We played this map again a couple times last night and one thing became very apparent, and that is... this map really favors ranged attacks. The bridges are in the middle of the board, so ranged figures can threaten most of the surrounding area, and being that the bridges are all roads, the figures on the bridge are very mobile. They are able to gat down any melee figures working their way up the back side.
The first game we played, my friend played Orcs:
Tornak
Grimnak
Krug
Arrow Grut
Blade Grut
Heavy Grut
Isamu
Total 500
Since he played an orc army, I thought a LotR themed game would be fun so I played "Humans and Elves"
Sir Dendrik
Knights of Weston
Syvarris
Aubrian Archers
Sonlen
I started off putting a bunch or OM on the elves to start marching them up the bridge. I succeeded in frenzy once the entire game, and it was at the end of their last move, when I needed to move 3 more spaces to the end of the bridge and still didn't have a enemy in range...
All the while, he was splitting his 3 OM between his 3 "units" so he was able to bring his entire army to my side. (Isamu was cheerleading from the starting area). Well, as he was marching his whole army through the middle crater area, I was able to pick off the three Arrow Gruts first. Once his range figures where dealt with, I still had to take Krug and Grimnok out before they got up in my face. I sent the Knights of Weston in to engage Krug and they did what they were supposed to do, get slaughtered! Krug took out 2 knights on his first attack. Fortunately, I had Aubrian Archers raining down on him so he had about 4 wounds on him (hence to slaughter of the KoW!). I had one more OM on the Knights, so, Dendrik went in to Slay him some giant... and slay he did! 5 skulls on his 6 dice!!
Krug dropped like a brick house, and I had 2 KoW just standing there... So, I sent them off to try and engage some straggler orcs.
In the mean time, Tornak was racing his little dino-a$$ up my flank trying to get behind my archers. I still had Sonlen covering that flank so I was able to get a Dragon Swoop and a 5 dice range attack taking Tornak out. Grimnok was right behind Tornak, however, and possibly a bad decision by me, left Sonlen to take on Grimnok. Well, Grimnok walked up to Sonlen and had himself Baby Dragon for an Appetizer and an Elven Archmage for the main course!! Bye Bye 160 points...
At this point, I was a lil worried, cause Grimnok was at the foot of the bridge, on his way up. If he would he to my archers, I would have been done. Knowing I still have Syvarris up on the bridge as back up, I sent the Aubrians down a bit and try to arrow rain Grimnok as he marched up the bridge. Grimnok was one movement away from basing all 3 Archers before he fell. At least I can breathe now.
Once the big threat was taken down, Syvarris was able to bat clean up since most of his other orcs were now scattered and out of the reach of the Aubrians.
All in all, I lost 2 Knights and Sonlen. It didn't feel as one sided as the points show. Grimnok and Krug both had the ability to destroy me if they ever got up. This really showed the advantage the bridge offers to a ranged army.
*Would you have left Sonlen to take on Grimnok alone?
The second game we played was actually more one sided if you could believe it.
He played:
Zelrig
Gurei Oni
DW 7000
Tagawa Samurai Archers
Me-Burg-Sa
Shades of Bleakwood
I played
Cyprian
Sonya
Iskra
Rechets
Marcu
DeathStalkersx2
This game, he sent Zelrig out on his side of the bridge in the hopes of Majestic Fire-ing anything that came his way. I sent Sonya out to grab a glyph (thought, well, she isn't gonna do anything anyway, so, she may as well sit on a glyph) and then I sent Iskra and some Deathstalkers out.
Zelrig attempted a couple Majastic Fires on the Deathstalkers, but their 5 Defense (down to 3 was enough to absorb a couple firebreaths). Once Iskra was in range, he attempted to summon his Rechets like crazy (hit on the second try) and before he knew it, Zelrig was surrounded by Retchets. They were able to get 4 wounds on Zelrig on the first attack. Zelrig went next and crumbled one into dust. Their next turn, nothing... but, Zelrig had to take another turn to kill another Retchet. Once 2 of the Rechets were down, I sent in Cyprian while Zelrig killed the last Rechet. The next turn, Cyrpian moved up and got a 2 point Chilling Touch off on Z. to cool his majestic a$$ right off!
During this time, there was some posturing going on with his Shades of Bleakwood flying over to Sonya and just out right killing her. My Deathstalkers made short work of the Shades however.
Once Zelrig went down, Cyprian went over to his remaining army and used a hit and run type tactic to wear his army down. Eventually, he was left with DW 7000. (I saved him for last, in case he wanted to use the self destruct) Once it was just the DW left, it was pretty much over and just a formality at this point.
My losses this time was 3 Rechets to Zelrig, and Sonya to the Shades. Cyprian is a freaking beast. No way to say otherwise.
Also, I was sitting on an Attack +1 as well as a Move +2. Cyrpian with a Move of 10 is like having a Range Attack. There was literally no where for anyone to run.
I still had 3 Deathstalkers and Marcu sitting in their original starting spaces when all was said and done.
Anyway, I miss writing tournament reports for Magic, so, this is the closest thing I could do to writing a tournament report. Hope ya enjoyed reading, feel free to comment!