Tournament overview – RWS Single day

Hey reader!

Thanks for joining me for the second 100 pointer of the new edition! The Rotterdam White Scars are known for consistently organizing the biggest MESBG events in the Netherlands. This time around the points value for the games played was to be 500. This struck me as odd, since most of the RWS events I have been to are around 700 points. In my opinion, the new edition plays a lot better around this point value, so 500 seemed like an interesting choice. I am not complaining though, I prefer playing on weird point levels. It makes for far more interesting list building, and you have a bigger chance of seeing something new. I for one, was very excited to bring and try out the new Rivendell. I was almost done painting everything for my list, but when it became clear that I would not make it in time, Alexander chipped in and supplied me with a mounted captain and a Rivendell knight. Shout out to him!

Yes, a very interesting list indeed. Definitely not the most competitive but I wanted to see if strike was really necessary or would feel “missed” if you are bringing Bilbo. I expected that you could not rely on him too much since he does only move 4″ per turn. I do think that he provides more utility than having heroic strike on a hero, and with 2 F6 heroes who can do some damage, he seemed like a must-have.

The list is also perfectly 500 with almost maxed out warbands which is always satisfying, and I think it ticks a lot of boxes. It can be quite fast if it wants to with the march and woodland creature, and Arwen has a 12″ mount who also has woodland creature which is just excellent. It can also be quite scary to approach because Arwen has a big threat range on her wrath of the Bruinen. It also has an elf battle-line which can reroll 1’s to wound and benefits a lot from the two-handing special rule (more on that in my Rivendell army list review). The captain is also better than you probably realize. When most people hear “captain” they think of someone who will call a march or a move and then proceed to, maybe, kill a warrior per turn. That is not the case for the Rivendell captain. For 105 points you get a F6, D7 mounted hero with a lance at S4. Combine him with Bilbo and you are a serious threat to most heroes in the game.

It also just seemed like a blast to play. I fully well know I could have better taken the Balrog with the lists that I was expecting, but I was excited to play something new. I had also slaved away at painting this army to the best of my abilities, so I would feel bad letting it sit on my shelves.

When the lists were announced I was regretting my choice a little bit. 4 people decided to bring Arnor, 4 Halls of Thranduil and there were no less than 5 Eagle lists flying around. This definitely is an optimal points level for these lists, but come on, I was expecting people to be a bit more creative. Fair is fair, however, since this one of the few 100 point events. So let’s see how I managed to compete with these lists!

Game 1 – Reconnoitre – vs Reclamation of Osgiliath

Man oh man, was I scared going into this. The first round of the game was Recon, one of my most hated scenario’s, and I was going up against a fully mounted army list! Much kudo’s to Dani for bringing this list in particular though since it was something different. Boromir brought 18 mounted Minas Tirith knights, who got +1 to wound on the charge and +1 to wounds once per game when Boromir called “For Gondor!”, yikes. Furthermore, I just did not see me winning this game as I could not prevent the knights from simply charging around my army. Knowing this, I just marched straight up the middle and said: “I have 24 models, you have 18. If you ignore me and we both get of the board I will just win.” This worked and my opponent brought his army together again to prepare for the charge. I could leverage the terrain on the board to my advantage and found a nice chokehold to prevent him from sneaking models through.

He wanted to keep his knights close for moves and wanted to get a nice charge of with a +2 to wound, so I let him. This might seem a bit strange, but I wanted to bait him in with all his knights. If I could get him to have all his knights within 6″ of Boromir he would never get models of the board. If the won the heroic move rolls then he would need to keep everything within 6″, and if I won I would charge everything anyway.

My shooting did more than expected. He left some lanes open in case Boromir would need to call a move, but this also opened him up to receive a lot of bow fire. One knight went down under the barrage of arrows and the captain of Rivendell showed his quality by hitting Boromir’s horse and killing it. I did need to spent a might point to make it happen, but I was more than happy to do it.

Boromir was on his bum and would not get so far in the following turn. He did opt to call a heroic move because I put enough bait in front of him to make it worth it. He refrained from charging Arwen though because there was a whole battle-line of elves behind her, ready to help. This left Arwen open to countercharge, and what a countercharge it was. She spend 2 will on her wrath of the Bruinen and got it off on a 5. This managed to throw 5 knights to the ground and killed 3 of them, absolutely huge! She then finished her charge in combat with a prone Minas Tirith warrior who got rekt in the following fight phase.

The 4 knights which you see on my left flank also charged into the fray. After the game we had a chat and talked about how it probably would have been better play to let them escape the board edge, since there was little I could do to stop it. After they charged in they would always be within 6″ of Boromir or charged by me.

The rest of the game played out in true elven fashion, a F6 battleline with a banner which just does not lose fights. Even Boromir was struggling to get through. In the last turn of the game I had a chance to wound Boromir when I could charge him with Bilbo, Arwen and one more warrior. They failed to do damage to the son of Gondor which left the game on a 3-0 since I had only broken him.

In hindsight, I should have charged way more models into Boromir so I could comfortably two-hand and do some actual damage. However, I was certainly happy and very surprised to have even won this game in the first place, so I don’t mind. Dani was also a nice opponent to play against and did not seem too bothered with his loss, especially when we talked about how he could have won the game.

Game 2 – Domination – vs Fangorn

Yes, you read that right, Robbert brought 3 trees to the battlefield with 2 hobbits hidden in one of them. With the scenario being Domination I was feeling confident in this match up since he essentially only had 3 models. Granted these were trees with Dominant, but I still outnumbered them quite a bit. I opted to deploy forward, outside of 6″ of course, but close enough to not eat to many stones and being able to duck into cover if need be. For some reason, I first thought that it was 12″ deployment, but Robbert was sportive enough to let me correct my mistake.

I luckily won the heroic move roll-off and let him have priority on the first turn. He opted to stand still with his models and throw rocks at me. I responded to this by marching up aggressively right down the middle. To give some context he had left a big gap between the trees and had deployed two on the right side and one on the left side (see picture below). After some of the worst shooting I seen and only 1 squashed elf later we were on to the second turn in the game.

I won priority again and gave it away again. This might seem strange but Birchseed (previously Quickbeam) received a new special rule called “Unnaturally hasty” which let’s him call a free heroic move if your opponent won the prio roll off and gave it to themself. I was having none of that so I gave him prio and then called the move with Bilbo since it would be a move-off anyway. I won the heroic move roll off (yes I got very lucky this game) popped on the ring and charged Treebeard. I piled 4 elves into the other ents so they would not be able to heroic combat Treebeard to safety and then piled everything else into Saruman’s homewrecker.

I called a heroic combat on my Rivendell captain since I expected I could kill Treebeard if I would two-hand. In response Robbert called a heroic defense, well no two-handing for me then I guess. Never mind, it did not matter because after some terrible fate rolls I managed to chop him down anyway rolling more 6’s than I have seen in my life. Granted I did get to roll around 24 dices, but if memory serves, I managed to convert 6 of those into wounds, which is way above average.

With one tree felled I charged into the other tree and took it down, no surprises there. What was very surprising is the 4 elves which had charged Beechbone won their fight whilst two-handing and did 4 wounds. Yeah, what the actual frak was happening this game, I never figured it out. He then failed all of his fate rolls and the last tree went down.

This was also the final turn because in all of my excitement I didn’t shield in the combat against Merry & Pippin. I did one wound which was enough, because true to his colors, he failed both his fate and the hobbit perished, quartering himself and finishing the game. If I shielded I could have squeezed 3 more VP’s out of the game, but ending it on a 17-0 is not something I’m going to complain about.

Much respect to my opponent. His rolls were unfettered ass and mine were better than I have ever seen, yet I never heard a complaint or groan leave his mouth, he truly took it like a champ. He even asked me for feedback after the game. I personally think leaving the gap between his lines was a mistake, it leave him open to be surrounded and trapped. If he would have formed a battle-line using the terrain to his sides he would have posed a serious threat. Nevertheless, it was one of the quickest games I have ever experienced.

Game 3 – Destroy the supplies – vs The Eagles

The luck I was riding by this tournament didn’t last for the 3rd game, I would have to face the dreaded eagles. Destroy the supplies is my favorite scenario and I have a banner, so I thought it might not be so bad playing eagles in this one. Then I realized that I had to defend 3 spread out objectives with 24 models against 5 12″ flying monsters who don’t die. My opponent didn’t make it any easier. I have played against Sjoerd before and I know him to be a skilled player, and our previous game was great so I’m hoping this one will be too.

I did have one thing going for me this game, and that is woodland terrain. There were two big forest pieces in the center of both our deployment zones. It was a shame that my central objective was just outside of it, but I take all I can get this game. This is probably the only thing which made it an actual game instead of Sjoerd just rolling over me with his eagles. I deployed in the middle and my opponent did the same. The following turns went as expected, he danced around me waiting for a turn were he could move second and pounce. This went on for quite a while because I kept rolling high on my prio rolls. Meanwhile, I was doing all I could with shooting but only managed to get a single wound of a fledgeling in around 8 turns, pretty piss poor. To be fair, my opponent was doing all he could to keep the D7 fledgelings behind terrain or an eagle, but still, not too great.

I kept teasing with my Rivendell knight on my left flank so he kept an eagle behind to deal with that, I also put one guy on the objective on my right just to stall and make sure he would have to spent an extra turn, or eagle, taking it. He did take a long time setting up for combat and we danced around each other some more. Eventually he got my right flank objective, which I was fine giving up. I could not realistically defend it anyway without losing a lot of models for something inevitable. Now I only had to defend one objective next to woodland terrain and one right next to a lot of defendable buildings with chokepoints, even more reasons why I was so willing to give up the other objective.

After he took my right flank objective he moved all the way to the left flank going the long way around with his eagles. This was to group up with the eagle which had been sent to deal with the lone Rivendell knight. I was fine with this. My whole tactic relied on stalling the game as much as possible and win on banner VP’s. I always knew the Rivendell knight would die and probably would not get the objective, but it was worth it to stall him for essentially 3 more turns.

So after some more dancing around and the eagles regrouping on my left flank, he finally pounced. He only committed with Gwahir because the other models were all in Bilbo range and he probably wanted to threaten the heroic combat onto my heroes just to keep me on my toes. One hero, being Arwen, saw her chance to shine and dashed right through the middle piece of woodland terrain. This did leave her in range of two eagles, but I was fine with that since they were out of range of Gwahir anyway. Even if I would lose prio I could still spent the might and burn an objective. If this would happen I would still have a might left for next turn to dash onto his center objective in the woodland terrain next turn. Luckily, I won priority and didn’t even have to spent the might.

Right, now I would just need to keep my banner alive and with Arwen burning his objective unopposed the clock was ticking for Sjoerd. He realized this and with one more turn of setting up he pounced. I did the best I could at stalling him but what can you simple elves do against such reckless hate. I broke after two turns in combat and did manage to keep my banner alive for a long time, but he eventually fell. It also didn’t really help that I didn’t get priority anymore after this, otherwise I could have moved my banner into the woodland terrain.

It came down to the last turn, Gwahir was out of might at this point and could safely be within 12″ of the eagles. My invoke the bruinen did nothing, but this was to be expected. Gwahir was in range of my center objective though, and since there were 2 more eagles eying it up and me only having 2 models left to defend it, I had not choice, I had to charge Gwahir with Arwen. This might seem ludicrous, but if I would leave the game as is Sjoerd would burn the objective and win. Worst case scenario he would kill my leader and only get 2 VP’s instead of the 3VP’s for the objective and me losing 1 VP for burning more objectives. Plus, I still had might to spend on a heroic defense, charging him did not feel like that much of a risk. So I did, I threw all my will at a wrath of the Bruinen and got a 6 to which he threw all his will and only got a 4. Gwahir was on the ground and did not even have a chance at wounding Arwen. In return, I also did not get a chance at wounding Gwahir since he rolled the 6 on the duel roll and simply stood up.

This ended the game on a 10-10 draw, definitely better than I was expecting! I got 9VP’s for burning objective and 1VP because I burned more than my opponent. My opponent got 6VP’s for burning objectives, 3VP’s for breaking me, and 1VP for having more models in range of an objective. I’m really proud of how I tackled the game and overall very happy with the result. Not many players in this tournament could say that they drew with The Eagles. Sjoerd was, once again, a great opponent to play against, not only in skill but also in sportsmanship. It also was a chess-like game, which is the type of game I love, but man is it tiring. I was hoping my next game would be against an army which did not require me to think so much and play at my A-game.

Game 4 – Fog of war – vs The Eagles

Great, I would have the privilege of playing against this, dare I say, overpowered army again… In a kill scenario nonetheless. I was especially scared of this scenario since my army list has Asfaloth in it who is a hero. Normally, I would be able to defend him, but against eagles there is just no way, one hurl and he is gone. So I did not have any illusions that I would save those VP’s. On top of this I would have to play against Larry, who I know to be a skilled player and would leave no room for mistakes, both for me and himself. My hero to defend would be Bilbo since he is quite survivable with 3 fate and 2 wound and can’t be targeted by hurls if he has the ring on. Since my opponent only had one hero, there was no mystique around who he was trying to protect. My terrain piece was the large woodland terrain in on the top right side of the battlefield and my opponents was the center hobbit hole.

Deployment was fairly simple, I left some warriors on the hobbit holes to defend and prepared to march the rest of my army into the woodland terrain right outside of my deployment zone. I felt like capturing this was the best chance of at least putting up a fight against this army. The following turns played out as expected, he got into combat charging my models, using hurls and barges to threaten and dismount my heroes.

Eventually I did see an opening. He had heroic combatted Gwahir to the right side of the woodland terrain, right around the marker base that you see above. Next turn I called the heroic move with Bilbo and won the roll off, charged Bilbo into the eagle in front of him, charged the Rivendell knight outside of the woodland terrain into Gwahir and an extra eagle locking them down. I also knocked three eagles to the floor with a two will wrath of the Bruinen and piled onto the eagle which Bilbo had charge to set up a heroic combat, he was in trouble now. I had Arwen, my captain, Bilbo, and two warrior in the fight who could all charge Gwahir to maybe swing the game in my favor. I two-handed with everyone, except Bilbo of course, and got the 6 on the duel roll. Then I only managed to do a single wound to a trapped eagle, who I wounded on 5’s. Man this sucked, I finally saw a chance and then the dice just abandon me like that.

Next turn I won the move-off once again, but this time failed my wrath of the Bruinen, everything else is pretty much the same. So I called a heroic combat again, because once again, Gwahir is in serious trouble if I get that many models into him together with Bilbo. However, this heroic combat was even more tragic than the last since I don’t even get to a 5 on my duel roll and of course my opponent rolls the 6 on just two dices… Needless to say, his rolling was pretty hot this game. I think he only fluffed on two non-important eagle combats.

This pretty much put the final nail into my coffin and the game played out from there. I think I set up two good plays which could have gone very well for me, but the dice were just not in my favor this time. I only had a small chance of winning this game in the first place, so to have it end this way threw some extra salt in the wounds. Overall, it ended on a 16-1 with my opponent capturing his terrain piece, killing his target, and protecting his target. I got the one VP for the singular elven warrior who had slugged all the way across the board towards my terrain piece.

Thoughts on the format

After playing this tourney, 500 points definitely inspires some interesting armies, but it also enhances the armies which are already very strong in this edition. I think especially The Eagles feel a bit unfair, since almost no army has the tools to really deal with 5 of them at this points level. Furthermore, what is competitively viable in the new edition just gets even more narrowed down. I think games in the new edition are more suited around the 700 point mark.

Conclusion

I finished 11th in this event, definitely a bit lower than I was aiming for. Fair is fair, I did take a new, and pretty experimental, army towards a 100 pointer without any practice. Not the smartest thing, but I really wanted to give this army a go, so I don’t regret taking it. Also, 2 major wins, a draw and one major loss is not a bad result. I definitely had a blast playing it and there is a lot that the list can do. Plus, I never play with good armies, let alone high fight armies, so having your 6’s actually count for something in the duel roll was a new experience for me and it felt incredibly good. I think the army has a lot of potential and am very excited to put it on the table again.

Oh and Alexander who so kindly made it possible for me to bring this army ended up winning the event! He definitely build up some good juju by lending me the models, because he managed to dodge all the eagle lists and ended up taking first place with his Rangers of Mirkwood list. Cheers!

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