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Here's a short recap of my Tournament. 350 point armies. 90 minutes games.
My army
1x Mahud Tribesmaster, Shield
6x Mahud Warrior
1x Half Troll, 2-Handed Weapon
1x Mordor Orc Drummer
7x Morannon Orcs, Shield
10x Mordor Orcs, Spear
8x Orc Trackers
Game 1 - "Contest of Champions - Variation"
Our first scenario was a variation of Contest of Champions. Each side nominated a Hero and we deployed half of our armies in an arc between 18 and 24" from a corner. The other half of the army became available as reinforcements requiring random rolls after each turn (progressively getting easier as the game went on). My opponent was Chad and he had a Cirith Ungol list with Shagrat, the Warleader as his hero (ouch!). He was accompanied by Mordor Orcs, a handful of warg riders and a small number of orc archers. My hero was obviously the Mahûd Tribesmaster. I felt pretty good about him as a combat hero but still knew that Shagrat could mow through a good chunk of my army if I let him get close.
For my deployment, I put out all my Far Harad contingent and my orc trackers. Based on our deployment zones I was already in direct fire range with the trackers and I spent the first two turns directing all 8 shots at Shagrat. I knew he was a tough target but I figured my best chance at victory was killing Shagrat as fast as possible. I wasn't worried about going toe-to-toe with his line as my front ling was stronger, had equal or better defense and had a higher fight value. Low and behold, the trackers were golden. In two turns of shooting, I had inflicted 2 wounds on Shagrat - that's 6's followed by 4's to wound. He failed all three fate rolls on top of that. I told Chad that the LOTR Karma gods would get me for sure the next time we played a match.
Neither of faired very well with our reinforcement rolls. However, I did manage to get the drummer on in my first attempt. That made getting my orcs closer to the line at lot easier when I sounded the advance. I pulled back for one turn to try and get my self ready to brace for the charge. My Mahûd tribesmaster went to the left flank and I allowed the Half-Troll to engage Shagrat. I figured I had 2 attacks and an equal Fight Value with the Half troll. Since he had two wounds I might even be able to survive a round of combat if I did lose (maybe). My tribesmaster secured his first kill as the battle lines closed. The half-troll lost his combat with Shagrat but he only inflicted one wound - Chad really did roll dismally bad the entire game. In the next turn, the Half-Troll managed win the fight and put the last wound on Shagrat. With that kill, I had won the scenario as I was up 1-0 in kills. However, there were bonus points at stake for keeping my Hero alive so we played on.
After several turns of combat and getting our reinforcements to the line, the superior strength and fight of the Mahûd and Morannon Orcs took their toll. Chad's army was worn down. When he broke, he lost about half his remaining models to courage tests. After one more round of combat he conceded and game was over.
It was a very interesting game for sure. The trackers were most definitely the MVP of my army. They had completely neutered Shagrat before our lines even hit. Once Shagrat was worn down, I felt pretty good about my Mahûd tribesmaster being able to rule the day. I finished with 20 points (17 for the MV and 3 bonus).
Game 2 - "Seize the Casualties"
The second scenario was a seize the prize variation. Each army had a casualty on the battlefield that needed to be pulled back off your edge of the table. The casualty model could move 6" if it was in base contact with a friendly model moving as well. The victory conditions were defined by getting your objective off the board but the game didn't actually end until one army was reduced to 1/4 of its starting force. So even if you could quickly get your objective off, you needed delay your opponent as well. In addition, there were 3 bonus points available to the general whose army finished with more than a quarter of their force.
My opponent was Josh, the son of a friend of mine from previous events. He was playing a very sturdy Dwarf army led by Gimli. With my drummer in tow, I knew I had a tremendous speed advantage. So I deployed in such a way that I had a long line of orcs (all within the drummers range) and advanced straight at both our casualties. Josh tried to slow me down with volley fire but he couldn't roll a 6 to save his life! In two turns of volley, he rolled a single 6 which resulted in one dead orc. He tried to target the drummer but never got enough hits. Based on my speed advantage, I created a wall of Morannon Orcs around his casualty marker. The Mahûd warrior eventually caught up to this wall. A few of my orcs went off to secure my own casualty and move him off the board. Josh had better luck with direct fire and he killed a few orcs trying to carry my objective. However, I had too many around and I was able to start the long march back.
About 8" from my board edge, the volley group finally really hit their mark. They killed all three of the escorts I had for the casualty marker. So I had to move the drummer and a few orcs back to help finish the job. It really helped having the drummer as they covered the ground much faster. He did manage to land a volley shot on the drummer but I luckily saved it with the fate roll (something that rarely happens for me!!).
Back at his objective, we took turns punching away at each other. The Mahûd warriors did pretty well fighting against the dwarves but sheesh, they are tough, tough, tough! I had racked up a bunch of kills (or so I thought) and I looked over and I was still losing the battle of attrition. I had nearly broken (lost 16 models out of 34) and he had only lost 12-13 models (out of 31). In the next turn I broke and he lost another model or two. Even though I was broken, I had still be in position to protect his objective marker. The next turn proved to be the last. My Mahud tribesmaster failed his courage test, my orc drummer failed his courage test, and at least half of my remaining army rain away as well. I was reduced to below 1/4 and the game would end at the end of that turn. I tied up a few dwarves and we duked it out. In the end, I killed 15 dwarves and he never got to even touch his objective marker. It was a major victory for me (17 points) and the bonus points for him.
Another bloody game. This marked the first time my Mahûd - Orc alliance had ever been broken. I'm not surprised it came at the hands of a Dwarf army. Those guys are just stout as hell. I really did think I was winning the casualty game. The difference in the kills really came down to his archers. Although they weren't nearly as effective as Josh would have liked (or statistics would have dictated) they did kill a lot of soft, squishy orcs while I was slugging it out toe-to-toe with the dwarves.
Game 3 - "The High Ground on a breezeless day"
Our last scenario was a variation on The High Ground. The main difference was the lack of "gusting wind" so there was no knocking over due to the breeze. The other difference was a secondary objective that was placed near but not on the hill. Whoever claimed the objective would get three bonus points. My opponent was Tim. We'd first met at the Chicago GT last summer but never got a chance to play. I knew he was a LOTR veteran and expected a tough fight. He brought a Minas Tirith list that featured a Captain of Minas Tirith, a bunch of warriors with shields and spears, 5 Fountain Court Guards with shields, and 10 Rangers of Gondor.
We both knew that we were going to advance straight up the hill and create a bloody mess. Again, I was confident that my higher Strength and Fight would prevail. However, the victory conditions were such that I needed to completely eliminate any models on the hill to get a major victory. We only had 10 turns as well. Definitely a tough fight. Due to a string of priority wins, I managed to claim the hill first and form my line. I was strong across the front with Morannon Orcs and Mahûd warriors. I made a slight error on the turn before I got to the hill and I didn't get my Half-Troll and Mahûd Tribesmaster to the front of the line. Due to this, I had to wait for a casualty up front to create separation and allow the tribesmaster to advance. In the meantime, I decided to swing my drummer, the trackers around the right side of the hill and try to attack from the back. Again, the drummer made maneuvering a lot easier. The trackers again, proved golden as they took down two GotFC in two turns (again needing 6/4s)!
As expected our battle lines were bloody. Early on, the Warriors of Minas Tirith held strong and they were winning more fights than losing. He didn't get a lot of kills but he definitely kept me from killing quickly. One one turn, we both called Heroic Moves and I won the roll-off. I charged my tribesmaster into his Captain. I figured with higher Str, F, and more attacks I could just weather the storm against him and let the Mahûd and Morannon orcs deal with the warriors of Minas Tirith. It took two turns for my tribesmaster to kill the captain but the battle was turning my way in terms of other kills. His Rangers had take a strategic position around the secondary objective (which I'd completely forgotten about - dang!) I tried to move my trackers and drummer the long way around the hill to be in a position to contest the objective but Tim managed to tie me up in route.
At the end of turn 10, I had secured the hill with an overwhelming majority. However, he still have 4 models left up there. I had gotten 2 models into the secondary objective but he had 4 there too. So I won a Minor Victory (14 points) and he had won the bonus points. I'm convinced if I had one more turn, I could have overwhelmed both objectives but regardless, this game was a total blast. I haven't been in a knock down slugfest like that in a long time.
Conclusion:
I ended the tournament in 2nd place. My friend Chris managed to pull a major victory in the last scenario which pushed him over the top for the tournament. Congrats go out to him for sure. He's played in every national tournament I've been at this year and we've had a blast all along the way. I was really hoping that this would be the event that I could secure that first tournament "best overall" award but it was not yet meant to be. I've had a lot of success in tournaments this year but I'm yet to get that elusive first place finish.
In terms of the game, the Mahûd-Orc alliance continued to prove to be a combat monster. My success with this style army in Vegas continued here with the local event. However, the addition of a "speed" group by using the Orc drummer was a valuable addition (came at the expense of a banner). The drummer made it much easier for me to achieve a MV in Scenario 2 and provided a lot of extra maneuverability in Scenario 1 and 3.
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