Iron hills vs Rivendell and Galadriel in Reconnoiter at 600 points.

It had been a little while since our Iron Hills saw the table and Andrew wanted to try his Rivendell and Galadriel list again so- to the table we go! We've stopped doing the veto system and instead just going with what the dice Gods decree. We rolled reconnoiter which, as we are natural sprinters and wasted on cross country, I was not excited about; but I am grateful we played this scenario to see it play out. I would have absolutely veto'd this and missed out on a doozy of a game.

My Iron Hills were pretty straightforward.

Andrew's Elrond Galadriel combo has been pretty tasty.

All lists courtesy of the amazing Tabletop Admiral that Andrew made! Check it out!

I "won" the roll off, and had to deploy first. My Ballista went down, as did my Captain. Dain, however, rolled a 3 and was able to stay off table- I was thankful for that so I could try to react to Andrew's deployment with my main force.

Ready to give Andrew some of the ol' twirly whirlies...

Which I did in turn three. Andrew's force took their time to arrive, but when it does- it arrives in full. The Ballista rolls a 5 and I might to a 6 in order to get past Galadriel's blinding light to devastating effect. I kill Andrew's banner and a few more elves. Tasty! 

Dain and company are behind the recon force of my Captain. Andrew is sending his Riv knights around the flanks, hoping to race off the board edge.

Dain n' the boys.

The game starts developing! I'm not sure what I am gonna do with my stubby legs- while my Ballista is tasked with trying to take down individual Riv knights to keep them from scoring.

Dwarves solidly hold the middle, but Andrew has all 5 of his Rivendell Knights making runs around the edges. Not much I can do to stop them all.

After two failed Wrath of the Bruinen's, the middle begins to clash.

Elves and dwarves locked in an epic struggle! I start to send a force around the building...

And Andrew has scant forces to stop them. Elrond finds himself surrounded and loses his horse.

Dain does Dain things, and absolutely wrecks some elves when suddenly I realize I am about to lose hard.

In the preceding turns, Andrew got 4 of his 5 Rivendell Knights off the board (one was killed by the Ballista). I've also killed a fair number of elves which means Andrew is careening towards quartered and the end of the game. Models who got off the board do not contribute towards broken so there's a weird situation where I could quarter him at the same time as he's broken...

At this point the game is solidly a 0-7, heading towards a 3-7 on the inevitable Rivendell break.

That's when  I realize (and more on this in a second, hang in there) that all of my models other than Dain are equipped with shields. I now need to stop killing elves and buy my boys time to huff and puff off the board edge.

Andrew wisely keeps sending troops into Dain, and he annihilates them- Andrew makes it to one away from quartered before something silly happens...

Shield shield all day long... shield shield shield while we sing this song.

We are shielding and making our way...

Now is when the silly thing happens. Having never used a BASH before, and remembering that Dain is equipped with a hammer... I realize every single model in my army can fight non-lethally.

Further, except against Dain (who has to charge every turn if he can), Andrew can't stab to even attempt to kill his own guys and thus win the game...

And so with time to spare, we play out the weirdest maybe most annoying match of MESBG...

We shield and bash our way across a few turns before I get 6 dwarves off the board edge and we finally deliver the killing blow to Elrond.

So in the end, I have 6 dwarves off the board to Andrew's 4, Rivendell is broken while IH is not, and Elrond is dead while Dain is unscathed. This game swung to a 9-0 by ending the violence.

Closing Thoughts: Kind of a weird one, and one of my least favorite interactions in MESBG. Once in a while one side wants their own guys to die and the other becomes disincentivized to kill.Sometimes it can make thematic sense- here I can justify it's the Iron Hills who remain just trying to hold out long enough for their lads to get away... but it still feels "gamey" in a game that otherwise usually feels great and thematic. We weren't being super close with time- though I think we were right around 2 hours of actual game time but of course in a tournament that would have been another factor.

Dain is a monster. Galadriel LoL is awesome. Thanks for reading!