Witch King Strategy

General
#1

Hello all. I was wondering if anyone had some imput regarding a potential WK strategy. I had recently found someone who claimed to have moved all their starting WK armies into a combined army and attacked the Arthedain capitol on 3 with the benefit of an overrun of the Artedain army.

This seems like a fine opening move for the WK as it has the potential benefit of knocking out Athedain turn 3. My questions are:

  1. Can you overrun an army that is in the same hex as a PC?

  2. What about moving Murazor into the Arthedain capitol before the attack to Issue Personal Challenge, snoop around and such and potentially joins up with the army as a sub commander before the attack?

I know the idea of IssPerChal is a bit risky, but Argeleb would most probably still be the army commander, and as such, could not accept Murazor’s challenge thus killing off at least one lower ranked charachter… maybe more if Argeleb stayed the army commander. Also, the fact that most of my starting armies are now massed as one, even if things went south, I could still break off cav and move against Arthedain towns in the rear while the infantry retreats back into angmar.

The whole idea of this strategy again is to knock out Arthedain qickly, and moreover, it seems best suited for a 1650 GB game. It seems to allow for a back up plan of attack in the event something went wrong while moving on the capitol, potentially kill some starting Arthedain characters and has the chance of aiding Rhudaur if only psychologically. My overexposure on turn 2 and the fact that all my armies would be fielded are all hidden from other players except Arthedain and Rhudaur (EDIT: forgot the Dwarves). Heck, even the WK MT @ 2305 (which is on the Woodman map due to the PC right next door) could perhaps be fooled into thinking I still had my starting army present if I were either lucky enough to start with a 2nd command ranked character in 2305 or I delayed the movements of armies by one turn so as to start moving out the 2305 army only after I had moved in a second commander and split off all but 100 MA. Think about it… in a 1650 GB game Arthedain is paired with the Woodmen, so one could possibly get away with fooling a single opposition.

Bounce that one around and tell me what you think… let me know how something like it worked out in the past… or tell me I am crazy and I will move on.

#2

Just quickly - it’s an ‘all or nothing’ strategy. To send everything at Arthedain is to pray that they don’t advance on all fronts immediately (as any aggressive opponent will), and flood around your flanks to wipe out your entire recruit base. Once they’re inside your lines - between you and your towns, they need only block you out and destroy all your pops. With the loss of a couple towns you quickly lose coherency, cannot mount a useful blocking campaign, and don’t have the recruit to run it anyway.

Secondly, if you run off, even if they don’t attack you, they will flatten Rhudaur. The Rhu is the usual first port of call, and will suffer the attentions of Cardy, likely Duns, probably Dwarves and some Noldo, not to mention Arth quite often as well. Without your support he is dead.

So for the gain of one enemy pop, you’ll likely lose your entire theatre. Re Murazor’s PC, he’s needed to learn curses or LAT’s. Whoever gets the jump on LAT’s will have a good character advantage, and Murazor is one of the best. He’ll be highlighted on the Arth’s pop turn report so they will know to refuse challenge, I believe if he’s in an army with another character the arties will fall to that character. If so, the loss of Argeleb is not a biggy, he’ll have other C50’s soon enough, but the chance to knock out Murazor is a biggy, you don’t get M70’s replaced so easily.

A better strategy is to split off the cav, go into the blind hexes in the north and then drop down onto the towns threatening them away with high value comms and arties. That’ll make him chase you. Problem is that the armies are finely balanced so if they attack straight away, they will have the balance of power and will destroy your defending forces. Complex isn’t it :slight_smile:

I like to play the Rhu as massed blocking forces, with the WK startups providing the hammer, coming in to clean up trouble spots. You just need to hold out as long as you can until your allies agents start to grow and can come and even the odds alongside regular dragon recruits. Play for time…

Cheers

Rob

#3

A few things:

  • You won’t overrun anyone at a fortified pop unless you use evasive movement… and even then I have not seen that work in practice

  • Arthedain isn’t going to put forces in the field small enough to be overrun - he wants to mass his own troops against you

  • Heading west immediately hurts your ability to recruit and block the incoming waves of FP

  • Even taking the cap is unlikely to knock Arth out - plenty of friends around to transfer him a MT

#4

Blaze of glory, I like it. Except Murazor would be wasting his time there…