Bilbo wrote:
Walls of Mordor orcs with shields backed up by spear armed orcs, supported by a shaman using Fury, a shade and a banner means that bog standard orcs are suddenly a force to be reckoned with.
This is very good advice. Assuming your opponent WILL make contact with you and building a formidable defense in depth to receive that charge is important. Survive the initial hit with enough models in place so that next turn (either with Priority or an Heroic Move) you can swarm forward with enough models to tag, surround and kill some or all of the Cavalry.
But I really want to draw some extra attention to Bilbo’s next suggestion…
Bilbo wrote:
The odd spectre using using its magical power to move enemy cavalry before they are ready to charge, so that you can isolate and surround them can allow yo to knoble them piece meal, as well as dictate the movements of your opponent. Also, having a front line that causes terror will cut down on the cavalry that will actually make it into combat with you.
The Specter’s are affordable ways of really messing with Cavalry if they are not packing too high of a Courage (or if you have a Nazgul around too!). Pulling a horse all the way to you, stopping just one inch in front of your lines, lets you surround it and kill it relatively easily. This really should only be done on a turn your opponent had Priority and has already moved or they may just counter charge with their riders and you’re in trouble. If your opponent already charged you, then use the Specter’s power to move some Cavalry back out of the way, spoiling their charge, negating that model’s effectiveness and freeing up some of your own units that can then move against other Cav that also charged you.
You can also take the Cavalry model under your Specter’s control and place it in such a way that your opponent can’t charge effectively around it. Basically create a blocking unit. Sometimes you can do this with nearby terrain, or if you get control of two such models put them just far enough apart that a Cavalry base can’t fit between them. Often you don’t need to completely block your opponent from being able to reach you, just add distance. The concept here is that Cavalry players will usually keep their mounted units in a sweet spot that is just outside of the charge distance of infantry (in case they lose Priority) but close enough for them to charge. This usually doesn’t leave many extra inches in their Move distance. So if they have to waste 2” – 3” to go around one of their own models that you placed in their way it may cause some of the horses to no longer have the Movement needed to actually reach you.
Bilbo wrote:
Also, having a front line that causes terror will cut down on the cavalry that will actually make it into combat with you.
That’s not always as easy to do but it can be very effective too. Often your opponent will have a limited number of Cav to charge in and if even one or two balk to charge due to Courage it can hurt them significantly. Even more so if they make a mistake in the order they roll the Courage tests and find a ‘scared’ Cav now blocking the charge of some second-rank mounted units. This is similar to what I suggested you do intentionally with a Specter above but it’s almost more fun when it “just happens” (seen it happen…loved it!).
More than almost any other force, Cavalry really require coordination between the models and a well-executed charge to be effective. Anything you can do to disrupt this (which technically is what you were looking for in Nature’s Wrath) will help. Specters are a very good tool for this, but not the only one. The nice things about them though is that they are cheap (you can get 4+ for the price on one most standard “cheap” spell caster) and appear in both the Mordor and Angmar lists so a bog-standard Orc Captain (also cheap and needed anyway for Heroic Move after the charge) can be used to attach a few of them to nearly any list.
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