly advanced out from this position in Turn 1 or 2.
More battling with both lines getting thin.
In the distance, the Gondorian cavalry were both killed but the Orcish force in that area had been shot to pieces by the bolt thrower. I think, at this late stage, the bolt thrower crew had knocked off after securing their 'slay a legion' bonus.
Skip ahead a few turns. Very thin on the ground now. The spear armed citadel guard had come down into the fight. Finally, I had ordered Shaggy into the fray just in time to be transfixed by Gandalf. Ballbag had killed about 2-3 and, at the game's final hour, managed to heroic strike up his FV and survive combat with the Istari! Not bad for a little Orc.
The citadel archers copped a thrashing from the Orcs but it was too little too late. The game ended on the first possible roll. It would an 'Atop the Walls' victory about 11 points to 6. Not a thrashing but I certainly did not feel like I'd commanded my Cirith Ungol forces with aplomb.
My hero placement was poor, my use of Shelob was criminal and my shaman was totally under-utilised. The task master had done well but I'd used one of those quite a bit before with my Black Gate army. This was the first time I'd bothered to include a shaman in this edition. (I'm not in a hurry to do it again either. An Orc captain would be much better value!)
With my character choices I just felt swamped with special rules - GASP! Overwhelmed with rules? In a GW game??? It cannot be! I was trying to manage a flighty low attack monster, a whole army with dreadful defence, mix Orcs and Uruks to get my good army bonus and manage all my special rules.
For me, it was a bridge too far.
Nick played his Gondorians very well. He had a massive missile advantage in a target rich environment. He also had enough numbers to fill a sizeable gap with continuous shields. With Gandalf too, he could pick and choose to take out targets of opportunity. I didn't have the will to stop it. What I didn't expect was all the pluses for wounding ... hatred of Mordor and another bonus for being near an objective.
I also had a +1 to wound available (animosity) but I needed to have two different troops types present in a combat. Not likely in a limited space where Gondor could engage me one on one. Cirith Ungol looks really shit on paper and it's pretty shit on the table too. But there's just enough in the list to make players think it will work out well. Its lured me in for another few attempts. I want Shelob to munch down some people - and she should be utilised nibbling strays around the flanks of the army - and I'd like to see Shaggers and Ballbag unite for some heroic combat fun. As for the rest of the army ... I just need enough of the bastards to seethe into every orifice on the table. Then, pray animosity eventually does something ... before everything dies. Inevitably, Cirith Ungol will always die due to its completed lack of defence.
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