Rohan’s Revenge

So last Sunday Myself and Brad decided that we would have a rematch following my triumph the previous week.

We both again reprised our roles, with me leading my Isengard hosts, whilst he once more led his horse lords onto the field.  Once more we selected 500 point lists. We both made changes based on our lessons learnt from the previous week.

For, myself that meant, dropping all my Bow armed Uruk-hai scouts and taking another Warg and a lot more Orc’s to bolster my numbers, as I found last time it was my sheer numbers that allowed me to win. so Orc’s with spears were added to my mix, to provide supporting attacks, my plan was to try an create a 3 deep line of battle, the idea being that i can present an Uruk-hai or Orc warrior with a shield, who would then be supported by a spear and a pike.

Brad for his part dropped a lot of his throwing spears and took  a Captain of Ronan, to increase his available might.

My Host ready to wreck havoc on the horse lords of Rohan

With our forces selected, battle commenced, the first couple of turns saw both of us advancing very cautiously towards each other,  I knew that his riders pretty much get  the first charge in, so with that in mind I started to form up a defensive line as i described earlier, pretty much the equivalent of forming square.

Brad quickly worked out what I was doing, he’d just finished off my wargs to the loss of two of his riders and now very warily circled the rest of my host, seeing the large number of outwardly facing pointy sticks, he did not want to risk impaling his riders in a mad charge.

The waiting game began with my passing on priority to try and force him in to taking first move, but this was where my lessons learnt came to bite my, instead of charging, he held back and started to try picking at my host with his bow’s and of course left me of only Lurtz to respond to any shooting,

This pretty much spelt the end for me with Theodan now flanking me and my line closing up to fill the gaps left by the onslaught of arrow’s, I was forced to sally forth and try and slow down his flanking force, as expected Theodan and his royal guard made short work of my break out force also taking down Ugluk.. With this success  the riders took advantage of the gaps in my line and swept in, the rest of the game turned into a huge melee,  Even with dragging Theodan to his death, it was not enough to stem the tide. Only one poor Uruk-hai pike mane made it off the field to report this massacre to the master of the white tower.

So for me my man the match was the lone surviving Pike man, who survived multiple attempts at being run down during has flight off the board, as well as killing at least two riders,

Brad’s man of the match was his Captain, with as much as he complained at the start of the points cost, the extra might it gave clearly made up for it, allowing him to declare heroic moves that gave the ability to charge in my priority was pretty much the game winner,

Lesson’s learn

Yargh !!! Bow’s again, as much as they are pretty ineffective, this encounter showed that there is still a place for them,  Next time, I will have to figure out the most cost effective way to get some Bow’s into my army, I’m thinking Orc’s instead of expensive Uruk-hai, we shall see, but I do know the Horse Lords of Rohan, has not heard the last from the The hosts of Saruman