LotR Dark Side AAR - Game 1 - Concluded

[Tufkal2]

Also the invasion of Gondor continues. We try to assaul Minas Tirith frontally but are repulsed with heavy losses in Orcs. Ha! The next wave of volunteers is already moving forward. The strong Southern armies are coming up at exactly the right moment. Also the Corsairs in a surprising move capture Linhir to provide a base of operations in the South.

[Tufkal2]

Turn 10: 22nd November 3018

The war continues across Middle-Earth. In the Shire we take out another group of hobbits (marked hex) but still no ring. Militarily we now have enough forces to contest the Shire for the time being with new reinforcements coming up. We begin to fear that the ring is somewhere completely different. These Nazgul are strong but maybe a bit too easily led astray. If the ring slips out of reach we must quickly increase the speed of our conquest.
In Rohan we lay siege to Helms Deep and Edoras. We nearly take Edoras but for Eomer. On the other hand both side take heavy losses there and we can well afford them. War machines are being brought up to Helms Deep.
We loose a battle in the North against the Wood-Elves which makes our forces there vulnerable for a counterattack (no pictures will be given here for battles lost). They should have listened to me and stayed out of all the forests.
In Gondor there is heavy fighting all around. We do another massed assault on Minas Tirith and are repulsed again. Need again new volunteers. We even loose a Troll there. The enemy seems to be fighting dirty. However we advance from Linhir and our Mumakil cross the Anduin.

[Tufkal2]

Rohan is nearly ours.

[Tufkal2]

The invasion of Gondor from three sides is a bit behind schedule but otherwise in full swing.

[Tufkal2]

Turn 11: 05th December 3018

Our armies are pushing ahead relentlessly and we win some decisive battles this turn bringing us closer to military domination. Good. Soon nobody will be able to contest with us again.
However having nearly lost complete trace of the ring is a bad sign. Since the stubborn Elves will need to be taught a lesson before they surrender and sulk away to some unknown shore we will need to also bring the war to them. This is a long road for us, probably as long as the road would be for a hobbit to travel to Mount Doom. Our lidless eye shall see...

In the North both sides are staring at each other across the Brandywine river. We lash about a bit at some Fellowship unit but they will soon be beyond our reach in Tharbad. However from there they need to cross Rohan and guess who owns Rohan now?

[Tufkal2]

Our invinvible Uruk-Hai storm Edoras against a spirited defense. We kill everybody inside to pacify this town once and for all. Some more siege engines move to assault Helms Deep but this will take a long time to properly siege. However the rest of Rohan is as good as conquered. We then have an army here ready to move North.

[Tufkal2]

In Gondor the Knights of Dol Amroth mount a successful counterattack in their turn and eliminate one of our units. However they were only some scouts of which we have aplenty. Good for my lieutenants that they withdrew the irreplacable Mumakil to safety and sacrificed some spare troops.

[Tufkal2]

After our counterattack the situation looks nice again. The corsairs cut off West Gondor from the main part. Our Mumakil charge the enemy cavalry and throw them back inflicting heavy losses and are then again withdrawn to safety. We capture part of the Minas Tirith fortifications. Although it will take some turns to capture all scenic locations in Gondor we think the main enemy army here is pretty much cornered. But we let our lieutenantes know that cornered rats are known to be dangerous...

[Tufkal2]

Turn 12: 10th December 3018

Our spies report very heavy battles on most fronts this turn. We like that. Even though the enemy did very heavy damage to our units during his turn. We will contemplate ways to make them pay dearly for their resistance.

In the North one of the known two possible Fellowship units is attacked on its way to Tharbad. We fear the ring might be completely elsewhere though. The Fornost commander is comtemplating to assault across the Brandywine against the war plan as the enemy seems weak there. In the end he is enjoying some good pipe-weed from Bree and is waiting for more reinforcements...

[Tufkal2]

In Rohan we take Aldburg. We have huge superiority in numbers. We need to still kill Theoden though. Eomer was taken out while defending Edoras. Theodred still stubbornly defends Helms Deep.
We begin to move forces to the North-East as we fear time is running thin for us...

[Tufkal2]

In Gondor it is a slugfest. The Gondor army retakes part of Minas-Tirith and charges our Southern army throwing back some units. (In this scenario having the initiative and charging on open terrain is frightfully important).
We tell our troops we are not happy with this and that they will literally have to earn their dinner today. Then they do well and after heavy bombardment retake a hex of Minas Tirith as well as take a new hex. In the South our Mumakil charge the enemy heavy cavalry inflicting again very heavy losses...

[Tufkal2]

The game had a little bit of a surprising ending.
The last attack on the Fellowship unit actually was an attack on the true Fellowship and killed the Ringbearer. We are able to collect the ring and bring it back to safety (unfortunately this was a bug as of course it should have given a message immediately and not only upon opening the Free People's turn. Managed to correct this with the message shown here in the newest version).

I have to say many many thanks to GrumpyMel for participating in the playtest for this scenario. Especially on the Free People/Fellowship side you are quite outnumbered and it seems that the balance needs to be adjusted a bit. Got some feedback which I incoporated (e.g. everybody got an additional hitpoint and some combat values were adjusted). Will upload a new version soon. Thanks also everybody who has been following...

[Vic]

looking forward to our test game!

best,
Vic