My friend Chris stopped by my house today to drop of some sweet Harad terrain for Adepticon. The side benefit of him coming today was that we had a chance to play a "friendly". What a perfect chance to put my Gathering in the Desert tournament army on the table. The last bonus was that since I finished flocking my Realm of Battle game table, we got to use that too. Believe it or not, this is the first real game I've ever played in my home. Chris brought an Army of Gondor featuring armored Faramir (on horse), 8 Knights of Minas Tirith, a bunch of Warriors of Minas Tirith, Damrod, and a host of Rangers of Ithilien.
We rolled for scenarios and drew To Kill a King. I don't recall every playing that scenario in a normal LOME event - we did play it at the Clash of the Heroes in Las Vegas last year. I had set up the Realm of Battle game board with a hill on each table edge and a valley in the middle. We rolled for terrain and scattered it throughout the valley.
Chris deployed first in a sweeping arc taking up most of his deployment line. He had 16 archers towards the north end of the board (north from my perspective). He had a solid shield wall with Warriors of Minas Tirith and spear supporting Rangers. Faramir and his KoMT were safely tucked behind the WoMT. I deployed with my archers on the hill and then formed an arc with my Mahud warriors supported by Haradrim Spears. My cavalry contigent lined up behind my front line as well.
The first turn saw only a single volley shot from men of Gondor with no damage inflicted. The haradrim moved full, skipping the opportunity to volley fire. In the second turn, both armies entered into direct fire range. The haradrim stuck first felling two armored Warriors of Minas Tirith. The Gondorians would have none of that and opened fire at the advancing Mahud line, dropping FOUR Mahud warriors in their first try. Scratching my head, I was suddenly put on the defensive a little bit. I moved my King towards the barrow that was blocking the middle of the field. I moved roughly half my infanty troops towards the right side of the barrow. I tried to reform my line with the section of Mahud that were slaughtered. I put the haradrim up front to be a meat shield in case there was another wave of deadly bowfire. On his move, Chris darted Faramir and 4 Knights across the board towards the barrow. This move proved to be a critical mistake in that my archers had a direct line of sight to Faramir. I unleashed 12 poisoned arrows and scored several hits. When the damage was rolled, I'd killed Faramir's horse and put two wounds on Faramir himself! He saved both with fate but the damage was done.
The next turn saw Faramir call a heroic move to get some of his KoMT with a charge. Young Suladan was directing his cavalry into a line of Rangers and WoMT on the northeast side of the barrow. Supported by a couple Mahud warriors and a half troll, that group made short work on the Men of Gondor. I did leave my cavalry a bit too exposed and Chris managed to shoot a camel from underneath a Raider. In that turn, I survived the charge of the KoMT without any damage, even managing to kill two Knights on the strength of the Mahud. The next turn saw 3 heroic moves called (evil had priority). Faramir won the roll-off but still wasn't able to pull away completely from the Mahud. However, with heroic moves from both the Mahud Tribesmaster and Young Suladan, I was able to engage a good chunk of his fighting force. Faramir had to burn his last point of might to win this fight. Elsewhere on the battlefield the remaining KoMT were charging up the hill to attack my archers. Once engaged, I decide to shoot into combat. I managed to kill one of my own guys but did run the gauntlet of dice roll to kill a KoMT (roll to hit, pass the in the way, hit the rider, then roll a '6').
The next turn, saw evil winning priority again. Damrod called a heroic move and Young Suladan countered. I won the roll-off for the first time of the day. I tied up Damrod and poured a Haradrim Raider, 2 Mahud warriors and spear support onto Faramir. In the ensuing combat, the best hat Faramir could roll was a 5. With 8 dice being thrown on my side, I managed to roll a 6. The subsequent rolls to wound saw the Prince of Ithilien cut down on the battlefield.
The end result was a Major Victory for the Haradrim. Chris put up a good fight but in the end, the ill-fated turn when he left Faramir exposed to the archers (with exceptionally lucky rolls to hit and wound for me) spelled his doom. I had a lot of fun playing this game and I think I'll definitely be trying to make the trip up to Layton Plaza to play some games. Anyway, thanks for the warm-up game Chris!!!
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