Had an entertaining 800-point game of MESBG today, featuring my Arnor against my opponent's Rohan. This was largely a learning game for my opponent, as this had been his second time playing MESBG and was more or less borrowing loaner armies (his first time had been with Kingdom of Khazad-dum), so I figured that I would be nice to him and not bring the army with all the Terror and crowd control mechanics (that being my Angmar collection).
As it was the Hold Ground scenario, the objective of the game was to have as many people contesting the centre of the board as possible by the time the game ends. This was also a scenario with the Maelstrom of Battle special rule, so warbands aren't set up at the start of the battle but rather at the end of each Move Phase as determined by a d6 for each one not yet on the board. This was also a relatively dense board with terrain, so neither of us could really just bee-line it to the center.
First turn, he was able to get all four of his warbands, including Eomer, Gamling, and Eowyn set up somewhat together at one end of the table, with only his archers being out of place. I was not so fortunate with my dice however - a 12-man warrior warband was not able to show up that turn, and the dice roll I got for the remaining three warbands meant my opponent could choose where they went, which was on the opposite end of the table from him. Not really the worst thing, mind you, seeing as you can't charge on the turn you arrive from off the board edge in MESBG, and despite playing Rohan my opponent's list kept the cavalry to a small group of 6 with everything else being infantry.
The next two turns amounted to jockeying for position and some skirmishing between his archers and my rangers, up until my last warband was able to be deployed... directly behind his archers. At that point, I had more or less got my opponent into a pocket with the help of the terrain, though Eomer and his cavalry buddies nearly made mincemeat out of an entire spear formation of warriors with a solid cavalry charge.
As the line held to a degree, I was able to get my King of Arnor and his Knight bodyguard to charge into the flank of the Riders of Rohan. Practical lessons were then taught about proper formations in MESBG, specifically when it comes to using spears and having a means for the front guy to be able to back up. My opponent lost a lot of warriors as a result of that mistake, and as much as he was able to put some of my warriors down in return I still had more on the way.
A good part of this wasn't helped by a quirk of Arnor's unit rules. My group and I have kind of joked about how my Arnor have orc-like Courage values due to spooky crap from Angmar, but what was getting overlooked was that not only does every basic Warrior and Knight of Arnor have heavy armour and a shield (giving them a Defence value of 6 by default), but they also consistently have a higher Fight Value than most non-hero Men, meaning any ties on the duel roll would frequently automatically go to them. Against both Warriors and Riders of Rohan, Warriors and Knights of Arnor had little trouble winning their duel rolls, and it was really only against heroes and Royal Guard that they really saw a challenge (well, a challenge that could be surmounted through weight of numbers, mind you).
As a result, it was not a fight my opponent could really win, even with the named characters. By the time his Rohan army reached the breaking point, my Arnor was still at decent fighting strength and had pretty much closed the trap hard on what was left. By the end of the game itself, only Eomer, a Royal Guard, and a warrior were the only ones left still on the board, and Arnor was not only still in good standing but also uncontested on the center objective.
In spite of the crushing 17-1 victory lead I got (12 for the objective, 3 for not breaking, and 2 for no opposing banners left on the table - he got a wound in on my King with Eomer), my opponent is pretty optimistic about playing the game more, and is looking to do a Last Alliance army in the foreseeable future.
