Hobbit Batrep: The Battle of Fornost

"...Arvedui you shall call him, for he will be the last in Arthedain."

Malbeth the Seerer, Prophecy at the birth of Arvedui, The Lord of The Rings

Friday night, Fight night!

This week I started my Friday night fight night, the idea is that in the New Year, every fortnight I get together with someone to have a battle, a beer and some food.  This week I play James - he traveled to my house and we decided to have a themed battle around the idea of 'The Fall of Arnor'.

I pulled out a 750 points Angmar monster army, featuring the Witch King of Angmar, Gulavhar - the Terror of Arnor, Buhrdur, cave troll, Shade and a few Dead Marsh Spectres. James wanted to take my Arnor army with Arvedui, Malbeth the Seer, two captains, warriors of Arnor, banner, rangers and Rangers of the North. He then rolled for the scenario...

...Hold Ground, with a theme of the Ruin of Arnor and the Battle of Fornost.  I hope you enjoy, please comment and follow.

The Ruins of Arnor: and the ruin of Fornost

My Angmar Army

Gulavhar - The Terror of Arnor

The Witch King of Arnor on Fell Beast

Buhrdur leading a Cave Troll a Shade and 4 Dead Marsh Spectres

James' Malbeth the Seerer's warband, with banner and warriors

Captain and Warriors of Arnor

Arvedui, the Last King of Arnor, with his Royal Guard and Banner man

Rangers of Arnor and Rangers of the North

The Centre of the battle field - the statue marks the objective

Hold Ground

Buhrdur and the Cave troll areplaced on the northern board edge by James

Then I placed The Witch King and Gulavhar next to each other and near the Trolls

Finally the Shade, and spectres are placed by James on the Western board edge

Disaster roll for James!  And I placed James leader and a full warband right between
the Witch King and Buhrdur

Arvedui is trapped by my army

In an effort to even the odds James brought his next war band on right next to my spectres

He then deployed Malbeth on the Southern board edge near the objective

Malbeth could see the objective and his troops reaching their goal!

Next the rangers were deploedy on the eastern board edge

James won priority and marched Malbeth straight towards the objective

The Rangers advancde on the outskirts of the ruins

Arvedui immediately ordered his troops to spread out to prevent the Fell beast from attacking him

The battle field at the start of the battle

James took the initiative and charged his warriors in to my spectres

Meanwhile, the Cave troll charged a single warrior, can you see the line just asking for a hurl!

The Witch King fought only the one warrior that was brave enough to charge him

The spectres and shade help support the other spirits in the fight

The Witch King wins and hurls the warrior straight in to the banner and Arvedui,
but none are killed

The Witch King surveys the fallen King

Cave troll next...

And he also hurls, killing the warrior and knocking prone the rest

The Shade is proving his worth as the first two fights go to Angmar

James priority again, this time he charges the troll and Buhrdur

His other warriors stand guard, having failed their courage

Gulavhar, sensing the need to help flew across the battle field to support the shade,
and picked off a warrior that was pushed away by the spectres fell light

The Witch King flies straight at Arvedui, forgetting to transfix

Fighting is tough with both sides locked in the combat

Meanwhile, Malbeth's troops reach the ruins

Argh! Arvedui wins and pushes the Witch King back, but fails to score a wound

The troll is pushed back by the warriors,
but Buhrdur manages to hurl another warrior to his death, straight through Arvedui

The Fell light is working it's magic on the warriors of Arnor,
as they are repeatedly pushed back to reduce their numbers

Buhrdur targets the King

Malbeth, reached the objective and spread his troops out

The Rangers then reached the edge of the ruins and watched in vain as their King fought for his life

The Shade again kept the evil army in the fight

But with the Terror of Arnor, Gulavhar turned the table on the warriors

The King's Guard desperately try to save the King

The Troll Hurls and kills another warrior aimed at the banner,
but the banner still survives

With double strikes on the prone King, Buhrdur rended him out of Middle Earth,
3 points to me for the leader kill

Malbeth in place, completely controlling the centre and adding 12 points to their score,
(if they all remain there at the end)

Arnor look out of the game with the trolls as Buhrdur charges the banner

The evil army picked off the warriors with relative ease,
using the fell light to strip out any supporting figures

The Captain, at a loss as to what to do!

Banner down, time to mop up

But having dropped his guard the cave troll was surrounded

Buhrdur takes on two warriors, and considered a heroic combat to help the cave troll...
but as James said "A cave troll will be OK against three warriors" 

The ranges try to scale the walls, at least they try and two fall, but ate not wounded

The Rangers who did climb up start to line the walls, the ruins are to be defended

Now the cave troll fight

Oops, he is quickly killed by the feinting warriors with double strikes 

Buhrdur killed his two, but where now?

Arnor were being slaughtered by the Terror, shade and the spectres

The last few tried to run

But were caught

despite the distance, Gulavhar managed to catch a fleeing warrior!

James lined the walls with archers, the route is going to be tough

My army is on the western side, with 1/2 a battle field to cross

I am forced to take cover behind a tree as a hail of arrows are fired at me,
fortunately the tree blocks enough hits to stop me being killed,
but a wounded Gulavhar means less attacks

The Rangers of Arnor focus on Gulvahar and Buhrdur both trying to hide

Gulavhar jumps to the next set of trees to keep cover

and Buhrdur took his place

The Shade also took cover

As did the Witch King

But I couldn't hide all day so decided to go for it and break cover,
The fell light put a warrior right in range of may three monsters who quickly killed him,
but more importantly stopped them from being targeted by the rangers bow fire

The Fell Beast and Gulavhar moved to the side of the ruins and out of line of sight of the bows

This allowed the Witch King to jump into the court yard and onto a warrior of Arnor

Gulavhar pounced on the rangers, who having already stood still would be vulnerable to the hurl
(especially with the lower defense)

Buhrdur, unable to reach the cover of the ruins and having not had the assistance of a fell light to move the ranged,
was forced to take the bow fire...

Having given minimal damage on the warriors of Arnor, James wins the roll off for a heroic move,
and promptly surrounds the Fell Beast

Gulavhar amazingly found space to land right on the banner

I won the next priority and Gulavhar moved back onto the walls, out of the main fight and onto the next lot of rangers
he was promptly joined by the Witch king

Gulavhar hurled again and this time wiped out the rest of the rangers,

James was then forced to spread out the last of his warriors to stop me landing on the objective,
I was one off of breaking, he was broken

With the path clear I moved up the last spectre and the shade, Buhrdur climbed the wall and engaged the last ranger

Now for my move, Witch King on Malbeth to take his stand fast , but I couldn't quite reach the captain

With low courage the Arnorian's ran, leaving all but a few last men,
Buhrdur tried to climb down to help with the fight, but tripped and landed on his backside, fortunately he wasn't injured

The battle ended with the Arnor army falling to less than 25%

So the final score was: Angmar 9 - 3 Arnor
Angmar killed Arvedui (leader), broke his force, but was unbroken and had 3 models within 6 inches of the centre.  Arnor gain 3 points for the three models within the circle.


Final Thoughts
I love Arnor and a few dice rolls either way could have swayed this battle... Gulavhar was wounded and almost killed, this would have stopped my assault on the ruins at the end.  I have also learnt that Arnor warriors don't die easily in a hurl brutal power attack, despite me trying.

I also think that deployment was against James, so he was off to a losing start, had all his troops been deployed together, I am certain he would have won.

This was an enjoyable game as it was really themed and despite the Angmar army being designed to take on Arnor, it was still a challenge and at several points could have gone to Arnor if the dice would have favoured the realms of men.

Man of the Match:
Gulavhar - the Terror of Arnor

Man of the Match
This was tough, although I think in the end this had to go to Gulavhar - the Terror of Arnor.

Buhrdur was a serious contender, after all, he kill Arvedui and smashed the Kings Guards to a pulp, but Gulavhar was simple a cut above.  To start with he supported and saved the shade and Dead Marsh Spectres, Then drew all the bow fire from the rangers, and although he nearly died, he managed to suck the life out of a few stray warriors to build his attacks and wounds back up.  This vampire then assaulted the walls, and supported the Witch King saving him from defeat.

A lot of points, but worth every penny - you have to love him!

My next Friday Night Fight Night will be after teh New Year, so let me know if you want to battle!?

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