Side by Side With a Friend is a 700 point doubles tournament (350 points per player) which has been a staple of the New Zealand Middle-earth League (NZMEL) calendar for a few years now.
Minitrol and I have talked about attending Side by Side for a couple of years but the fates never aligned until this year. Minitrol had recently obtained a Shelob model and I pitched the idea of a Cirith Ungol legendary legion force.
Minitrol was sold on the theme and had two stipulations. One – he got to paint both forces; two – well, I can remember that there was a second clause but to be honest he had me at ‘you don’t need to paint anything’.
Having decided on the theme we set about army crafting and realised we needed more than the dozen Mordor Uruk-hai I owned. Fortunately I was able enough to source another 15 without too much trouble and after a bit of converting had a banner bearer and some captains before passing on the masses to Minitrol for painting.
The Cirith Ungol legendary legion rules give Orcs and Uruks a +1 to wound bonus if they’re in the same fight as a model from the other race. While it would have made best game sense to have at least one warband of Orcs and Uruks each, our army composition was determined 100% by theme. Minitrol would command Gorbag, the Orcs and Shelob and I would command Shagrat and the Uruks. Some may look at the army and think we went a little overboard on two-handed maces for the Uruks, but those people have clearly not been tempted by the sweet siren song of +2 to wound.
Minitrol also painted up five webbed Frodos and a Sam for us to use as obective markers to round out our themed army.
Game 1: Fog of War
Arrayed against us for game one was a Rivendell force with Elrond, Glorfindel and Cirdan piloted by a father and son team. Knowing from memory that Cirdan would be hiding behind a block of Elf infantry we chose Elrond as our ‘to kill’ target, as we knew he would at least be in combat and we would have a chance to wound him.
The game started sub-optimally for the Rivendell force with Cirdan failing his channelled Aura of Dismay with 4 dice. Having failed this initial attempt it took him a few more turns with his free will before he finally managed to get it up and running. We called a double Heroic March and tried to close the ground as soon as possible.
When our lines finally met our Orc and Uruks started making hard fought inroads into the enemy shield wall while Shelob went deep into the back lines to harass some archers on an outcrop.
Elrond and Shagrat ended up in a protracted series of combats however neither of them managed to wound the other on they turns they won, leaving our troops to do the steady work of killing and breaking the Rivendell force. Sensing the impending end of the game our opponents sent a lone Elf racing to claim their target terrain piece; a wise move as the game ended that turn before we could contest it. A close game which was reflected in the score, a 6-7 Minor Loss.
Game 2: Total Conquest
Our opponents in game two were another father and son team and were running a Defenders of Helm’s Deep legendary legion. Their list had Theoden, Gamling, Haldir, Legolas and Gimli as their heroes, with the warriors being a nice mix of Rohan and Lothlorien Elves.
There was a river running through the middle of the board so the game started with a grand ‘throw down in a puddle’. Theoden burned an early two Might to cause some damage but with Gamling and the Royal Standard in proximity it was Might which could be recovered later if needed.
We thought we were being clever by making Legolas’ warband enter the board in the river but the elves with him adapted well and spent the majority of the game in the river shooting at whatever Orcs and Uruks left themselves within line of sight and range.
When given the opportunity to cause wounds Shagrat consistently killed warriors but wasn’t able to put wounds on any heroes. The result of this was that the Rohan forces in the middle of the board had been slowly whittling down the Uruks while Theoden and Gamling stalled out Shagrat and we counted ourselves fortunate that our Orc reinforcements finally arrived at the middle of the board with a banner just in time to replace the Uruk banner which died.
Shelob made a minimal impact on the flank and our casualties continued to mount up. As the game came to a close we made some dashes to objectives and claimed a 4-4 Draw.
Game 3: Take and Hold
Fate had decided we hadn’t faced enough (filthy) Elves for the day and game three saw us facing both Rivendell and Lothlorien elves. Despite the board being populated with the most cover of any of our day one games we were losing a couple of warriors per turn to archery in the first turns of the game.
We called some heroic moves to close the distance, and even managed to pull off a clever manoeuvre which allowed us to get behind and encircle a group of the Lothlorien elves.
Shelob made a massive impact this game by killing Elrond, therefore removing a significant threat from the Rivendell half of the force. The Uruks were making slow but solid progress killing the Lothlorian elves but weren’t fast enough to come to the aid of the orcs whose fights weren’t going in our favour.
Both of our forces broke in the same turn abruptly turning the slog into a desperate scrap to control the objective in the centre of the board before the game ended. At this point we were able to capitalise on our (slightly) superior numbers and our remaining heroes keeping our warriors in the game with their stand fast. The game continued for enough turns that we tabled the elves and finished day one with a 10-1 Major Win.
Game 4: Clash of Champions
When the primary victory points for a scenario are determined by comparing your leaders kills against your opponent’s leaders the last thing you want to have opposing you is Aragorn, King Elessar, but that’s what we ended up facing. Along with a cadre of warriors there was also an Avenger Bolt Thrower. The other half of the force was Rohan containing Dernhelm, Gamling with the Royal Standard and Haleth (remember kids: when proxying make sure you point out your proxy models to your opponent at the start of the game).
We deployed as close to the enemy as we could with our Orcs and Uruks intermingled to capitalise on our legendary legion bonus, and planned to surge forward as fast as possible. Our opponents deployed back to give their bolt thrower a good couple of turns to make an impact.
The first turn saw the Avenger Bolt Thrower claim a fate point from Shagrat, and in return our Orc archers claimed a fate point off Aragorn who used his Horse Lord rule to save his horse.
And that was pretty much our high point.
Shagrat went down to the bolt thrower the following turn and our opponents more plentiful Might resource allowed them to control the momentum of the battle and capitalise with key kills and heroic combats. In response we were struggling to wound when we won combats even with the combo of our legion bonus and two-handed weapons giving us a +2 bonus to wound in multiple instances.
Shelob did manage to get behind our opponents lines and take out a few warriors and neutralise the bolt thrower, but wasn’t able to make much more impact than that.
After breaking we lost the crucial roll off for heroic moves and with our heroes engaged in combat we watched as a number of our warriors fled to failed courage tests. It wasn’t long until we were reduced to 25% and the game ended with a 0-12 Major Loss.
Game 5: Destroy the Supplies
Of all the scenarios at the event we felt pretty confident with this one. We had a good number of models to allow us to be as aggressive or defensive as needed, and Shelob could be utilised as a quick and agile piece to threaten enemy objectives.
Unfortunately we came up against a shooting heavy Serpent Horde list with 23 poisoned bows, and a table with a lot more open ground than we would have preferred for such a match up.
We again deployed as far forward as we could, and again our opponents deployed back to play to their (poisoned arrow) strengths.
In the first turn we lost 14 models to shooting. I’ll save you the effort of scrolling back up to our list; that’s a quarter of our army.
We tried a cheeky jink with the units on our right, going around the marsh rather than continue into the danger zone, but it didn’t split our opponent’s focus enough to make a difference. They committed just enough models to acknowledge that a threat existed and continued to pummel us with shooting.
When Shagrat took a wound I let it be without attempting to make a fate roll, and that was really the signal that game was over as that decision conceding a victory point to our opponents. The famous PhantomNuisance last round fatigue strikes again.
When our lines finally met we had lost so many models that we found ourselves using what scenery we could to prevent ourselves from being surrounded and trapped. We again felt the sting of the dice when Shelob failed to win consecutive combats, and we couldn’t consistently covert the combats we did win into wounds and it wasn’t long before we were broken.
There are times in MESBG where you know you’ve lost but you still have a degree of control over how bad that loss is, and this was one of those games. We shifted our strategy to ending the game (getting to under 25% of our starting models alive) before our opponents got to our objectives, strategically taking courage tests for our warriors before our heroes in an attempt to have as many as possible flee.
In an ironic twist we won a greater proportion of fights that turn which kept our causalities lower than we would have liked and the game continued. We measured the distance from our opponents models to our objectives and knew we had one turn to end the game before they could start to destroy our supplies and rack up more points. In a grand display of fleeing and dying we got below 25% and the game ended with a 0-5 Major Loss.
And so we closed out the event with a 1-3-1 record and were one of two teams to get favourite army votes (and based on the absolute landslide victory of the favourite army, it was nice to be acknowledge by the winners).
Bonus game: The Tower of Cirith Ungol
Minitrol was in charge of packing and transporting the miniatures for the event, by virtue of they were all at his house being painted. The week after the event I went around to collect my (beautifully painted) Uruk-hai and it seemed a shame not to have a game while I was there.
I dug out the Tower of Cirith Ungol scenario from the Return of the King sourcebook (not having the required scenery to do justice to the Quest of the Ringbearer version), and Minitrol and I set to determining the dominant force in Cirith Ungol.
In this version of the scenario the Uruk player controls Frodo and Sam and has to escape them off the eastern board edge. Frodo and half the Uruks start on the western side, and Sam and the other half start on the eastern with the Orcs in the middle. The Orcs are trying to kill Shagrat and escape with the Mithril Coat off the eastern board edge or kill both Hobbits. As per our doubles games Minitrol was controlling Gorbag and the Orcs, and I was controlling Shagrat and the Uruk-hai (and the Hobbits).
The game started poorly for me with Minitrol tying up my Uruks and quickly engaging Frodo in a fight. A couple of lost priorities and some poor rolling from me saw Frodo dead the turn after, leaving me in a position where I could only draw or lose.
Shagrat decided to buck up his ideas after that and the Phial of Galadriel and a defensible wall kept Sam safe long enough for the Uruks to round up and finish off the orcs. Shagrat finally got into combat with Gorbag, cutting down the Orc leader. With Sam, Shagrat, two Uruks, and two Orcs left on the board Minitrol took a couple of final shots at Sam (which both failed) and we called it a draw. A great way to wrap up our Side by Side experience.
52 Weeks 52 Games 
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