Share Your TATW Stories!

[Viskahn]

Lets try to liven things up a bit here - couldnt see anywhere for this, but just for people to share any of the awesome battles, bugs, campaigns or any such things.


For my part, I had an interesting balrog experience the other day, a fantastic bug. I was playing as the dwarves, had wiped out OOTMM and the Balrog, and was building up Khazad Dum fairly happily when someone sieges Moria. For some reason the Balrog script comes up again...no biggy, my army would be more than capable of handling a Balrog I figured. It was odd since I had already killed the Balrog and had that script, and OOTMM had been defeated, but with the Balrog script back up it meant OOTMM was resurrected as the Balrog spawns under their control. I sent a spy out from Khazad Dum to investigate.

Ok I thought, just a Balrog by itself, not a big deal. I noticed however that it was listed as the faction leader (since it was the only live unit from OOTMM). My spy report showed it as being full on all stats (eg command, fear, authority etc) and it even had a little biography "trait" like most heroes do (this I found odd as it meant that TATW has provisioned for a Balrog general. It had a custom campaign map model, its own traits and ancillaries and all sorts). Then a thought occurred to me... If Balrog is the general, what is the bodyguard unit? After a few more spy attempts I found my answer - more Balrogs. A Balrog king with a Balrog retinue, 102 of them no less (as I'm on huge unit size). Hmm. Oh, and since they are a bodyguard they replenish between battles. So I now have an army of 102 self-replenishing Balrogs roaming around with a maxxed out Balrog King with 10 Fear etc. Sensational.

I decided that taking him on head on was probably a poor idea so I remained neutral and tracked him with my spy while devising an alternate strategy - Assassination. My spy followed the Balrogs past rivendell until he eventually settled down next to Bree. My Assassin moved in and on the first attempt (with a 5% su cess chance) the Balrog was slain, and OOTMM was once again destroyed.

My only regret is I didn't take a save game or screenshots of this, I was going to but truthfully didn't think my Assassin was going to nail it so easily.

[The Forgotten]

During my High Elf campaign in MOS I think I wiped out an entire clan of Dunlendings. (H/H)

I had sent my army back to Mithlond to be retrained but not wanting to let Dunland get a foothold in Eriador I kept back Elrohir and Glorfindel to guard the crossings. Thinking that I could handle any of the puny armies that the AI usually sends I left the two generals all alone with only their gold chevron bodyguards to keep the enemy back. Then to my astonishment I found an entire tribe (thats what I like to think of it as anyways ) had crossed the river and had attacked my generals. If I remember correctly it was something like 61 vs. 1400. Most of the wildlings were just regular militia/tribesmen. Unfortunately some were axmen though.

I started the battle a little overwhelmed. On the horizon stood a horde of wild men that dwarfed my two units. Both bodyguards had 3 gold chevrons to their name but I feared Glorfindel would get hacked to pieces since his wasn't mounted and his Eldar spearmen bodyguard wouldn't be so effective once surrounded. So right when the battle started I resolved to kill their general and cause a mass rout. I went ok and I managed to slay him without trouble, although it had taken up a lot of time. I turned Elrohir's mounted nobles around to hit the rear of the army only to find that they had already closed the distance and had encircled Glorfindel. Panicking just a little bit I went watch how well he was holding up. I zoomed down and found that the Elves had formed a perfect circle with the standard bearer in the exact center standing defiantly. Good old Glorfy was in the thick of it cutting down as many Dunlendlings and he could but his men were fighting a losing battle. Slowly their numbers began to dwindle. By the time Elrohir had arrived at least half of the Elves were dead. Not wasting time I charged over and over into the rear of their units but it didn't seem to make a dent in their numbers at all.

Finally though I managed to rout all of the enemy, but at a painful cost. Every last one of Glorfindels protecters had been slayed. But their sacrifice was not in vain and Glorfindel did actually manage to live. He stood at the center of a giant black target with a golden bullseye encircling him. The final result was all but 2 of their men dying and most of my men dead. I think Glorfindel had around 400 kills while the rest were split between Elrohir capturing ot killing them. All in all the entire thing solved nothing as my men regenerated a few turns later and Dunland replaced what they lost five times over. But it was still cool to see good old Glorfy standing in the midst of all the dead men. Alone but triumphant!

[Dude with the Food]

It was a while ago but I have a story. It was during a SE campaign. The sentinels you start with in Cerin Amroth, Haldir and a couple of other units marched north to Amon Gastal. Took under 15 casualties. Fair enough. Marched over to Rhosgobel and invaded there, very easy again. Had to defend against an attack by Mordor but the 600+ orcs fell under the rain of death from sentinels, 2 elven archers and the Sindar bodyguards. After reinforcements, Haldir marched his men up to Beorn's Halls and invaded. That also fell relatively easily and I took very little deaths. By now, all pre-reinforcements were up to 2 silver chevrons, my sentinels on 2 gold! In the south, Celeborn had been dealing with Mordor with his own army which was starting to stockpile experience.
Then I decide to attack Moria.

Haldir goes into Mirkwood leaving Celeborn with 2-3 sentinels(all at least silver), 3-5 elven archers(veterans), 2 elven archers(recruits), 3-4 spearmen(veterans) and 3 wardens(all veterans). I think "that should be enough to fight any goblin army I encounter". So I attack and I meet a half stack of goblins outside Moria and take an easy win but since the beginning of the campaign none of my units have replenished so all the minor casualties are starting to add up. I attack Moria thinking "just a couple of goblins - easy." Then of course the garrison script attacks and I face wargs and the balrog. "Fine, I can starve them, they still only have 12 units." Why did nobody ever tell me the garrison script repeats itself? So they sally out with trolls now and I'm starting to doubt myself but then I think "the balrog is technically cavalry so what about the sentinel's stakes? I'm fine." Of course the balrog avoids them and suddenly my super archers are killing my own men quicker than the they kill the balrog. I thought Ecthelion managed himself ok didn't he? So why does it take my entire army to melee him to death. And then the trolls. And then the masses of goblins and orcs.

Finally I pull through although only half my army remain. That may sound good but if I'd started the battle with full units, I'd only have had a quarter of men left over. Then a massive army turns up outside Moria with more trolls and wargs and armoured everything. Celeborn's army fought to the last. Then the last died as well. Epic. And pointless.

[DaSwede97]

I was playing as Gondor on MOS and I had an epic battle against Mordor.

It was turn 22 or so and Denethor and his army was defending the bridge between Cair Andros and Henneth Annun. All of a sudden two mordor stacks come in. I looked at one and it was weak with mostly raiders and orc band and a few archers. The second was rediculous. It contained One mumakil, one olag hai, 5 uruks, 4 uruk halberds, 3 uruk archers, one troll catapult, and the rest were raiders and orc band.

Denethors army consisted of himself, one general, 2 pelargir marines, one pelargir bowmen, 2 archer militia, 5 gondor militia, and one gondor infantry.

I was outnumbered 2 to 1 and i thought I had no chance to win against mumakil and olag hai. I chose to fight it out and it made for one of my most fun battles.

I posintioned my infantry in front surroned by militia and the marines behind them with my archers on the small hills at the side and Denethor and the general in the back. The battle starts and of course the mumakil and olag hai come first. To my delight just as the mumakil were to crash into my line, my marines fired their javelines into them and all mumakil were dead (Mumakil was the general) Next came the trolls. The marines fired and killed 8 trolls. My infantry finished them off as the rest of the two armies came in. Orc after orc was slain by my archers who had a perfect shot at them as my infantry held the line. As my archers were nearly out of ammo a set them to fire arrows to rout the enemy. Combined with a charge from the generals it was game over for the orcs. Mass rout and victory. 2800 orcs captured almost all the rest were killed. I only lost five hundred, most of my militia infantry.

My victory celebrations did not last long as another stack with mumakil and olag hai showed up a few turns later with the aid of the Witch King himself leading a full stack as well, but that is another story.

[Loki_999]

How does Mordor get Mumakils?

I just had something strange. I've owned Moria as Dwarves now for a few turns and the OotMM have been wiped out, but then i ended the turn and got two notifications. One was that my mining in Moria had awoken the Balrog, and the other was that the already extinct OotMM had been wiped out (again! - no, i'm not using any mods, and they had not reappeared). So i look, and can't see a Balrog anywhere or the OotMM.

I can only assume that as I ended the turn, the OotMM reappeared, my mine was completed respawning the Balrog in the OotMM army/town (wherever it was), and then an AI faction wiped them out, all before control returned to me.

Really weird.

[DaSwede97]

Well I think Mordor can get mumakil mercs during an invasion... (not sure) But the ones in my battle spawned in with the rest of the stack.

[Duke of Metz]

If you accept the Eastern Shadows submod in MOS, Mordor does get Mumakil.

[Trailhog250]

If you accept the Eastern Shadows submod in MOS, Mordor does get Mumakil.

It is worth noting that they will not be able to recruit nor retrain them, but there is a chance that they will spawn as part of an army. (AI ONLY)

[skullripper]

My epic story is that I won the campaign on easy

[Loki_999]

Ah, found the Balrog. Sitting outside Moria as a Rebel army... it was camouflaged against the mountains.

[eloris]

Just discovered this mod. Playing as the High Elves on VH/VH and having a lot of fun.

I gather that, for balance reasons, all AI factions get a lot more money than you do. I've found two ways to take advantage of this:

-Sold Tharbad to FPE for 500 tribute/30 turns
-Ransomed the OotMM chief twice for 10,000g

[Loki_999]

Ah, found the Balrog. Sitting outside Moria as a Rebel army... it was camouflaged against the mountains.

Erm, which strangely turned out to be a band of Dunedlings or something, with a captain that looked suspiciously like Gandalf, even though the battle icon showed the Balrog. Well, at least the battle was a cakewalk instead of the massacre i was expecting.

@eloris - nice. Creative thinking there.

[eloris]

@eloris - nice. Creative thinking there.

Thanks! Especially since Tharbad quickly rebelled, and the FPE never made a peep about continuing to pay the tribute.

[The Forgotten]

In MOS it is ridicolous. Due to a script for Dunland they will end up having around 400,000 gold by turn 100. When they turned into a horde I was a ble to capture their faction leader 2 or 3 times and ransom him for 10,000 each, which they gladly paid.

Side note, Same campaign as my little story.

[eloris]

So, my plan was to wipe out the OoTMM first, then Isengard. I got lucky and killed all the OotMM generals without having to siege Moria. Then turned to Isengard and launched a 3 prong invasion, Tharbad, Dunland Hills, Lond Daer, all with medium sized armies. I quickly reduced Isengard to just Duneard and Isengard itself. Then the fun began.

I knew about the garrison script, so I wasn't going to attack Isengard itself till I had overwhelming power. But I reckoned without my "allies" in Rohan. Apparently, Isengard, sitting there with only minimal defenses, was just too much for them to resist. Eventually I parked a spy outside and watched in morbid curiosity as, turn after turn, Rohan sent a half stack to attack Isengard, a huge stack spawned at Isengard, wafflestomped the besiegers, and then turned towards me and umm yeah. Not a thing I could do about it, I was too busy fighting off the stacks. Then, for no reason, Isengard asked me for a ceasefire. Now all I have to do is wait till I'm ready to go and then make SURE Isengard dies in one turn.

[Finkeren]

Currently playing as Mordor on M/H. Yeah I know, but I find the economy in MOS 1.41 enough of a challenge on medium. So far I'm having a blast with huge, epic battles with Gondor, though I'm quite surprised by my success. I conquered Minas Tirith before turn 10 and is currently defending it from wave after wave of full stacks (or close to that) of Gondor military. I was surprised to find just how well it works to swamp your enemies with a huge amorphous mass of cheap orcs then Nazgûl-charge them in the back. It's a tactic that has so far cost me surprisingly few troops - I usually lose less than half the number that the enemy does and often wipe them completely in a mass rout with very few casualties.

On turn 13, I thought for sure I was done for, when Gondor moved up with its largest force, a completely intact full stack comprised mostly of experienced (2 or 3 chevrons) heavy infantry and spearmen in shining armour (fountain guard and citadel guard among them) supported by better archers than I will ever have (Yep, Mordor archers can go suck my big, black tower) all of it led by a 9 star general, who must've been the new faction heir judging by the size of his unit. My own army of 13 units, mostly orc bands with a few marauders and a load of useless scouts, led by the witch king and two other Nazgûl, had been bled down to 2/3 strength and didn't seem up to the task. Still I chose to attack in the field rather than face a siege, where the enemys better armoured troops would be at even more of an advantage. My autoresult chances were set at 3 to 7, things were not looking good.

The battle started relatively well for me. The enemy general tried to charge my archers, and I managed to trap him between two units of orc band, effectively neutralizing him. However, after that I was subjected to relentless attacks from the heavy gondorian infantry, while their lighter units shielded their archers from my Nazgûl (I quite like the tactical AI in MOS), still I managed to slowly wear down the archers. Amazingly my orcs still held their ground against Gondors superior infantry, and then suddenly (and much to my surprise) the message came, that their general was dead - an enitre unit of 43 heavy cavalry plus a general wiped out by two half-strength units of my cheapest troops. I immediately turned my Nazgûl around and charged into the back of the main bulk of the enemy army, spamming Terror of the Nazgûl/Witch King. The result was an instant mass rout, though the enemy had lost less than 40% of his number. I used my still fresh scouts to help the Nazgûl chase them down, and in the end only 5 gondorians out of close to 3000 managed to escape.

My own losses were around 550, approximately 1/4 of my army, and to my astonishment I noticed, that most of the enemy casualties (not the prisoners taken) were caused by my lowly rabble-units of orcs, not the Nazgûl. My faction leader got a solid boost to his traits, but is now for some reason called "Witch King The Honourable" - how ironic.

The power of Mordor is not to be underestimated. It's now turn 15, and even though Godor still marches on Minas Tirith with 3 - 4 armies, these are much weaker than the one I slaughtered on turn 13. Gondor is half way defeated, all caused by the stock armies that Mordor starts with. This is the first turn since the start of the campaign, where I've trained even a single military unit!

[Loki_999]

Here is why you shouldn't get involved in battles with AI allies...

Rohan was sieging a Mordor town and balance of forces looked about equal. I had a couple of gangs of Dwarven bad boys in the area so i thought i'd chip in, help swing the battle, so stuck my mini stack of two generals next to the town to await Rohan's signal to attack.

So, i hit end turn, and sure enough the party kicks off.

It starts well, Rohan going in first with a battering ram and storming the gates. I follow them in and the enemy run for the center. So i charge after them whooping their asses as i chase them down.

I'm like "Come on Rohan! Let's destroy these fiends!" as i'm at the center, massively outnumbered but feeling plucky. But what does Rohan do? It holds back its melee units and decides to open up with flame arrows from its several archer units onto the mass of enemies, which by now im in the middle of!

Call yourself allies? You traitorous dogs!

I had to stand my ground, attacked from all sides, until Rohan ran out of arrows and finally decided to send its melee troops in.

Both generals got out alive in the end, but they were both down to just themselves and a couple of bodyguards.

I registered a formal complaint via diplomat with the Rohan king, but he told me to pike off :-(

[Finkeren]

In the rare occasion, where I an ally, I almost always stay out of the main melee (except in cases where the allied forces are severely outnumbered), hold back my forces untill the two parties clash and then focus on flanking the enemy, dealing with archers and light cavaly. After I'm done cleaning those up, the bulk of the enemy force is usually sufficiently weakened, that I can charge in from behind and cause a mass rout. I then take charge of clearing the field of any fleeing stragglers. In sieges I pretty much do the same. If I have a catapul or qequivalent, I usually opens a whole in the wall to minimize the risk, that my ally gets bogged down at the gates and ends up actually losing. Once inside the settlement, I just let my best charging units run around, charging from behind any enemy that's engaged, while my best archers pepper the town center. Any other troops I keep out of the fight entirely.

Result: Increased reputation for my faction (at least I think so), very few casualties on my side combined with a high kill score (more experience and prisoners to sell for me ), the enemy is usually wiped contrary to the result if I didn't interviene and the allied army usually takes relatively heavy casualties weakening the faction and lessening the risk that they grow bold enough to backstab me.

My philosophy when playing TW games has always been: Crush your enemies completely when possible, and keep your allies alive but as weak as posible. It's a philosophy that I think fits well in Middle Earth, where it's every race for itself.

[Wolfeson]

A couple of battles from my recent Dale campaign were uniquely tense.

First, I had a battle on the bridge at the east end of Mordor, which I'd blocked off with an army specifically designed for the purpose (mass archers, a few units of heavy infantry to hold the choke, and 4 ballista units to fire down the length of the bridge). The opposing army was Sauron's dreadstack. I was a little nervous about Sauron being in there, but I figured he had to walk through the choke like everyone else, and between the ballistas and the archers we'd get him. Then the battle starts and the weather is a blizzard (snow in Mordor, go figure), so I can barely see anything. I'm focusing on the end of the bridge, watching my ranged units mow down orc and troll alike, waiting for Sauron to appear. Then I look to the side...and the freaking Sauron triplets are standing by the water's edge on my side, leaving me wondering how the bloody heck 3 giant guys in spiky armor got there without my noticing. I desperately turn the ballistas on him as he charges the right wing of my archers, and lo and behold, about 30 seconds later, they get him! Unfortunately, this still left Sauron's 2 clones wrecking my archers and the few infantry I had left after finishing off the rest of his army. The ballistas all either ran out of ammo or couldn't keep shooting Sauron (uneven terrain ftl), and I finally realized I was going to lose more troops finishing off the 2 Sauron-clones than simply running, so I quit the battle, left the surviving handful of orcs with a phyrric "victory" and then came back to mop them up later.

A bit later, when I decided to invade Mordor, I ended up getting myself stuck in the mountains between a dreadstack and the full-stack garrison of a town that sallied when the dreadstack showed up. I had a full stack of about 10-12 assorted archer units, 1 unit of Dale Cavalry, and the rest a mix of Dale Swordsmen and Rhovanion Ghadrauts. Against 2 full stacks of Mordor orcs, with maybe a 1:1 mix of high-tier to low-tier orcs, and about 8 assorted troll units thrown in. I found a good defensive hill to fight on, with only 2 routes for the enemy to take to attack me. Luckily, the orcs were divided into 3 forces and attacked in multiple waves. My archers had no problem seeing off the first small waves of orcs, and I was able (with some difficulty) to overwhelm the first couple troll units. However, much larger waves of enemies were coming, and my archers were starting to run low on ammo. My cavalry unit was down to about 12 men from trying to protect my flank against trolls, my infantry units were barely hanging on, and a few enemy units had leaked through to attack some of my archers. By the time the last massive wave of Mordor troops came in, half my archer units were out of arrows, most of the rest were fending off melee attackers, and my few remaining infantry were about ready to head for the exits. Remarkably (my general was good but not spectacular), none of my infantry broke, I was able to get most of my archers with ammo left away from the leakers they were fighting by charging my ammo-less archers into them. I told my archers to put any arrows they had left onto the mass of orcs on the right, threw my ammo-less archers against the last few enemies on the left (longbowmen vs. trolls makes for an interesting matchup), and held on tight. Finally, my last archers ran out of ammo, but the last trolls went down, my archers finished off the orcs on my left, and then charged the last sizeable group of orcs on the right. This finally caused the mass rout I'd been hoping for, leaving me with roughly 50% casualties (including almost all of my infantry), a heroic victory, and an open path to the Mordor heartland.

[Finkeren]

A few days ago I restarted my High Elves Campaign in MOS (this time using the garisson script, since I've been told in so many words, that I'm a lazy cheater for not using it ) The first 50 turns went pretty much as expected with slow expansion into the rebel area between Dunland and Eriador and struggling to keep the economy afloat. I managed to join my split up realm together at Tarbath and the OootMM tumbled pretty easily under the combined pressure of all three Elven factions (though not without a couple of epic massacres against 3000+ dreadstacks). After securing my hold on Mithrill-rich Moria (and in the process getting the One Ring - Gollum apparently ate Bilbo, and the ring stayed in Moria), I was ready to turn my attention towards Dunland and Isengard, when the message came: The Dark Lord had set his Eye on Rohan and called for an invasion of Edoras. A large force from Harad arrived soon after, and I was asked to help, and I thought: Why not, let's have a Peter Jacksonesque "last-last alliance of Elves and Men". A half stack of Eldar spearmen and ditto archers in shiny golden armour spawned, completely crippling my economy but giving me perhaps the most powerful military force in all of Middle Earth. However, it soon became clear, that the Rohirrim were more than capable of looking out for themselves. Three full stacks converged on edoras and wiped out the invading forces of Dunland, Harad and OoG, before I had the chance to do anything, so I thought: What the Hell, I might as well put this army to good use. So I turned my temporary dread(half)stack northwest and used the force intended to save Rohan to crush Dunland. The Dunlendings are particularly ill suited to battle Elves and were quickly overrun, culminating in a massive battle outside Dunelaith (or whatever it's called) that put my 1000 Eldar against two armies totalling more than 5000 including faction leader, two other generals and a well rounded mix of missile cavalry, archers, ballistae and axe wielding wildmen. Still it was nowhere near a fair fight and I completely crushed the Dunlendings losing less than 200 Eldar. Now it's turn 65, I have conquered all of Dunland and I still have around 75% of the initial strength of the Eldar army, while Rohan continues to successfully play whack-a-Haradrim, repelling one invasion force after another. My economy has righted itself with the new income from Dunland (can't imagine what it'll be like, when the invasion finally ends and the Eldar army despawns). I'm now preparing to turn on Isengard, which should prove a more worthy adversary, but Sarumans forces have been bled by participation in the invasion too, so I'm pretty confident. I'm also starting to build up a strong striking force to take my ringbearer into Mordor on a death-or-glory mission. I guess the morale of this story is: Just because you're an Elf, doesn't mean you can't be an ass and use rescources promised to others to further your own cause.