This is my battle report for the March of the Dead scenario included in the Battle of Pelennor Fields boxed set for Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game. I don't own the boxed set, nor any Riders or Rohan miniatures, so I'm playing the campaign as Romans against Orcs.
In the book and movies, Aragorn visits the haunted dead of Dunharrow, These men of the White Mountains were cursed to remain in Dwimorberg and Harrowdale by Isildur when they failed to aid him in the War of the Last Alliance. Aragorn being an heir of Isiludur is able to recruit them in his fight against the orcs.
In my campaign, they're the dead souls of upstanding Romans who the orcs slaughtered as they forged a path to Rome. With Mibyllor defeated, the orcs are retreating, but they hardly expect to be faced by the spirits of those they've slain.
Special rules
The goal of the scenario is to reduce the opponent to 25% of its force. That means the orcs must remove all but 2 ghosts, and the ghosts must remove all but 6 orcs.
I have 9 ghost miniatures (6 from the Ravenloft board game, 3 from Wizkids), so I'm already down by 1. Because they're determined to die with honour at last, all the Dead count as being in range of a banner. A banner in Middle-earth Strategy Batltle Game allows 1 model to reroll a D6 during a Duel that involves a friendly model. In other words, as long as the Dead team up for melee, one of them gets a Duel reroll. Then again, there are only 9 Dead, so teaming up could prove tricky.
Most intriguingly, the Dead have the Blades of the Dead special rule, which means their To Wound rolls target an orc's Courage instead of Defence. Considering that a Morannon Orc has 5 Defence but only 2 Courage, that's going to make quite the difference. Will it be enough of a difference for 9 Dead of Dunharrow to triump over 24 orcs? We're about to find out!
The battle
The scenario dictates that the Good side gets initial priority. I also happened to read in the rulebook that the Good side automatically gets initial priority in narrative games, as well, so I've been doing that wrong. Should be easy to remember, now that I know, because it's the same for Battle in Balin's Tomb.
Rather than breaking the battle out into rounds, I'm just going to relate what happened over the whole scenario.
The strategy of the Dead was to move toward small groups of orcs and try to pick them off one by one. The Orcs strategy was to swarm the Dead, except that the Dead are terrifying (that's the Terror ability), so even though there were lots of Orcs in the vicinity, only a few of them would pluck up the courage to Charge each round.
The Dead are strongest in pairs, thanks to their Banner ability. The power differential between the Dead and the Orcs meant that there were several rounds of rolling to Wound with no removal. When an Orc won a Duel, it couldn't Wound because they're Strength 4 against Defence 7. When a Warrior of the Dead won the Duel (which was more often than not) they struggled to Wound just because rolling 4+ is harder than it sounds, I guess.
Obstructions and battlefield layout helped limit the skirmish sizes, as well. I don't see anywhere in the rules that the Dead can move through solid objects. I'd thought that's what they would do, but I refrained from adding that rule at first for fear of throwing off the balance, and then later because there was no need. It's a pretty small battlefield, and the Orcs have no objective but to fight, so they just kept swarming toward the Dead.
In the end, the Dead defeated the Orcs, with the requisite 6 Orcs (a quarter of the army) remaining compared to 6 Dead (two-thirds the original army).
Orcs and the Dead
On paper, this seemed like an interesting scenario but in practise it quickly became endlessly disappointing dice roll after disappointing dice roll. You'd win a Duel but fail to Wound, you'd lose a Duel but fail to be Wounded. Over and over again.
I think this scenario badly needed either a rogue element (something to do lots of little damage to both sides, or something the Dead could have achieved to gain one blast of major damage to the orcs, or something) or a more urgent primary objective (the orcs need to get away, or the Dead want to get hold of some prize that one of the orcs has, or something.) Being bound to the Lord of the Rings story maybe limited what narrative could be written into the scenario, and also the scenario is meant as a tutorial accompanying a boxed set, so I guess it was destined to be a simple mission.
As a wargamer, this one was maybe too simple for my tastes. An alternate take on the scenario is that I could have done something different. Instead of playing it straight and as written, I could have leaned into my own narrative. So that's what I'm doing tomorrow.
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