This is my first attempt at a battle report, so go easy on me
I apologise for the lack of photos, I didn't plan this as a report at the time and thus didnt have a camera handy.
Battle Companies are a great way to play Lord of the Rings with their mix of strategy and a bit of a
RPG feel. I have a number of companies running, but as a friend of mine was keen to try out his new Elves, I decided to start a new Khandish Battle Company, the Band of the Bloody Hand. We came up with a variant on the Rivendell
BC list, as that had proved a bit lacking in numbers in previous outings agains my Moria Goblins. Basically it consisted of 3 elves with elven blades, 3 with spear & shield and 1 with an elven bow. All were in normal armour.
Scenario was a Chance Encounter. The battlefield had a lot of trees etc on it. He split his force into three groups, 2 of these pairing his elven-blade armed heroes with spear&shield-armed warriors (the right hand one was his main hero), these he deployed in woods to right and left of his deployment area, with another swordsman hero, a spear&shielder and the archer in the middle also in a clump of trees. I deployed between two patches of woods on the opposite side, phalanx formation with 3 axemen in the front rank, three archers (2 of which are heroes) in the middle and the remaining 3 axemen bringing up the rear. The main hero was of course one of the back-rank axemen
The first two or three turns involved me moving forward in formation, he moved the two groups to right and left around to flank me from either side, the middle group stayed put and did nothing other than take pot shots at my troops with the archer. No casualties though, my archers returned fire and nailed him eventually. His main hero and supporting spear-elf moved to almost within charge range for him, though the fact that they were in another patch of woods mean that I wouldn’t be able to do so. I therfore split off a my main hero, a normal axeman and one of my bow-armed heroes to counter that threat. The rest I moved forward, mindful of the other flanking group.
Eventually the fight broke out in the woods, initially between my two axemen and his spear-supported hero. He won the fight but didn’t manage to wound. Next round I added the bowman to the mix, not very successfully although I eventually managed to kill the spear-elf. My main hero was forced to use his Fate point though, which set him up for a hilarious situation later. The battle in the centre eventually resolved itself into a melee line. I reminded him of the shielding rule, thereafter he happily used it plus his higher Fight value to hold of most of my force while attempting to take some of them out with his sword-armed heroes.
His luck was pretty horrible with them though, every time he had a chance to kill one of my guys he couldn’t roll high enough to wound, pretty bad since he only needed a 4 or more on a
D6 to do so. Eventually he started pulling his forces back to regroup.
During this phase the moment occurred; he had moved his main hero beyond a wall, I moved my archer hero to just behind the wall in order to shoot at him. I jumped my main hero and the other axeman over the wall, they made their rolls successfully but only to the other side of the wall. Position-wise unfortunately I realised when I checked for line of sight my main hero was in the way of the bowman's shot. So I took advantage of the Evil ability to shoot regardless.
Needless to say it hit my hero and wounded him ... note that he had used his Fate point earler so bye-bye. We both laughed our heads off! My luck with friendly fire continues ...
The rest of the battle consisted of me killing one of his sword-armed heroes after shooting away his Fate point, and once I'd killed another of his spearmen he decided to surrender, he had 3 guys left of which only one had a shield, against 7 of my guys.
Post-game I had only two casualties to roll for, both made fully recoveries. Of his four casualties, his hero suffered an arm wound and both spear&shielders got flesh wounds. The archer was fine. That meant the next game would involve only 5 on his side versus 10 on mine, as I recruited another axeman. My one bow-armed hero got an upgrade, ironically because of the wound inflicted on his leader … and I rolled a Fight/Shoot upgrade. Guess who's 3+ to Shoot now? Pretty funny given the circumstances.
Anyway he's not repared to take on 2 to 1 odds, especially since he has only 1 shield-armed warrior available. So he's probably going to start again, this time though I've agreed to let him choose this starting force to more or lesss match my Khandish Band's current army value. So basically he's setting up a force of 7 elves again, though this time with 3 elven swords (heroes again) and 4 with spear and shield. All will be in heavy armour, 99 points vs my 95, so no big deal there. Hopefully this coming weekend we'll get to see whether that makes enough of a difference to give him a chance to win, diuce permiting. At least he knows all about shielding now ...
