Good morning, here is another battle report featuring Galadriel and the Galadhrim along with an Ent (apparently unaware that Halloween is over, he is dressed as a Troll Chieftain) vs an army of Cirith Ungol. This is slightly more recent than the last one, having taken place at the end of December. I commanded the assaulting army, and it was a lot of fun, despite the crushing defeat of my army As the first siege we fought, there are some definate changes to tactics and wargear choices that I would make for future engagements. Also some rules clarifications (such as range on magic). Lots of pictures, so beware those with slower connections. Hope you enjoy
http://bensminis.blogspot.com/2012/02/battle-report-29dec12.html


Orcs assaulting the walls

Are more pics on the way...? or is there a missing link to a blog?

Updated with the link, thanks for pointing that out

Looks like fun. Nice castle, did you build it?

The center (better looking) part of the castle is the Minas Tirith/White Tower set GW put out. The outer tower and wall sections were made by me. Would love to get a second minas tirith set to keep the same style, but that would be expensive, and it's hard to argue with free cast off styrofoam and a bottle of Elmers

Why smash down both wall and gate, yet still persist in sending your poor Orcs up the ladders to their doom? Ladders are a desperate measure at the best of times. Of course you should have had two siege towers for this scenario. Without them, it would have been fairer to have some extra points added to compensate for the dead Orcs piled up at the base of the walls!

From what I saw, the Evil army was nowhere near big enough to tale on that Elf army... iin a castle. Those Orcs were doomed

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"I am the Flying Spagetti Monster. Thou shall have no other monsters before me"
-FSM.

I had not had an opportunity to make a siege tower yet, but if we plan another siege that is definately something I will be working on. It was also the first siege assault I've played, so it was an enlightening experience I was hoping that spreading my ladders around would force the enemy to spread their troops out, making it easier to exploit a breakthrough, but that obviously did not happen . There are some things I definately would do differently, but it was still a lot of fun. I probably would not take a siege bow again, I had neglected to check it's strength vs the stone walls, and did not realize that it couldn't hurt them until the battle started. It got a couple of highly amusing kills at first, but then failed to do anything else the rest of the match. Fun, but not all that efficient, points-wise. It was a roughly 1000vs750pt game, maybe should have been closer to 1000vs500pt. Definately some lessons learned, but overall it was a good time

The Grand Siege scenario (from One Rule Book) pits 500 points of attackers against 375 points of defenders. At that level - half of what you were using - you get, for free, two siege towers, a ram and one ladder per ten figures. Extrapolating up you shoud have had four siege towers. They're essential for escalades such as this, since they negate the defender's cover bonus in close combat plus provide protection on the way in.

The catapult is handy but absorbs a lot of points, especially with the Troll Loader, and shooting is curtailed when the assault force nears the walls. Better off to either spend several turns lobbing rocks at the walls (or gate), which is impractical with the Grand Siege scenario time limit, or provide more troops, especially archers to shoot the attack in. Archers atop siege towers are excellent!

With regard to ladders, they're best used en masse. Side by side they enable multiple warriors (or Heroes, ideally) to engage without worrying about flanks. A viable alternative is to send them to undefended parts of the wall, in order to distract defenders away from the main attack (there are usually spare models standing around waiting for space on ladder or siege towers) or to exploit gaps where the defenders have been shot.

The optimum solution to your shortage of siege towers is simply to buy some of the Warhammer Siege Tower kits. They're a perfect size for the Minas Tirith walls, as well as the Warhammer Mighty Fortress should you expand your defences.

I've been working on some plans to build a couple of siege towers, I think I could probably build my own relatively inexpensively. As far as ladders, I think that is what I would do, group them closer together so that they can support each other and hopefully even the odds a bit.
My thinking prior to the battle was that two-handers to kill off the wall defenders would be helpful, but that -1 to win the fight really hurt, especially against elves. I would probably take fewer two handers next go around.
I haven't had a lot of luck with orc archers in the past, so I decided to dispense with them for this particular battle. In hidsight however, it would have been nice to have at least some bows, if only to provide a little harrassing fire. I have also obtained a few orc trackers, so that could help out in the accuracy department.

lovely board, i think typhoon2 is right, at that size the attackers need a lot more siege equipment than that, trouble is it would take a long time to get that much equipment, shame you didn't check the siege bow's strength, however you can still aim for warriors and hope i think, also it can be used to raise ladders so it is not a complete waste of points.

Well you got the paint miniatoures and scenery very well

Only the Uruk-hai Assault Ballista can raise ladders.

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"Leave Sauron to me."
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And so the elves prevailed

Oh yes, it was quite crushing, really