Friday 25 March 2022 – As the final players move into position, Faramir is ejected from Osgiliath by the forces under Gothmog’s command. Desperate to buy some time, Faramir rallies his survivors to the fortifications along the Rammas, the rampart that is the boundary of the Pelennor fields. Cair Andros has fallen, and even now the forces of Mordor press at the northern edge of the Rammas and when they break through the thin defences Faramir will be cut off from Minas Tirith. Even as Faramir flees to the Rammas, Gothmog pursues with a vengeance. If Faramir is to be saved, the defenders must sally forth from the Rammas and retrieve him to safety.
This scenario is found in the Siege of Gondor (2003) supplement, scenario number 4. It is the fourth of a 6-part campaign covering events concerning the Siege of Gondor.
Participants
| Good (34 models; point value: 606; Quarter-point: 8 models) | Evil (50 models; point value: 752; Halfway-point: 25 models) |
| Faramir, Captain of Gondor | Gothmog, Lieutenant of Morgul |
| Damrod | 2 Orc Captains |
| 1 Captain of Gondor | 2 Orc Shamans |
| 4 Rangers of Gondor | 12 Morannon Orcs with spear and shield |
| 3 Warriors of Minas Tirith with bow | 8 Orcs with spear |
| 4 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shield | 4 Orcs with banner |
| 4 Warriors of Minas Tirith with spear and shield | 4 Orcs with two-handed weapon |
| 1 Warrior of Minas Tirith with banner | 8 Orcs with shield |
| 9 Knights of Minas Tirith | 2 Mordor Siege Bow with 2 Orc crew each |
| 1 Knight of Minas Tirith with banner | 2 Warg Riders with Throwing spear and shield |
| 1 Avenger Bolt Thrower with 2 crew | 2 Warg Riders with Orc bow |
| 1 Battlecry Trebuchet with 3 crew | 8 Siege Ladders and 1 Battering Ram |
Objectives
The game lasts 15 turns. The Evil player wins if at least two out of the following three objectives are achieved at the end of any turn:
- Faramir has been slain.
- The Good force has been reduced to 25% or less of its starting numbers.
- The Evil player has 10 or more models on or behind the Rammas.
Otherwise, the Good player wins.
The Good side gets a campaign bonus if they win and slay 50% (so 25 models) of the Evil force. The Evil side gets a campaign bonus if they win within 10 turns.
Special rules
Unrelenting Assault – When an Evil warrior is slain, the Evil player may move it on from the northern board edge at the end of his next Move phase. Heroes and Siege Engine crew do not return to play in this way.
Weary with Much Toil – Faramir and Damrod both start the scenario with only a single point of Might.
The game
The game is played on a 4′ x 4′ (120×120 cm) board.
The Good player deploys Faramir, Damrod and the Rangers up to 12″ from the northern board edge. Then the warriors of Minas Tirith and the Siege Engines are deployed anywhere on or behind the Rammas. Finally, the Knights of Minas Tirith are deployed up to 3″ in from the southern board edge. Then the Evil player deploys his force up to 6″ from the northern board edge. Because of the Evil campaign bonus, up to 6 Evil Warriors may be held back during deployment. These move onto the board from any point on a table edge of the Evil player’s choice at the end of his first turn.
One Orc Captain calls a Heroic Move, hoping to immediately charge Faramir and the Rangers. Thinking the Might point of Damrod would be better used in combat, I decided not to counter call. That was a mistake because I kind of forgot that Damrod is basically just a regular Ranger warrior, just with the added 1 S, and 1 M, W and F. Not much to write home about. The Rangers get charged by a lot of Orcs, who would be a perfect target for my Trebuchet.
Unfortunately the Trebuchet doesn’t even hit and there is no more shooting this turn. In combat, Faramir calls a Heroic Defence with his only Might point and Gothmog copies it. Surprisingly, the Ranger on the right fighting 2 charging Warg Riders and 2 Orcs wins the fight and kills the Warg Rider. Faramir wins the roll-off against Gothmog, but fails to wound. In the other combats Good is not so lucky, Damrod and 2 Rangers die.
Evil Priority (which somehow will continue for the next 6 turns (a 0,73% chance), I should probably burn my dice). Being pretty much Mightless from turn 2 onwards (save for the Captain who can’t do much with it yet) there’s nothing I can do against my ludicrous Priority rolls.
The Trebuchet again fails to hit, so Gothmog can blob unpunished. Gothmog calls his “The Time of the Orc has Come” special rules, allowing everyone to re-roll failed to Wound rolls within 12″. An Orc Shaman near him successfully casts a Channeled Fury. The Avenger Bolt Thrower now is in range and kills 2 Orcs. The Ranger that heroically won the last combat against overwhelming odds wins again with his superior Fight value, though fails to wound this time. Faramir is slain and so is the other ranger. The lack of Might really hurts a lot here and Gothmog with his special rules is quite annoying to play against when you don’t have nice things up your sleeve.
Evil Priority in turn 3. My cavalry moves out and the orcs move up. My Trebuchet finally hits but by now Evil is spread out a bit more and the rock aimed at Gothmog is deflected to a lightning rod orc 6″ away from him.
The Avenger Bolt Thrower kills some more orcs with ladders, which at least alleviates some of Gondor’s pain since the right wall is now not so heavily sieged in future turns. But 1 out of 3 Evil objectives is already completed and a second one is already 60% fulfilled with 6 orcs behind the Rammas. 1 Knight of Minas Tirith dies to the Morannon Orcs.
Turn 4 with Evil Priority. With my poor Priority rolling I really don’t dare to move the cavalry that much. They get charged again by the Morannons who will in the combat phase again kill another Knight. The Captain of Minas Tirith has made his way down as well, but loses the fight. One of the Avenger Thrower crew is killed by a Siege Bow.
In the shoot phase the Trebuchet kills another lightning rod Orc and the Bolt Thrower makes 2 more kills and wounds an Orc Captain. One Knight of Minas Tirith charges into a lone Two-handed Orc but loses the fight, though he doesn’t die.
Turn 5, Good loses the Priority roll again against a ‘3’ rolled by Evil. Since Evil is on a turn limit he moves up the orcs in the middle so that my cavalry can charge them.
The Trebuchet fails to do much except for knocking 1 lone orc prone. The Morannon Orcs behind the wall kill the final Knight there and take the Captain down to 1 Wound and 0 Fate (despite being spear supported and having 2 Might still).
The charging Knights of Minas Tirith all fail to do anything despite the presence of a Banner except for 1 who does manage to make a kill.
Turn 6 Evil Priority, the Knights get charged before they can do anything and they will all die this turn, leaving 10 Knights dead who in return killed 1 orc soldier. The first ladders are raised against the wall though not climbed.
<figure class=”wp-block-image size-large”><img src=”https://aiwendil.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/IMG_20220325_223910-1024×768.jpg” alt=”” class=”wp-image-2620″/><figcaption>Raise the ladders!</figcaption></figure>
The Morannon Orcs behind the Rammas can easily get away from the Captain because they have Priority every turn. One orc has separated and moved on while the rest disable the Bolt Thrower and kill the final crew member there. The Captain finally wins his fight and does slay 1 Orc.
Turn 7 Evil Priority, the single orc behind the walls opens the gate for his friends and the Captain is too far away to do anything about it. In turn 8 Good regains Priority for the first time but it was already a checkmate, Gothmog and enough Orcs can climb the ladders causing 10 enemies to be on or behind the walls of the Rammas, resulting in an overwhelming Evil victory.
Aftermath
The Evil side wins the scenario and within 10 turns, which means they get an extra Siege shooting phase before the first turn in the next scenario.
Post-game thoughts
This scenario wasn’t bad, but losing Priority 6 turns in a row (out of 7 turns total for the game after the first turn) really wasn’t fun. As I mentioned before this is a 0,73% chance so theoretically it should happen about once every 137 games. Yet I’m pretty confident this has been happening during this entire campaign, so maybe I really should just change my dice. It makes me long for narrative scenarios where I’ll have more Might because being Might starved from the start really isn’t fun. I think the scenarios in this book shouldn’t be played with the updated profiles, because it makes Gothmog much stronger while not really buffing the Good side. His Hatred (Men) rule in particular, which gives him and every friendly model within 3″ +1 to Wound, is really powerful.
I find it a bit harder to rate this scenario because I feel I was really unlucky with the Priority rolls, which skewed the balance quite a bit. The Evil campaign bonus also feels quite strong, especially with how cramped the terrain behind the walls is. Initially I felt like this scenario I at least would have a chance to last 10 turns, not giving Evil another campaign bonus. But that quickly changed when I lost Priority over and over and my Trebuchet failed to do anything impactful. I’d still probably rate this scenario a doubtful 3/5 stars because it is pretty interesting with varied troops.
Another thing I noticed is that the siege rules in the new edition seem a bit incomplete to me. They are heavily based on the siege rules found in this supplement, but it seems like it leaves out certain key details. For example in the Siege of Gondor supplement you can instantly raise a ladder when it makes base contact with a wall, but then any remaining movement of the ones carrying it is used up, which seems to make sense to me. In the new edition there doesn’t seem to be mention of this last part, meaning you can raise the ladder and immediately climb it. That doesn’t seem right to me. When (trying to) throw down a ladder it does mention any remaining movement is used up. To me it seems the siege rules are a bit overlooked in the new edition and not as detailed as in this earlier iteration (though I think a little streamlining was in order).
Gothmog seems to never lose a battle and so his forces are ready to press on and lay siege to the final bastion of Gondor, Minas Tirith. Will his winning streak continue or will Good finally turn things around?