“Ring of Air

Dear Vanyar,

We packed early in preparation for our Travels to the Border lands, keen to meet our adversaries, beaming with honour to fight for our Homeland once more.

Beyond the Dead Marshes and at the battle plains of Dagorlad we were set to meet our foes. Unlike times past it was not the familiar faces of Man that greeted us, but the accursed denizens of Sauron himself, the infamous Minions of the Swamp.

A disheartening sight indeed and even more so that they were heralded by a Vampire Count! We had invested the small reserve of coffers we had in coaxing Gandalf away from his Manuals and freebooted a mercenary to our cause.

With spirits still high we took to the field! The Undead were set to receive and lined up their Giants against our three brave Elves. We had not truly appreciated the might of the Undead until their first two blocks both resulted in us taking casualties, and already we were down to 9, kindly counted down for us by the vile Necromancer. The Undead then secured the ball, but they had not reckoned on our speed and left their Ghoul vulnerable. Two of our men raced through their frontline, our Dragon Warrior, Torin, almost losing his footing, and thereby only making one shot on the Ghoul and failing to put him down.

Fearful of losing the ball the Ghoul handed it to their Vampire Count and began trying to cage him in, and then they added to their CAS count, almost killing one of our men – this time the Apothecary was called to duty. Nevertheless, with some clever manoeuvres we managed to gang around the Count as Torin dauntlessly waded in, but failed to put the Count down. A second attempt on the Count failed again, Torin cursed his inability to tackle as well as others - knowing their would be few more opportunities to be had as his support was quickly being sent to the KO box.

With Elves leaving the field exponentially, and the Undead grouped as they were Gandalf could not allow this to go unchecked any longer and hurled a Fireball! A Mummy, a Zombie and the Count went down to the sound of our cheers, but a still standing Ghoul picked up the loose ball… finally our chance. Torin made hard work of dodging from his marker, clearly he was having a bad game, and despite this we managed to put the Ghoul to the floor with Torin’s assistance, but then a lone Zombie caught the ball, putting a halt to any break we could hope for… Oh the humanity!

The Undead horde could not free their lurching Zombie however, and we struck him, ably assisted, only for us to go down in spectacular fashion… indeed the Undead were a cursed bunch, but it was us who were hexed by it. A handoff to their Wight left them within distance… a final ditched attempt by us fell short as Trakki lost his footing whilst sprinting, and the Undead scored!

Our turn to receive and we had managed to bring ten men onto the pitch, a grand achievement. Unable to afford many more casualties we targeted their remaining foul expert, but immediately got sent off, leaving some of our men in a precarious position at the flank and a safe, but unsecured ball. The Undead waded in with their superior numbers. We fell back deeper into our half, hoping to draw them in. The Undead came, cautiously guarding their flanks as their great Wight, Quick Sand II, led the charge for the ball. We saw an opening that would require us to remove the Count, and took it. Four of the Men banded together to bring the Count down Lothga made sure he remained so as he put the boot in, Killing the Count – who then regenerated. The Undead tried to recover, but were unable to, and the five remaining Elves managed to pull the game back to 1 – 1 and see us through to what would likely be a bloody overtime.

Overtime, and we now mustered 7 able men for the onslaught… and as the Undead won the toss, we knew all was lost. Seven became five immediately. And soon all but Karim were taken off the field as the Count safely carried it into the hands of a Ghoul and ultimate victory…

Alas, it was not the glorious day we had envisioned. And we fear that we will soon lose our grasp on the Ring of Fire as a new bearer comes to pass. The damages sustained does not bode well for the campaign of the Two Towers that lays ahead so we put all hope in our alliance with Akallabeth, and prey that it will be strong enough to vanquish those that would quest for our glory!

Regrets,
Tarius

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Horrible, horrible dice game :(

The first half finished 40-70 on the luck scale and I never went above 50 the whole game (I don’t think). Despite this, I think I played a decent game, one of my better ones lately, but I couldn’t make up for the CAS and KOs that the Undead scored.

I managed a few times to get 2ds against the Count 1st half but couldn’t knock him down until a lucky Fireball did the job, only to see that every Undead player had Dump Off and Catch :P Then a 2d block on the Zombie to try and break away once more showed double skulls. :(
Dodges failed, GFIs failed and it was an altogether Car Crash performance.

However, take nothing away from Wotfud, he didn’t make many mistakes, if indeed you can call receiving 2d non-tackle blocks on Blodges against Elves a mistake anyway. A bit of luck with the loose balls may have seen a different result but it wasn’t to be. I was surprised I took it to OT in the end despite never getting a look in during it.

But despite all of this, it was another Fun game against Wotfudboy who now leads 3-2 on games won between us, and I shall remember the attempted pitch clearance, grrrr! ;P

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