Tournament Report – “An Unexpected Desolation”So a return for me to where it all began, kind of fitting my last LoTR tournament for a while should be back in East Grinstead where I played my first. Time to see if I have actually got better as a player!
The format was 750pts for the army but you must spend at least 250pts on two heroes. I really loved this as it was a great way to get those expensive heroes onto the table that we would otherwise never see. There were several Mûmakil, plenty of trolls and ring wraiths and loads of named heroes which was great – hopefully Sam will run the same format again!
Sticking with Gondor so I had to bring in Boromir as he is such a beast and now on horse with a lance. Expensive but he will hit almost anything very hard! I also recently purchased Beregond and Cirion so got to put them onto the table as well!
Boromir, Captain of the White Tower on Horse with Lance & Shield 6 Knights of Minas Tirith with Shields
Faramir, Captain of Gondor on armoured horse with Heavy armour, Lance and Shield2 Warriors of Minas Tirith with Shield
3 Warriors of Minas Tirith with Shield & Spears
1 Warrior of Minas Tirith with Banner
2 Citadel Guards with Spear
3 Guards of the Fountain Court with Shield
Cirion, Lieutenant of Amon Barad 3 Warriors of Minas Tirith with Shield
3 Warriors of Minas Tirith with Shield & Spears
4 Citadel Guards with Spear
2 Guards of the Fountain Court with Shield
Beregond 6 Rangers of Gondor with Spears
Fairly standard battle plan, use the high defence infantry as a solid platform to fix an enemy in place and then commit the cavalry on the flanks if possible. Boromir will be going after the big nasties which should hopefully free up Faramir to run through the enemy lines.
Also knowing there was going to probably be a fair number of beasties I decided to get as many models with bodyguard into my list as I could because Boromir was unlikely to die so negating terror was going to be handy.
Game one – Wargonation - Win
Ben Clewer - White CouncilBen had a white council list of Sauraman, Elrond, Glorfindal, Lindr and Elf Twins all on horses. Ben’s army was very well painted, I had seen some of his work on the GBHL Facebook page the day before so I was looking forward to playing against it.
The Wargonation scenario had Wargs or Warg chieftains arriving on the board as per the hold ground deployment rules, they were worth VPs to whoever killed them.
The board was dominated by a large hill right in the middle with some woods on the eastern and western edges. Ben deployed Elrond and Lindir on the western side of the board, while Glorfindal and Sauraman looked to hold off my forces at the hilltop and with the twins behind them to support or pick up any Wargs on their side of the board.
First turn I moved up, my aim was to get at Sauraman as quickly as possible – I left two small groups in the southern and eastern board edges to pick up and Wargs which arrives.
The Wargs arrived on turn two, the twins killed two and I killed two on the eastern side. One arrived on the western board edge and Elrond charged in but his attack rolls were spectacularly bad and was almost dismounted by the Warg. I positioned several Knights to try and catch Lindir but he was about 1” to far away.
Glorfindal charged into my lines and I sent Cirion and Boromir to counter charge him, I think I did a wound but importantly drove him back and opened a gap to Sauraman as the twins had their hands full killing Wargs so could not help.
Next turn Cirion charged Glorfindal to tie him up and Boromir was able to get to Sauraman and forces him to use up all his fate to stay alive.
In the eastern side, my Knights engaged Elrond who again fluffed his lines and couldn’t hurt either of them. Lindir had to show Elrond how it was done by slaying the Warg he seemed incapable of finishing off before.
In the next few turns the game turned against Ben as Boromir was able to finish off Sauraman, while Cirion had done me proud by keeping Glorfindal occupied for several turns until he eventually ran out of Might and got cut down.
Ben was able to take down the Warg Chieftain to get ahead on VPs but I was able to get my forces to tie up the twins and quickly mopped up the remaining Wargs with Faramir and his warband to eventually win 13-10.
Bens luck wasn't great but this was always going to be an uphill struggle for his army as covering all the areas the Wargs could arrive was almost impossible. Once Sauraman was out of the way and Glorfindal was on his own I was able to use superior numbers to establish board control. It also didn’t help that Elrond and Sauraman both fluffed several magic rolls, with only a few models you need everything to click for you and the magic going awry was very unhelpful to Ben.
Still I enjoyed the game, Ben was a very nice guy and great first opponent – always sets a nice tone for a tournament if you play a fun first opponent!
Game two – Domination - win
Ben camp - Last alliance Ben had Isildur, Elendil leading warriors of Numenor, Beregond with some fountain court and a High Elf captain leading some knights
Ben took up position on a central Hill with Elendil and a group of Numenorians around the first objective while Isildur and Beregond were covering the Southern board edge. I put Cirion and his warband right opposite them as ben had left his forces positioned in such a way that he couldn’t get many into combat due to the objective blocking him. Boromir and the Knights were on the south side of the hill where three objectives were strung out while Faramir took the northern objective.
I decided to be bold and had Boromir charge Isildur and his warriors on turn one, my knights charges with lances against defence 5 meant I killed a fair number early on as Ben had his fountain court positioned to far back to support. Ben got quite vocally frustrated at this, but better fight is only better I have found the more dice you roll, 1d6 against my charging knights was always going to be difficult to win unless he got a 6.
Boromir was able to keep charging Isildur to stop him putting on the ring and my Knights soon finished off most of the Numenorians but the survivors were able to retreat and link up with the fountain court to form a new defensive line.
In the middle Elendil moved to engage Faramir but while he did this Cirion was carving through the Numenorians. I was finding that he was a really handy hero and was able to clear the hill without much difficulty. When he got charged by a high elf captain and I used might to win the fight we had bit of an unfortunate disagreement when Ben, who did not believe Cirion had 3 might, had to check the army book twice but I tried to not let it break my concentration.
Elendil wasn’t able to kill Faramir but neither could I kill him, Boromir was dismounted but my Knights were able to crush the fountain court on the charge with help from Cirion and his warband which climbed down from the hill to support.
The high elf knights had been quiet for most of the game as they tried to engage my forces, in the final turns they did destroy most of Faramir’s warband in a pretty brutal charge but Ben at that point just lacked troops to control any objectives. When last turn was called I had broken him and got the upper hand, securing three objectives and winning 11/3 on VPs.
Ben was a nice enough guy, I got on with him quite well at TOS and I have no doubt his frustration was just with the way the game went. I say this only in the light of the tournament being for everyone, he might need to consider being less vocal in his frustrations in the future when kids are present.
All said I hope he enjoyed our game and happy to play him again in the future.
Game Three – Lord of Battle – Loss
Mertaal – Isengard (Feral Filth) Two wins propelled me to the heady heights of table one, where regular opponent Mertaal and his Isengard feral filth awaited. He truly is the padawan of Damian :)
Mertaals army is just a nightmare for me to face as it's really such a solid list he has built. Sauraman, Grima, Vrasku and Thrydan Wolfsbane leading a mix of berserkers and ferals with Vrasku and many crossbows was just such a tough nut to crack. Did give it a bloody good go though and the game actually hinged on the most unusual hero.
We had a fun setup of lots of individual trees across the map, a ruined arena in the middle and a stream on Mertaals left flank.
Mertaals forces setup with his feral/berserker warbands on the flanks with the crossbows in a line across the middle. I put all my army but the rangers on the left with the aim of rolling over the left flank before he could reposition his forces on the right to reinforce.
Mertaal got some shots but the trees hid most of the Knights and I got some luck in the ways. I made it to the stream and then turned to charge while my infantry hurried to keep up. Beregond and my rangers had a decent amount of shots which picked off some crossbows so we were tied on victory points when I closed in.
Seeing the danger, Mertaal had the choice of charging or retreat and he sensibly readjusted his forces position to refuse the flank, leaving three ferals to hold up my charge as he retreated to join his warbands together. Those ferals were quickly destroyed but it saved the better part of his warband being charged by my Boromir and most of my army.
Eventually our lines clashed, grima lurked in the middle of the scrap eating up might points and generally getting in the way. However the fighting did go my way to begin with, I was hitting those sixes for the Berserkers while Boromir killed ferals with ease. This didn't last as Mertaal was able to bring it back slowly, the strength 4 was very telling and we went into the final turn at to 11-10 to me.
I won almost every combat but could only kill a single feral as we moved to Thrydan who was in combat with Faramir and two warriors, we both had called a heroic strike and I got better fight. Now all I needed was to roll a 6 on 4 dice and would be fine. However Grima ate two might for the heroic strike so when I rolled nothing but ones and twos I could not boost it to win (plus forgot the banner reroll – ugh) so Thrydan hacked down both warriors and took the lead. Boromir pulled it back to 13-13 but a cheeky feral killed a final warrior to win it for Mertaal 14-13!
Nooooooooooo.....
Close as can be, epic game that I honestly felt was going my way until the very very end as had the advantage on thrydan but really grima was what pulled it out of the bag, eating my might hurt me as neither Cirion orFaramir could operate effectively. Well played by Mertaalas as always and deservedly he went on to 3rd place.
Still not broken my competitive tournament hoodoo against Mertaal but damn close this time, in practice games honours are even but alas not to be this time round.