Convergence (7:30 - 3:00)
Meanwhile a distant explosion had signalled the first casualty for Rommel -- one of Rommel's wights encountering a ghôl from Hors d'oeuve. I still had no idea where Rommel was, although it was easy to guess that by this time he was sitting pretty in a defensive position near the flag. Shortly thereafter, in fact, one of Rommel's ghôls staked a brief claim to the flag, scouted around the SW entrance to the plain, and then retreated back to the bluff. Probably responding to this, Hors d'oeuve sent his ghôl pack to the flag as well. Rommel had been having a mosh to pass the time atop the bluff (at least that's what it looked like), but at Hors d'oeuve's capture he sent archers to overlook the flag plain, plus another group of archers and the forest giant down into the plain and at Hors d'oeuve's ghôls, who were soon to meet an ugly fate.
Hors d'oeuve's ghôls find the flag undefended by Rommel...
...but not for long
I was moving my surviving units to face the central plain and the flag, with my infantry flanking my archers, and also bringing my wight toward the plain from the east. Hors d'oeuve had positioned his archer ambush on a ledge above me and begin taking potshots, but he was making an all-too-familiar mistake. I sent my forest giant up onto the ledge to say hello; seconds later Hors d'oeuve had eight fewer archers. I spotted his remaining archers in the distance but pulled the giant back to my main force rather than chase them. His archers curved around to enter the center plain from the south, two splitting off to deal with my wight and five shooting at Rommel's retreating ghôl-killers. I moved my archers up to shoot into their flank, but about that time Rommel finished his withdrawal, and Hors d'oeuve's archers turned to target mine. My weakened archers lost two units, but while the archer squads were engaged my berserks charged and put down the five enemy bowmen. I was now on the verge of the plain, with no enemy troops in sight near the flag. I had lost my dwarfs, and I was down to five archers, but I still had my full complements of berserks and warriors, as well as a lone ghôl scout to the north.
I started moving my ghôl and the forest giant toward the bluff (from different directions) to get a closer look. Partway there the giant sighted Rommel's force, and he retreated under Rommel's archer fire. Rommel's archers and a wight followed; my archers popped the wight but lost another man to enemy fire. With only four archers left I had to do something to get rid of Rommel's missile troops, so I decided on a suicide charge with the forest giant. With any luck Rommel's defensively positioned dwarf would take out a few of his own archers if I chased them back toward the bluff. The plan was not very successful, however, netting a total of only four of Rommel's archers from a combination of giant slaps and dwarf friendly fire before my giant crumbled.
My giant gets good wood on Rommel's archers; the dwarf contributes some friendly fire