This is the fifth and final battle report for the four-part Battle of Pelennor Fields mission pack included in the boxed set for Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game. I only own the mission booklet, not the boxed set, so I'm playing the scenarios in ancient Rome, as it's being invaded by orcs from beneath Vesuvius.
In the previous 4 battles (I played the third scenario twice), I followed the orc war party traveling up from decimated Pompeii toward Rome. They slaughtered and pillaged along the way, but the ghosts of their destruction exacted revenge after the brave Theodinus and his equites drove the orcs back.
Imagine how surprised the orcs are when they arrive at Vesuvius to crawl back underground to find Romans in seige. While the Romans want the orcs to return to the depths whence they came, they'd prefer the orcs dead. Attacking the monsters after a long and disorderly retreat seemed like a good idea, but the Romans didn't count on an orc necromancer emerging from the fires of the volcano to usher his soldiers back to the underworld.
Armies
This is the full boxed set (which I don't own, I just have somebody's discarded mission booklet) on the table. The good army consists of:
- Theodinus
- 12 equites
- 8 Warriors of the Dead
- 1 catapult (from Zombicide Green Horde)
I'm including the catapult to make up for only having 8 ghosts instead of 20 as included in the boxed set. I've never played with artillery before, so this is something new for me to discover.
The evil army consists of:
- Orc necromancer (serving as the Witch-king of Angmar)
- 36 Morannon orcs (from Zombicide Green Horde)
- Cave troll (from Battle for Balin's Tomb)
Special rules
This mission is to kill or be killed. Neither army can be broken during this scenario. Everyone fights to the death.
The orc necromancer arrives from the west in Round 3, and the Warriors of the Dead arrive from the south in Round 5 (bearing in mind that unlike Warhammer 40,000, this game doesn't end automatically on the fifth round.)
Round 1
The orcs roll high for priority. Thirsty for melee, they take the direct approach and run straight towards the Romans.
On the Roman turn, the equites hold fast and let the catapult fire. The catapult shoots and misses literally everything with a roll of 1.
Exciting initial round.
Round 2
Romans have priority, and try a repeat of the previous round. The Romans stand fast, and the catapult misses its shot (this time with a 2, so it's improving.) Note to self: Upgrade the seige engine's crew to include a Veteran next time!
The orcs rush forward, but can't quite close the distance yet. One orc trips over a barricade and falls flat on his face. That was satisfying.
Round 3
Orcs win priority, and it's Round 3 so the orc necromancer emerges from the depths of Vesuvius in the west.
The necromancer is too far away to do anything this round, but he's advancing. The orcs do the same and charge into the ranks of equites. A few rush toward the catapult crew, too, but get tangled up in some barricades (one again falls flat on his face.)
The troll and lots of orcs surround Theodinus.
The orcs and Romans each hold their own, with no casualties on either side. The troll, however, clobbers Theodinus who must spend 1 Fate to cancel the wound. The other heavy-hitter on the battlefield, the catapult, targets the necromancer and rolls a 6 to hit, and then a 6 to wound. Many of its benefits as a siege engine are lost because there's no orcs around the necromancer to take collateral damage, but the necromancer himself at least must spend a 1 Fate to cancel the wound.
That leaves the necromancer with 1 Fate remaining, and Theodinus with 0 Fate remaining. Can the Romans hold out for the Warriors of the Dead?
Round 4
Romans win priority, which could be very good for them. This could give them one more shot at the orc necromancer before the catapult crew is swarmed.
One of the foot soldiers by the catapult rushes forward to bravely place himself between the rest of the crew and the orcs. Thanks to some carefully placed barricades, this prevents the orcs from breaking through this round. For support, an equites mercenary rides around the catapult and heads toward the orcs as well. For some reason the Rohirrim horses only move 6", the same as soldiers on foot, so he doesn't actually reach the orcs, but at least he might be able to serve as a second line of defence should the orcs plow down the foot soldier.
The equites hack and slash at orcs and the troll, and manage to kill 2 orcs.
The brave foot soldier kills an orc, too.
And the catapult hits its target again, removing 1 Fate from the orc necromancer. He's down to just 1 Wound now!
The orcs kill a horse, leaving one of the equites on foot, but otherwise they do a lot of threatening and swarming and not a whole lot of killing.
Round 5
The priority roll is a tie, so priority goes to the orcs. They pile in and consolidate, and the troll picks a weaker-looking opponent than Theodinus.
The orc necromancer approaches, however, and points at Theondinus and casts Black Dart. It's a tough spell to cast, but it's powerful, so the orc necromancer spends 1 Might to Channel, and then 3 Will to cast. If it hits, it'll do d3 damage, which I don't think Theodinus has much defence against. The orc necromancer rolls, and oh-my-gosh it's all 1s. Critical fails on every single dice.
Moving swiftly on, melee begins, and this time it's messy. The orcs remove 3 Romans (1 foot soldier and 2 equites). The Romans do really well, though, and remove a whopping 6 orcs.
And then the Warriors of the Dead arrive.
I love it when intent and luck align. I wanted the Warriors of the Dead to make a proper entrance, and I was a little annoyed that the rules of the scenario specifically state that neither army can break, because otherwise I'd have forced the orcs to do a Courage test when the Dead arrived. But I decided to play it by the rules, and out of 4 duels the Dead were able to take on this round, they won all 4. That's 10 orcs removed total.
I think the catapult has probably done all the damage it's going to do, now that the enemy has broken Roman ranks (such as they were.) But one plucky orc climbs up onto the catapult with the intent to attack its crew from above. If the Romans get priority on the next round, I'm going to judge that they can just catapult the orc off, but otherwise the orc's going to slide down the arm straight into the crew.
Round 6
The Romans solidly win priority with a roll of 6 to the orc's 4. That means they get to catapult an orc, which is one of the few battlefield tactics [I don't think] there are rules for in Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game. I figure anything but a 1 ought to work, and the catapult crew barely come through for me with a 2. The orc sails across the battlefield, and is removed.
The Romans only manage to slay 3 orcs total in the Fight phase, and stunningly the orcs kill 3 Warriors of the Dead and 3 Romans, including Theodinus. As Theodinus rode toward the orc necromancer, the mage spent 4 Will and rolled 6. Twice. In a desperate attempt to resist, Theodinus spent all 3 of his Will, but didn't come anywhere near matching the evil forces of Mordor. Er, Vesuvius.
Not a great round for the Romans, and in fact I'm starting to wonder if the tide of battle has definitively turned.
Round 7
Priority uncannily swings back to the orcs, but the tide of battle may be changing yet again. The troll takes out a Roman, and an orc kills a horse out from under one of the equites. But in the Roman's Fight phase, a mercenary manages to deal a Wound to the troll, who had stuck up to 2 Wounds (thanks to Theodinus, in earlier rounds), and Wound 3 was the surprise killing blow. Several more orcs are killed by foot soldiers and Warriors of the Dead, and the orc army is actually starting to look pretty sparse.
Round 8
This is the cleanup round. The Romans have priority, and they swarm the remaining orcs and hack them into pieces. They lose 2 equites and one of the catapult crew, but they clear the battlefield of all orcs except the necromancer. In fact, it's the necromancer that killed the 2 equites. At 8 Defence, he's tough to put down, and he's still got 3 Will remaining. But he only has 1 Wound, so I feel like the numbers aren't in his favour. No breaking the army in this scenario, though, so I'm going to do a final round to see who among the Romans (or the mercenaries, or the Roman Dead) claims the prize.
Round 9
The orc necromancer is dead. Appropriately, he perishes to a Warrior of the Dead, but only while surrounded by a foot soldier and an equites mercenary. In Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game, if a hit model can't be moved back 1" during a duel, then the winner gets a bonus to the damage roll, and that was just the buff the Warriors of the Dead needed. I don't think it would have happened without teamwork, and I feel like I ought to have realised that a lot sooner than round 9. Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game has some of the coolest dueling, helping, and buffing mechanics, you just have to remember to put them to good use instead of treating it like a dice-rolling game.
End of campaign
And so the orcs have been vanquished from the Roman Empire, killed at the very foot of Vesuvius, a gateway into the underworld that nobody knew existed until the unfortunate events around Pompeii.
I had fun with the Battle of Pelennor Fields mini-campaign. Two things stand out about the booklet, for me.
First, the scenarios are designed to be progressive. The first one starts with a minimal army on both sides, meaning you can paint just a quarter of the miniatures required for the fullscale battle and get playing sooner than later. You also don't have as many rules to learn straight away, because it's a pretty simple scenario that's designed to end within half a dozen rounds. The next scenario builds upon what you've learnt, and the third adds in magic, and the fourth combines everything together. What a great way to teach the system to novice players, and to reinforce the importance of strategy for experienced players.
Second, the booklet is a complete army book for the army required for the campaign. It's only 18 pages, and the back page has a cheatsheet for the rules plus a Profiles at a Glance section that provides all the main stats for each unit type. That made running the battle so much faster than it would have been, had I kept flipping through the Army book for profiles.
Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game is a true joy to play. I wish the magic rules in Warhammer 40,000 were as good as MESBG, and I love how many battlefield mechanics the authors have anticipated. An orc climbing onto the catapult wasn't something I'd expected, but the rule for it to happen was a single dice roll with the only chance for outright failure being a 1, so it's not intimidating to try something outlandish in this game.
Once again, I'm coming away from MESBG with the sincere belief that it's a perfect wargame. It may not be, but I do think it's very close. And it doesn't actually have to be literally perfect, because most importantly it's an awful lot of fun.