Battle: Rohan versus Rivendell

Mr FoB and I got together for a gentleman's battle of War of the Ring. Earlier, the SBG have proven to be a source of physical fights and many a raised voice. Raised voices may not be considered a problem in the socio-economic area we play in, but I highly dislike black-eyes, so WotR was fine with me. In fact, there was never a discussion on what type of LotR-game there was to be played.
    We each rolled a die to see which alignement we each were playing: 1-3 light, 4-6 dark. And proceeded to roll on this chart:

Light Forces (roll a D6)            Dark Forces (roll a D6)
1) Gondor.                                        1) Mordor
2) Rohan.                                         2) Isengard
3) Rivendell.                                     3) Harad (+ Far Harad)
4) Lorien & Mirkwood.                     4) Rhûn (Easterlings and Khand)
5) Erebor (Dwarf Holds).                  5) Misty Mountains
6) Arnor*                                         6) Angmar

*) IE.: Roll again, the Arnor army isn't done yet.

We both rolled something we didn't like and discussed a while and then settled for Rivendell's High Elves being attacked by the straw-haired Swede-wannabes that is the Rohirrim. Consider the table above a unit filler.

So, 750 points, no terrain. First game with a defender and an attacker, and then switch positions for next game. Only captains allowed and magic banned (which is why the points really didn't mattered since my Glorfindel essentially was used as an overpriced goodguy-troll without any magic). This is the last game with these essential parts of WotR disabled for my part.


FoB forgot to bring terrain, which was expected. To play without terrain can prove to make for a slightly less interesting game, but it didn't bother us that much since we setup the forces accordingly:

FoB had: 4 companies of Rohan Outriders, no command
               6 companies of Riders of Rohan, captain and banner
               2 companies of Rohan Royal Knights
               4 companies of Rohan Militia
               2 companies of Helmingas

Llama had: 3 companies of High Elf archers
                 3 companies of High Elf cohort-dudes
                 2 companies of High Elf glaivers
                 2 companies of unarmoured (Wood Elf) archers with Elven cloaks.
                 2 companies of unarmoured glaivers with Elven cloaks
                 1 neutered Glorfindel

The points clearly aren't 750, hehehe...

I at first thought the Elves would be at a disadvantage until I saw that weak left half of FoB's forces and planned, while going to a pre-game toilet-session (reading some of Martin Kellerman's Rocky), to just go all in on that left part, backing up the right part of my army. We haven't yet implemented the change to About Facing from the official FAQ of 2010 which really didn't matter because of the Elves awesome movement.

This game was filled with so many mistakes from us both that it just evened out. I forgot to use my Terror almost all the time. FoB forgot something else, can't remember what it was now... ja, ja...

We had great fun and I found myself behaving like Rainman because for some reason, all the stats have finally stuck in my brain. Stats, not tactis or special rules or general ways of playing well. Just stats. Which sped up the game slightly.
    Almost no brain-time, no analysis-paralysis. We went on with the game in an unusual efficient manner.

There are more pictures, but this is what happened in a nutshell: FoB attacked, I rolled 6's and killed riders here and there. After a while I won and we were too tired (lazy?) to switch sides, or to do anything else than go to the local burger-place and fill our bellies with "freedom-fries" and bacon. Hehehe, freedom fries... remember that? Niiine-eleveeen! Nine eleeevööön!

Notes: Forgot the Wood Elves cloaks which allowed the Rohan Outriders to charge them turn one. I don't think I used their throwing weapons either...

I forgot to charge the remaining Rohan Royal Knights to the right here with my High Elf Cohort. One of the twenty or so mistakes done by me in this game. But the archers in the center beat a formation of Rohirrim without losses.

After this picture was taken there was a larger fight with lots of casualties on both sides and then FoB's forces were broken and we went for din-dins.

6 games played out 100 before the end of 2012! Woohoo!