WOTR Batrep NATCON prep 1000pts Beige Wizard vs Ersatz Isengard

Things have not been too flash energy/timewise to sit down and do extra things on the laptop  in the last couple of weeks, so this fell by the wayside. However, I could not fairly let the chance to chronicle Jason's victory pass by - lest some challenge the balance of this totally unbiased, fair, serious, and irreproachable historical chronicle. I think 'trendline' characterisation of the Impetvs record was a fair call by Imperial Intelligence though.

The battle was 1000pts, using RAW lists and no house rules. This pitted my Ersatz Isengard (last seen in the previous WOTR battle), based on the Dunlending battlehost vs  Jason's more authentic interpretation, led by the infamous Beige Wizard. Since this was silly RAW - there was a beast caller in there too. In the usual course of things, he would moot the idea of allying in a spell casting Epic, and I would tell him to stop being sad.

 Here you see the deployments. Me at the bottom. Jason at the top. What the picture does not capture are our large spider deployments on side-boards. I have enough bases for three coy, Jason brought enough for the full nine. Sigh.

 Turn one had priority for Jason (who went second) and  I threw my men forward. With the Nazgul, I could get into charge range of Uruks via a spell.  Uruks advanced. Warbands to my left, and his crossbow (Druzhag inside) up on the  hill. Druzhag was a real ass and dispersed the Wings of Terror spell via entangle - so the charge bonus was gone! So we got to exchange fire (via heroic moves) but no charges for me, my boys just had the fun of being toasted up by two Ruin casters.

 I used the second turn to run the Dunlending formations on the left forward. The main Dunlending wave has almost joined my Nazgul led wildman spearhead. The Nazgul just had had no joy in this battle. Spells got dispelled, or failed, and the Uruks had managed to get a charge in from maximum distance after passing terror (via Saruman) then rolling unstoppable charge. Sadly for the Wraith, Jason got first turn here and immolated the rest of his unfortunate band, taking him with them. I decided to block my right flank using some more Dunlendings and the xbow to try and bleed my opponents if they attempted to turn the main attack's flank. Well, I did bleed them a little, but I got burnt a lot.

 Our lines had also been battling it out to the right but the upshot was that my Spiders were seen off by the enemy and a nice unit of three coy of them began to menace the flank of my main push (so much for the plan to stop this!) while the right flank forces were still tied up. Happily though, they had done in the feral Uruks, and just had to sort out the remainder of the Uruk warriors w shields.

 The next turn saw me manage to extricate one formation of Dunlending Huscarls from a spider flank attack only to see Spiders sandwich another. Once Spiders get around flanks and live to see the charge phase, you are in serious trouble. Worse, my Huscarls on the right flank failed in Epic fashion in melee vs those Uruks facing them - just half of their once proud band, and some crossbow, left there now.

 More spiders appeared in the next turn - I guess they like the snow? The sad outcome was that the Warbands were now totally surrounded and got mauled to pieces - or silk wrapped into bundles for later feeding, depending on what side of the sandwich they were nearest too!

Nice work Jason, that was pretty decisive eh? Now I have finally done the report, we will have to play again. Maybe the forces of good should actually get an outing.

I am not to sure what the story is with NATCON WOTR is at this stage. I am sure the people who have told me they will attend will sign up at some point. However, no one that I had been in touch with from out of town has particularly like the idea of going to Chch at the moment. It is actually not that bad, but then I guess that is in comparison to how it was immediately after the quake. Still, apart from really crappy roads, and some areas being 'no go', the place works well.

As a final note, someone has suggested that the line in the Battlehosts book stating that additional heroes may not be included in the battlehost may actually be a statement with a meaning beyond armybuilding. You may be supposed to never put another hero in there. If this is so (and it would sort out the Gorgoroth Orcs nicely!), then I would need to rethink this force. At the moment there is only one non-battlehost formation in there, which is quite the risk for any other heroes I should take...