Scenario 6: The Founding of Angmar

As the Third Age progressed into its 1300th year, the fall of Arnor and the rise of Angmar began. While Gondor maintained it's strength Arnor had started to suffer, starting by splitting into three kingdoms. Seeing an opportunity, Sauron while regaining his strength sent the Witch-king to corrupt these lands and offer a choice, join with Sauron of suffer. Starting in the kingdom of Rhudaur the Witch-king starts with the men of Carn Dûm. Without the strength to openly challenge a united Arnor at present Rhudaur would be weakened first with many of their people joining the cause. With enough forces and sacking of Rhudaur's towns and strongholds the kingdom of Angmar can be established. As each town was attack the troops available that refused to join would defend their homes, but the waves of Orcs seemed unending to the limited garrisons that could be marshalled.  

Forces of Good:

3x Captain of Arnor
24x Warrior of Arnor

12x Rangers of Arnor

Forces of Evil:

The Witch-king on horse with Morgul Blade (3/15/3)
2x Orc Captains with shield

36x Angmar Orc Warriors (12x Shield, 12x Spear, 6x Bow, 6x Two-handed weapon)

12x Angmar Warg Riders (4x Shield, 4x Throwing Spears, 4x Bow)

Additionally, the following rules are in play:

• Roll a dice for each previously slain Evil warrior at the end of each Evil move phase. For each 4+ they return moving on from the eastern board edge or the centre of the northern or southern board edge.
• The Witch-king has 2 attacks in this scenario.
• Good models cannot move beyond 12" of the centre of the board and must move back if they end up away from it.
• Arnor models do not have hatred Angmar in this scenario.

The Scenario ends on either of the following victory conditions:

• If there are two Arnor captains alive at the end of 12 turns the forces of Good win!
• As soon as all the Arnor captains are slain the forces of Evil win!
• All other results are a draw at the end of the 12 turns.

Deployment

Seeing the on-coming horde approaching from the tree's the three captains gave rallying speeches to their troops and each took a position in the formation, centre and both flanks behind the line to better give instruction.

The Orc's meanwhile formed a shallow line with the Witch-king leading the Warg riders on their flank. 

Our homes and people must be protected

The Arnor warriors knowing they were outnumbered but the more skilled fighters stuck to their defensive formation giving no ground as their town was what they fought to protect. The rangers sat behind ready to loose a volley into the horde. On the other side the Orc captains forced their troops to move at uncanny speed marching up into the faces of the defenders. Meanwhile the Witch-king directed his cavalry contingent around the side.

Shots were fired on both sides causing a single kill on each side and now with the Orc's in close range they took the initiative and crashed into the wall of spears, uncaring about what happened to them, fearing the Witch-kings wrath should they fail. Meanwhile the Witch-king split his contingent into two, the first changing in and the others following him around the flank of the Arnor position.

The first taste of combat from both sides favoured the better disciplined Arnor warriors but both sides took casualties. The Orc's putting a few wounds through around the battleline but the main area cutting through being where their Warg riders were able to charge in. Both captains on either flank joined the fight while the central captain held his position to see where any adjustments would be needed,

Hold the line

The battle on the progressed with gaps appearing in the line of both sides, Arnor were able to push through on their right flank and to stable the centre the central captain joined the fray. However, for every Orc slain another took their place and more were arriving from either side of the town. Under the Witch-kings command the Orc's and specifically their Warg riders were able to punch a hole into the Arnor left flank amassing several kills quickly and even when their riders were slain the wargs stuck around to continue the fight. 

The captain on the left flank was also pulled away from his troops while the Warg riders and the riderless Wargs swarmed around the defenders on this side. Leaving his troops to take the kill of the first of his targets the Witch-king watched, ready to jump in if required.

There are too many

The Arnor warriors fought to the last but every time one of their own fell the number advantage from the Orc's further shone through causing more casualties. Despite slaying tens of Orc's and thinning out their initial line plenty more arrived from the sides of the town. The Arnor captains tried to stem the bleeding as much as possible and now that the Witch-king had joined the fight, engaging the left captain they knew he had to fall to scatter this horde. But achieving this would be difficult as the others were too split up to regroup let alone to get to the Nazgul.

But the Witch-king was not one to fight fair he charged in with several of his nearby troops and showing his own martial prowess was able to bring down the captain. The first of his target slain and the other two were also pinned down ready for him to move over and take them out one by one.

As the game progressed it became clear that the ability for more Orc's to arrive including more Warg riders, the remaining Arnor warriors were in trouble. With still over half the turns to go to achieve a semblance of victory it looked unlikely and bleak especially with half the original defenders laying dead.

Eliminate the remaining captains

While the battle on the Arnor left flank took place the centre of both lines clashed over and over but despite the best he could do the Central Arnor captain fell finally to the two Orc captains. He fought them over and over alongside every other Orc that jumped in to deliver whatever blow they could but eventually he tired and finally took a blow to slay him.

The remaining central defenders held the line knowing this would likely be their demise but there was no option to feel. But as time went on a presence could be felt shortly following by a chilling aura where they finally saw the lord of the Nazgul next to them. The Witch-king however ignore them, his attention focused only on the single remaining captain. As he rode across the town spells were throw, both black darts as we was invasions of the mind to take this captain out however he resisted.

The town falls

Seeing his minions fail to take out the last captain as well as his own spells being shrugged off the Witch-king finally chose to join the fight, meanwhile elsewhere the remaining defenders were down to their last scattered handful of defenders with more falling every moment, helped by the amount of Warg riders running rampant throughout the town.

Surprising to the Witch-king it took him two attempts to take out this final captain but despite that there was no chance for the captain to strike as the magic used on him finally started taking effect. This time he was slightly too slow and the weight of numbers crashing around him he took numerous mortal blows, enough to kill him several times over.

Another town and it's defenders fell to the Witch-king and his forces. This being the largest contingent faced. Further towns would offer to join and the Hill-men of Carn Dûm had finally arrived to join and bolster the Witch-kings forces. Their next aim would be to further take over Rhudaur and establish the Kingdom of Angmar for the Witch-king to get the name he was later known by. While this would occur and the Witch-kings forces spread they may also end up finding unexpected and unexpecting defenders in a sanctuary long hated by Sauron.

Review

So full disclosure, I lost my notes for this so thats why numbers lost each turn and overall are missing unlike the other scenarios I've written, but do let me know if you prefer it this way or if you like the knowing of how many kills occurred. Also since I played this when the 2024 edition of MESBG came out we used the new profiles, the one mainly effected being the Witch-king now at fight 6. Which meant he didn't have to strike etc when fighting captains so please bare that in mind when reading the below and the scenario overall.

This as expected is for sure a scenario massively favoured for the forces of evil, this game lasted 7 or 8 turns in total (missing notes so don't know for sure but it was one of these :( and some of those turns could have had the Witch-king engage sooner) While Arnor have the fight value and defence it's the Warg riders that cause loads of damage and as soon as one hole is created the Orc's just pour through. The addition of all Warg riders and Orc's coming back to get around the flank also helps the Evil forces a great deal.

But despite all that and I think this will be the case for most of this book, it is very favoured for Evil and in such a way that I think you need to get stupidly lucky for good to win, but I don't think thats a bad thing and I still enjoyed the game even playing as the Arnor side. It's a lot of decision making on how to stem the tide and limit as much damage as possible though I think you will ultimately lose.

So as would likely have needed to happen the Kingdom of Angmar has now been established. While the next scenario is the Assault on Rivendell, I have skipped this for now to have time to get models ready, and that it doesn't cause an impact till a much later scenario but I will play it. As such the next scenario will be War Begins with Evil gaining a bonus of a once per game priority while King Argeleb will be fighting to save his own life.

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