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Was digging through my emails and found a report from my first ever LOTR tournament from earlier this year. Sadly my phone has completely bricked itself so lost all the photos of the event :(
It was written a few months ago, kind of fun re-reading my thoughts from back then when I had only played a handful of games and as I am competing again in East Grinstead on Sunday feels like a good time to post this.
The “Best Event Ever”
In East Grinstead and was a fun Sunday of gaming as a LOTR newbie and was my first tournament
Format was 500pt lists, I stuck with a list I had been using recently based around Boromir and Faramir – the two finest captains of Gondor.
Boromir with shield
1 Guard of the Fountain Court,
5 WoMT with shields
5 WoMT with spears
Faramir with Heavy Armour/Shield
6 WoMT with shields
4 WoMT with spears
Damrod
5 Rangers
1 Ranger with spear
Game one - Warg Attack
Mertaal –Golbin Town - Loss
First game of the tournament turned out to be some chump called Mertaal :D my regular opponent from London, but at least we could muddle along together. He had his Goblin town list of the Goblin King, Tom the Troll, Goblin captains, some fell wargs and 30+ goblins
This scenario had Wargs randomly appearing in five “Warg pits” which we placed similar to the process in Domination. Mertaal quickly realised that it was worth pushing forward to secure the central pit and so placed much of his army there. By the middle of the game I had Boromir and his warband trying to desperately push towards the centre pit while Mertaal blocked me up with his Goblin horde, he then pulled ahead VPs when he took down the Warg Chieftain.
Towards the end of the game, Tom the troll was wounded by some well-placed arrows from the rangers and then a warg finished him off. However Boromir could not wade through the masses of goblins fast enough and while I eventually broke them, dice down was called and Mertaal was ahead on VPs 14-12
Game Two - Take and hold[h/2]
[h2]Micahel –Umbar/Harad - Loss
I am a little fuzzy on what was in Michael’s list as I had never faced Umbar/Harad before but he definitely had The Knight of Umbar on a Fellbeast, a Corsair captain and a captain on a horse (perhaps a Mahud king?) plus what I assume were some arbalesters, spearmen and half trolls.
This was the first game where I faced a Ring Wraith on a Fellbeast, it was a very nicely based model too!
Scenario wise, the Ring Wraiths speed was a problem as I had no control over where I entered the board. In my first turn Boromir and Damrod both failed to arrive so Faramir was on his own. Thankfully he avoided the shots of the arbalesters who marched on and started plugging away at his warband.
Everyone did arrive on turn two and the fighting was mostly around the North West edge of the board.
I might be a little mixed up about what happened in the early game but from what I could recall, the Knight of Umbar flew into combat with Faramir, casting a spell to sap his courage and then called a heroic combat. He beat Faramir in the fight (and then I failed both the fate rolls (thanks double 1’s) so it meant he was dead. Humpf... The Knight then moved on having killed Faramir and tried to kill some Warriors of Minis Tirith, thankfully they won the fight and drove him back
I won a very important priority as Boromir had arrived just behind Faramirs warband, he was able to close in on the Ring Wraith and slew him handily to avenge his brother.
Unfortunately Faramirs warband had been overwhelmed in the meantime by the rest of the Umbar army, Damrod and his warriors had arrived on the opposite table edge and ran forward to try and secure the central objective.
As my force finally reached breaking point I had 10 models around the objective, needing a 1 or 2 for the game to end I rolled a 5 so we carried on. The next turn most of the rangers got swamped and killed while the rest of the Umbar forces raced to get near the objective, when the game ended when dice down was called most of Michael’s army was now on the objective and I lost 15-8
Game three - Lord of Battle
Kieran – Angmar- Loss
After lunch I was against Kieran and what I recall was a Quad Troll force - which comprised of The Shadow Lord on a horse, Buhduhr, 3 cave trolls and a spectre
Not a list I fancied playing at Lords of Battle when its monsters versus all my troops, but Boromir/Faramir versus a bunch of trolls would make a good story.
This was definitely a grindy game; as the wall of trolls manoeuvred onto my left flank with the Shadowlord behind them to reduce the effectiveness of my shooting. I spread my troops out to avoid hurls. Boromir spent most of the early game transfixed as he ran out of will so Faramir faced off with Buhduhr.
I finally committed to try and swamp the trolls in bodies and trap them, this worked to an extent but the proximity of the Shadowlord meant -1 courage, so requiring 8’s to charge for the WoMT, led to lots of failed courage rolls. Boromir resolutely held on against a troll while Faramir and Buhduhr exchanged blows but neither fell.
In the mid game I was able to get enough warriors around the melee so the Shadowlord had to fall back away from the fighting. The Warriors and Minis Tirith and Rangers finally got to charge unhindered and one troll was slain, the other two were wounded and even Buhduhr was reduced to a single wound by Faramir and the Guard of the fountain court.
The Shadowlord committed itself and came back within 12” so several courage tests once again were failed at a critical time (not sure why an 8 is so much harder to roll than a 7). The Trolls quickly killed a few warriors around them to go ahead on VPs.
In the final turns, a mighty Ranger of Gondor passed his courage test, moved into the Shadowlord and slew the Ring Wraith in a single powerful blow which was a highlight of the day.
Kieran won the last few combats, killing a few more rangers to secure the win as dice down was called and I had lost 18-10 which was closer than I had imagined.
A tough but fun game with Kieran being very helpful with pointers. Tactically I felt I got it right with trying to trap the trolls but their synergy with the Shadowlord made it hard going. When I did get them surrounded things started to go in my favour and had we got another turn I think I might have wiped out the last trolls as all of them were wounded, Buhduhr had no might and Boromir was now ready to go on the attack with a bunch of might remaining and no more transfixing.
This however would have been nothing more than a moral victory as the number of wounds I had already taken exceeded his total for the entire army.
Game four - Seize the prize
Justin – Wanderers in the Wild - Loss
So avoiding the wooden spoon now became a thing!
Another matchup which would be interesting as I did not even know the Woses were a possible army until then. Justin had Treebeard, Ghân-buri-Ghân, Bandobras Took, and 20+ Woses who were all armed with blowpipes, spears and axes for piercing strike.
I was not familiar with scenario but when I played Mertaal at it before I did not enjoy it that much.
First turn was a race towards the prize in the middle to then pick it up and run. With the Ring of stones in the middle it looked like a large base model such as Treebeard could not actually get through the gaps.
Bandobras Took raced up to the prize on his pony with a heroic march on the first turn and dismounted, thankfully failing to dig up the prize. Some judicious use of Boromirs might via a heroic march and then a heroic move on turn 2 meant he got to the hobbit and killed him before Justin had another chance to get the prize.
Treebeard advanced on my left flank and hurled rangers about while my Warriors of Minis Tirith in the middle were quickly whittled down by a combination of sheer volume of Woses blowpipes and then in fights which they supported each other with spears and their piercing strike axes.
In the mid game Boromir slew several Woses and their captain before he finally unearthed the artefact (I think it was the third attempt at doing so) while the rest of the forces of Gondor were overwhelmed. Soon there were only a few warriors left with Boromir and Faramir, I decided to make a break for the board edge. Unfortunately having never faced Treebeard before I did not realise that Treebeard moved 8” so he weaved his way around some trees and was millimetres within range of Boromir.
He survived one round of combat but finally got beaten down after losing the final fight of the game due to Treebeards better fight value.
A close game which Boromir was only one fight away from winning for me, it was also the only time he died in 4 games. In hindsight it probably would have been more prudent to have stayed within the circle stones and taken my chances against the Woses than run the gauntlet against treebeard.
Conclusion
So 4 losses but avoided the wooden spoon due to someone else losing all their games and I actually had a greater number of VPs. What was nice was that none of the games felt like a rout and that I didn’t feel that I was at a complete loss rules wise, instead just needing some finer points of advice in my games – a real plus point for LOTR over other games.
List wise, I love Boromir and he did kill a fair number of things
* Game one he slew a dozen goblins but couldn’t get to Tom or the Goblin King
* Game two he killed the Knight of Umbar but then the rest of the Umbar army just avoided him so he slew a model or two a turn
* Game three he killed a cave troll and was closing in on Buhduhr but transfix neutralised him in the early game when he would have been the most use
* Game four he killed several Woses, Ghân-buri-Ghân and Bandobras Took but then stomped by treebeard
However he is such a massive investment it’s a little difficult to see him ever recouping his cost. Far too often someone would either transfix him or tie him up with a few low point models, if I do keep him he will definitely need to be mounted.
If I do drop Boromir I will be adding in some more models, models with bodyguard will help avoid the issue of Terror and all the rangers will get spears to support to take advantage of their superior fight value. The WoMT are great, but I think everyone needs a shield as D6 makes them much more likely to stick about against strength 3 attacks.
……….
A fun first tournament that was well organised and I learned plenty about list building.
After this tournament I decided to drop Boromir and brought in lots more troops along with Denethor and other cheap captains. A footslogging Gondor list did ok at the Desolation of Stockport and I even won a few games, I have the notes but need to write them up!
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