Good morning gamers,
We're back in Fantasy Fellowships today and will be covering the Ambush at Night scenario - I know last time I said we'd cover Warg Attack too, but having both in the same post was just too long! This mission is surprisingly NOT about our Fellowship members - Merry and Pippin are playing a mini-game against a depowered Grishnakh, with your victory conditions mostly being triggered by whether you can quarter the enemy (and whether you can get the Hobbits off the board before they're killed - which is much harder to do with Merry and Pippin than when you've got two pretty competent heroes as I have today). Let's dig into the scenario!
Mission #2: Ambush at Night
We deployed our forces as you see - the Isengard force isn't allowed to move on the first turn and Eomer's cavalry are split up into two groups - one led by a Captain of Rohan on horse with shield, the other led by Eomer on horse (yes, he has no shield or throwing spears - who does that, GW, seriously who does that!?!?!?!). The only thing of note from Turn 1 is that Bofur was able to untie his bonds (getting the required 6) on the first turn, so he's free to leg it from here on out!
We opted to move a little bit with Eomer's warband (since Eomer can't contribute if he's away from the action) and got some pretty good shooting in that turn (despite the 5+ Shoot Value), killing a spearman and a bowman!
The Uruk archers in return killed one throwing spear rider - gonna have to close soon!
As we started Turn 2 (no big shot, unfortunately), the Uruk-Hai got priority and Bifur called a Heroic Move. Bifur scrambled a little but managed to find the knife that Bofur used (apparently) to cut his bonds, because he got a 6 and is now free to run! Bofur is leaving him far behind.
My archery was atrocious, but the Uruks killed another Rider on Eomer's side - OUCH!
On Turn 3, I got priority and maneuvered Eomer's warband some more while the Isengarders are drifting away from Eomer under fire. My other warband is holding its ground, hoping we get a good volley in.
And a good volley we got, killing two Uruk-Hai bowmen on one side and an Uruk-Hai Scout with no extra gear on the other (having so many D4 foes is really nice for our bows - I'm used to seeing Uruk-Hai Scouts and Orc Warriors carrying shields all the time). The return archery killed a horse over by the Rohan Captain.
On Turn 4, the Isengarders got priority and began racing for my Captain's warband (instead of splitting up). I then did something stupid: I had my guys sit back for one more volley instead of starting to maneuver. Eomer was in charge range of some Orcs, so he came slamming into to two of them, while Bifur and Bofur are legging it for the woods.
While sitting and shooting might not have been the best idea, we did get an extra kill - one less F4 Uruk-Hai to fight in melee (and 8 models total killed with our bows)!
In the Fight Phase, Eomer called a Heroic Combat (1/3M) and killed the two guys he was fighting (make a note of that Orc spearman - he's going to be important later). Eomer decided to make the lives of Bifur and Bofur easier by slamming into Grishnakh (who in the scenario has no shield, 1 Might, and 1 Attack) - should be easy pickings, right?
Well, he beat him handily enough, but it turns out that when you can't roll higher than a 4+ when you don't get that sweet S5 on the charge that Eomer usually has in Matched Play, you cry a little. And by a little, I mean a lot. Oh, Eomer . . .
On Turn 5, Isengard got priority again, so I decided to have a quick look at the rules and I noticed that the Merry and Pippin characters don't HAVE to both run off the board - only one does. So, I called a Heroic Move with Bifur (who was in range of both Bofur and Eomer) and I moved him slightly so Eomer could charge two Uruk-Hai bowmen and Bofur could move up a bit (leaving Grishnakh behind). What I SHOULD have done was played more conservatively with Eomer and had him charge the spearman who lived from the last round, but because I like big heroes doing big hero things, I slammed into two Uruk-Hai instead . . .
. . . and then Eomer got swarmed by Uruk-Hai (including Mauhur) and the Orc spearman came in to help, trapping Eomer with the help of another Orc. The rest of the Isengarders came close to my cavalry, so I decided that standing and shooting was stupid and we should charge in. I did make a mistake here, though: I charged Snaga with 2 Riders of Rohan because I thought, "well, he has 2 dice to my 4 dice, so I've got a 50/50 chance of winning" (see a recent math article for why that is). I forgot, however, that Snaga also has Might and the higher Fight Value, so I SHOULD have just left him alone and moved these guys around as reserves for next round - learn from my mistake, people!
In the Shoot Phase, the Outriders near Eomer did what they could to make is situation better by sniping that spearman - hurrah!
The Fight Phase was mixed on the Rohan Captain's front, with a Heroic Combat from the Captain failing to work against a single Orc (because bad dueling dice), three Isengard models getting killed on my right flank and I lost three Riders on my left flank (basically the whole flank - which could have been avoided if I'd just left Snaga alone and shot at him).
Elsewhere, Eomer called a Heroic Strike at the start of the Fight Phase (automatically giving him the better Fight Value), got to F6 (good enough), and proceeded to roll a 4-high on his dueling roll (just needed a 5 and I'd have guaranteed victory with my remaining Might point). He was then promptly chopped to bits because Mauhur wasn't being a diva (and because GW didn't give him a shield, so the grunts were all wounding him on 5s with S4 or S3 + Piercing Strike). That . . . changes my plans quite a bit . . .
I once again failed to get priority, so I called a Heroic Move with the Captain (he's out of Might) and Ugluk was like, "Sure, go for it - let's see what you do." So I charged - one guy into Snaga, the Captain into Ugluk (hoping to stop a Heroic Combat), two other Riders into two Uruks, and then left my remaining two models to respond to the Isengarder movement.
I also called a Heroic Move for free with Bifur, repositioning closer to the board edge (and bringing those cav archers away from the Isengard units.
Things got interesting, with Eomer's killers pursuing my riders and my two Outriders slamming into a guy to hopefully kill him. My other units up top got charged.
In the Shoot Phase, my 3 Riders of Rohan managed to kill one more Uruk - 10 kills with archery this game! With this kill, the Isengard force was broken - my hope is that they start to run in droves (starting with Ugluk).
Alas, things were about to get worse up top - Snaga and Ugluk called Heroic Combats and diced up the cavalry model that charged him. He decided to leave my Captain alone (Ugluk's good - or maybe there was betrayal in mind?) and he charged one of my other Riders instead.
Ugluk's combat worked, slaying the Captain easily (well, I did botch my Fate point, which would have caused it to fail, but whatever) and he threw himself into another Rider of Rohan . . .
. . . which ended as you'd expect. I did win a few fights, but didn't kill anyone. This force is decimated and my only hope lies with a few Riders of Rohan and Outriders on the other side of the board. I need to get Bofur off the board before we get quartered . . .
Thankfully, my Outriders decided to kill the guy they charged, so while they're exposed, they're exposed, they're also slowly bringing the Isengard force closer to being quartered.
No group shot for Turn 7, but you know what's happening - we got priority and we charged stuff - tying down Mauhur as you'll see shortly and slamming into his skeleton crew of supporters. We also charged into a few guys up top, but our last mounted Rider got swarmed by guys (I sense a Combat coming up). Bofur has abandoned the field at this point, running like mad for the board edge - but Bifur feels for the men of the Mark and sticks around.
There was actually some shooting this round, with some Uruk-Hai bowmen shooting at one of the Riders that charged a basic guy, killing the horse.
In the Fight Phase, the expected Heroic Combat was called and went exactly as you'd expect when two heroes, two spear supports, and four grunts are involved.
All told, the rest of the fights went pretty well - we killed Mauhur (he always becomes a diva eventually), killed the other guy near him, and our last Rider of Rohan (dismounted - his name is Teothic) won his fight but didn't kill his guy. Both of us are broken at this point, so the big question is who's going to run away first . . .
On the next round, as you can see, we had our first fleeing Orc (far left), but Ugluk kept most of the army in motion. We shot and didn't kill anything, Teothic and his Orc foe fought and no one died . . .
On Turn 9, four guys fled from both sides, causing both of us to be quartered on the same turn! We had two fights set up for this round, but we knew (since Bofur finally walked off the board - after narrowly passing his Courage test!) that the game would end in a draw.
Teothic fought the Orc again and . . . no one died . . .
Bifur finally had the match-up he'd been hoping for the entire match - a mono-e-mono against Grishnakh. Thanks to having Heroic Strike, more Attacks, and rerolling Failed To Wounds with his shiny dagger from Galadriel, he did what Eomer could not and killed the little Morgul rat!
Conclusion
Well, that was an interesting end - turns out not passing Courage tests is a big deal in MESBG scenarios as well as Matched Play! Getting a loss on this scenario wouldn't have been bad, but I will take a draw instead (Bifur and Bofur were never in any danger from Grishnakh, so there would have been no recovery rolls to make - I didn't both rolling for their stat regrowth because they both have rest points before their next missions).
I definitely played too aggressively with Eomer, though him failing to kill Grishnakh was a fluke I couldn't plan for. Having Eomer around to chew through Warriors would have been nice later in the game, but when you only get a 4-high on 4 dice with 1 Might left, what can you do? So yeah, flukes happen is the lesson here.
One other thing I feel was notable in this scenario: those free Heroic Moves from Bifur are rapidly becoming the best thing about this Fellowship - Might is really constrained in most scenarios and being able to move first with my cavalry in this scenario was huge! Bifur will be with Gandalf at the Pelennor when we see him next, so he won't be helping the Rohirrim run over Morannon Orcs, but there are special rules to help with that. Frankly, I think Gandalf is going to need him more!
If you enjoyed this, let us know in the comments below! Next time we'll see if I can keep my heroes alive against a horde of Warg Riders - until then, happy hobbying!
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