Fight for Osgiliath

You may recognise a variety of different things in this game. First of all there is the table, those of you who have been keeping up with the War of wattonford campaign will recognise this board as the gaming board from my local Games workshop store... so evidentally this game was played at my local Games workshop. The evil force was made up of my own (and infamously colourful) Khandish and easterlings and my freind's impressive mordor force lead by the mouth of Sauron (We really must do an article on this particular army as I really do love it!).

The game was an event put on at the store, but no one apart from us at Brigand gaming actually turned up.

This game was based around the assualt on the assualt of Osgiliath after Faramir had left it to its fate. A force of six Gondorian warbands was defending two of the four objectives, our forces then set up as close to the water as possible (representing the amphibious landings by the forecs of the dark lord as seen in the film). Both forces had the mission of securing the first two objectives before then trying to secure the rest... and as you've probably guessed the player with the most of Osgiliath won the game.

The forces were as follows...

Defenders of Osgiliath

Madril

Captain with heavy armour, shield and spear

6 knights of minas tirith

16 rangers with spears

8 warriors of minas tirith with shields

8  warriors of minas tirith with shields and spears

6 warriors of minas tirith with bows

avenger bolt thrower

Forces of the dark lord

Mouth of Sauron on horse

Keisumi, Khandish king in chariot

Kraalesh, spider queen

Khandish king

Rodragor, orc catain with shield

Beolf, Khandish chieftain on horse

5 morgul knights

6 black numenoreans

6 khandish cavalry

6 khandish warriors

8 easterling warriors with pikes and shields

10 easterling warriors with shields

charioteer

12 orcs with spears

3 orcs with shields

4 orcs with two handed weapons

4 orc treackers

orc siege bow

Our battle plan took off in full with the entire force of Khandish and morgul cavalry together with chariots, charging off up the hill to secure the high ground to threaten the gondorian phalanx. The easterlings with the king on foot then started to advancealong the hill side in a march column. The khandish warriors then took their turn and secured the forest objective. The mouth the moved his line straight towards the rangers in the forest, flanked by Kraalesh and a gang of orcs. The orc captain and four of his followers then struck out towards the phalanx.
The gondorians then swung their phalanx round to face the high ground before moving a bit of their line forwards. The shooting phase saw the rangers launch a devestating wave of arrows that knocked out two black numenoreans.

Our priority again saw the Khandish cavalry, protected by a screen of mogul knights, crest the top of the hill to face the gondorian archers who were skirishing out as a screen to the main phalanx. The Easterling column then began quick mraching round the hill, the plan was to form a phalanx bhind the cavalry and bear down on a cavalry flatenned gondorian phalanx. The mouth re-arranged his flank before adavancing further forwards, only to be confronted by a cavalry charge from the gondorians. However owing to the terrifying aura of the mouth and his numenoreans only two of the knights struck them and anotehr hit the orc captain.
The archery saw the rangers reduce the spider queen to but one wound while the bolt thrower took down just one of the khandish horsemen. Combat was but a stale mate and just one orc was slain.

Next turn saw priority given to the defenders, and they quickly marashalled their cavalry for an earth shaking charge against the mouth's line. They then charged their skirmishing archers into combat with the cavalry, denying the knights a lance charge, before moving their Phalanx back out of reach of an easterlingcharge. The easterlings proceeded to march forwards, still in ther rigid column, and the spider queen charged on a suicide mission into the rangers. The warriors of khand then struck out across the high ground to support the cavalry.
The shooting saw the bolt thrower open up a massive gap in the eaterling march column with three warriors down and making the formation look very untidy in the eyesw of a black powder general such as myself!
In the combat our cavalry took down a pitiful (clearly lances make the difference) two of the archers. It was going slowly and the plan was not looking quite as good as it had before. The spider queen managed to throw off here ranger adversaries and strike dow a good few of them!
The mouth's men struck down one of the gondorian horsemen but took one numenorean and an Orc spearman as casualties.

With the morgul and Khandish cavalry falling on the skirmishing archers in force the Captain of Osgiliath took the chance to move his phalanx back up to the front. The Easterling march column then began to form into a Phalanx formation to confront the Gondorian infantry. The cavalry easily trumped over the archers this turn and would be falling on the bolt thrower implacement and the phalanx flank in force next turn.

Madril and his rangers counter fired at the orc trackers and took down two of them, however the spider queen continued to throw off her ranger opponents and strike even more down. The Gondorian horse fell back and re-charged the mouth's dwindeling line. The black numenorean's held the line against the cavalry charge with tehir strong shields, cutting down one of the horse... however one of the knights levelled his lance at the mouth and caught him square in the face, unhorsing him before stricking him down on the ground. Another of the riders also through down a tracker.

The Phalanxes clashed in a bitter hoplomachic clash, with the three deep easterling phalanx bearing down on the two deep gondorian one. The captain of osgiliath and a small band of his warriors took on Kiesumi and the flanking morgul knights, hoping to hold them off the dwindeling phalanx's flanks.
It was built up for a bloody clash but actually it was a much less dramatic afair and only a few easterlings and gondorians fell in the melee.
The Khandish horsemen lead by Beolf had left the chariots and easterlings to deal with the warriors, and were themselves riding for the ruin objective to have some pot shots at the bolt thrower crew and contest it.

With all the archers down and the Khandish horse and warriors trying to dislodge the bolt thower, thing were going well for the Easterlings and men of khand. The gondorian Phalanx was buckling under the charging morgul knights and had taken two casualties from forces of the east, however they had dispatched the khandish king on foot and one of the morgul knights.

With the spider queen now breeding swarms of broodlings for all she was worth Madril decided to quit messing around and actually dislodge the five orcs from the ruined building. The knights continued their firece struggle to brake the black numenorean line and their outrider (whom had struck out for the khandish held woods, only to be intercepted by Rodragor) was finally struck down by the orcs, eliminating all chance that the gondorians would secure those woods.

The spider queen and her brood had by now driven all but one ranger out from the other clump of trees and she the remaining spiders were making light work of the men, helped by a shot from the siege bow that pinned a ranger to a tree. Madril and two of his men then lead an assualt on the ruined building they beat back the orcs and struck down one of them.
By now the cavalry charg had all but fizzled out and only one horseman and a ranger stood against the much diminished forces of the mouth of Sauron and with teh fury of men fighting to the last they beat back their opponents killing all the remaining black numenoreans and knocking an orc to the ground.

With the captain of Osgiliath struck down by the khandish king the thin line of silver began to close in around their standard as the whole weight of the eastern cavalry and phalanx men fell against them tacking down all but five and the standard.

The left flank had turned into a chaotic brawl by now as five rangers, Madril and a ranger fought for control of the objectives against ten orcs, the spider queen and her broods. It was obvious now that this flank was going to be an indecisive stalemate.

The Bolt thrower had by now lost a crew to the poor shooting of the khandish horse and the remains of the gondorian "Phalanx" had buckled in on themselves, all hope for their survival against such odds lost.

But with that the game was ended. Gandalf had arrived with the horsemen of gondor to carry the body of Faramir and the rest of his wounded comrades back to the city of minas tirith, leaving the ruins of Osgiliath to the mercy of the Easterlings and the other servants of the dark lord.

The ruin was held by no one as it was contested by just one ranger against eight orc warriors whom had cut and slashed their way through Madril (He was actualy taken down by the spider queen) and the ranger's other comrades, but this plucky little fella  held off all attackers!

Rodragor and Kraalesh, togeteher with the broods and an orc were also held off domination of the woods by just one Ranger and his trusty spear! But the spider queen had done much more damaged than could have been imagined with just one wound to his name.

The other ruins were also contested as the two bolt thrower crewmen held the ruin against the host of Khandish men, who had failed time and time again to dislodge the warriors from the vantage point on the ledge.

However the other forest remained strongly in Khandish hands. The two warriros had by now started cutting down trees for fire wood, carving rude messages in the trunks and smoking their pipes between blows. Victory was the dark lord's and their was nothing the men of Osgiliath could do but fall back to minas tirith. Now the host of morgul could cross the river and would soon be besieging the white tower of guard.

A very fun game with my tale of two gamers partner, its not often that we get to have a game where we fight on the same side against a common foe. A great game against the store manager (who is always a good sport) and a memorable one to.