I had to laugh last night. I guess this thread helped.
Ever since WoTR came out, almost every Saturday I haved faced Mordor - with between 4 and 5 Wraiths. Almost every Saturday I lose. With Elves I lose dramatically. With my horde, hero-lit e Gondor I lose in the last turn. (the latter is thanks to the poor quality of GW products: the black dice that Mordor roll can surely not have been tested for fairness. I mean, 21 hits out of 40 attacks needing 5+; every Wraith getting his 3 spells off, Khamul reflects back 18 of the 31 hits the knights inflict, etc., etc.).
In sporting terms I'm like the Italians at Rugby. I like the game, especially as almost every decision, every unit, every dice roll seems important; but I rarely win. What makes it worse is that I bought and painted his Mordor army and picked the Wraith heavy army for his second battle after he lost heavily in his first ever game.
I digress, as Ronnie Corbett would have said in the 70's (younger readers might need to Google 'The Two Ronnies').
So I succumbed and chose Dwarves last night. Out of 1500 points 575 points were invested in Aragorn, Gimli and 4 co. of Khazad. To try and counter his 'Pall of Night' barrage I also added Rhadaghast.
Turn one, he advanced with a horde of 64 Orcs lead by: Khamul, the Dwimmerlaik and Gothmog (to counter any duels - Dwimmerlaik drives up the cost of Heroic Duel and Epic Strike whilst Gothmog counter duels, for free, any Hero foolish enough to try to take on a Wraith). Just for good measure, he threw The Betrayer into the unit. Even Dwarves arent going to last long against a unit of S5 (or 7, he gets lucky a lot) Orcs with re-rolls.
As per bl**dy usual, he covered my front line units with three Pall of Nights. Two on the unit of axe armed Dwarven Warriors containing Rhadaghast, Gimli and Aragorn, just to make sure Rhadaghast couldn't undo his handywork. Foolishly, as it turned out only one was on the Khazad Guard to the right of the Dwarven Warriors. In fairness, the Khazad Guard were obstructed from moving towards him, so he thought, by some ruins.
My turn to move.
Aragorn, Gimli and Rhadaghast dash over to the Guard. Rhadaghast sends the clouds scurrying away with his 'Call Wind'. Then they move forward through the ruins without hindrance, thanks to Rhadaghast's knowledge of hidden paths (Beastwalk). Even then he was not worrying as I was about 9" away, so he didn't even try to charge the Guard. The Guard then just charged the distance thanks to the Beastwalk and two companies managed to get into contact. Fortunately they were on the edge of his front line, away from Gothmog and his dark companions. Gimli calls Rampage. Aragorn calls a Duel and kills Khamul. Gothmog instead of going for Gimli, hacks down Rhadaghast. Combat is simultaneous and I let him roll first. With re-rolls and the carnage that Gothmog inflicted as he cut his way to Rhadaghast I've lost about 12 of the Guardsmen.
I smile. He wonders why (you've guessed, he'd forgotten about Aragorn's influence on the scores needed to hit).
Without picking up the dice I asked him if he wanted a re-match
I then explained why his unit was destroyed. The look on his face was priceless
In fact he was so gutted and disturbed that in the rematch when, after a very cagey game (Gimli and Aragorn had to keep out of the way as he tried to 'Black Dart' them), I managed in the last turn to do the same thing. He conceded - despite the fact that this time I hadn't managed to slay Khamul!!!!
Oh! Italy also managed to win that day.
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