Tournament Report- EAHC Teams Event 2026 (18th April)

The Event

Similar to how the Warhammer World Teams events are run, teams are made up of four players; two good and two evil. No one within the team can use a hero that has already been used within the team.

Matchups would be slightly different though, a pool is rolled for and each team will see what their opponents’ lists are. They then must each choose one of the scenarios from that pool so that each scenario is chosen by a player from each team. This decides the pairings within the teams. You can either play the scenario that you think fits each of your players best, or try to predict what scenario your opponents will choose for themselves and attempt to pair accordingly.

Our Team

Our team was the same as our first for the Warhammer World’s first team event; Tom and the Mellon (Myself, Tom, Jake and James). Tom and James would be our good players, while myself and Jake would be the evil ones.

Our Armies

Tom

James

Jake

Me

Round 1 Vs. Boil ‘em, Mash ‘em, Stick ‘em in a List

Pairings

Me (Grand Army of the South) v Sam (Usurpers of Edoras) playing Destroy the Supplies

Tom (Army of Thror) v Kieran (Lindon) playing Retrieval

Jake (Lurtz’s Scouts) v CJ (Ugluk’s Scouts) playing Seize the Prizes

James (Reclamation of Moria) v George (The Eagles) playing Treasure Hoard

Game 1

No pics for this one because I’m a pro at journalism and forgot.

Raza target: Freca

At deployment, I had Suladan to my right flank, and the Harad King along with Raza to my left. Sam had deployed Freca to my right and Wulf with Lord Thorne to my right. 

Sam began moving forward with most of his guys. Freca’s men shuffled forward a little and the archers got up against cover. Wulf led the other half of the army down my right side towards Suladan. I held firm in order to try and weaken his army with shooting. 

Having a low defence army and considerable shooting on either side, I called a Heroic Shoot with Raza. I intended to thin out Sam’s shooting to give me an edge. But not even one of my thirteen archers got as far as rolling to wound. 😆 Sam returned fire and luckily had no more luck than I.

We had a similar approach in the next turn, but this time I directed my bows at his melee force that was seeming to prepare to come at me down the left. I had better luck this time and killed three of them. Sam’s shots, in return, killed a couple of my archers.

On the right, Wulf and the traitors rushed towards me. Fortunately, their throwing weapons failed to find a mark. And the next turn, I called a Heroic Move to charge them. We were surprised to see the Haradrim manage to hold their own and kill a few of the traitors. Wulf had charged around the flank into a couple of my guys. During the shoot phase, I turned some bows on the right and fired at Wulf, scoring a hit and killing his horse. Suladan, saw his chance and Heroic combated off his opponent, in order to trap the dismounted Wulf. He then got a five high and was forced to spend might to avoid almost certain death. 

In turns after, the Haradrim held firm for a long while, and Wulf fought Suladan again, taking a wound and going down to 1m, 2w and 0f. But managed to bring him down later as the numbers came to bear. Eventually, I couldn’t keep them off of the right supply and they destroyed it.

Back on the left, Sam had pulled back after losing a handful of guys to shooting. And I was seeing my right under pressure, so decided to apply pressure of my own. I left five archers to cover the central and left supplies from bird attack and the King led a rush up the centre at Freca’s men. 

We withstood shooting on the approach, picking a few off in return through the gaps we could find and once in range, charged in. The King saw a golden opportunity to catch them with their pants down, and charged in. He called a Heroic Combat and ran around the side of the warband, right into Freca. He won the combat and suddenly the enemy leader was on the floor with six strikes with bane of kings raining down on him. If I could get three 5+s with rerolls, I would kill the leader and potentially, cause the collapse of the flank, without the fight value advantage. This could then help break them, and maybe allow me to destroy a supply or two in kind, potentially winning the game! I managed to score two, and Freca went down to 1m, 1w and 0f in his efforts to survive. 

The Harad King was then brutally surrounded and ripped apart by angry hill men for his actions. Raza took up the lead of the flank and got to the front. If I could just get him to Freca, I could still secure it. But sadly, it was not enough. 

The game ended with me broken, one of my objectives destroyed, meaning Sam had destroyed more than me, he had protected his banner, and slain my leader while I had wounded his. So I had lost 14-1, but it felt closer.

Results 

Me (Grand Army of the South) 1 v 14 Sam (Usurpers of Edoras)

Tom (Army of Thror) 0 v 18 Kieran (Lindon)

Jake (Lurtz’s Scouts) 4 v 6 CJ (Ugluk’s Scouts)

James (Reclamation of Moria) 17 v 3 George (The Eagles)

We thought James had been the expected defeat for this round, but kudos to him, he pulled it off.

Round 2 Vs. The Four Horsemen

Pairings

Jake (Lurtz’s Scouts) v James (Atop the Walls) playing To the Death

James (Reclamation of Moria) v Nick (The Black Gate) playing Lords of Battle

Me (Grand Army of the South) v Phil (Umbar) playing Assassination

Tom (Army of Thror) v Will (Rivendell) playing Contest of Champions

Game 2

Raza target: Delgamar

*Through this round, I had Tom to my left, a notorious elf hater (hence the team name), up against Will, a man who is fiercely pro elf, in contest with Thror v Glorfindel. So for the 2hrs, I was hearing the occasional yelp or terrified squeal from Tom.

I knew off the bat that this would be a tough fight, as Phil had a literal assassin army for assassination. I had chosen the King for my assassin, as his horse and bane of kings could be crucial, and targeted the Bo’Sun.

We deployed very closely and I lost the initial priority, so called a Heroic Move, as I was worried about how many men that I’d lose to the corsairs throwing weapons. Phil didn’t contest it, and I saw Delgamar right behind his frontline. 

I threw Raza into the guy in front of him, and piled the Haradrim into the rest. In the combats, we managed to slay a few and lost a few in return, but crucially, Raza had called a Heroic Combat and got into Delgamar. He won the fight and lunged hard with his spear, managing to get him down to 1m, 1w and 0f. 

The following turn was a similar setup as I called the move to charge again, but this time, I lost every single fight. Even Raza failed to beat the almost dead Delgamar. Phil then ended the turn by using his rule to have a Hasharin assassinate Delgamar and pass leadership to the Bo’Sun. 

This meant that now the Bo’Sun was potentially worth up to 15VPs…I HAD to get him. I had second consecutive turn of losing a lot of fights and men, so was getting desperate, as I knew that I had to keep the flank open, to allow me a shot at the new leader. So I called a Heroic Move with Suladan’s last might, who was right on the edge of the line. It had to be him in my mind as Raza was stuck behind troops and couldn’t reach where I wanted Suladan to get.

Suladan wanted to get on top of the Bo’Sun and potentially slay him, but some control zones were stopping him. So he charged into the rear. I then wanted to get the Harad King in instead but he wasn’t able to get past Phil’s frontline. 

It was here I realised my mistake, as Phil then rushed a Hasharin over and trapped Suladan along with several troops. I had given in to frustration and now my leader was going to pay for it. Unsurprisingly, Suladan was absolutely destroyed.

For the rest of the game, I was just hoping for a sudden shot at the Bo’Sun but Phil was careful with his positioning and didn’t give me that chance. Raza and the King fought side by side against the two Hasharin. The former fell in the final turn, but the King managed to stay standing and deal a wound onto his would-be assassin. 

By the end, I hadn’t managed to get near the Bo’Sun, but Phil had got the correct Hasharin to slay his target, Raza, he had broken me, kept his assassin and my target alive and killed my leader. I had kept my assassin alive, just! So I had lost 20-1.

Results 

Jake (Lurtz’s Scouts) 9 v 11 James (Atop the Walls)

James (Reclamation of Moria) 0 v 20 Nick (The Black Gate)

Me (Grand Army of the South) 1 v 20 Phil (Umbar)

Tom (Army of Thror) 0 v 20 Will (Rivendell)

A rough one for Tom and the Mellon, by the end of this round, we were dead last and three places beneath ‘Team Wooden Spoon!’

Round 3 Vs. Nellowship of the Ferds

Pairings

Tom (Army of Thror) v Brin (Kingdom of Khazad Dum) playing Hold Ground

James (Reclamation of Moria) v Ed (Beornings) playing Heirlooms of Ages Past

Me (Grand Army of the South) v Alex (Moria) playing Sites of Power

Jake (Lurtz’s Scouts) v James (Army of Carn Dum) playing Command the Battlefield

Game 3

Raza target: Durburz

I had won the priority roll off and so got Alex to arrive first. He got a 2 for Durburz, so I put him close to the corner of the South-East. Next Druzhag rolled a 3, so I put him a little higher up but also close the the South East. Finally the cave drake got a 5 and came on near Druzhag.

I then rolled 2s for my entire army. Alex chose to bring the Harad King on in the middle of the Southern edge, Suladan close to the South West corner and Raza near the North West corner. 

The King lined up his archers and fired at the approaching cave troll in the second turn, causing a single wound. Durburz, Druzhag and the Drake were bearing down on him and I felt that he was going to die, but I could buy time for the rest of my forces to fortify objectives. The cave troll ran in and charged a couple of my guys. So I ran my guys forward in response, to fight the goblins. The King charged one with a warrior and called a Heroic Combat. They killed the goblin and then he ran forward and trapped the cave troll. We won the fight and the troll was slain before the King even had to roll.

In the next couple of turns, the King would be charged by a couple of goblins, win and slay them. The Cave Drake was charging my guys and trying to hurl them at him, but failed her intelligence test and threw them at a random archer instead. My King finally lost a fight in the third combat and was ripped apart by enraged goblins, but had paid for himself very well.

Suladan’s unit, meanwhile, had moved up and the infantry passed through a tunnel to the South West objective, the South East was claimed by a lone goblin. I moved so that my Abrakhan Merchant Gusrd formed a line across an alleyway leading from where the goblins were to the objective and backed them with spears. Suladan and his raiders hung around the left side and the raiders fired pot shots at the Cave Drake but failed to land a blow. 

Raza had sent two bows and two spears to hold the North West objective and the rest of his warband went with him towards the North East, which had Druzhag’s spiders and wargs heading for it.  

We both got there at a similar time and clashed hard, a few Harad were torn up by angry beasts. But Raza made his presence known as he speared both spiders and helped to kill the wargs off. Their job now was to just sit on the objective. 

Back in the South, the goblins and drake finished off the Kings men. Then the Drake led the way toward my blockade. Realising one they got there, that it wasn’t going to fit through, so killed a few of them and then rushed around to slaughter my raiders who were trying to snipe the goblin on the South East. The game then ended her due to time.

I had sole claim over three sites and Alex had one, we had broken one another, and he had slain my second most expensive hero (the Harad King), giving me a 10-6 win.

Results

Tom (Army of Thror) 17 v 2 Brin (Kingdom of Khazad Dum)

James (Reclamation of Moria) 8 v 10 Ed (Beornings)

Me (Grand Army of the South) 10 v 6 Alex (Moria)

Jake (Lurtz’s Scouts) 7 v 6 James (Army of Carn Dum)

A great round for us, our only defeat was a narrow one, despite James not being the one to find the Heirloom!

Round 4 Vs. A Chance for Zach to Show his Quality

Pairings

James (Reclamation of Moria) v Ben (Cirith Ungol) playing Domination 

Jake (Lurtz’s Scouts) v Matt (Grand Army of the South) playing Capture and Control

Tom (Army of Thror) v Zach (Riders of Eomer) playing Breakthrough

Me (Grand Army of the South) v Ben (Lothlorien) playing Stake a Claim

Game 4

Raza target: Galadriel

I deployed my King to the right, Suladan to the left and Raza in the centre. Ben deployed his elves in a block beside his rear objective. In my experience, the player who gets a good start in this scenario for fortification points, generally wins, so that was my strategy, take all three in the middle and hold them as long as I can.

Suladan and Raza bunched up and marched for the central Ford (the three central objectives lay on the river (L-R on a bridge, on the Ford, and in the water). Meanwhile, the King made for the right objective and a couple of warriors and my raiders went for the left. I left two bowmen on the rear one.

Ben also moved for the centre and left his wood elf sentinel on his rear, but also moved his wood elves towards my king.

The shooting had no casualties so we went into the next turn. Ben got priority and so carried on his march. I realised that he’d left a couple of wood elves in range of my king so ran forward and cut them down. On the bridge, the two warriors ran forward and lay down to hide from archers. I got within range of the Ford and claimed the middle too. 

The following turn my king was charged by a wood elf that he took down. And on the Ford the fighting started in earnest as our lines locked. I kept Suladan close by to give me plenty of rerolls and the following turn, charged him in as I wanted to break his flank to envelop him. Suladan quickly ended up burning his might over the next few turns as the elves piled numbers into him, alongside F6 guards of the galadhrim court. 

I decided to send in my raiders, who had been shooting off the bridge and sent one towards the sentinel, hiding behind the dead mumak and the other two into the rear at the left. 

My king had got very bolshy and charged into two wood elves, before being surrounded by five in total. He won the fight and killed three. The turn after, his warriors joined and killed the last two with him in a Heroic Combat. This sent them to the centre to try and relieve the pressure there and him around the back to the sentinel. The following turn, he can’t see the sentinel, due to the elven cloak and distance, so runs onto the objective to neutralise it instead. The raider from the other side rushes over and draws his bow. But is sang a song and runs off instead. The sentinel charges the king but is cut down. I now hold four of the objectives, as the elves had slightly better numbers on the fifth.

Over the last few turns, the elves come dangerously close to killing the trapped Suladan, but he gets away wounded (1w, 0f) and then takes all of Celeborn’s fate away in the last turn. Raza had been inching towards Galadriel, who had spent two fate against a warrior, I hoped my assassin could make a sudden end to her. But simply didn’t get the opportunity.

As the game ended, I had triple the fortification points (60/19), held more in the last turn, he had wounded Suladan and we had broken each other, giving me a 15-2 victory.

Results

James (Reclamation of Moria) 1 v 13 Ben (Cirith Ungol)

Jake (Lurtz’s Scouts) 7 v 14 Matt (Grand Army of the South)

Tom (Army of Thror) 10 v 5 Zach (Riders of Eomer)

Me (Grand Army of the South) 15 v 2 Ben (Lothlorien)

A nice even matchup to finish, with a good split down the middle for results.

Overall Results

At the end of the day, we had managed to win 1 matchup, drawn 1 and lost 2. Won 6 of our 16 games and we had scored 107VPs and conceded 170VPs. So we ended in 6th place of the 8 teams, which wasn’t bad, considering how rough we were looking by the end of round 2.

The podium ended up being:

3rd: Fellowship of the Nerd

2nd: Boil ‘em, Mash ‘em, Stick ‘em in a List

1st: Squirtle Squad

Congrats to them all, and to ‘A Chance for Zach to Show his Quality’ for taking home ‘Best team armies’ and ‘Most sporting team’.

Events that I will attend

Fog of War 4 (TO) (16th May)

Seven Stones (23-25th May)

What about Second Breakfast? (13th June)

Clearing the Backlog, Part 27 – Hobby Goals

If there's one subject I don’t talk about much on this blog, it's setting myself hobby goals. Whilst this blog's overriding theme is clearing my backlog of models, that is more of a long-term goal – I've been writing this blog for the last four years, and whilst we've made good progress, there's still some ways to go in terms of actually reaching the end of the backlog [great in the sense of having motivation and content for future posts, less so in terms of not being surrounded by half-painted models…]

What I've not normally talked about is setting myself more short-term goals, as in setting myself targets for the year. I tend to meander from project to project, rather than planning out which armies I'm going to paint. Normally, my hobby drive can quite impulsive, inspired either by new releases, or ideas that flit in and out of my head.

Whilst such a drive is great for hobby motivation, it's less helpful in terms of managing my backlog – as ideas tend to come thick and fast, often I'll find myself halfway through a hobby project when suddenly another idea comes to the forefront of my mind, so I end up shelving the current project in favour of the new one – this then means the old project tends to sit gathering dust until I eventually come back to it, remembering in the process how fun the project was. 

Now, I know it's a bit daft to be talking about hobby goals for the year when we're already halfway through April, but the truth is I actually wrote most of this blog post back in January – due to real life getting in the way, this is the first opportunity I've had to actually publish it. Fortunately, most of the goals I set myself in January are still relevant.  

So, Goal 1 for this year [and hopefully something I'll stick to in the long-term as well] is to be a bit less impulsive when it comes to hobby purchases – often I'd go into a hobby shop for some supplies, and end up coming out with a box [and sometimes more than one box] of miniatures as well. Fortunately, it's usually just a single miniature I really want to paint, but as these gradually accumulate, you realise you've added a dozen more models to your backlog. 

So, Goal 2 is to finish painting these various models bought solely for the purposes of wanting to paint them. Again, this goal has more long-term than short-term ambitions, so I'll probably use them as means of either breaking up lengthy hobby projects, or painting them at the end of a project as a reward – hopefully knowing you have a "treat" miniature at the end of painting a horde of models is good motivation! At the same time, painting something different can often help with motivation as you actually enjoy painting the model, rather than finishing a model and then dreading painting the remaining models the same way over and over again.

Speaking of abandoned projects, there are a number of these in my backlog that I have been neglecting for some time, and not just for MESBG. I have a number of projects for Warhammer 40k, Age of Sigmar and The Old World currently sitting in the backlog, all in various stages of assembly / painting, and a part of me actually wants to get these projects to completion. I'm unlikely to be able to get through all of them in a single year [there just isn’t enough time!], so Goal 3 for the year is to try and get at least one of these backlog projects completed. However, because I want to keep this Backlog Blog series Middle Earth-themed, they won’t be shown here – I will however still count them towards my model count for the year (as that focuses on the backlog as a whole), but I'll very likely set up a separate blog series for these. 

Lastly, Goal 4 is a numbers challenge, partially inspired by last year's model count – I painted 195 models in 2025, and I was disappointed that I didn’t quite manage to hit the 200 mark – probably because I was only five models away. So, the challenge for 2026 is to try and paint 200 models this year. I like to think this is an achievable goal given that, apart from 2024 when my hobby motivation took something of a nosedive, I've managed to paint either over or around 200 models every year that I've been doing this blog. Some of the goals I've set myself will certainly help in this regard, given that some of the unfinished projects have a high model count – get through those, and I'm easily on my way to hitting my target. So, look forward to the last post of the year, where I'll be checking back in on whether or not I hit these goals!

So, hobby goals set, let's get to painting!

I started 2026 as I finished 2025 – painting Easterlings! I dug out the eight archers I had lying in the backlog, and painted these to go in my Host of the Dragon Emperor list. Easterling archers are probably some of the most underused models in the game, and a common complaint is that you only get four pikes in the boxed set, but eight archers – not very helpful when the key part of an Easterling army is the pike block. Complaints aside, the archers are still very nice models. I spent a few evenings working on them, painting them in the same way as the rest of the army, and they were done. I've really enjoyed this Easterling project – so much so that I've painted nearly 1,500 points worth over the last 6 months!

Next were a pair of models I didn’t quite get around to finishing in 2025 – two old metal Rangers of Gondor. I painted my current Osgiliath force years ago, but I've been having thoughts for some time about stripping and re-painting the army – these models were attempts at experimenting with different colour combinations – I painted one Ranger with a green cloak, and another with a brown one – always interesting to see how the same miniature looks in a different colour scheme. The Osgiliath repaint is a very low priority for now, but having some reference models for when I eventually get round to it will be very helpful. There are actually a couple of my armies that I think could benefit from being stripped down and repainted, but I think the sensible thing is to focus on at the moment is finishing some unpainted new armies, rather than repainting old ones. I based them with an Osgiliath-themed rubble scatter, but I'm not sure if this will become the main basing scheme for the army – I might be tempted to do something else when I eventually get round to repainting the army.

With the rangers done, I took a small break from painting Middle Earth miniatures, to try and work out exactly which one of my other backlog projects I wanted to finish. Not that I wasn't entirely focussed on Middle Earth – I've also been busy working on my armies and the display board for the Middle Earth Grand Tournament a Warhammer World, but more on that in a future blog.

My main Middle Earth project for this year is still the huge box of Rohan I put together last year, and in between my work on other projects, I chipped away at some of the Riders. I tried to do some variation on the colours, using different shades of green and browns for the cloaks and leathers, and using metal colours for their helmets, where I'd always used a dark brown previously – variation really helps models stand out, especially when you're only using a handful of poses in your army. I then based the models to match Erkenbrand, who I painted on foot last year, and my first few Riders of the Westfold were ready for the tabletop.

With the Riders done, I then turned my attention to the mounted version of Erkenbrand – this was painted in the exact same way as the foot version, from the green cloak to his distinctive red shield – a few hours work, and he was ready to lead the Riders into battle!

So, to progress – with everything I've painted so far this year from the different game systems, my painted model count currently stands at 49 models! I'm considering this really great progress, considering it's mid-April and I'm nearly a quarter of the way to my 200 model goal already – I just need to try and keep this pace up to hit my target!

Tournament Report- The Grand Tournament 2026 (28/29th March)

The Tournament 

The GT is a nice straightforward GvE tournament. Everyone brings two 700pt armies of Good and Evil, playing two games (one of each), rolling off on the odd numbered rounds.

My Armies

I took this as my chance to set a target for painting my Haradrim. And so I would get a load of them done to use alongside my Easterlings and my custom Hasharin from Seven Stones a couple of years back. So my Evil army would be Grand Army of the South, Suladan as a solid leader, Amdur as the disposible beatstick and Hasharin for a solid backup.

For my Good force, I wanted to minimise the packing and unpacking so wanted an all hero army. I took the heroes of Ravenhill to my first ever GT, 8yrs ago! And decided to do so again, even if it leaves me 50pts short, I felt that their bonuses may make up for it.

Good- Assault on Ravenhill

Thorin, King under the Mountain LEADER

Fili, Champion of Erebor

Kili, Champion of Erebor

Dwalin, Champion of Erebor

Legolas w/ Orcrist

Tauriel

Bilbo, Master Burglar

Numbers: 7

Evil- Grand Army of the South

Suladan w/ Armoured Horse

Harad warriors x9 w/ Bow

Harad warriors x9 w/ Spear

Amdur w/ Armoured Horse

Dragon Cult Acolyte x3

Easterling warrior x3 w/ Shield

Easterling warrior x9 w/ Pike/Shield

Hasharin

Harad Raiders x3 w/ Bow/War spear

Numbers: 39

Game 1- Stake A Claim (Vs. Andrew (Fangorn))

Opponent's Heroes: Treebeard, Birchseed, Beechbone, Merry and Pippin

Opponent's Troops: Ents

I lined up my with all the Harad in the centre and left, and the easterlings to the right. My intention, as always against a small force of monsters, was to get an early kill and try to ‘unzip’ the opponent from there.

I called a Heroic March with Suladan to try and get up the board quickly. But then reassessed as we got to my movement, and instead moved half, figuring that with so many bows and poison, I may get lucky and cause a wound or two. They all missed.

A couple of turns later, we engaged and I threw Suladan and the Hasharin into Birchseed. While Amdur charged Beechbone with some warriors.

Suladan’s Heroic Strike spectacularly failed, as he was picked up by the ankle and pummelled into his friends. Killing all but the Hasharin, himself included. Amdur, meanwhile, had a little more luck, beating Beechbone, but failing to cause any wounds.

 

Over the next few turns, Amdur came out on top each time, but kept failing to wound. Luckily, some warriors wounded one of the ents and put it down to its last one. But around this time, Amdur suffered a similar fate to Suladan.

I had been busy elsewhere, as the easterlings had advanced and taken the right objective. With three left to defend it. The others advanced on Andrew’s rear objective, where Pippin sat upon it. After several turns of approaching, they chased the Hobbit off of it, and eventually speared him as he attacked when an ent came to assist.

Merry had gone to my left objective, where I eventually sent a spare raider to try to lance the surviving hobbit. But as I got close, the single wound ent approached. It was at this time, however, that my archers, sat on my rear objective, fired a cheeky shot that slew the ent! It was short lived as a victory as Birchseed quickly stepped in instead. As the end of the game approached, another handful of my troops defeated a second ent!

By the end of the battle  I had 27 Fortification Points to Andrew’s 29. He had beaten me on that, slain my leader,  broken me, and held the most objectives at the end to win 12-0!

12-0 L

Game 2- Retrieval (Vs. Gabe (Army of Gundabad))

Opponent's Heroes: Bolg, Gundabad Captain and Troll Catapult

Opponent's Troops: Gundabad Trolls

With so few models on the table, this wasn’t going to be a long game, one way or the other. It turned out that Gabe was a fellow BSIME viewer  so it was cool to put a face to the name.

I began by calling a March with Thorin and hurrying up the centre towards where Gabe’s troops were standing to defend their objective. Tauriel took the catapult trolls rock to the skull but shrugged it off like a champ…with a fate.

Legolas fired his bow and managed to take a wound off the Captain at the back.

The second turn was similar but without the March, Tauriel took another rock to the head but this time it failed to wound.

Legolas fired again, hitting Bolg’s warg and killing it.

The following turn, we hit combat. Fili, Kili and Bilbo fought one troll, and Thorin, Dwalin and Legolas took the other. Fili and Kili, using a Heroic Strike, managed to beat the troll and caused three wounds between them upon it. Bilbo then stepped up and slew the beast with Sting!

Dwalin and Thorin then fought Bolg, as Legolas, Tauriel, Bilbo, Fili and Kili charged the second troll. I called a Heroic combat and once again, Bilbo landed the killing blow! Fili and Kili charged the Captain as the others rushed towards the Catapult troll. In the combats that followed; Thorin slew Bolg and Kili took down the Captain. 

In the final turn, Legolas, Tauriel and Bilbo charged the Catapult troll, with Leggy grabbing the objective as he did so. He used his last two might to cause two wounds with his bow, Tauriel then landed another two wounds and Bilbo managed to slay his third troll of the game!

I had slain his leader, broken him, claimed the objective and killed three heroes for a 14-0 win.

Game 3- To The Death (Vs. Dom (Defenders of Helm's Deep))

Opponent's Heroes: Theoden, Aragorn and Legolas

Opponent's Troops: Rohan Royal Guard, Rohan Warriors and Galadhrim Warriors

I deployed my easterlings to my left, the Harad spears to my right and the archers upon a raised platform to pepper the opponents. 

We both ran towards each other and I got the edge in shooting as I shot a couple of archers dead. Then also taking some fate off Legolas. Dom then returned the favour killing a handful of my archers. 

The lines met (just under a glued platform so I had to stand them on top for ease), and I threw my easterlings into the wall of elves and Rohirrim. My Harad went to engage the small unit off to my right, with help from the archers, who took out a couple of Rohirrim each turn. In the fighting, I lost a few easterlings but killed off some elves in return.

Amdur then saw an opportunity and charged into some Rohirrim up the far right flank with a raider. Dom reacted to this, by throwing Aragorn in alongside Theoden. The idea being that Aragorn could match the fight value and Herugrim from Theoden could give him the edge. 

In the fight phase, I lost a handful of Harad spears to the Rohirrim due to numbers, but the easterlings again managed to whittle down the elves for me. When it came to the big hero fight, we had both called Heroic Strike. Aragorn went up to 9, and Amdur to 10. Amdur then managed to win the fight and laid into Theoden. Managing to slay the King with his final strikes. In the following turn, Amdur charged Aragorn again. Legolas, I should say, had been shooting into combat to try and dismount Amdur, but would either miss or roll catastrophically to wound. 

Neither of us called a strike this time, and Amdur won the roll off, before landing many wounds upon the Heir of Isildur. Managing to bring him down too!

Now in a tough spot, through sheer bad luck, Dom threw Legolas into the fight with the Easterlings. My Harad spears collapsed under the weight of the Rohirrim, who then tried to hurry past and flank me, but a lone Harad managed to hold them at the chokepoint for a couple of turns, keeps my easterling rear safe. 

In those two turns, Legolas had lost both fights and ended up being speared by the glimmering horde. With all three heroes now slain, Amdur hitting the rear and my archers picking off loose targets, I had the upper hand as time was called. Suladan’s sole contribution to this battle, had been to hide at the back giving banner effect, VPs and not getting wounded. 

I had slain Theoden, broken the defenders, got them to 25%, killed three heroes and we each had a banner remaining, giving me a 14-1 win.

Game 4- Lead From The Front (Vs. Alun (Wolves Of Isengard))

Opponent's Heroes: Sharku, Orc Captains and Orc Shaman

Opponent's Troops: Warg Riders and Wild Wargs

This was one of the better matchup and scenario pairings that I could have hoped for. Having several strong heroes of decent tier to hold up to three objectives.

I deployed in front of a field, which had the central objective in a corner. The aim was to get inside the field and use it as a fortification to defend. 

The wargs got their pre priority move and rushed up a handful, who shot at me but failed to wound. In the move phase the other wargs all hurried up to push the line against me, and I pushed up towards the entrance to the field. 

In the shoot phase, the wargs managed to shoot Legolas and remove a wound, two fate, and a might from him. Legolas fired back, killing a rider. 

The turn after, I called a Heroic Move and hurried into the field. Thorin pinned the Captain in the corner, Fili and Kili charged a couple, Legolas charged one and Dwalin blockaded the gateway. 

Poor Bilbo, however, got left behind…how themeatic.

The field now became a kill zone, where I had Fili, Kili and Legolas killing any wargs that entered. Not wanting to get caught at time or the end of the game later, as they approached their break point, Tauriel pushed for the left objectives, launching herself with a Heroic Combat (in which she slew all three riders and the warg that passed courage). And landed beside the captain, who promptly shielded her away. The following turn, she faced the captain and two warg riders, got a four high and was ripped to pieces…plan A is out the window…

So the remaining heroes in the field (Bilbo had managed to hop through, using the Ring, killing a couple as he went) tried to hold a wall each and avoid being overrun. Legolas managed to narrowly dodge many bow shots and throwing spears, using his bow to avoid being outfought. Fili and Kili kept up a steady kill count on their two walls, Bilbo threw stones and stabbed the riders with Sting, and Thorin…well he got Orcrist from Legolas and then proceeded to bounce off the Captain for most of the game…when he did finally score a wound that went through fate, he rolled for the bane effect and did a single wound. He did eventually manage to slay the captain, before charging the Shaman over the same wall, and rolling triple 3 for his in the way rolls. Shaman got away unscathed.

Legolas eventually fell as a warg rider knocked him down and nommed him to death. Fili suffered a sudden similar fate. But luckily, Kili and Bilbo held firm, the latter ending the game on five(ish) kills. Dwalin, meanwhile, decided to one man army ‘Rambo’ it. He charged out the field as the game approached its end, called a Heroic Combat with his last might, slaying both the mount and rider. He then rushed the Captain, and didn’t manage to kill, but did steal the left objective!

As the game ended, I had claimed two objectives against lower tiered heroes, Sharku held the last, as he had stayed there, well away from any nasty elves or dwarves. I had broken the wolves and Thorin, as per the army bonus, is counted as a banner, so I had won 9-4.

Game 5- Escort The Wounded (Vs. Jay (Dragons Of The North))

Opponent's Heroes: Dragons and Cave Drake

It’s been several years since I’ve played Jay, and finally I’d have another crack!

Based off a practice game that I’d played, I knew that the best approach would be to just grab two wounded and get up the board ASAP. So Dwalin grabbed one and Tauriel/Legolas grabbed another to get him out of the woodland. Whereupon Legolas dropped and Kili took over. This was so Legolas could start popping off shots at the Dragons.

He began this in style, using two might to take two fate off the lead Dragon (red). And over the following turns taking one away from the Drake too. Jay, meanwhile, took an objective each with the second dragon and drake to save them, then flew the second dragon back, taking the last from the lead dragon and rescuing him too.

I used two of Thorin’s might for Heroic Marches to cover as much ground as I could, weaving through a ruin for cover, and managed to get my two wounded saved. Sadly, Thorin was roasted as I did so.

I then retreated back into the ruin, to avoid the Dragons picking me apart. Tauriel, Dwalin, Fili and Bilbo managed to pin the Cave Drake. After chipping off four wounds, Bilbo charged in, threw a stone and took its second to last wound away, before Dwalin slew the beast. Kili was then eaten by the second Dragon as Legolas fought the lead one, winning but failing to wound.

As my might wore thin, Jay managed to gain the upper hand with patience, and gradually my heroes were killed off; Tauriel, Fili, Dwalin were slain by the second dragon, despite landing a few blows upon it, and Legolas was eventually devoured by the lead one. Bilbo was the lone survivor as he stood alone in the ruins with the Ring on. 

Jay had rescued all three wounded to my two, he had slain my leader, broken me and neither of us had any banners. So I had lost 20-10, but given the matchup and quality of the opponent, I was happy to accept that.

Game 6- Command The Battlefield (Vs. Louis (Halls Of Thranduil))

Opponent's Heroes: Thranduil, Legolas and Tauriel

Opponent's Troops: Mirkwood Knights, Mirkwood Elf Warriors and Wood Elf Sentinels

Louis was another opponent that I was rematching. I believe that our last battle was at TOS ‘23? 

I got the edge early on as I gave priority to Louis so that he’d have to arrive first. He had Thranduil arrive in the South West corner and Tauriel in the middle of the South edge. Legolas failed to arrive.

I then had my Hasharin fail to arrive. Amdur then came onto the Eastern edge behind Thranduil, and Suladan, the South near to Tauriel.

We exchanged bowfire and the elves shot a couple of my archers, who then shot a wound off Thranduil’s elk. Tauriel also managed to snipe out Suladan’s horse. However, one of the acolytes managed to throw a knife and kill the sentinel nearby.

I then went on the very aggressive offensive. Amdur’s unit went for the elven rear and pinned them. Amdur flanked one of the elven glaives and others pinned some of the knights. In the melee, several on either side fell, with me putting a good few holes in the elven lines to exploit next turn.

The Hasharin then arrived behind Amdur’s unit to reinforce it. 

In Louis’ turn, Tauriel charged at my archers, grabbing two. The sentinel then sang at another and pulled him in too. Predictably, Tauriel murdered them all. My archers managed to shoot a couple of elven bows dead. But Legolas had arrived behind me and instantly shot three wounds onto Suladan, killing him!

Over the next few turns, Tauriel gradually ground down my archers until none were left. 

I had several turns of gaining the priority in a row, and took full advantage. Managing to almost destroy Thranduil’s warband. So Louis made a sensible decision and pulled him and his surviving knights back. I called a combat with Amdur, involving several warriors including acolytes and the Hasharin and gave chase. I then won priority and was just out of range of Thranduil. So I threw several guys into Tauriel’s archers and Thranduil’s knights to try and break them. My Hasharin saw an opportunity and threw a knife, slaying the second sentinel. After all the fights had resolved, I had broken the elves, but wasn’t far off myself. 

Over the rest of the game, I tried to wear down the elves in the south west corner, lost 2/3 of my raiders in the north west to courage after breaking. And Louis held firm, using Legolas’ courage and the last sentinel’s music to keep a vital knight in check.

I had captured the north west, Louis had both the north and south east, and had outnumbered me in the south west. We were both broken, he had slain suladan and 25%ed me. I believe that he was only 1/2 off himself. So Louis had claimed the victory, 13-4.

Results

In the end, I had managed to get 3 wins and 3 losses, breaking even nicely. (A bit of a rarity these days!) I had achieved a VPD of +1 and slain two leaders. I ended up 27th out of the 64 players. 

I was really happy with that performance, especially as I had the opportunity to potentially get 4/2+. I always really enjoy these WW tournaments and hope we continue to see them well into the future!

Tournaments that I'll attend

EAHC Teams 18th April

Fog of War 4 16th May

Seven Stones 23/24th May