Dragon Rampant: Things start to go wrong for the forces of Angmar

The ambush of Duke Earald's column on the road to Fornost had been going well. Talion had deployed his orcs and taken the Duke by surprise, forcing him to fight in heavily wooded terrain, where his troops could be channeled into fierce fighting on the roads.

That is exactly what seems to be happening, but it is not exactly going according to plan now. First the Angmar scout unit was routed by the knights of Fornost. While the scouts killed three knights, they broke and fled into the trees, which was not exactly what Talion had been planning.

Realising he is under attack, Earald is marching his foot knights around onto the southern road, hoping to punch his way through the ambush. He knows that right now the only effective resistance between him and Fornost is Talion and some Gundabad orcs.

On the north flank, the light horsemen are making a bit of a pig's ear of it fighting their way through the woods, but then they espied the hated armoured uruks of Angmar moving into position. This was an ideal opportunity for them to use their Skirmish special ability, riding up to the edge of the woods and letting loose with some arrows from horseback.

Note that as long as one figure has clear line of sight, the unit can shoot. In this case the riders get to shoot twice and they dropped two orcs. In the picture below you can see one rider (with the banner) had unrestricted LoS on the leading orcs. I could have moved him even further forward if need be. But that is enough for them to start showering the orcs with arrows.

The orcs were naturally aggrieved at this and immediately turned to charge the riders, who then used their Evade ability to pour more arrows into the advancing orcs, killing two more. The orcs promptly decided this was a mug's game, as they call it in Angmar, and retreated (failed courage test). They have not fled the field but have lost a third of their strength. As we know in Tolkien, orcs on foot against light horse is never an equal battle.

The Eriador militia were cautiously moving up the lane to the left of the riders, and suddenly there was a howl and down the trail came six wargs. The militia and wargs met in the lane in a desperate, no holds barred struggle, in which two wargs were slain and another wounded. Three humans were killed too. Both sides have backed off and are still facing each other as they try to figure out what to do next. Both units need to try to rally before they can do anything more effective (both are now classified as Battered).

With all this going on Talion has moved his orcs behind a hedge. He can hear (but not see) the advancing knights, who are probing forward ahead of their Duke and his guards. His big question now is - rely on his orcs to use their arrows, or dip into the magic rules and see how they work?

I'm actually quite enjoying this. It is a bigger battle than a pure skirmish game, but has allowed me to capture the flavour of Middle-earth using the Dragon Rampant rules. I'm also learning the game as I go along. More to come when I get the chance.