Ok so Im going to get this typed up now before I forget everything!! I thought my review of the Stockport tournament in April was a long one but I reckon by comparison to this one, my first one was just a verse!! So before you start, grab yourself a nice brew and some snacks(as Dr Grant would say in his great reviews!), and settle in because this will be a lengthy one!! I hope I don't bore ye all stiff but I had such a fun and eventful, long weekend that I don't want to under sell it in any way!! Also if anyone I mention remembers games etc. differently to me, I apologize in advance. The old memory isn't what it used to be!!

So I'd been looking forward to this event pretty much since I left Stockport in April!! This time I traveled from Dublin, so my travel time was somewhat shortened and I arrived into Stockport around 4 on friday afternoon. I dropped my stuff at the hotel and literally raced to the NWGC to see who was around. I was pleasantly surprised to see a great crowd of gamers there already. It was brilliant to see the guys I'd met in April and meet some new people whose names I recognised from the Q&As and the facebook page. It was great to put faces to those names.

There was a good 15/20 guys milling around, even that early, playing games, doing videos with James, chatting and generally having a good time. There was a great buzz and energy about. After catching up with some of the guys, I got roped into a video with James talking about the army I had brought with me. You can watch that here(not that I'd recommend it!!) :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMmSOH74iYY

And that is the perfect segway into my army list!! So I brought a Harad army led by Suladan, the serpent lord.

Suladans Household Guard
Suladan (General) with horse
3 Half Trolls
6 Abrakhan Merchant Guard

Hasharin
10 Watchers of Karna with bow

Harad Chieftain with horse and warspear
10 Harad Raiders with warspear

Despite all the banter about how filthy my army was, due to my inexperience with them, I still expected to struggle to some degree. I knew the low defence would be an issue especially against shooty armies so I hoped to avoid them! Overall I had an army that has a lot to offer in attack but a very shaky defence(quite like the current Man Utd team!!!)

So after some very enjoyable banter and chat with many like minded guys, hunger forced us to a curry house over the road!! There, more banter, nicknames, drink and delicious food were exchanged, shared and partaken in!!! We then retired back to the gaming hall where more practice games and drinks were engaged in.

A new guy I'd met that evening by the name of Jaime Finnegan(JayFinno) offered me a practice game which I happily accepted. He had a feral heavy Isengard list which also had Vrasku and crossbows. We rolled for scenario and got Lords of Battle. I wont go into too much detail on the game(partly because I cant remember it!! There have been a lot of dice rolled since then!!) but the overview would be this. I foolishly charged in with my raiders too early and not to my advantage and Jay quickly destroyed all bar one of my horsemen. We traded shooting with no major advantage to either side. I then brought up my heavy hitters in Suladans warband and moved my Watchers into combats. Due to some extremely unlucky rolling from Jay, I managed to turn the tide and actually killed every model in Jays army!!
It was a really enjoyable game and I learned a valuable lesson about my cavalry. Jaime is a really sound guy, loved playing him and even after that hour and a half game, felt like we could have been mates for years!!!

After the game Jay and I decided to head back to the hotel to get a good rest for the morning and tournament proper. On the way out, we met a very tired looking GBHL Damian and that Tom guy who had only just arrived!! Just goes to show how much effort so many people put in to get to these events. They are totally worth all the long hours and days of travelling to get to them.

So Saturday morning dawns and I grabbed breakfast with Mr Finnegan and Matthew Davies(of GenerationShift92 youtube channel fame!) Matthew is another lovely guy who after racing up to finish basing his army straight after breakfast, gave us a lift down to the gaming hall. This was after we had had two other offers of lifts!! Am I getting across just how great this group of people are?!!

Down to the NWGC and it was buzzing with anticipation and excited gamers. We registered and the draw for game one was made. I drew Joshua Meads and the scenario was To the Death. I have to say I was very happy to see Josh because although I'd never played him before, we had met and had a really good chat over dinner on the sunday night back in April.

Game 1: To the death
Josh had a beautifully painted dwarven army with Balin, a Dwarf king and captain all leading dwarves with shields and bows etc. He also had a banner which is important in this scenario! It was a cagey game for the first few turns. As I moved up, we traded bow fire without major casualties.
When the lines eventually met, I think the terrain benefit me slightly more than it did Josh, as he wasn't able to bring numbers to fights so the higher fight value didn't count as much as it should have done. However it was still very even until I gave up on the shooting battle and charged with my watchers into his bowmen. Things began to swing in my favour then and my Hasharin proved his worth by taking out Balin(his general) in one combat.
There was still an intense scrap taking place in the centre and kills were being traded fairly evenly. However as I had done well against his archers, I managed to break him first and it was looking very good for me. Then, however, that beloved hand of faith/luck/Dice Gods intervened and after a great heroic combat by Josh to get in on Suladan, I proceeded to lose all the heroic roll-offs! At least it seemed that way!! Josh brilliantly turned it around, breaking me back and eventually killing Suladan to match what I had done and by not losing his banner, he won the game 8-6!! It was a really great game and Josh was a top opponent and I can't wait to play him again!! (You will see that statement repeated a lot in the course of this review!)

Game 2: Lords of Battle
In game 2, I was drawn against Dave Shirra who I had played in April. Tom Harrison was drawn against Charles Sims who are fairly regular opponents so after Tom asked if Id be ok to change, Tom was to play me while Charles faced Dave. So to see Mr Handsome himself walk up to play me was, I have to admit, really cool. Having heard about just how good of a player he is, I was looking forward to seeing it in action and testing myself against him. Then, knowing I would struggle against a shooty army, Tom sets down his grey company army which if it wasn't 100% bows it certainly wasn't far off!! As if it wasn't going to be difficult enough!!
He had Aragorn, the Twins and if memory serves, 4 Dunedain with plenty of rangers. We played on the shire board which had some hobbit holes and swampy areas as terrain. Tom set up all bar one Dunedain(who set up on the roof of the hobbit hole!!) in or around a swamp to make good use of Isildurs Heirs Master of Wilderness special rule and obviously negate my cavalry.
He focused all his initial attention on my watchers, however and after two heroic shooting phases(in which he rolled amazingly well) by round 3 he had removed all 10 of my watchers of Karna from the game. Talk about impressive!! He then proceeded to cut my other warbands up with his intense bow fire. This wasn't quite as devastating as with the watchers and I finally got some of my guys into combats but I was struggling for numbers at this point. I did send one dismounted raider up the hobbit hole to deal with that lone Dunedain who was picking off my guys at will!! In a pretty anti climatic end, he got there, lost the fight and promptly died!! This game was a masters in how to deal with a low defence army with archery by Tom. It ended 36-7 to him and although you'd want to intensely dislike anyone who would destroy you in this way, that was utterly impossible with Tom. He is a genuine, charming(obviously!!) and very fun guy who I had a brilliant time gaming with! As with Josh, I wholeheartedly hope to play against Tom again in the future.

So after game two, we broke for lunch but not before we had a special announcement from GBHL Damian O'Byrne and the aforementioned Thomas Harrison. We had seen the trailer(Toms' angelic singing voice and some oscar worthy performances!!!) and I was looking forward to finding out what it was. In a really well put together and funny presentation, GBHL South announced the release of a wonderful fanzine that they have created called SBG. It's a brilliantly informative and incredibly professional looking magazine and they will be releasing it as a free PDF. I will leave most of the info to the guys to release over the next week or so but after reading my copy, I cant praise it highly enough or thank the guys enough for the incredible effort and work they have put into it. I hope you all support it and hopefully this is just the first of many. Well done Damian and Tom. You will have my unbridled support and appreciation now and hopefully going forward.

So after donating to SBG and getting my mag, we had a swift lunch and then it was back to gaming

Game 3: Take & Hold (Custom Scenario)
For game 3, I was drawn against Scott Hallam, a really lovely chap from Scotland. He had Gothmog mounted with wargriders, Shagrat warleader with morannon orcs and a taskmaster with mordor orcs. We were on the Rohan board for this one and as you would expect we set up facing each other with the objective in the middle. Scott however sent his cavalry around a rohan house to flank around my rear and in order to deal with this, I made the mistake of splitting my army. I sent my raiders and watchers into the middle and held back Suladans warband.
For the early turns, it was working. I was winning priority and getting charges with my raiders and the watchers were doing well with their shooting as they advanced. However, Scott then began to use his taskmaster to great effect and Shagrat started to heroic move and combat effectively. I think he only failed one or two of the rolls for the taskmaster on heroics all game!! Using a couple of these free heroic combats, he got in on Suladan and some terrible rolling from me, meant my general fell. Being broken, the game rapidly finished after that as my guys fled the field of battle without Suladans standfast!! Another great game with a guy who was a joy to play against. A bit of bad luck, a poor decision or two and some brilliant heroics from Scott meant the game ended 11-0. So 3 defeats but 41/2 hours of immense fun!!

Game 4: Reconnoitre
In the final game of day one, I was drawn against Will Champion and his "Mushroom Clan"!! Will had Buhrdur, 5 spectres, Mauhur, a shaman, some orcs, uruks, beserkers and wargriders.
We were to battle on the Osgiliath board which had a river dividing the middle of the board with three crossing points roughly equidistant from each other. So Buhrdur, spectres and orcs set up in the middle opposite Suladan, my watchers(when they eventually showed up!) walked on facing Mauhur a warg rider and a mix of uruks and berserkers across the ford. My raiders headed left for the small wooden bridge and were matched against Wills smallest warband in the Shaman and i think 8/10 uruks/beserkers. We decided that the river counted as difficult terrain.
After 3 turns Mauhur and the wargrider were making strong progress on my right but I had a number of raiders crossing the bridge on the left. It was at this point that James came wandering over and informed us that the river wasn't difficult to cavalry so my one at a time move over the bridge looked cool but wasn't efficent!! I think poor Will had conceded defeat at this point upon discovering this!! He had got the wargrider off but he decided to get Mauhur involved in combat as he was sure he was beaten.
On the bridge in the middle there was a bit of a bottleneck going on but I discovered quickly how disrupting to your plans spectres can be!! Abrakhan guards and half trolls were wandering around like zombies!!! Eventually I decided not to meet Buhrdur in combat but to have a go at the spectres instead. Back on the left side I got rid of the Shaman quite quickly. This coupled with the fact Wills' warband was small and I kept getting priorty, I decided to fight rather than head for VPs. This is where the Dice Gods decided to abandon me and side with Will!!! I lost almost every fight despite in most cases charging in on a single model or with two raiders against one beserker. Not only did I fail to win but I think Will only failed to kill once after winning the fight!! It was amazing rolling from the Mushroom clan!!
I did have a chance to get my Chieftain off that side but when within one turn of getting off he decides to fail his courage roll!!! Will got Buhrdur off aswell so it ended 5-0. If I'd known about the cavalry rules in the river at the start and not rolled so terrible all game, it may have been different but fair play to Mr Champion!! His rolls were incredible! Yet another great game and good way to round out day 1. 4 defeats from 4 so I was matching my April performances at least!!!

So after packing up and many snippets of post war analysis, we all headed across the road to Amicis Italian restaurant for dinner. There was 50 odd of us sitting for the dinner and due to those huge numbers there was plenty of time between courses for banter, battle stories and of course drinks!! By the time the desserts made it out, there were some pretty boisterous wargamers giving it loads on the dance floor and having great craic!!! I couldn't understand where the time went because it was 1 in the morning in what seemed like no time!! I had an absolutely brilliant night. Between the deep conversations with Mr Baldwin and Tom Harrison and the banter with everyone else, it was an all round funfest!! Not so much on sunday morning however!!! Who ever said the Irish can drink??!!

So after struggling out of bed and somehow managing to make it down to the NWGC, being greeted by the sight of a few other shook(hungover!) heads made me feel a little better that I wasn't alone in my suffering!! Although Steve being all chirpy was a little frustrating!!! So on to the first game of day 2. Modified Seize the Prize where the prize must be taken off your opponents board edge.

Game 5: Seize the Prize (Modified)
Day 1 was random opponents but for day 2 we were back to the ranking system so I was back on the bottom tables again!! Ah... home sweet home!! I drew George Perkins for this game with his stunningly painted Mirkwood rangers led by Legolas, Tauriel and Gwaihir. Although I think George probably felt as rough as I did, I would like to sincerely apologize for my very lethargic start to this game!! I think the game was 10/15 mins old before we had even set up!!! A nice brew and a bacon butty somewhat invigorated me though and it did improve!
So George remained static early on to try shoot me to pieces while i raced forward with my raiders and retrieved the prize. The board had alot of houses on it, so I used this cover to protect myself from the elven bow fire. George did a number on most of my raiders but I had one holding the prize along side Suladan and my chieftain. They moved together between the houses and made for Georges board edge. Meanwhile the rest of my army moved up as quickly as possible to try engage the rangers. As George was so far away, this would take some time and he was gradually reducing my numbers.
Cue the games critical juncture! My prize bearer, chieftain and general are behind the final house which is two moves from the edge. However there is only one tree in that area to provide any cover and once I ride out, Georges entire army will have LOS for those turns. He was also gradually moving in my direction and as a result, he had 4 rangers with a shot on the prize bearer allowing for an in-the-way for the building. 4 shots, 1 hit, passes the in-the-way roll, on the horse, kills the horse, thrown rider, I roll a 1 and a 5 to wound!! So in the next round, I have to dismount my chieftain to pass the prize to Suladan!! That also allows George another move phase to bring across his army.
Now the fuzzy head became problematic when I called a heroic move instead of waiting and heroic marching!! In this round George took down Suladans horse and I went from one move away from victory to two!! I still held the prize in his half of the board but I was broken, so the score stood at 3-3. Then in the last round when time was called, George surrounded Suladan and took him out!! The prize was dropped and George took it 3-0!!
A very close and enjoyable battle!!

Game 6: Hold Ground
So the exciting finish to the last game coupled with a few strong brews dragged me back to the land of the living!! With this new found energy, I was drawn against a young man by the name of Ian Spiller. Ian was one of the younger players at the tournament but had an attitude that made him seem much older. He was very gracious and particularly funny! He also brought a wonderfully painted Dwarven army. It was done in a dark red and gold scheme and he even went so far as to paint dwarven runes on the shields with actual translations. Really impressive stuff and he deservedly received a best army nomination! His army consisted of Dain Ironfoot, Balin and an Erebor Captain leading dwarves with shields,bows, spears etc and some iron guard and Khazads.
Now to deployment and here Ian got incredibly unlucky. He rolled so that I got to deploy all three of his warbands and although I felt really bad about it, I split them up around the board! Conversely my army entered together so I was able to deal with his warbands individually. I ran my raiders into the centre to hold the objective and wait for the arrival of the dwarves while my watchers and Suladan attacked Balins relatively small warband of iron guard and Khazads.
Some bad rolling from Ian meant that Balin and his guys fell rather quickly. At this point Dain was still some distance away so I decided to charge my raiders into the captains warband. In all previous games in the tournament, my raiders fell pretty quickly without getting many kills. However against Ian they seemed determined to change that and they did a great job of reducing the dwarven numbers. Although over confidence meant my Harad Chieftain foolishly threw away his life to the Erebor Captain!!
At this point I drew everyone back into the centre and frantic fighting broke out with Dain and his warband. Unfortunately for Ian it was a little too late and I broke him and a turn later the game ended. I cant remember if I was broken too but I had far more in and around the objective so it ended 14-4 to me. Whoo hoo. A win at last!! I do know that I got very fortunate with deployment and Ians' dice woefully abandoned him at times so it could have gone very differently on another day. Yet another reason why our system is so damn great!!
Fair play to Ian though. He was happy, upbeat and kept me laughing throughout, despite the battle going so ill for him, so I gave him my most sporting opponent. A lovely young man who I most certainly hope I play again and maybe he could exact revenge!

Then it was on to lunch and James had organised a quiz for everyone while we ate. Unfortunately due to the need to vote for best army and other time constraints, it had to be cut somewhat short. However the questions were devilishly difficult and it was good fun so hopefully we'll get something similar in December!!

So then before the final game, we had the opportunity to vote for best army from the 10 nominations. I was chuffed to receive a nomination for my army but I knew by the standard of the others that I certainly wouldn't be taking the top prize!! It was an incredibly difficult choice because the standard was so high. Honorable mentions from me go to Mertaal for his stunning army and amazing display board, Jay Clare and his Laketown(love the objective makers) and the three of my opponents that were up there, Josh, George and Ian. Well done guys. Beautiful armies. However my choice and the real standout had to be Matthew Davies' jaw droppingly good Mordor/Cirith Ungol army!! Everything about it was stunning. The conversion work, basing and of course the painting! Well done Matthew and deservedly won best army with 21/40 votes and also won DMS' judges choice! A quick thanks again to DMS/Sausage Fingers/Kev for my nomination and the feedback! It means a lot to me. Great to see you again as well!

Game 7: Domination
So on to the last game of the tournament and I drew another of the younger players, Thomas Cun. Another sound young chap and a pretty good player too by all accounts. His army was Legolas with rangers, Thranduil with palace guard and Radagast on sleigh. We set up the objectives and laid out the armies. As normal we held our home objectives. He had Thranders on one and Leggie on the other. One of mine was behind a building so I sent two raiders to hold that, set my watchers on the other and sent the remainder for the central objective.
Thomas used Radagast to teach me how effective a channelled panic steed can be by dismounting all my raiders in the centre!! However I scored 3 wounds on the sleigh with my watchers and next turn manged to get quite a number of my men in on Radagast. He lost the fight and we took him down. I walked up to take the central objective then and a very cagey tactical affair ensued! I was iffy about tackling Thranduil and obviously didnt want to become a pin cushion to Leggie and the rangers. Thomas was happy to sit on his objectives so we traded bow fire for a bit.
I then decided to have a go at Thranduils objective after bring up some watchers to cover the centre. Thomas now did something which perplexed me! Before my guys could get there, he immediately pulled back from the objective and ceded control of it to me. All the while he kept putting Thranduils single bow shot on Suladan. I regularly put 3/4 guys in the way but almost every time Thomas passed all the in the ways, only to fluff the to wound rolls!!!
His rangers were steadily whittling down my numbers on the centre objective and the palace guard made a move on it so I pulled some back from the upper objective leaving my Chieftain on foot with a spear support and Suladan. More than enough to hold it, I thought naively!! Time was quickly running out and Thomas made his play. He finally got the wounds on Suladan and fearing a leader kill I withdrew from the objective. Thranduil charged in natures wrathing my two guys to the floor. As last round is called we are both broken, I hold 2, he has one and two are contested in my favour. He also had a wound on my general so it stood at 9-5 in my favour(I think).
Playing out the last round, Thranduil won the fight and killed the chieftain but couldn't get the other wound needed to take back the objective. It finished 8-5. Killing the spearman would have drawn it for Thomas and as I said to him as soon as it finished, one more round and I believe he'd have won it easily! He asked me to play it out to see if that was the case and I obliged. Just two more rounds and he'd have won by a rather large margin!! Once again it shows both the brilliance and the cruelty of our wonderful system!!
Thomas is a good player and his ploy with Thranduil would have undoubtedly worked had he made his move a round or two sooner. A wonderfully tense tactical game to finish the day on. So 2 wins and 5 losses. I matched my performance in April!! Certainly topped it in terms of fun though!!

Looking around, there were a lot of tired but smiling faces, as we awaited the awards ceremony. Nils and I received a really nice 'There and back again' award. Ian picked up his best sporting and Matthew his two best army awards. Then announcement of the overall placings. Dave Nolan(A relatively new player!) and Alister King came joint second while the overall winner with 7 wins was(shockingly enough!) Ed Ball and his Fellbeast and Shelob list!!
There was also a raffle for attendees and a raffle for those that 'donated' to the SBG fanzine!! What an absolutely wonderful weekend of gaming and socialising!! Very sad that it was all over to be perfectly honest!
For the next hour or two we packed up and said our goodbyes to those who need to get off early. Then when there was a small group left we when for a quick drink and after that, myself, Dave Alexander, Nils and his Dad went for a meal. Dave and I were hanging around on the monday as well so we organised to meet up and then back to the hotel for a much needed and well earned sleep and lie-in!!!
So on monday, Dave and I met at the NWGC but unfortunately due to certain other 'commitments' and illness on Jamies part the GBHL north guys were unable to make it down to film. So Dave and I had a game of Recon which I won against his high elves due to the Dice Gods shining favourably on me and certainly not on Dave!! It was good to get another game in before i went home to 2/3 months of no games!! Dave is a really dead on guy too so it was a good day to spend with him.
Just before we finished James popped back in and invited me down to see the famous BioticGym and maybe get involved in a class!! So after saying goodbye to David, I headed back to the hotel, sorted my gear and made my way to the gym! The BioticGym is great and James has done a brilliant job. He was having a circuit training class and he allowed me to join in. Big mistake!!! It was a very tough workout without a doubt but I did feel great afterwards and the other guys there were really friendly and helpful.
Afterwards James made me a brew and we sat and had a great chat. Then he closed up the gym and on the way to dropping me off at the hotel, we dropped in to a pub for a drink. Again the conversation flowed easily. James is an absolutely top guy and I cant thank him enough for a cracking evening!!

So if you've managed to make it this far, you certainly deserve a medal!! All I can say in conclusion, is an immense thank you to everyone who made this event and weekend so brilliant and much fun. To James and Jamie for yet again running a fantastic tournament. To my opponents, Josh, Tom H, Scott, Will, George, Ian and Tom C for seven great games. To Jay and Dave for the friendly games as well. Also to all the guys who I had really interesting and funny conversations with across the weekend. I've easily ran out of superlatives to describe just how amazing this community really is!! A quick example of it is: Jay Finnegan after just meeting me and playing one game together(max 2 hours) invites me to stay with him in December!! That is incredible but its a marker of just how cool these guys are!

So to anyone who hasn't been to a tournament, it really is something you can't afford not to do!! And once you go to that first one, i guarantee it wont be your last!!

Thanks for reading!

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2014 Backlog Reduction Oathtaker (3 points)

A review so good, it's encouraged my first post on The One Ring for some time!

Thank you for taking the time to do such an extensive write up. it was a pleasure to host you and I'm chuffed to bits you had another fantastic and enjoyable event.

Bring on the League Final in December!!

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*5th in 2014 GBHL

Thank you for writing such a great report!

Great read Barry. Am looking forward to our next encounter. Def have to get a game in

Sounds great. Hopefully I can get to one soon.

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my lord of the rings blog

http://journeyofthering.wordpress.com