So...the dust has settled and many a general has returned to their native lands with stories of death and glory (or in my case death )

For those who dont know, this was a 300pt tournament organised by SuicidalMarsbar and a few others and held at the Titans Wargaming Club in North London. Considering it had only been in planning for 6 weeks tops, it ran smoothly and 20 eager players turned up. There were even a few people from nottingham.

Special shoutouts have to go to:

SuicidalMarsbar - For having the idea, despite being too drunk/ hungover to remember what was going on
White Wizard & Damian: For providing the venue, terrain, music (good choices btw) and prizes (even if they didnt arrive in time)
Blackmist: For helping sort out the UK league and keeping the ranking up to date.

Anyway, onto the good stuff.

Pictures
My Pictures
BlackMist's Pictures

There are far to many to post on the forums to hits the links above to see them.

Regarding this Dunedain, it didnt go well. 1 win and 4 losses. I thought I would take my (t)rusty grey company army. Turns out they were more rusty than trusty. They were constantly getting outshot by rangers of gondor, moria goblin archers and elves despite having nearly double the shots. It also occurred very early on that I hadn't prayed enough to the dice gods and as a result, I had shocking dice rolls for the entire tournament.
PS: Army was
Arathorn
12 RoA (5 w/ spear)
3 RoN (2 w/ Spear)
Beregond
2 GotFC w/ Shield

Looking forward to seeing other opinions from those who attended.

_________________
12th GBHL 2013.
13th GBHL 2014
9th GBHL 2015


Mid Sussex Wargamers

I had a blast. I wasn't drunk actually (although a bit tired), I understand why you may have thought that, but i'll come to that later.

Also, i brought my mate Joe Christophersen along, he was the only guy using Harad (bit suprised at that tbh) and he had a great time, and thanks anyone who played against him for being such a good sport.

Anyhoo, my list was the following

Dunlending Chieftain with shield
5 beserkers
3 orc spearmen
1 orc spearmen with shield

Moria Goblin captain with Shield
5 prowlers with shield
5 goblin spearmen
1 warg marauder.


Game 1: Goblin on Goblin action
My first game was against a goblin town list thatr included the great goblin, grinnah, and the scribe (woohoo) i took the 'get more kills with missiles than the enemy' oath this game, because goblin town have no missile wepons besides the great goblins 'throw his own men' attack. The game was pretty close, but luckily his great Goblin failed to kill all too many models with his hurl attack (even though he was calling a heroic combat every turn and thus doing 2 per turn) and subsequently failed his courage, along with grinnah and the scribe, so I won. I also felt i was mucho smart with my warg marauder because I sent it off to kill his scribe who was camping at the back of the map.

Game 2: Filthy elves's

Second game was domination against RunPriestRidcully from TLA forums. He won, somehow. Well actually his victory was pretty justified, he was using elves and numenor, meaning that my 'elite' goblins were still essentially crapola against him. I also pulled out from the battle way too early to go cap objectives i should have ben holding from the start. Without spears he also got some pretty decent combat rolls, drawing with my 2A beserkers in almost every fight, so his higher fight value really came in handy. Oh well, atleast the Dunland Chieftain survived. However i did manage to achieve my oath and reduce his numenorian captain to 0 fate.

Game 3:Last of the dwarf-hicans

My 3rd game was against Paul Merritt with possibly the ballsiest army ever. It was Floi, Gimli, and Dain in possibly the worst scenario for him, the high ground. While i did win this, Paul had a really good understanding of how to play Dain and Gimli, I was often shocked at him not blowing might to win a fight, only for him to actually survive the 30 odd dice arrayed against, he knew his stuff. My oath in this game was to kill Floi, the Dunland Chieftain and the mighty warg marauder had that honor.

Game 4: STRIKE OF THE WARGRAINE

Game 4 was against Dr. Grant. Oh boy oh boy oh boy - this is the game where people may have assumed i was drunk - and here is the explanation: whenever i play wargraine, a warhammer induced migraine. This is probably due to the sort of foods (crisps etc) I eat when i'm playing, and the fact that thinking is hard. Either way game 4 is when this really kicked in. Now obviously a headache isn't the sole reason to defeat, i couldn't see how on earth i would ever beat grant's army (roughly 10 feral uruk hai, 2 spears, vrasku, a shaman, and 6/7 crossbows) so i hid my isengard contingent behind a wall, told them to lie down, and sent the goblins out to die. Simples. After this game i got high on ibrupfen and paracetomol, and came back for my last game, hoping to redeem myself.

Anyway, sorry Grant for being such a lazy opponent.

Game 5: Dunland vs Rohan

This game was probably my favourite, my wargraine was gone and when I saw I was against rohan, I knew it was a sign from the gods that this game would be good. His army was Grimbold, Gamling, and as many royal guard/Helmingas with throwing spears, and about 3 or so without spears. We both had 22 models, he had the ranged advantage, but i was sure my 'zerkers would chop him up should he get too close. It was recconoitre, and yet again my warg marauder was pivotal, keeping grimbold+the non spear wielding helmingas tied up the entire game. The entire game consisted of me chasing his men round while they threw their spears at me, i think he knew that should he commit combat, he would die, so he really stuck to his guns and it was nice to see a Rohan infantry army played so well. My oath for this was just for my leader to kill d6 models, I got a 2, but that was looking pretty hard. Eventually i had to call a heroic march with both my leaders just to get about 3 of his men into combat. Eventually we both lost a fair few models - and got a handful of men off the board. It was also only in this game that my opponent found out Grimbold had a hand weapon, and I remembered the warg marauder caused terror (having forgotten this in all but my second game for some reason), so we found out we had both playing under a handicap all day long. This game turned out to be a draw but was probably the most fun regardless.

Final thoughts:
My army was nice, it was a shame I got a wargraine but yolo. Dunlending chieftains are pretty solid for their points, fair enough Mauhur, Lurtz, Ugluk, or Vrasku are 'better' and would've got more done combat wise, I liked the security that 3 will comes with should I break/come up against magic. The warg marauder was great (really great - killed about 10 models in total), if I had remembered he was terrifying, perhaps things would've gone different, but to be perfectly honest, I don't care that I forgot, I had a really great time!

Total score:
2 wins
1 draw
2 losses
4 oaths (very proud of that).

If you couldn't make it, go the next one, it was great!

Great thread idea SD, hopefully we'll get a fair few reports in the same place!

I had a great day, I brought my trusty Isengard list along that was a smaller version of my TOS list, army as follows:

Vrasku - Leader
6 Uruk Hai Crossbowmen

Shaman
9 Feral Uruk Hai
Uruk Hai Pikeman
Orc with spear

(the pikeman and spearman were there to fill up the last 16 points I had, not for any devious tactical reason)

Game 1 - To the Death V Sam McGuiness' Rohan

Sam had an absolutely gorgeous Rohan army consisting of Grimbold and Gamling leading about 10 Helmingas with shields, 5 Helmingas with Throwing spears and 6 Royal Guard with Throwing spears. I chose the oath where I had to kill more troops with missile fire than he did. I fancied my chances with this one as I'd done well against Rohan in the practice games, first few turns were uneventful as he approached me and my crossbows failed to do anything (frustrating for my oath). Thankfully on the turn before we clashed I took down 3 Royal Guard in 1 round of shooting, although I had a nervous moment as he was able to get about 8 throwing spear shots on Vrasku, thankfully Fate and Fury kept him alive. As soon as the battle lines met it swung in my favour, Ferals and Royal Guard are the same points but I had 2 attacks and my S4 negated his D6 and I was able to get a fairly solid win when I took down Gamling. The highlight was when I realised that we were tied on shooting casualties as we started the last turn, desperate to get my oath I charged 1 crossbowman into a Helminga and then fired into the combat with another crossbowman and Vrasku, Vrasku had to use his last 2 remaining Might to wound the Helminga but down he went, gaining me the 3 VPs and, more importantly, the 2 TPs you gained for completing an oath. Most fantastically, the crossbowman in the combat survived! So a win and a completed oath to start but more importantly a great game agains a really nice guy.

Game 2 - Domination V Steve

This was only Steve's third game of SBG so I had something of an advantage but he also had an Isengard army which countered many of my strengths (S4 shooting, same F value). I chose the hardcore leader oath and rolled a 6 - the maximum Vrasku would have to kill 6 enemies throughout the game. Things started badly for me when Steve gained his oath (he had to kill my shaman) with some crazy shooting in turn 2; he fired 3 crossbow bolts that went through a feral and then through a crossbowman, 2 out of 3 wounded my shaman, he failed his channelled Fury and then failed his fate and was dead - horrific! The game was cagey for a few turns as we manoeuvred for position but eventually he sent his 12 shield/pike uruks forwards led by a captain whilst Vrasku and his crossbowmen took up a defensive position in some ruins. Unfortunately for Steve this allowed my to gang up on his 1 warband with my whole army and again my ferals carried the day. He was then broken and in dire need of some victory points so sent 1 crossbowman to grab each of the three nearest objectives, pulling them away from Vrasku's stand fast, unfortunately he then failed 2 of their courage rolls leaving me with a solid victory but no oath (Vrasku had a bad game and was only able to kill 4 enemies).

Game 3 - High Ground V Mark Searle

By this point I had reached the giddy heights of table 2 and came up against Mark's army of Thranduil, Legolas and about 11 Wood Elves. I felt pretty good about this game as I'd done well against Wood elves in the practice games and my crossbows should take a heavy toll on his D3 elves - my oath was to kill Legolas, his was to kill Vrasku. Mark sensibly deployed far away from the hill to maximise his shooting and we traded a few turns of relatively uneventful shooting. He channelled Thranduil's Nature's Wrath but thankfully only killed 2 ferals as a result. I was then able to overwhelm Thranduil's warband and kill him (his leader). By this point Legolas had made a bid for the hill with about 6 elves and the filthy elf prince killed both Vrasku and my shaman with bowfire, this killed my leader, gained Mark his oath and, far more importantly, ended my Fury. Despite my setbacks we were both broken and I had more models on the hill than him, if we rolled a 1 or a 2 to end the game I would probably win, I rolled the dice - A 4! On we went...Sadly, I then had the most outrageous bad luck with my courage tests and, along with some crossbowmen, about 3 of my C5 ferals legged it! the numbers on the hill had thus swung heavily in Mark's favour and the next turn he rolled a 1 and ended the game with a convincing win for Mark. So close! Sadly, I'd not only lost but failed to achieve my oath (I should've picked Thranduil) and so went from an impressive 12/14 TPS to a far more depressing 12/21 and went tumbling down the tables. It was a really fun game played in a good spirit though and Mark was a really friendly guy so no complaints.

Game 4 - Lords of Battle V Suicidal Marsbar

Hee, it's interesting writing this having read Marabar's account above and he summed it up quite well! He was a really nice guy but clearly not in the best state and was seemingly suffering from the hangover from hell. As a result the game was over relatively quickly, I got pretty lucky inflicting 2 wounds on his Warg Marauder with crossbow fire which made it easier to take down in combat and his decision to hide his uruks meant I could deal with his goblin warband without too much trouble, when he broke the game ended straight away and Marsbar legged it outside I was also lucky to achieve what I thought was the hardest oath 'do not break' so back to my winning ways although clearly against an opponent who was not at full power! He was a lovely guy though and I'm sure the result could have been very different were it not for the Wargraine!


By this point I'd moved back up to table 3. The 2 guys playing on table 1 had won 4 games so first place was probably out of reach but there were only about 3 or 4 of us on 3 wins so 2nd place was still very much up for grabs with an outside chance of 1st depending on how the oaths, sportsmanship and best army points went...

Game 5 - Reconnoitre V RunePriestRidcully

For my last game I was up against a Numenorian captain with 5 warriors of Numenor and Erestor with about 12 High Elves. My oath was to reduce Erestor to 1 wound or 0 Fate and at this stage of the competition I knew how crucial those oath points would be. I think RPR made a slight error in judgement here as he sent about 15 of his troops running for the edge and completely avoided my army, I was able to pick off about 4 of them with crossbow bolts meaning that he got 11 models off very early on. Most frustratingly for me was that one of those models was Erestor and as he legged it he took any chance of me completing my oath with him. Whilst it seemed RPR was heavily in the lead, he now only had 4 elf archers against my whole force. To be fair they put up quite a fight (High fight value and an awful lot of 6s) but they were eventually overwhelmed and I was able to move most of my army off for a 15-11 victory. The more I play it the more I think Reconnoitre is the hardest scenario to get your tactics right, particularly for small armies, I find it's very, very hard to win against a horde army.

And that was that, all in all I'd managed:

4 wins
1 loss
2/5 completed oaths

for a TP total of 24/35

I also got 2/5 sportsmanship votes which gave me 4 bonus points.

I knew my 4 wins should place me well but 2/5 oaths wasn't great and who knew what affect sportsmanship would have?

In the end Jamie quite rightly won the tournament by 5 clear points (he was the only player to win all 5 games), my round 3 opponent Mark was second and I managed a very respectable...4th!

Perhaps the most galling thing about the whole tournament was that my arch rival Tom Harrison has pipped me to 3rd by, once agin, being the nicest guy in the world and getting 3 most sporting votes and ending up with 1 point more than me despite only winning 3 games! I would hasten to add in these forums where you can't read/hear emotion that I say this in complete jest, Tom is a very good friend of mine and I fully believe you should be rewarded for sportsmanship, I just knew I wouldn't hear the end of it in the pub

Looking at the results if I'd completed one more oath I would have tied 2nd place for TPs and won it on VPs, if only Vrasku had killed 2 more guys in game 2, if only I'd picked Thranduil instead of Legolas in Game 3, if only I'd wounded Erestor in Game 5, if only, if only...

Final thoughts

All in all it was a great day and I was thoroughly chuffed to get 4 wins and a couple of sportsmanship awards. The 300 points limit was great and showed how well the ruleset works at low points levels, it was also nice to see many of the 'competitive' no-brainers (wizards, shades, spider queens etc.) absent due to their prohibitive points cost. Great to meet up with some fellow One-Ringers and peeps from Nottingham and the whole event was really well run. Once again my Ferals were game winners, reaffirming my belief that they're amongst the best troops in the game, I'm amazed you don;t see more of them.

Massive thanks to Marsbar for the great idea of a small tournament and to Damian and Chris for organising, particularly to Chris for managing to get all the results input and ranked in the tight turnaround between games as well as playing in the tourney - no easy task!

We then all retired to the pub for a few debrief pints (and the obligatory ribbing from Harrison) and watched the hour long preview of the Desolation of Smaug on my iPad - perfect end to the perfect day!

Well done all who attended, can't wait for the next one!

_________________
Finished 2nd in the 2014 GBHL. My Wife's so proud

Free SBG fanzine: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=29569

3 ferals fled? That has to be the worst luck in the world (and why beserkers are so much more handsome). Maybe i will get some ferals for my 'Dunland' army, I could've squeezed another feral in AND upgraded another goblin into a prowlers had I taken ferals instead of beserkers.

Also maybe I'll stick with the whole hangover story, makes me seem much cooler than some dork who get's headaches at the worst of times.

I swear by Ferals, for every 4 beserkers you can get 5 ferals and they just seem soooo much better to me. The D6 of the beserker is handy against elf shooting and S3 combat but more often than not I find that the disadvantage of the two-handed weapon outweighs the advantage. The two attacks of the feral are just so versatile against any force and come with no real disadvantage. I also don't think you need C7, the boost from C3 to C5 that a Feral gains is more than good enough to pass most tests and I think the extra 3 points are better spent elsewhere.

And yes I understand the irony of praising their courage 5 when it pretty much cost me my only loss on Sunday - MOST of the time it's enough!

Still, each to their own, I do love the beserker models, they're just not efficient enough for me.

_________________
Finished 2nd in the 2014 GBHL. My Wife's so proud

Free SBG fanzine: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=29569

They don't HAVE to use 2h weapons though, the courage 7 did come in handy when i faced the great goblin, it kept him pretty much backed up against the wall the entire game while i got to pick my own fights...

I have to second this, it was a magnificent effort from Chris.

Thanks to everyone who came to play. You all contributed to a great day of SBG gaming. I had 5 really tight games (2W, 1D, 2L) and each one could have gone either way depending on a priority roll here or a fury save there, nailbiting stuff. Thanks to all my opponents for 5 superb games. If anyone is interested, my list was;

Warband 1
Durburz
3 Prowlers, 2-handed axes
8 Moria Goblins, 4 Shields, 4 Spears
Bat Swarm

Warband 2
Shaman
12 Moria Goblins, 2 Shields, 2 Spears, 8 Bows

Warband 3
Gollum

It worked well. Numbers are pretty good, Durburz is a useful fighter at 300 points, channelled fury keeps goblins alive, prowlers kill stuff and bat swarms help take down tougher targets. Gollum is useful, fun and immensely characterful, it's nice to be able to take iconic characters even in small games.

I was really happy with the 300 point limit. It worked really well and showed just how well the SBG ruleset is designed and how well balanced the game is. Despite the often-quoted GW price hikes SBG is still a relatively cheap game to get into as even low-points values give well balanced, tactical games.

It was also great to see our club full of SBG for a day too. Good times.

_________________
Titans Wargames Club

http://s10.zetaboards.com/The_Titans/index/

Incoming Dunedain report. I'll try to remember what happened as best as I can.

Click the tag to see it all, turned out to be quite a lot.



So all in all, a mixed day but plenty of laughs. Looking at the results I came 15/20 which aint too bad considering my dice were against me for 5 games.

_________________
12th GBHL 2013.
13th GBHL 2014
9th GBHL 2015


Mid Sussex Wargamers