In the nick of time - Part 2...

Here follows part two of our Lord of the Rings/Hobbit battle report, from Fall of the Necromancer. Part one here.

Where we left off the Wood Elves led by Thranduil and Legolas were under serious pressure, trying to hold off the evil forces, until Elrond can march his High Elves across the woodland to engage their foes...

Turn 4 - Priority Good

The Wood Elves are in serious danger of being utterly surrounded and overwhelmed, and despite there being prone foes nearby, who could be easy kills trapped on the ground, the elves decide to withdraw into the cover of the woodland. This would reduce the number of evil models able to engage them this turn. In addition Thranduil used his Circlet of the Kings to cast Aura of Dismay... making all the elves cause terror. Again hoping to further reduce the number of charging foes against them...

Wood Elves withdraw into woods

Elrond forms his High Elves into a battle line, whilst his archers target the remaining orc skirmishers...

High elves form battle line as they advance

The evil forces now decide to split their force, with enough beasts and orcs remaining to crush the last of Thranduils wood elves, Khamul leads the the main body of orcs back to engage the high elves...

An Orc and spider fail their courage tests to charge the now terrifying wood elves, but two orc swordsmen pass their tests and charge the exposed elves on the edge of the woods, allowing spear support to move to back them up. The Wild Warg Chieftain also passes his test and joins the fight  against an elf...

Wood elf pickets at wood edge pressured

Khamul, leads the main orc warband back towards the high elves forming a battle-line as they do so, he strides forth attempting to compel a lone elf swordsman forward to his doom up on the crude orc blades but his efforts fall short, the elf is clearly made of sterner stuff...

Khamul fails Compel

Back to the wood elf fight and the Wild Warg Chieftain calls a heroic fight, slaying the elf swordsman and advancing into a rather perturbed Legolas!...

Wild warg chieftain heroic charges on into Legolas

But the Warg manages to roll a 1 + 2, Legolas laughs at this pitiful melee attack and promptly rolls snake-eyes! However, with his last point of might, he improves his dice to a 2, winning the fight on fight skill and wounding the warg once more!

A stunning display of melee dice!

At the other end of the woodland the elf spearman falls to the orcs...

Turn 5 - Priority Evil - Elrond calls Heroic Move

Seeing a chance, Elrond charges his High Elf battle-line forward into the orcs and unleashes the fury of Natures Wrath upon his foes, knocking them all prone.

Elronds Natures Wrath flattens the evil force.

Once again though the forces of evil manage to fight back, the orc captain getting back to his feet and charging the elf swordsman at the end of the line. An orc spearman also gets up and backs him up, as does the orc banner bearer...

Orc captain gets up and charges

...meanwhile, Khamul gets back to his feet also and sees a chance to take Thranduil out of the game, and again tries a compel against Thranduil who has no Will remaining, to try and move him out of the woods to surround him. But again fails his roll... Khamul is now down to 3 Will remaining and little to show for it...

The evil forces again pressure and surround the wood elves in their wood... the wild warg chieftain and a spider attacking Legolas, a bat swarm swirls round a sentinel and more orcs defile the woodland with their presence charging in against an elf archer. Thranduil responds by attacking the nearest orc, taking pressure off the elf archer.

Beasts and orcs charge the elves... spiders await their chance

The keen eyed High Elf archers at first are distracted by the melee in front of them but then see two possible targets. One archer shoots and hits Khamul in the back, but the arrow fails to wound the ethereal wraith. However 3 other elven shafts fly past the wraith hitting and spitting a spider that was exposed out by the side of the woodland...

The brown spider is slain by elf arrows

The orc captain calls heroic combat, and slays his foe following up into the next elf and slaying him also! Chris rolled 1's for the elves, followed by 1's an 2's for his banner re-roll... The orc captain chuckling evilly as he slew the elves...
The rest of the high elves have their chance now against the trapped orcs at their feet, but more terrible rolls from Chris means two orcs get back to their feet and one that was beaten, avoided a killing blow from the elf. Not good for the elves here!

The orc captain victorious - not the elves finest moment!

However, when all looked lost, the wood elves now turn up the heat. The lone elf bowman on the right ducks the clumsy two handed swing of his orc foe and kills the orc with a single thrust. Thranduil fights off the pair of orcs he faces, killing the orc swordsman. The sentinel holds off the bat swarm 'wounding' it in the process, and finally Legolas, outnumbered two one, beats off the Wild Warg Chieftain and spider, and slays both!

The wood elves hold out slaying many evil creatures!

Wow... and with that, part two of this report ends... who will emerge the final victor in part 3?

I can't bear the suspense! ;-)