Starting Positions: Rohan / tZ|Cr0sS: West Isengard / DriedMango: East
Overview: Although there were some obvious mistakes from both players, there was lots of harassment, hit-and-run battles and an entertaining finish.
Rohan:
I liked your strategy for the most part but your build order and micro was flawed throughout the game. You got rohirrim out in good time and used them pretty nicely up until mid game, which was where you began making mistakes. Good job getting your horses up to high levels by meleeing his pikes but you got very carefree when he upgraded them with forged blades. Once Isen gets ups, that is your cue to avoid fighting pikes entirely and start making peasants for defense. Even though you made a few peasants and stayed alive, you lost a good rohirrim to his pikes. On that note, you may also want to see this TotW about dodging wargs that are under palantir, which was where you lost a RANK 9 rohirrim. So later on with three peomen and some elves you were ready to own it up since he only had two combos and two wargs as an army. Going elves was a weird idea imo because you could've gone Ara --> base rush or a few more batts to an Ent rush which would've won the game. Hence, one huge mistake I noticed here was that you knew he only had some wargs and maybe a combo running around, but you did not save for an Ent rush. You lost your elves to his towers and wargs but instead of doing that, you should’ve split your army up on either side of the map to regain some farms and save for an Entmoot, which would’ve won the game since he had no xbows at all. Since you lost most of your army in that rush attempt on his base, Isen had a chance to come back but you could only survive on 1 horse batt and spamming Elves. Doesn’t look like you knew this about Rohan, but Elves drop like flies to fire damage (FU combos especially) in face-to-face combat. Again, the right counters in this situation would’ve been two more rohirrim, three to four peomen and two Elves. Since you had only 1 horse batt and a surplus of Elves, Isen’s ballistas pwned you and managed to get a hole in your base. By rights you would be dead by then in the hands of a better Isen but in the future just touch up on your counter units as Rohan and your micro should already carry you to a good career with Rohan. Tips for Improvement:
Don’t forget to draft your peasants when you combine them for peomen.
Remember to knock those buildings at mid-health.
Minor cash float in this game.
Instead of using rock throw with your ents on his combos, just run them over so they can’t run away.
Use Aragorn’s Blademaster when he is crippled and is being attacked by combos and ballistas. That way he won’t die as quickly and you can heal him until cripple wears off and you can run off.
Don’t forget to toggle to swords with your Elves when you see wargs around. There were countless occasions where you forgot to do this and you lost a lot of battalions from trample damage.
It never hurts to rebuild that stable and make one or two more rohirrim so you are not surviving on only one battalion for harassment.
Isengard:
Your start was good even though Rohan took your outer mill. Your pikes were used pretty averagely unfortunately; don’t fight Elves or peasants with them. Also, run your pikes away from his rohirrim so that he will be forced to run over them instead of meleeing them, you lost numerous battalions to that. Your wargs were used pretty well but killing your warg pit so early was a bad move since you lost two hordes of them immediately afterwards. There were also many occasions where you wasted WC and Rohan was able to just run off. In late game, I dunno why you couldn’t kill Rohan with your Balrog, go here to improve your Rog micro. You let his single rohirrim batt kill most of your ballistas meaning you should be more aware of where your pikes are.Also, don’t forget to use Saruman’s Speech Craft on your army, you didn’t use it once in this match.
Tips for Improvement:
Make sure every one of your laborers are working instead of leaving some of them idle. Also, use one of them to repair a damaged mill when your opponent is attacking it.
Do not kill your warg pit so early; you should keep it for a while just in case you lose some wargs.
Do not go for a siege works so early when you only have a few combos. Make siege when you have better map control, an outpost or two and a bigger, FU army.
Don’t spam so many pikes in mid game when an enemy is making that many archer units. Uruks or just xbows would be a better idea.
Isen needed to be sure he had his pikes in porcupine when nessesary, a few times he didn't and rohirrim trampled his pikes. Isen also needed to take Rohan's starting mills and hold them with pikes for full containment.
that doesnt sound good
Joking.