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 Shield
2 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 Council

Ben 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.

Game four - Seize the prize - Loss
James Clark - Rohan

Was up against James “All mounted Rohan” Clark from the GBHL channel who has always been very welcoming and friendly guy at each tournament but we have never played. It was a brilliant and fun game…. once we got the prize bit out of the way!

I am not a fan of this scenario, as I have stated in previous posts, it seems to only encourage running away as soon when the prize has been found and can be over very quickly. Kudos to Sam for trying to tweak it by giving VPs for breaking the enemy or wounding their leader but still it does need some more work.

James had Gwaihir, Eomer, Ekenbrand and Eowyn with a mixtures of sons of Eorl, Redshields, outriders and Rohan Royal guard on foot

First thoughts was this would be very hard, unless James fluffed the rolls he was going to get the prize first and it the number of mounted units would make it difficult to catch them. Just once I would like to play dwarves at this scenario… :D

Gwaihir flew forward onto the prize on turn one which he found and passed to Eomer while the sons of Earl heroic marched to block my forces. Boromir charged in to kill some sons while Faramir led a force around the left flank to try and stop Eomer escaping. On the right flank, Beregond and some Knights found themselves facing Ekenbrand and his forces.



On turn two Gwarhir passed the prize to Eomer and he rode off towards the far left hand corner to take the prize off. As Eomer was also the leader I could not secure those VPs but we continued playing as Sam had added VPs if you break an army.

I quickly found that as my forces were split to try a different stop Eomer exiting on the flanks two different fights developed.

On the right flank my rangers and knights could not stop Ekenbrand and his Red shields and they were wiped out, apart from one heroic Knight who held off Ekenbrand for a turn, Boromir was winning against Gwaihir at the same time and reduced him to one wound.



On the left the Rohan royal guard was getting the upper hand on Faramir warband but he was still in the mix, a stone wall was a choke point but had he got free he should have been able to start to clear up.

When last turn was called James was able to break me and took it 10/0 on vps

Great game, great fun to play James – really enjoyed the game!

Hopefully with some further tweaking, the scenario would actually be great as right now it’s the weakest of the three from DoS.

Game Five – To the Death - Win
James G – Gondor

So into Game five with two wins and two loses had me facing off against James G who I had not met before. He was a great opponent and we had probably the most epic hero duel that I have ever had that’s for sure.

James had Aragorn with Narsil, Beregond, Cirion and Damrod leading a mixed force of Knights, Fountain Court and Rangers.

This was going to really come down to Boromir and Aragorn, if one were to fall the other should easily clean up. We decided that James would be “Good” Gondor and I would be “Evil” Gondor

Mindful of the fact James had a decent number of rangers I set up with everything as far forward as possible, Faramir facing Good Cirion, Boromir and Aragorn faced off in the middle with their Knights and Bad Cirion against Beregond and his fountain court.

The plan was simple, to take out the Knights as quickly as possible and then smash Beregonds warband – Boromir would go Mano-a-mano with Aragorn.

I won priority and Boromir charged straight into Aragon with the Knights right behind him, James reacted by repositioning his fountain court around to try and trap my forces. Bad Cirion was able to catch most of them so drew off the fights but it would be quite important



Faramir charged straight into Good Cirion along with his warband so a battle soon developed, both sets of rangers took aim to try and pick their opposite numbers.

My Knights won most of their fights and I was able to kill or dismount almost all of James’ Knights, Bad Cirion and his warband was able to strike down several fountain court as my dice were on fire. Faramir was ineffective against Good Cirion so finally we came down to the main event, Boromir vs Aragorn!

We had both called heroic strikes and I rolled higher so was winning, we both then rolled off and both found it was utterly rubbish as had 4 highest. James decided to force me to spend might by bumping his up to a six, so I had to respond in kind. I then rolled to wound and rolled poorly so needed to spend two further might to inflict two wounds.

James then burned all his fate to stop the wounds, he failed all three rolls and was forced to use another might to boost the last one to succeed. So we had in total used 8 Might in a single combat!

The battle then developed, on the right Bad Cirion and his warband killed everyone apart from Beregond who actually stuck around for several turns until two knights charged him down. On the left Faramir wiffed attacking Good Cirion and had his horse taken out from under him, he fought on but he got surrounded and then finished off.

My rangers had some epic shooting, taking out 5 rangers in one round of shooting and then raced forward to support when Faramir fell. They helped steady the line and Beregond was able to slay several rangers before duelling Damrod until the end of the game.



Aragorn and Boromir continued to duel, I had to spend my last might on another heroic strike but after that James used Aragorn’s free might each turn to call heroic strikes to win fights. Aragorn won the next fight and took our Boromirs horse, he then struck three wounds on the mighty captain of Gondor which I had to use all my fate to save.

The situation continued, Aragorn was surrounded by four citadel guard but he kept winning against Boromir thanks to heroic strikes from the free might, Boromir was reduced to a single wound by repeated blows from Narsil.

As James looked to finish Boromir off I was able to win a fight, this trapped Aragorn so I had 14 dice needing 6s with no fate left. I only rolled a single 6 so Aragorn survived on one wound!

Both heroes were now completely out of might and fate, as the last turn came I had broken James but he was still about 5 models off breaking me. The fights were inconclusive, until we came to Boromir and Aragorn on a single wound each. As always Aragorn called a heroic strike and we rolled….

Aragorn won with a six

Narsil flashed three times and Boromir, the first captain of Gondor had fallen – as had his brother Faramir, the sons of Denethor had been laid low but won the battle.

WOW….

What an Epic finish, really we were going at it hammer and tongs throughout – both heroes were on their last legs, it was truly amazing stuff! When I charged on the first turn I expected it to be all over in a turn or two, instead we had this duel going throughout the game.

I had won 6-5 but it was a pyric victory with both Boromir and Faramir dead :(

I still was a little way of breaking and had the advantage in numbers but with Aragorn free to attack, but on a single wound, it would have been interesting to see how that played out.

Great game to finish on, James was a true gent and a great sport when the dice didn’t go his way (mine were brilliant in the first turns) and I hoped he enjoyed the battle as much as I did.

Conclusion

Feels like I am ending on a high point, which is great!

Very happy with my performance, going 3-2 was fine with me and I was nestled in the mid table - compared to the 0-4 in my first tournament I am very happy with progress.

I felt like this has moved to become a competitive army, a solid mix of D6 infantry and the Knights giving me something capable of hurting high defence models. I liked the simple Warrior of Minas Tirith, a steadfast choice especially backed up by a nice mix of elites like Fountain Court and Citadel Guard.

Army wise I think however Gondor are going onto the shelf for the time being, they have done me proud and will look to go back and tidy them up – speed painting meant there is stuff I am not happy with plus there is some I would like to repaint entirely. My next project will either be a Mordor army led by Gothmog or some Galadrahim Elves – I am leaning towards evil as be nice to have an army of each.

On the event itself, congratulations to Damian for winning the event, taking it 5-0 on the day puts him up there competing with Ed Ball (who came second) for victory in the GBHL.

Also huge thanks to Sam and Craig for organising everything, was a really fun event which ran smoothly – the format was great, hope you run a similar one again soon.

Unfortunately this is likely to be my last tournament for a while as I am relocating to Geneva for my fiancées work, which sadly seems not to have much of a Hobbit SBG scene. I will continue to stay up to date via the GBHL and one-ring, I hope to fly back for the odd tournament later this year if I can but that’s money/work dependent.

So that’s signoff from me, hopefully will do another one of these for my next event plus I still have to finish my notes from the Desolation of Stockport if I find the last page!

Great report matey shame to hear you going awol for a while but needs must and all that.....
Great to meet you at the two tourneys Iv attended and look forward to locking horns in the hopefully not too distant future.
Safe Journey buddy!

That was a really enjoyable read, thanks for taking the time writing it up. Really made me want to be there to participate in all the fun.

_________________
I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like half of you half as well as you deserve.

Great report. Congratz on the result. Thank you!

Thanks everyone, glad you enjoyed reading – I really enjoy writing them because normally every game has been fun.

I am actually quite sad I won’t get to join the next few tournaments as some of the summer ones sound pretty amazing but hope to get back for a few later this year!

Generally it’s really great how the hobby is thriving, when in reality I think everyone expected it to be awaiting a final nail in the coffin after the next film.

Great report! I loved the whole idea of a Gondor Civil War. I imagined it would be that Boromir survived Amon Hen and never got to repair his damaged relations with Aragorn. After the defeat of Sauron, Boromir felt his pride vanquished with a "ranger" being crowned king and led his loyalists against him!

Indeed you are totally right about the Gondor civil war, it was nicely set up as most Gondor armies I have played all have Faramir on horse as their leader so King Elessar versus the Two sons of the Steward was really awesome.