In September I was matched up against another new opponent, Kiyoshi and his Shadows of Angmar army. Let’s see how I fared!
I was optimistic heading into this fight. Kiyoshi is experienced and owns, by his own admission, maybe every evil army in the game, but my army seemed like it was up to the challenge. Shadows of Angmar can cause an enormous amount of terror, but not much in the way of damage dealers. Gulavhar is real scary and deadly, but the Shadow of Rhudaur and the shades are not insurmountable. The main issue is that all orcs within 3″ of them cause terror, and Gulavhar gives everyone a courage debuff within 12″. Faramir makes his knights fearless if he can get off a charge, so that could help me get into some combats and cause some damage. The Gondorian battle line is pretty solid, so hopefully they can outlast everything else while Faramir does some work.
The scenario was To The Death, so we were just going after each other, hammer and tongs, to see who was left standing. My battle line went down in the center with Faramir and his knights off to the right. The evil army deployed orcs and shades on either flank with a grip of wild wargs in the center and Gulavhar on my left. My line advanced, Gulavhar swooped in to take out some unfortunate soldiers, and Faramir sped behind my lines to try and intercept him. Unfortunately, this is where I made the blunder that cost me the game.
Gulavhar is very bad news on the charge, so I was moving the nights in a sort of ring around Faramir in order to protect him. If I could either tempt him into charge range or get the initiative advantage, Faramir could get the opportunity to charge and the knights could pile in behind him. However, I left a gap in my ring of knights just big enough for Gulavhar to get the drop of Faramir. This was bad news, but not awful. Two knights overcame their terror in order to assist Faramir, who rolled a 6 on the duel. Disasterously, Gulavhar rolled a 6 as well, and I had not thought to compare fight values. Faramir could have called an Heroic Strike to get the advantage, but it was too late. Gulavhar won the duel and destroyed Faramir in a single turn.
The game was more or less decided from there. My battle line smashed the wargs and ground down many of the orcs that attacked it, but Gulavhar flew around the board eating the rest of my heroes and eventually my banner. At one point a particularly plucky captain caused two wounds in a very lucky combat, but he was eaten on the next turn, along with his bodyguard, and Gulavhar healed the lost wounds. The final result was 18-3 in favor of Shadows of Angmar.
In retrospect, I wish I had kept Faramir clear of Gulavhar. I was basically gifted a free hand with my right flank which I should have taken. Faramir’s courage plus fearless knights could have folded the enemy’s left flank and given me a better shot at breaking them. As it was, I lost my best damage dealer and his entourage in two three turns and was stuck being eaten alive for the rest of the game. But at least I learned to always check fight values and consider Heroic Strike!
