Austin Featherstone from College Station Texas (home of Texas A&M) submitted this battle report:
I had a great demo game with Nethaniel Gjesdal last night at our LGS in College Station, Clockworks Games. We re-enacted the scene from Return of the King where The Three Hunters and The Army of the Dead surprise Guritz and his orcs at the docks of Harlond. You can find the scenarios in the Gondor at War book on pages 50-51.
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The goal of the game was for Aragorn and either Gimli or Legolas to survive and make it to the other side of the board without dying. If either Aragorn died or Gimli and Legolas died, then the evil player won.
After we deployed our troops, we rolled for priority and the evil player (me) won the first two priorities. The first turn there wasn't too much killing with 2 dead orcs and 1 dead ghosty boi, but turn 2 is where the fun really began.
At the end of turn two, I think I had about 15 dead orcs to 5 dead ghosty bois and by the end of turn 3, Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas were making a run towards the finish line with their cadre just like in the movies with very few orcs left.
Fortunately, Guritz and Gothmog's Enforcer were able to survive the game, but Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas were too far out of reach by the end of the game for me to be able to catch up to them. It was epic to watch the scene from the movies play out and I had a lot of fun teaching the basics of the game to a new player. He has already ordered the fellowship and the king of the dead with the heralds and will be taking the ghosty bois from the starter box for his first two armies.
I also got to meet two other new players last night who got to watch the game and one of them is going to be playing Minas Tirith for his first army and the other player is going to be taking the evil half of the starter box to have The Witch King, a troll, and a bunch or morannon orcs to play mordor. 🙂
If anyone would like to get a pickup game next week, just let me know! I'll be free to get a game in any day next week and if someone would like to borrow an army to try out, just let me know! I'll be happy to teach how to play the game or get a practice game in next week for anyone who is interested! 😊