Madness and mayhem: The conclusion of Bilbo's Birthday Bash

Oh my... with all the craziness of the last 24 hours, I completely forgot to post this!  My apologies, folks.

This is Game Six of the tournament.  It is my Knights of the Blood Rose once again, gearing up to face some elite orcs, Marghul Knights, the Shadow Lord and Grishnakh

The scenario was Recon once again.  After the debacle of the previous game, I made a decision.  The was not even going to try to get anyone off the board.  With so few of the enemy (I think we might have had the same number of troops) and terrain that was ideal for my twin stormcaller list, I wanted to go for breaking the bad guys and killing as many as I could.

You can see my deployments in or near the buildings.  I wanted to make the orcs come to me.

This started to work right away, and I spent my first few turns positioning myself in the buildings.  I wanted to make sure that Delilah on the right would not have will sapped away...

Speaking of the Morghul knights and the Shadow Lord, aren't those amazing paint jobs?  Incredible!!!!  Pity they all had to die. :-)

More positioning, waiting for the bad guys...

I was hoping to see a commitment by the orcs and knights so that the traps could be set.

Now the traps are set on both the right and the left.  Gwaihir and the cavalry will try to take advantage of the Nature's wrath spell aftermath on the left.

Gotta love random elf bow shots!

Now the trap is sprung!  Out comes Sam on the left, and down go the orcs!  I made sure to avoid Grishnakh, so there was no way for the spell to be resisted.  I also rolled a '6', so all my will came back!

Same for Delilah on the right.  The knights had stalled in their advance.  If I could hit them and avoid the Shadow Lord, they would be tossed from the horses.  If anything else, they would lose the movement and the cavalry charge bonus.

You can see that the eagle and cavalry were able to trap the downed orcs this time, unlike the previous attempt in Game Two to pull off this maneuver.  By getting back the will, and walling off the downed orcs, I could move Sam over a bit to KO the other advancing orc unit!  And down they went!  yea!

Gwaihir flew away from that combat after chewing on an orc in a heroic fight.  I was going to go for broke, and have Gwaihir land on the Shadow Lord himself.  I had to take him out as soon as possible.

It was a big risk, but it was the last game, and I said what the heck.  He is fight skill 8 after all!  Check out those talons...

Amazingly enough, the Great Eagle dispatched the foul servant of the Dark Lord with a single blow!

Delilah, who had spent the last bit of her will to knock down the knights a second time, now led the charge against what remained.  Terror would prove to be useless, as it almost always seems to these days.  I had plenty of spears to charge in to join the fight skill 5 party.

The orcs by Grishakh are taken down in bunches.  With each loss, I was able to outnumber and surround them, causing more deaths.

The orcs in the center make a mad dash for the goal line.  If they get away, I would end up losing.  Fortunately, I had the 2 elf archers on either side of that road, and an eagle with a giant base to get in their way.

More orcs die to repeated elven assaults

It would not be long before Grishnakh himself would be surrounded and killed.

Same for the last of the dismounted Morghul Knights.  I really want to make these part of my army, but they will be going along with my chariots and Easterlings.  This terror causing power could make a big difference in my games.  The Shadow Lord can keep down the shooting, which already has a tough time getting past the chariots as it is.  If I can intersperse the terror knights in key places, I can keep my own cav from being charged.

Anyway, with the orcs broken, and all their leaders defeated and dead, they start running away.  Most importantly, the orcs trying to get to my deployment zone are the first to go.  I am able to kill off almost all the remaining orcs, for my most convincing victory of the tournament.

I learned a ton over the weekend.  If I were to be able to do it all over this next weekend, I think I could have a lot of success.  Unfortunately, next time might be a year away.  Bummer!

Thanks again to Brent and Chris, and everyone who helped make it a great weekend!