Battle report WOTR 700pt 3 vs all

Due to a lot of back and forth about game scheduling, Andy, Jason and I ended up in the 3 vs all battle last night. To keep it interesting, we made it 'sieze the prize', with an extra two objectives - so a total of seven.

Andy took Elves: Elladan and Elrohir, 4x Cohort with Commander, 3x Galadrim bow and 3x Wood elves plus Quickbeam the swift Ent. Jason took Isengard: Saruman, (I can't believe it's not) Thrydan, 3x Uruk Crossbows, 4x Ferals and 4x Uruks with Shields. I took Gondor: Faramir, Elphir (Isildur), 5x Knights, 4x Axemen of Lossarnach, 4x Gondorian Bows, 4x Warriors, 3x Warriors. The only house rule we used was the one giving Elven longbows the ability to ignore shields. 

 We decided to handle priority accordingly: Highest got to pick, then next highest got to take the pick of the remaining two options, then third lumped whatever he got. Andy got to pick deployment, then for some reason opted to take the centre of the table, probably to get the nice big farm - we set things so that deployments were triangular: one person was within 24" of a corner, the next within 24" of the opposite table centre, then the remaining person within 24"of the other corner. Jason got next pick, and took the far corner and I got to cram my legions into the corner closest to the bottom of the pic above. Objectives are the small black dots - Flames of War status markers turned over, since we lack specialist markers (this has gone onto my 'to do' list.)

 Andy's Elves went first, with the Cohort bravely staking the wood nearby to me, and the rest setting up in the farm and field behind it. He had three objectives! Jason was second, racing up and seizing another two. I got one from the hill. We shot each other a bit, then my heroes had a crack at evicting the Elven cohort from the wood. Faramir Epic Striked and dueled the cohort commander. Faramir wins, but the commander uses all his might to close the margin of the win and so pulls through, with a hit on him and two on his formation. To add insult to injury, my two formations end up losing the fight - I inflict four casualties and the Elves manage to kill five of Elphir's Axemen.

 In turn two, I got to be second, so I arranged my bow to try and thin out the crossbow and then awaited my turn to charge. Jason's Uruks forged forward and collected their third objective so he and Andy were on 3, while I was on 1. I copped it a bit from Saruman's spells, but Jason copped it worse from Andy's shield ignoring longbows. My bowmen didn't get anyone, which is not out of character for them and goes some way to explaining why Jason was cracking jokes about them as I took them out of the army-case! I again tried to evict the Cohort from the wood, and lost again.

 Turn three saw some actual drama: the arrival of the feared and hated feral Uruks from ambush right in the middle of Andy's army, while Andy ambushed Quickbeam behind Jason's approaching Uruks. Andy had to quash the close range threat and I bitterly remembered the ferals from the time they eliminated an entire formation of Axmen and Faramir in a single round of combat. So Andy put the Cohort out of the wood, ready to hit their rear, while I wheeled my archers just enough to hit the ferals with bow fire. Jason kept trying to persuade me to shoot the Cohort, behind their shields, and I kept reminding him about those Axemen. Between all that hit them, we wiped the Ferals from the board in a single turn, and they only got to throw four melee dice back at the Elves, who also prevented them frontally charging the Elven bow by using a heroic charge (thus also preventing their berserk ability working.) The others still have 3 objective to my 1. What do do? Unleash the Cavalry! Faramir led the Knights on a dash toward the rear of the Isengard crossbow, who had rotated 180 to face the threat of the ambushing Ent. The Ent hid behind the wood, while smashed the crossbow and netted two objectives!

 So... turn 4. I got priority and my brave knights legged it, with their two objectives, and 'took up position' (hid) in a nearby wood. Jason rolled his eyes at me and set about preparing to Evict the Elves from the farmhouses. Elven shooting took its toll, and Quickbeam was running up to the rear of the Uruk forces (deciding to leave Faramir and his Epic Strike well alone.) In the ensuing melees, Quickbeam was hit the flank of the Uruks, who had charged the farmhouse and field. However, Thrydan dueled the Ent and destroyed him with Epic Strike. The Uruks bet the Elves in melee, but discovered the uncanny propensity of that farmhouse to render its defenders steadfast, so ruining a great plan to run over another objective.

 In turn five, my boys were too far to participate in the main action, where Jason had concocted a plan to steal two Elven objectives by overrunning the farmhouse and field, slaughtering the Elves, and stealing their stuff. Once he had done that, we were tied on 3 objectives each.

This was a fun format, and I'd recommend it to everyone. Mobility mattered more than it usually does and the use of the objectives meant that you had to play positively to get a result. We all had a lot of fun, with some good scheming and cajoling going on in-game.