Good morning gamers,
We're back for Part 2 in our custom Osgiliath campaing and we're back in Gondor at War to see if Boromir - without his horse or shield - can retake Osgiliath! As we said last time, we're going to change up the scenario participants to make it Matched Play legal for the new edition - and while we could have been truer to the listed participants by sticking with the Army of the White Hand (now that they have access to Trolls), we decided to shake things up a bit and make it a roughly 525pt game between the Reclamation of Osgiliath and the Legions of Mordor!
The Retaking of Osgiliath (Gondor at War, p. 10)
We've decided to use the following models in today's game:
- Forces of Good: The Reclamation of Osgiliath
- Boromir, Captain of the White Tower with the Banner of Minas Tirith
- Faramir, Captain of Ithilien
- 8 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields
- 8 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields and spears
- 9 Rangers of Gondor
- Forces of Evil: The Legions of Mordor
- 3 Morannon Orc Captains with shields
- 6 Morannon Orcs
- 8 Morannon Orcs with shields
- 8 Morannon Orcs with shields and spears
- 6 Morannon Orcs with spears
- 1 Mordor Troll
I wanted to make two notes about the Legions of Mordor list (which we reviewed recently in our New Age is Begun series): this list can be run with just the Armies of the Lord of the Rings book and has 32 models at 525 - and so at 550, you could add a banner to it and it would be quite strong, in my opinion. You could also drop 1 Morannon Orc with no extra gear to get shields on 8 people - that would be good too.
One additional note: the Reclamation army list gives its Warrior models a once-per-game +1 To Wound modifier while they are within 6" of Boromir - and this is going to stack in this game with a scenario special rule that gives +1 To Wound for models within 3" of Boromir and/or Faramir while charging. This means that any Warrior of Minas Tirith or Ranger of Gondor who charges into combat within 3" of Boromir OR within 3" of Faramir and 6" of Boromir gets +2 To Wound. This bonus will only be applied on a single turn, but on that turn it's gonna be really strong.
This may seem excessive (and no doubt at least one person thinks we should have ignored the scenario special rule), but I will note that the original scenario participants are Mordor Orc Warriors and not Morannon Orcs - so if you play the scenario as written without the Reclamation army list bonus, wounding on 4s is actually normal for this scenario (and it's not tied to a single turn - it's all game!). So yes . . . we played with both rules . . . and yes, the stacking of those rules is very powerful (as you'll soon see).
The board is a 48"x48" setup that is similar to the setup last time - the Orcs are deploying within 12" of the board edge with the water and the Gondorians are deploying within 12" of the opposite board edge:
The victory conditions are simple: both Boromir and Faramir need to die for Evil to win and Good needs to wipe out the Evil side. Theoretically, if both sides achieve their objectives in the same turn, the game is a draw (you'd need a brother to drown on the same turn as killing the last of the enemy models OR have the Troll Hurl into one brother during a Heroic Combat that succeeds with both the Captain calling the Combat and the Troll dying in the second combats that they charged . . . neither of which seems likely to happen). I'm frankly a little surprised that there isn't a rule that the best Good can get is a draw if one of the brothers falls, but hey - I'll take it.
Turn 1: Priority Good
I advanced with the Boromir-shieldwall and moved my Rangers a bit forward, but they're all able to shoot this turn. The Morannons advanced as well.
Faramir and a Ranger of Gondor killed 2 Morannon Orcs with shields - Faramir finally has a shooting kill!
Turn 2: Priority tied, Evil
Both armies advanced (not the Rangers) but there were no kills with my bows. Both armies are out of charge range.
Turn 3: Priority Evil
For Gondor! The Morannons advanced a little bit and Boromir and his boyz charged in! Faramir also had a chargeable target and my Rangers moved up a little so they'll be able to support the shieldwall in future turns.
Another Ranger scores a kill in the Shoot Phase - I'm doing a lot better than last game!
There were Heroic Combats called by Boromir (1/6M), one of the Morannon Orc Captains (1/2M), and Faramir (1/3M). Faramir went first and won his fight, but then only dealt 1 Wound to the Captain he was fighting, but the Fate save was unsuccessful (1/1F, 1/2H). The Morannon Orc Captain went next, but he lost his fight (despite having the higher Fight Value) and was wounded, also failing his Fate save (1/1F, 1/2H). Boromir won his fight and killed his foe, charging into two spearmen.
The fights went incredibly well - the Minas Tirith warriors won all of their fights and killed basically ALL of the Mornanons they were fighting. I don't know that any of the wounding rolls were successful on the required 4 (instead of the usual 5), but the mix of the auto-win-ties banner bonus and the easy wounding difficult made it very easy to cut through the Morannons.
Turn 4: Priority Evil
Boromir declared a Heroic Move (2/6M) to make sure that the Warriors got the charge (Boromir rerolls all failed to wounds when he charges, so that's useful for him too). We're getting +1 To Wound again, so we just need to win some fights!
The rest of the charges went like this - Faramir got charged by some of the flankers (totally forgot there were doors there), so I brought in a Ranger to relieve some of the pressure on Faramir.
In the Shoot Phase, the eight other Rangers killed two more Morannons - four kills for the warriors so far (but we aren't likely to get much more).
Boromir declared another Heroic Combat (3/6M) and the other Morannon Orc Captain (1/2M) - both of them won their Combats, killed their foes, and charged into new foes, but Boromir got a 4-high on his dueling roll and had to burn 2 more Might points to win his duel (5/6M).
The fights were mostly favorable, but the Mordor Troll Barged into Faramir, who didn't declare a Strike (frankly I didn't think Faramir was chargeable, but he barely but definitely was). Faramir was hoping that the Troll would whiff his duel roll, but he didn't and since Faramir was trapped, the Troll wounded Faramir five times and killed him outright. Halfway to victory . . .
Turn 5: Priority Good
With limited Might on both sides, I was able to charge where I wanted and boy was that good for my matchups - not everyone is close enough to Boromir for the wounding bonuses, but golly do I have some good odds! Some of my Rangers redeployed to get to the main body, while the others rushed the remaining Orcs by the tower door.
Boromir lost his duel and suffered a wound (1/3H) and the Troll did a Barge to get closer to Boromir. I lost a lot of guys, but killed just as many, so that's not so bad.
Turn 6: Priority Good
I'm wrapping up the assault on my left flank while a few brave souls try to get good matchups on the right flank. I don't have a plan for the Troll unless I can wrap-and-trap him, so that's not great.
The Troll Barged into the two fleeing Rangers (should have run them further south) and diced them up, but my left flank is secure. I also have a few more Rangers in the tower, so that should keep some of the Orcs busy.
Turn 7: Priority Evil
I formed a wall on the left side and my unengaged Rangers moved towards a different door of the tower to get away from the action, but also potentially open up another avenue of attack. The two guys fighting the Troll are doomed . . .
. . . that is, one of them is doomed, because the Troll didn't roll well! The Morannon Orc Captain decided he didn't want to lose his duel, so he burned his last Might point to win his fight and kill his foe (2/2M).
Turn 8: Priority Evil
With Evil committing to their position first, I just have to kill four more models and two Rangers charged one of the Orcs!
Aaaaaaand . . . nobody died that round. The Rangers won but didn't kill their foe and the Troll flubbed against the shielding Warrior of Minas Tirith! Next turn should be interesting . . .
Turn 9: Priority Evil
I need my last Might point for a Strike, so the Troll moved to where he couldn't be charged by Boromir. This meant that Boromir could just charge the Captain. Mountain Dwellers proved very helpful in crossing all the rocky difficult terrain and I have a solid wall for charging the Troll next turn.
I killed both remaining Orcs, but failed to kill the Captain. So it will come down to beating the last remaining hero and monster with one power piece . . .
Turn 10: Priority Evil
The Troll charged and the Captain fled into some warriors, so Boromir charged the Troll. I got some guys around to form a trap without charging and got a TON of guys into the Troll!
Postgame
So despite not having priority for most of the game, I got a massive win! As I said at the beginning, the two wounding bonuses stacking for one round did feel oppressive, but since this is normally played with Orc Warriors, the killing would have been on 4s near Boromir ALL GAME! Sheesh, this one is hard for Evil - especially with no credible archery option and no real reason to engage. The entire time, I was also like, "Can you imagine this guy on a horse?" The Reclamation list is strong; as far as scenarios go, this one is fine.
Next time, we're headed to the Quest of the Ringbearer book to play the Osgiliath scenario - which Centaur and I have played through twice, but never with the actual participants (#FantasyFelliwships). We'll be tweaking the scenario participants again, so be sure to check this space in a few weeks! Until next time, happy hobbying!
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