Taking on board comments from my last game of Dragon Rampant (DR) / Lord of the Rings (LotR), I trimmed down the wasted points on some of the Isengard troop types and freed up enough points to add an Elite Foot Spellcaster; Saruman (accompanied by Wormtongue).
Would Saruman's presence balance the sides and enable him to overcome the forces of Rohan and Gondor? To help me find out, Phil kindly volunteered to come over and play the 'bad guys'.
The two sides were same as last time with the exception of adding Saruman and tweaking the bonus attributes on some units to balance the sides at 61 points each - a big game for Dragon Rampant which usually fields 24 points a side.
- 1 x Elite Riders - Prince Theodred
- 2 x Heavy Rider - Riders of Rohan
- 1 x Heavy Foot - Rohan Warriors
- 2 x Elite Foot - Rangers of Ithilien
- 1 x Greater Warbeasts - Giant Eagles
- 1 x Lesser Warbeasts - Eagles
The Baddies (Isengard): Phil
- 1 x Elite Foot / Spellcaster - Saruman
- 2 x Bellicose Foot - Uruk Hai
- 4 x Light Foot - Orcs / Goblins
- 1 x Scouts - Orc / Goblin Scouts
- 1 x Light Riders - Warg Riders
- 1 x Lesser Warbeasts - Wargs
- 1 x Greater Warbeast - Cave Troll
We opted to keep things simple and used Scenario A, 'Gory Bloodbath on the Plains of Doom' a line 'em up and fight to the death. We rolled dice to determine who was the 'attacker' and who the 'defender' - I lost so deployed first.
On my left, I put a unit of Ithilien Rangers in the wood and the Giant Eagles way out on my left flank ready to fly in as required.
In the centre the I lined up the Rohirrim.
And on my right, the other ranger unit and the (non-giant) Eagles providing a similar flank threat to their larger cousins on the other flank.
Phil forces deployed with a fairly continuous line of Orc units, with the Troll and one Uruk band to the right (his right) of the wood in the centre of his deployment area (the Orc Scouts in that wood are just out of shot).
And the other Uruk band out on his left flank with the Wargs.
As the attacker Phil took the first move but apart from advancing the Orc Scouts in the wood, passed on any further moves to see what I would do.
I advanced both Ranger units, eager to get the forward edge of their respective woods from where they could start shooting. The Rohan infantry moved up to keep level with the rangers and the mounted troops kept station just back from the foot. In his next turn Phil also pressed forward with most of his troops. This brought them into range and my left-flank Rangers opened the ball with a volley of arrows against the Troll removing 1 strength point (SP) as indicated by the red marker.
Undeterred, Phil pushed forward. In my turn the Rangers on the right reached the edge of the wood to see quite a lot of bad guys coming their way.
Now the armies are a bit closer to each other, overview photos became more practical, and the photo below should make all the above a bit easier to follow.
And for more detail, some closer photos of my left wing ...
My Eagles, who passed their Wild Charge test, now activated to swoop down on the Uruk band in the first combat of the game, and drove them back (unbattered).
Nearby, some excellent shooting by the Rohan infantry and the Rangers, and poor Courage dice rolls by the Wargs and an Orc band saw both targets battered (yellow marker)!
On the other flank the Giant Eagles, not be outdone fell upon the Troll and sent it packing (retreating, but not battered).
This was beginning to look too easy. In the next turn the Uruks charged the Giant Eagles and defeated them, inflicting a loss of 2SPs, and when they threw their Courage test dice ... they got Snake-Eyes and promptly routed off-table.
That, and Saruman healing (restoring an SP) the Troll, wiped the smile off my face, but in my turn the Eagles, making up for their larger brethren, fell upon the Wargs and reduced them to a single figure, albeit the Warg leader's Courage held.
I also felt the time was now right to release the Rohirrim and finish off the Troll - Forth Éolingas!
This sent the Troll packing, but only managed to take off the SP Saruman had just restored. Trolls are tough.
Another overview shows the situation at this stage (I'm sure I've missed out quite a bit of the action up to this point but no notes were taken during this game).
And a couple more shots, one of my left wing ...
... and one from the other end of the table.
In Phil's turn the Uruk band near the Troll failed their Wild Charge and attacked the Rohirrim unit that had driven it off.
Hold on there a minute Muskie! I can try to counter-charge! That's better.
Or at least so I thought. The Uruks rolled some devastating dice, and I made a devastating cock-up. I got confused with my Elite Rohirrim unit and thought each figure was 2SPs, so instead of the unit dropping to half-strength they lost one figure and took a red marker. And then when working out the winner I went by number of figures lost! Screw-up piled on top of cock-up! So, Phill's Uruks retreated instead of my men - Oh the shame of it!
Saruman, no doubt annoyed by what looked to him like a most egregious case of cheating unleashed a Power Bolt.
This should've all but annihilated the unit, but with red markers in play the confusion over the Rohirrim SPs continued and they only lost one more figure. In reality they should've been cut down to one figure at this point!!!
Then, when Lady Luck should've kicked me into the gutter, a little bit of shooting against the Uruks on the other side of the table saw them Snake-Eye their Courage test and flee the field.
With the Uruks gone the other Rohirrim unit seized the opportunity to ride down the last Warg.
Leaving the table looking like this.
Now, as if to completely disprove the adage that 'cheats never prosper', Phil had a run of dreadful luck with his rallying of battered units and activations that, combined with a fairly bloody Rohirrim charge on one of his Orc bands, saw his army drastically reduced. With his army down to Saruman, one Orc band and the Orc Scouts, Phil conceded the field - which looked like this.
As can be seen above, my regular Rohirrim unit had 1SP left, the Elite Rohirrim 4SPs and the two Ranger units with 4 and 5 SPs respectively. BTW the reduced Elite Rohirrim at the bottom left was the result of another Power Bolt from Saruman (he cast several during the game but several had turned out to be damp squibs).
Post Mortem
Half-way through it was looking like another easy win for the good guys, but the baddies staged a bit of comeback that had me worried. But were the sides better balanced? Maybe, but as a traditional wargamer I'm used to tables with less terrain than the typical DR game and I think this is making missile troops more effective, and I had a definite advantage in shooting. That is until Saruman started unleashing Power Bolts.
BUT, the ghastly error over the mounted Rohan units certainly kept them in the game longer than they should have, and their earlier demise could easily have tipped the battle to the Dark-Side.
So, yes, I do think the sides are now better balanced if I can only stop cocking up the rules!
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