This scenario for Games Workshop's "Lord of the Rings" miniatures game comes from Battle Games in Middle Earth magazine, issue #42. I finally finished the large Osgiliath ruins needed to play, and I've been itching to get my Mordor Trolls into battle, so it seemed like a promising battle to try.
Unlike many scenarios, this one has a time limit. The Evil side must eliminate all good units within 10 turns for a win. If the game goes 11 - 14 turns, it's a draw. If Gondor holds out until turn 15, Good wins.
The Evil side has both a significant numerical advantage, and a couple of powerful Trolls. But the Good side has an excellent position with plenty of defensible barriers, better armor, and won't need to take Courage tests for falling below half strength. So it's up to Evil to come dig them out in time.
(Click on any image to see an enlargement.)
The Evil force begins with 36 Orcs, an Orc Captain, a Banner Bearer, and two Trolls. Initial entry on turn 1 is decided by dieroll, so half the time they enter where Evil wants and half the time they don't. In this case, the Trolls start nearly opposite on another, the Captain is by himself in one corner, and the rest of the troops are more or less evenly spread out.
For Good, the 23 Warriors of Minas Tirith, a Captain, and a Banner Bearer deploy within 6" of the center of the board.
Gondor figures that keeping everyone together just makes it easier for the Orcs to kill them all. So several troops leave the safety of the building in preparation for a run into the surrounding ruins.
Evil rushes in. There were a few potshots with arrows, but no casualties this turn.
Evil Priority. The Evil rush into combat continues, though the bow-armed troops move half so they can use their bows. All of them miss, though.
The warriors are finally close enough for melee, and first honors go to Gondor, which manages to kill a single Orc.
Casualties: Good 0, Evil 1
Evil Priority. The rush into melee continues, with a Troll finally getting into the action but being repulsed! Very surprising, as a Troll gets 3 combat rolls, and if any of them are a 6 the Troll automatically wins due to having the highest fight value. Here the Troll got a 5 and the many Gondorian troops against it managed to score the 6. Their blows bounced right off it, though, and no wounds were scored.
Elsewhere, the Orcs inflict only two casualties while taking four of their own, but three Orcs manage to break into the ruined building.
Casualties: Good 2, Evil 5
Good gets priority back. This lets the Warriors of Minas Tirith outside the ruins run for the corners, much to Evil's annoyance, who has to hunt them down -- remember that Evil has to eliminate all Good troops to win.
Despite a fair amount of missile fire and the Trolls getting in to the melee, each side takes just a single casualty this turn. The Troll repulsed last turn won its combat this time, but rolled a 1, 1, 2 for his wound rolls, much to Good's amusement: he completely whiffed despite needing only a 3 to cause a casualty.
Casualties: Good 3, Evil 6
Good retains priority, which lets Gondor sacrifice a single Warrior of Minas Tirith against the Troll coming in from the south.
The other Troll continues his streak of poor luck. He rolls 2, 2, 4 in combat and rerolls a 2 due to the nearby banner. He gets a 5, which isn't quite enough for an auto-win, and the Good side inevitably gets the 6 to win the combat. Worse, the wound rolls include a 4 and two 6s; the Captain expends both of his might points to raise the 4 to a 6, and so the Troll takes three wounds and is killed!
Elsewhere, an Orc archer finally kills enemy bowman, and each side loses a single warrior in melee.
Losing a Troll, who can not infrequently take out 3 warriors in one combat, is a bad sign, because if the game is going to be an Evil win, the game is already half over and there are still 20 enemy men (including a Captain) left to kill.
Casualties: Good 5, Evil 8
Evil regains Priority. The now-lone Troll cackles and rushes into base contact with as many enemies as he can. It even pays off, as he kills two of them.
But elsewhere Gondor gets the upper hand. When the dust clears each side has lost 3 more warriors.
Ordinarily an even trade helps the more-numerous Evil side, but the time constraints here mean Evil has to be killing a lot more than 3 a turn if he's going to win.
Casualties: Good 8, Evil 11
Evil Priority. The Troll rampages again and wins his combat, but his Wound rolls are a disappointing 3, 1, 1. He does kill the Banner Bearer, but an adjacent warrior is able to pick up the Banner so it goes for naught.
The east side of the ruins are fairly well overrun at this point, but there's been almost no progress getting inside the western wall. The Gondor "run for the corners" warriors are finally eliminated
Casualties: Good 12, Evil 14
Good Priority again. The Gondor Captain rushes the Troll with several warriors for help. The Good forces even win the combat and manage to inflict a Wound on the Troll. One third of the way there...
Elsewhere a single Minas Tirith warrior falls. If last turn an Evil victory seemed possible, it's difficult now to see how that might happen. How will Evil eliminate 13 more troops in the next two turns?
Casualties: Good 13, Evil 14
Good Priority. The Captain rushes the Troll ... or tries to, but he fails his Courage test needed to charge the Terror-causing monster.
Evil has a hard time capitalizing on that misfortune, though. The Trolls wins his combat only because the Orc Banner Bearer is nearby, and even then all told only 3 enemy warriors are eliminated.
It's some sign of Good's reduced numbers that there are no Evil casualties at all this turn.
Casualties: Good 16, Evil 14
Evil Priority. It's do or die time, and the Orc Captain (who was out hunting the Good Fugitives earlier in the game) calls a Heroic Combat. The eastern Good troops are thin enough on the ground that several are surrounded, and by the time the dust clears three have been eliminated.
But the rest of the Evil force can't match that performance. The Troll disappoints again, winning his combat but killing just one enemy (at least it was the Banner Bearer) and wounding the Captain.
Now Evil is playing for a draw.
Casualties: Good 20, Evil 14
Evil Priority. With 20+ Orcs left, the Good troops are swarmed. One lone Warrior of Minas Tirith holds out, at which point I decided to call it a game.
Draw!
From a competition standpoint, that seemed much more even than the previous outing. Not so even as to be actually balanced, though. Good really has his work cut out for him here. In this playthrough, Evil was not overly lucky (the Trolls in particular putting in a mediocre performance at best) and still managed to eliminate the Good troops with a couple of turns to spare.
It's odd to have such an elaborate board setup and then to restrict the Good setup to the middle of the board. If I were playing competitively (and not solo) I might be tempted to allow Good to set up hidden anywhere on the board so as to force Evil to do some scouting or deal with possible ambushes.
I might come back to this one. The most disappointing aspect is that the battle quickly devolved to fairly static line, so the pictures aren't as visually differed as they can be with more fluid situations. But that only matters when I'm taking pictures.