Good morning gamers,
There are some scenarios that feel like they're horribly weighted towards one side (Good or Evil). There are some scenarios that look downright impossible to win for one side. There are some scenarios where you look at the scenario rules and just say, "Yeah, I just gotta kill everything and I'll finish the scenario objectives later." We've seen a bunch of these scenarios in Fantasy Fellowships . . . and this is going to be another one. :) The technical win conditions for the Docks of Harlond scenario is to get your Aragorn character and either your Legolas or Gimli character off the Evil player's board edge . . . but we can do this really easily by just killing everyone. And so, this scenario is yet another example of the best scenarios in Fantasy Fellowships: line up the enemy and smash them! Let's get into our last Pelennor scenario - and get back to the beater heroes in my Fellowship!
The Docks of Harlond
The plan here is simple: because we don't have Heroic March in our Fellowship, we're just here to kill lots of guys. The Orcs don't respawn in this scenario, so it's 40 of them against 30 of us - and we have FAR better heroes (and way more points) than they do! So yeah, we're just gonna kill things - and if they're running away from the back board edge and don't want to engage, we'll have Nori and Dwalin (because he's a diva and I can't trust him) run for the gate . . . because why not . . .
I don't have 20 Warriors of the Dead (with no extra gear!) or 6 Riders of the Dead, so I used my 10 Warriors of the Dead, 10 Nazgul of Dol Guldur/Castellan proxies, and my 6 Ponies of Equestria. To make this post a bit more interesting, I'll make some random comments about how well the ponies do.
Turn 1-3: Priority Good, Good, Good
Good automatically starts with priority in most scenario missions and I won the priority roll on rounds two and three, so I advanced with my guys while Centaur held on the center for a turn and then retreated towards the more restricted deployment of the Rammos Echor gate . . . here are some pics:
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| The army of the Dunharrow advances towards the enemy, with the ponies driving up the right flank |
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| We continue to press forward as the Orcs begin to fall back - the ponies stayed outside of 12" (so they couldn't be charged) . . . |
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| The infantry continue to advance as the Morannons back up towards the gate - the ponies once again stay outside of 12" to avoid being charged on Turn 4 . . . |
Turn 4: Priority Evil
With Centaur finally getting priority, I was able to move my Riders of the Dead to 6.5" away from the Morannons, which means they're finally ready for a charge. The rest of my boys moved within 5" of the enemy, so we fully intend to get locked in next turn!
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| Everyone's ready to go - if only we can get priority next turn . . . |
CHARGE! Centaur didn't want to open up his flanks, so I slammed into him with as many models as possible. Centaur shifted his lines as well as he could (especially on his right flank against the King of the Dead), but was mostly happy with the wall he'd already made.
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| Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Applejack crash Centaur's left flank, while Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Twilight Sparkle hang back in the wings as reserves . . . |
In the Fight Phase, Gloin declared a Piercing Strike and won his fight after boosting his high-roll (1/3M). He wounded the Mornannon Orc Captain only once, who saved it with his Fate point and both of his Might points (1/1F, 2/2M). Nori won his fight, but had to boost it with both of his Might points (2/2M). He wounded only once (S4 with no bonuses to wound is a bit of a pain sometimes), and that wound was also saved with Fate (1/1F). Dwalin dealt two wounds to Guritz, who passed his Fate point (1/1F, 1/2H). Finally, the King of the Dead dealt two wounds to the Captain he was fighting, which insta-killed him thanks to Drain Soul.
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| Things went really well for me - but not well for Apple Jack - figures that the loyal one would be the first to fall . . . |
Turn 6: Priority tied, Evil
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| Heroic Move - the ponies charge again! |
After the Heroic Move, Guritz successfully charged a Warrior of the Dead, but had to burn his Will point to pass his Courage test (1/1W).
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| Pinkie Pie and Twilight Sparkle continue to wait to get into the action . . . |
In the Fight Phase, Dwalin declared a Heroic Combat (1/3M), as did the King of the Dead (1/1M). Both of them succeeded in killing their foes and charged again.
In the rest of the Fight Phase, Gloin lost his fight (he's really not on today), but only suffered one wound (1/2H). Guritz won his fight after a costly boosted roll (2/3M) and then wounded his foe after another boost (3/3M).
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| Rainbow Dash lost but wasn't killed, while Fluttershy did the heavy-lifting to keep both her and Rarity alive (and ended up killing their foe) . . . Rarity was busy combing her hair or something . . . |
Turn 7: Priority tied, Good
With very little Might left on the Morannon Orc side (one Captain has 2 Might), Centaur decided to pass and I charged in again.
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| Lots of charging - still no room for Pinkie or Twilight to engage . . . |
In the Fight Phase, Dwalin won his fight (2/3M) and killed his foes. Nori won his fight, failed to wound either of the Morannons he was fighting (even after his reroll!), but because they both Stabbed, I got to roll for the S2 hit they took - and one of them died! Gloin finished off the Captain after boosting a wounding roll (3/3M).
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| Three charging ponies, three dead Orcs - perfection! |
With very few models remaining and almost no Might on the board, the final turns went pretty quickly.
Turn 8-10: Priority Evil, tied-Good, tied-Evil
With very few models remaining and almost no Might on the board, the final turns went pretty quickly - mostly with my heroes and Riders charging into people and killing them. At the end of Turn 10, there was only one Morannon Orc left, so we called it there - here are some pictures:
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| Turn 8 combat resolution - Pinkie's finally in the action and Twilight/Rainbow Dash did a change-up! |
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| Turn 9 combat resolution - Rarity lost, but the others all did their jobs well! |
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| Turn 10 combat resolution - Rarity! NOOOOO!!!!!! |
Post game
Yeah, that went pretty well. I think Centaur had the right idea for the scenario - with just over 500pts of models on your side and well over 500pts with just the heroes and riders on the other side, Evil is at a huge disadvantage. S5 from Piercing Strike and access to spears helps some, but the 6" banner and more killy heroes on the Good side is pretty oppressive. I will say that the D7 "bunker captains" that the Morannon force has did a good job of blunting Nori and on one turn, Gloin - just goes to show I wasn't wrong when I thought these guys could be useful.
Hopefully you enjoyed this battle report - we're going to do a deep-dive on the last mission of Fantasy Fellowships in two weeks and then wrapping up the campaign in four weeks. It's been quite the journey - and if you've followed us all year while we did this, thanks for coming along! For more on Fantasy Fellowships, check out the Quest of the Ringbearer tab at the top and until next time, happy hobbying!
Yeah, this scenario has always felt quite one-sided to me in all of my games of it. As long as you have some decent chopping heroes in your Three Hunters then there really isn't much to slow them down on the Evil side. Not to mention that Warriors of the Dead backed by a 6" banner are ridiculously good at slicing through Morannons, so it's just a hard slog all around for Evil. A couple of Trolls honestly wouldn't go astray, and I think were present in some earlier versions of this scenario. Plus, any excuse to actually use those Mordor Trolls we all have sitting around is worthwhile in my view haha
ReplyDeleteAlso, interesting that I seem to be able to comment on this post when I'm still unable on the other one. Good to see I'm not permanently blacklisted by Blogger haha
DeleteYeah - I rushed Centaur's Fellowship and that didn't fare any better (though I did lose fewer guys). They need a) more guys, b) punchier guys, and/or c) fewer Warriors of the Dead. I actually think that the book-accurate recommendation of Clansmen of Lamedon with Rangers of the North and the Twins might be an even more one-sided match up . . . but at least Terror wouldn't be a thing.
DeleteI will also let the comment about Mordor Trolls go by without challenge . . . for now . . . but more on that next year. ;-)