WOTR Batrep 1000pts Carn Dum vs Rohan pt 2

Part one is here

Jason got priority once more, in turn four (above). Seeing Buhrdur tentatively emerging from the wood in his rear, he had Eomer peel off a unit of Knights and lead them to deal with the lone troll. To make sure of it, he then had his Archers 'about face', to rain death upon the hapless Monster. Of course, the Dwimmerlaik could not believe his luck, using magic, he raced up with some warriors and prepared to charge the Archers in the rear, at the same time he hit Theoden's Riders with 'Pall of Night'. Buhrdur was cunning, he let the knights come to him, but quickly sidestepped and raced around their flanks. Carn Dum artillery wiped out the other formation of Knights, while Rohan archery failed to pierce the troll's tough hide. So, in this special closeup (above) of the turn it all swings around, we see charges into the rear of the archers and into the flank of the Cav. Eomer manfully tried to duel the troll to death... but to no avail, and sees half his faithful knights getting smashed in all directions by the troll's great hammer. The archers fared little better, the Dwimmerlaik's warband messed up the charge and inflicted casualties upon themselves, but still easily beat the archers, killing them to a man. The Grey Pilgrim goes down, trampled in the desperate route.
In turn five (above), Jason again has priority - I have learned not to expect to get priority in WOTR. He decides to Run Theoden's boys around the wood, to salvage some pride by finally getting that other warband. Eomer's Knights leg it for their backline, with Buhrdur in hot pursuit. The Dwimmerlaik attempts to bring his men back from the hill, but they lack the will to double-time. The King of Carn Dum is leading the other warband, but also fails to sufficiently motivate them out of harms way. In a perfect storm - the artillery also fails to do much damage to Theoden's Riders.
Here (above) Theoden's Riders have their turn to shine. Eomer has me an ignoble end, hammered to death by a troll. Theoden charges, since Rohirrm count as having lances, they eviscerate the warband, almost killing them before they strike back.


It all ends for Theoden's boys in turn 6 though. Unable to escape, they face the prospect of being hit by two warbands of angry berserkers. Luckily for them, the larger formation fails to double-time again and is out of range. Unluckily for them, the other warband has a priority and even executes a particularly ferocious berserk charge - hitting the cav on 4s! The Rohirrm do not have the attacks to win it without charging, and are butchered, along with their King.

Comments:
I was really lucky there, I can't really claim much credit for the fact that Jason 1. neglected to use Gandalf's magic to kill the artillery in the woods and 2. sent Eomer off to chase down a troll out alone somewhere, then compounding his error by turning the archer's backs to my warriors in order to gain a marginal chance to kill a troll. I better learn to not deploy so stupidly if I want to beat this list again, me thinks.

Speaking of which: House rules.

The hourserules really worked to balance this better. Magic was less potent, especially Ringwraith magic being restricted to mastery 2. Rohan can also bank on likely stopping most spells thrown at them for the first couple of turns, using 3+ Will of Iron. This, combined with giving the Rider formations lances, means that this is a list that can smash a few things before they get whittled down too much. Without the lances rule, Theoden's boys would only have killed half as much, pretty pathetic for cav hitting a flank. Dropping Epic Strike helped a lot too - Eomer clearly outclassed a Wraith in a duel, but not by too much. Also, more importantly, the King of Carn Dum (Thrydan) is not able to cheaply best the likes of Theoden just by pulling an Epic Strike.