Tournament overview – The ring goes south II

Hey Reader!

This is the third week in a row that I’m attending a tourney in the weekends, and I’m not complaining. Just like last year the points level that we will be playing at is 759. This number symbolizes the pages remaining from the chapter “The ring goes south” in the first edition of LOTR. Coincidentally, I also think this to be a good points level for the new edition as most stuff got a lot more expensive. This tourney also has the interesting concept of letting it’s players vote for the scenario’s played. Very nice, bye bye storm the camp and seize the prize. I am interested what everyone’s favorite scenario will be.

I wrote down my favorite scenario’s:

Destroy the supplies
Breakthrough
Hold Ground

I’ve always liked these scenario’s, and when thinking about it more, I figured out why. All of these scenario’s have a common theme, they are interactive in that they always force both sides to defend and attack. This makes, in my opinion, for a much more interesting game. It’s true that you could just sit back and shoot in Destroy the supplies, but if you allow the battle to take place on your side of the board, you run the risk of the enemy burning your objective markers. Also running forward without a care in the world allows models to sneak through and start burning yours. There are of course exceptions to this and there are also other scenario’s that achieve the same effect, I just think these scenario’s do it best and are the most balanced. I think it’s the same for Breakthrough and Hold ground, yes you could sit back and get a few more kills but that won’t win you the game. To conclude, I just don’t like shooting armies, so any scenario which puts them at a disadvantage is a good one in my book.

I would have loved to see how Rivendell held up at 759, but I simply don’t have the models yet and certainly not the time to paint them all. So I would have to play the only other army currently available to me, Depths of Moria. I’m not complaining, this army is definitely not weak, though I don’t think it is as strong as some people claim it to be. I just hope that GW drops the Armies of Middle-Earth book so I can play something else before I grow tired of the Balrog. It’s an army that I have a lot of experience with as well, since Moria is the first army that I painted. I played it a lot in the previous edition and it was certainly a force to be reckoned with in some scenario’s. 759 Is also not an ideal point level for the list. I feel like you can start putting the watcher down at and above 800, and you’re already putting sufficient models down at 600-650. At 750 your opponent usually has more tools to counter the Balrog and the extra 12 goblins and a captain just don’t provide the same value as some lists can bring.

Anyway, this is the list that I’m bringing:

Phew, that one almost didn’t fit on this page. It’s a lot of goblins that’s for sure. Nothing else intuitive about it. I’m hoping that Armies will give it a bit more variety and, maybe, hero options to play around with. 54 goblins is also quite the feat, and with a map-wide banner and not caring how much of them die they could pull their weight. Although they still don’t weigh that much, so don’t get your hopes up. The Balrog still has to do most of the important work in this list and with no might to back him up I think he will face the same issues that he suffered from in the last edition. He really could have benefitted from monstrous charge or maybe a Lord of the Depths (reroll 1D duel and to wound) special rule. Seriously, why does this dude not have monstrous charge?

Game 1 – Lords of Battle – vs Iron Hills

Great, a scenario which relies on doing wounds when I have a grand total of 72 wounds (including fate). Not to mention that most of those wounds are on D5 goblins. My opponent, Jarin, was bringing quite an interesting Iron Hills list with Dain, an Iron Hills chariot, and a flock of dwarves, no goat riders though. He had a total of 40 wounds (including fate) in his army. On top of that, most of them are on D7 dwarves who become D8 in a shield wall. I didn’t like my chances going into this game, but then deployment made it a whole lot interesting for me.

My opponent won the roll of for choosing the board edge and put down his first warband. I countered with one of mine right across his one, and then he did something which decided the game, he put his next warband on the complete opposite side of the board. To give a bit of context the board was split up by a huge troll statue in the center (which looked freaking amazing). I think this monstrosity took up about 12″ in width and also had a fairly big base around it which is all difficult terrain. So when I saw my opponent splitting up his forces I saw my win condition and put everything down on my right flank. This way my whole army could focus on only half of his army. He also deployed the chariot within 8″ of the board edge so I could charge it turn 1 with the Balrog.

First turn, he won priority and gave it to himself. I countered with a move from my captain in order to lock down the chariot, which he did not counter. Fair to my opponent, he did do a good job at turtling up between the terrain so I could not wrap around him that much in the first and second turn. The chariot took three turns to take down despite being charged by a Balrog, captain, and a couple of goblins every turn. Needless the say, the Balrog rolled pretty damn poor this game. In total he fluffed his combat three times against a normal warrior while there were also 4 more goblins in the fight. The goblins heavily compensated though. It was also weight of dices, but they generally rolled very good on the duel roll.

After the chariot went down the captain followed after in the same turn due to the free heroic combat of the Balrog. Dain finally managed to show up taking the way around the statue from his side of the board. I personally think it would have been better to take the other way around and hit me in the back. There Dain can really do some damage just slaying goblins and captains, and does not have to worry about a Balrog breathing down his neck. My opponent thought otherwise and reasoned that Dain was the only one who could stop the Balrog from rampaging through the dwarves. Which does have some merit, but to the Balrog Dain is just another dwarf. He did speedbump the Balrog for two turns before going down. However, this did net me even more VP’s and left him with no killing power in his army to even up the wound tally.

Overall, his Iron Hills chariot never really got “rolling” because of deployment. Also, him deploying his forces so split meant I could focus and overwhelm one half before the other even arrived. We had a chat after the game and we both agreed that this is what had cost him the game. He was a good sport about it though, so it was a fun game. Not one that I expected to win, but I managed to capitalize on my opponents mistakes well enough to win the full VP’s. I killed his leader, broke him, and I manage to table him. You don’t see that too often.

Game 2 – Breakthrough – vs Fangorn

After being put in a match up which did not favor me, I was put into a match up which I almost could not lose. I was up against Jesse, a player whom I know to be a good chap. He wasn’t too thrilled about being in this match up, and I can’t blame him for that. There was no way he could win, but he still tried his best to make it an interesting game and claw back some VP’s.

He deployed in the back of the board to avoid the Balrog’s whip and get some shooting in. However, after seeing how far the Balrog could move up and whip he opted to move with half his army deployed on his right flank, towards his left flank. This did leave him with no shooting, but I understand the move. Eventually he could not get around the Balrog being in whip range. He still moved up with his ents to try and get them together on his left flank to potentially start stomping on goblins and maybe get to my back objective. The next turn, there was a Balrog in the way though. True to his nature he missed his whip in both turns, but this did not change the outcome of the game too much.

To his credit, the Balrog whiffed a couple of times and he did get quite a few changes to wound him. On about 12 to wound dices he did not even manage to do a single wound though, while only needing 5+. It wouldn’t have mattered too much for how the game was going, but still not very lucky. Personally, I would have called strikes instead of defenses with Treebeard to try and get a wound in on the Balrog. If you call a defense you will guaranteed lose the fight against that many dices and you’re only prolonging the inevitable. Better to give yourself a fighting chance, I would say.

There is not much else to say about the game, Balrog did Balrog stuff and eventually killed the ents with the help of his underlings. Jesse eventually called it when there were only two ents left on the field who would die next turn. I could have played it out and tabled him, but I wouldn’t want to put him through another turn of seeing his ents being made into firewood, so I refrained from doing that. So once again, I tabled my opponent and got the full VP’s. I rarely see a table happening at a tourney, and to do it twice in a row myself… I was quite astonished at how well it was going for me.

Game 3 – Fog of war – vs Last Alliance

Alexander was on the top table again! This guy has already won two 100 pointers quite early into the season and was eying up this 90 pointer as well. He said that his luck would probably end with me though, because the match up was not looking so hot for him. Let’s talk about his list first. He opted to bring Gil-Galad and Elendil. He elaborated that it worked way better with list building. This way, you could have full warbands and push 38 models. Quite a lot for Last Alliance! If you would take Elrond and Isildur, the popular option, you would need to take another captain which really cuts into your numbers. Isildur would have been great against a Balrog though…

There was not much mystique to who I was picking as my target and who my opponent was trying to protect. Both a curse and a blessing if you ask me. You for certain know who you need to keep alive, but he is also 175 point detriment if he sits back and does nothing the entire game. Alexander opted for a more aggressive approach.

The first two turns of marching up Alexander moved half so he could still shoot and whittle down the oncoming tide of goblins. It was some of the most abysmal shooting I have ever seen. Over the course of the two turns he only managed to pin a single goblin with about 12 bow shots. I even had more success shooting an elf dead with 5 of my goblin bows. The Balrog also had some success, going for a whip on the banner but hitting the guy in front and killing him. I would have rather had the banner or the heroic combat, but I’m not gonna complain. I did not opt to go for Elendil, which I was considering at first. I didn’t do it because I was in charge range of half his army and Elendil would only be in combat with the Balrog. Yes, it is a Balrog, but he only has 4 attacks with no might. So I had to jump through a lot of hoops to get this to work. I would first had to whip him, then win the duel roll (while he has might so I need the 6), then do 4 wounds to guarantee the kill. If I don’t achieve all of this, I’m looking to be charged by Elendil, Gil-Galad, and half his army on the following turn. I thought it would be better to go for the safer play since time is on my side.

I played in true goblin fashion this game by not going for combats straight away, but rather standing right in the opponents face while more goblins sneak around their flanks. My opponent kept both heroes right next to each other, which he needed to do against a Balrog. This did mean that he had no might to dictate his flanks which totaled to about 18 warriors. Granted, my dices on were hot, but if every single warrior is trapped and fighting without a banner against 3 goblins who do have one, it goes kinda hard.

In the meantime, he did manage to set up a heroic combat which I could simply not get out of. He managed to swing both Gil-Galad and Elendil into the Balrog, by calling a heroic combat with the high king of the elves and a strike with the high king of Gondor and Arnor. Then the Balrog did something which he had not done for entire tournament, he rolled a natural 6 on the duel roll and the proceeded to win by rolling a 2 on the elven made roll off. This sparked disaster for the forces of good as 3 wounds were dealt by the Balrog to Elendil. The fates did save him, but he was now set ablaze and was on a timer. This timer did not last very long as I rolled a 6 for the set ablaze hit at the end of the turn and Elendil, along with the last two might in his army, went down.

This left me with full control over the game and it was a mop up at this point. Gil-Galad eventually went down and the rest of his army soon followed. And when I say army, I mean full army. This was the third time that I had managed to table my opponent as not a single Numenorean or elf lived to tell the tale. I have to say, Alexander was a great sport about the whole affair and we were even cracking jokes and laughing as his last models went down, truly a great show of sportsmanship. In the end, I got my terrain piece, had broken him, protected my nominated hero, killed my target, and killed his leader. I, once again, scored full VP’s while tabling my opponent.

Conclusion

This tournament could not have gone any better for me, the stars really aligned for this one. I managed to get first place with a perfect score. I realize that I got very lucky with the match-ups and scenario’s, if they would have been swapped around I don’t know if I would have done as well as I have. However, I do think that I generally played it very well, especially with the Balrog not doing that much in the first and second game. I am most proud of the third game. I know that the game was in my favor, but I still got the most out of it and used my goblins as efficiently as possible.

I had three smashing games with great opponents and I could not have asked for more. Tabling the opposition while getting full VP’s three games in a row is a new one for me though, don’t think I will manage to repeat that anytime soon. I want to thank the organizers as always for making it possible and providing a wonderful day. Cheers!

Thoughts on the format

Very interesting take on letting the community decide on something. I think it actually works to everyone’s favor. Of course, it’s not something you should do every time because if you play the same three scenario’s every tourney than the meta will become a bit stale. However, in the spirit of fun, it is nice to have a tourney where you don’t play some of the truly awful ones. I think everyone that was at the tourney shared in this opinion, I’m definitely looking forward to play more tourneys like this.

Honestly, I’m not surprised to see Breakthrough and Fog of war make an appearance. Both very balanced and fun scenario’s in my opinion. Lords of battle is something I did not expect though. I’m not a big fan of this one, since it allows for players to sit back and shoot all game. However, I can see how it slipped through with so many heavy shooting/monster lists.

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