The Tournament
This was a tournament hosted in Element Games in Stockport, and was a 'warm up' for the Ardacon singles, at the same points value (650) and would be six games over two days.
My Army
I had just managed to finish my Dragon Emperor so cracked the big man out for this event with his legion.
The Dragon Emperor of Rhun
Black Dragon warriors x18 w 6x Shield and 12x Pike/shield
Rutabi, General of the Dragon Legion
Black Dragon Acolytes x2
Black Dragon warriors x5 w Pike/shield
Dragon Knight w Armoured Horse
Black Dragon kataphrakts x3 w/ 1x War Drum
Game 1- Hold Ground (Vs. Matthew (Mordor))
In my opening game, I got the first priority and with Shagrat having a troll in his warband, I wasn't hoping for it. Luckily for me, only my Dragon Knight arrived to the South. Behind him Kardush came on, to the North-West, Shagrat came in on a 2 and Shelob the centre of the Northern edge on a 6.
On the second turn, Matthew got priority and threw his orcs into the rear of my small cavalry unit. Shagrat slowly moved towards the centre as Guritz arrived to the East. In my move, I counter charged the Dragon knight around to save my drummer and had the Emperor arrive behind Guritz. In the fighting, the kataphrakts managed to kill several orcs with the Knight calling his Heroic Combat to get into the drummers combat.
In the third turn, Guritz called a Heroic move to create some distance from the Emperor's pike block, but the Emperor countered and won the roll off. The pike block attacked the rear of the orcs and Guritz ran around the flank as Shelob closed in to assist. Kardush also called a move to prevent a charge but I didn't attempt to stop him. Unfortunately, for the orc, Rutabi finally arrived right behind him.
The Dragon Knight called another Heroic Combat to, again, rescue the drummer successfully. The kataphrakts lost a rider but the orcs lost a few more trackers to the fights. On the Eastern front, the Emperor's presence was felt as the Easterlings won most fights and killed in most of them.
In the following turn, Rutabi's unit quickly overwhelmed the remainder of Kardush's unit and the Shaman was cut down by the Dragon Knight. The Emperor, seeing that the battle may not last much longer, led the advance on the centre, where Shagrat had just arrived.
Both halves of the army converged on the centre, and the troll was thrown before the Emperor as a hefty blockade, while Shagrat protected the South from the advancing cavalry. Rutabi led the attack from the South as she fought Shagrat and allowed the cavalry to pour through an opening, to pincer the Eastern battleline. Things were turning drastically against Mordor, perfectly illustrated by an Acolyte's throwing dagger passing through a tree and killing their banner bearer. With the tide heavily in his favour, the Emperor fought the Troll!
He managed to win but failed to do any more than a single wound on the beast. Rutabi had better luck and, with some warriors, took Shagrat down to 1w, 0f. Shelob and Guritz were being held back by a few brave Black Dragons.
In the dying turns, Mordor was broken and Rutabi managed to wound the troll again after the Emperor had lost all his fate to it. Shagrat faced five Black dragons and was slain. And in the very last combat, after Rutabi boshed a vital heroic strike, she and the Emperor lost a fight to the troll and his Royal Highness was picked up and ripped in half.
The game ended. I had triple the numbers of Mordor in the middle, had broken them, while being unbroken and slain Shagrat, sadly the Emperor had been slain. 12-2 Victory.
Game 2- Reconnoitre (Vs. Adam (Theodred's Guard))
Opponent's Heroes- Theodred, Elfhelm and Grimbold
Opponent's warriors- Rohan Royal Guard mounted and dismounted, Helmingas warriors and Rohan Outriders
My second game was against Adam, who I had played 1~yr ago at Lord of the Imps. This time he had brought a lovely Fords of Isen themed army. I had to decide for this game whether or not to spread out to goalkeep the entire board edge. I decided to try that.
I got a couple of turns headstart as Adam was unfortunate with his rolls to enter the battle. I had the Emperor's unit to the right and Rutabi and the Dragon Knight to the left. When the opposing army had arrived, Grimbold was to my right, Theodred to the left and Elfhelm was in the centre.
The lines met relatively quickly and I took some casualties to the mass of throwing spears. The warriors to my right formed a tight blockade between a ruin and the edge of the table, to hold back Grimbold's unit.
Elfhelm came within reach, so my drummer charged at him to hold him in place as the Emperor closed in along with a couple of pikemen. The Drummer won the fight and caused a wound to the horse, but it was saved by his Horse Lord rule.
The following turn, Elfhelm was pinned by the Emperor, the Drummer and two pikemen. He called a Heroic Defence and I weighed up the chances, before calling a Heroic Combat (figuring that with 18 strikes, I had a good chance of scoring two 6s). Naturally, I only managed one and the Captain of Rohan managed to survive, before winning the following fight. The turn after that he slipped out and made a break for the table edge.
To the right, the wall of Black Dragons held firm, helped largely by Adam having a lot of bad luck with his rolling. And to the left, the Dragon Knight led a fight against Theodred's unit. They lost several warriors to the Royal Guard's charge but slowly managed to turn the fight against them, eventually Rutabi had a golden chance and managed to call a Heroic Combat that trapped, the now dismounted, Theodred and slew him and his banner.
By this time however, the damage was showing as cracks were appearing in the defences.
Elfhelm and a large collection of Helmingas and Outriders, pushed past and escaped off the board edge, not long followed by Grimbold's warband as they had shattered the shieldwall. The Emperor had finally arrived, too late due to failing to Combat off of Elfhelm earlier. Grimbold charged at the Emperor as his troops ran, and was slain, but one Helmingas then managed to hold up the Palanquin and wound it over several turns, before finally falling.
Adam had got all 27 remaining guys off of the board, while I only had 12 remaining, as the Dragon Knight had fled, only two turns away from the board edge. Luckily, I had one trick left up my sleeve and got all remaining warriors to the board edge and dismounted the Palanquin to add the five surviving Black Dragons to the escapees, raising my numbers to 17 and preventing the doubled Victory Points.
Adam had got off more escapees than me, broken me while unbroken and I had slain his leader, so I suffered a 6-2 defeat.
Game 3- To the Death (Vs. Darran (Assault on Lothlorien))
Seeing the tools that Darran had to work with, I knew that this would be a tough matchup. I figured my best chance would be simply throwing myself into the fight early and hitting hard.
I saw that Darran's spiders were being left in front to my right and I could have a good chance of hitting them with a cavalry charge and some infantry to use as a shield to arrowfire and throwing weapons. It worked fairly well as over a couple of turns, several spiders were slain. I also had to form a defensive wall to the incoming cavalry charge as the wargs prepared to rush in, Rutabi was kept close to the inside to avoid a sneaky bat getting on her.
Once Darran's main force came in, he whole battle became one glorious mess of a bloodbath. I got very fluky as both warg marauders fluffed their duel rolls and I successfully dismounted them both, as well as killing a lot of the trackers from on top of their wargs, although a fair few mounts stayed.
Towards the tower, Rutabi and the Emperor both fought and killed a spider to Heroic Combat off of it. This allowed Rutabi to leap onto a pair of prowlers, deeper inside their lines and the Emperor to save the Dragon Knight from an enraged spider.
The battle was swinging back and forth as the Easterlings would take multiple casualties in a turn, then kill several more goblins in the following one. The Emperor was being relentlessly assaulted by Prowlers, enraged Bats and goblins, but each time fended them off. As soon as Druzhag's will had run out, he prepared to charge in and deal the death blow to Muzgur's army, as Rutabi had been cutting a path through to the enemy leader before him. When everything changed in seconds. Muzgur used his final will point to immobilise the Dragon Knight. The Emperor was set upon by prowlers, goblin spears and two sets of bats again and trapping him. A kataphrakt managed to counter charge one batswarm but the other was still there. The Emperor then rolled a 3 highest, even with both rerolls and the prowlers had +3! onto their wounding rolls, due to the army bonus. the trap and being 2h! The Emperor was cut to pieces and if this wasn't a dire enough loss, Rutabi, also trapped by prowlers, lost while surrounded and was cut down too. Suddenly, the Easterlings only had the Dragon Knight left.
The Easterlings fought back like demons and pushed back viciously, killing swathes of goblins and beasts and with a single turn left, needed to kill eight to break the enemy and score the draw! In the first half of the fights, they managed to slay six! But then with three fights left, they lost a warrior and were two men off breaking themselves. They lost another and had to make the choice whether to fight and gamble for the draw or protect themselves to avoid a worse loss. They gambled and won the fight...
...but failed to wound. The last Easterling shielded. With that, Darran had slain my leader and had a banner remaining and I was defeated 5-0.
Game 4- Capture and Control (Vs. Gareth (Return of the King))
While this army would be difficult to charge and kill, I hoped that sheer numbers and increased courage and fight value would give me the edge.
I deployed the Emperor front and centre with Rutabi to his right and the Dragon Knight and his kataphrakts at the rear objective. To my left, I had a fence that I could use as a barricade against an attack. Gareth had put Aragorn in the second line to keep him from being viciously attacked in the opening turn, the King of the Dead was opposite Rutabi and Legolas was sat on their rear objective.
I got the opening priority and went for a full on assault, most Easterlings passed their courage tests and Rutabi faced the King. The Emperor charged a couple of warriors himself, I hoped with his 9 strikes he could kill one or two. He was counter charged and ended up against 6+ strikes. I sent the kataphrakts in opposite directions to tag the side objectives and one stayed on the rear one to tag it.
In combat, most of the Easterlings won their fights but failed to wound, as you'd expect, but cruelly a fair few would roll the required 6 then a 3 on the follow up, Rutabi won and failed to wound the King. Then it came to the Emperor, time for him to do some damage. With his five duel rolls, including rerolls he failed to get higher than a 4...
...the dead got a 6. I worried that 6+ strikes would potentially cause a fair few wounds on the Emperor or even cripple the Palanquin, so made the awkward choice to burn two might to win. He then failed to cause any wounds, with his strikes nor the Palanquin's.
The following turn, I reached the right objective with a kataphrakt, but was immediately shot dead by Legolas, who watched it with his eagle eyes. However, in the centre, the dead moved first and Aragorn engaged the Emperor with multiple dead.
In the combat phase, the Easterlings managed to punch through the right flank, exposing the enemy's rear to attack. Unfortunately, it was another turn of bouncing off the dead when I won as Rutabi lost the the King and took a wound from the dead warriors. Both Aragorn and the Emperor called Heroic Strikes. Aragorn dropped the ball and was only boosted to F8 as the Emperor went to F10! This was exactly the scenario that I had hoped for as I could get 3 S4 strikes followed by 6 S3 all wounding on 5s on Aragorn! The Emperor only rolled a 5 highest...and my stomach hit the floor. Oh no... Aragorn and his dead warriors got the Emperor down to 1w, 0f, and had blown a golden opportunity.
The next turn, a hasty retreat was quickly beaten by the Emperor as he pulled back with his tail between his legs and his loyal warriors leapt in to cover him led by the Dragon Knight rushing into the breach. The first kataphrakt leapt the fence to charge towards the rear of the dead.
In the shoot phase, Legolas saw his chance, he drew his bow and fired a single arrow, scoring the hit and rolling a 3 to wound. He obviously used all three might to claim the greatest prize on the field as he shot the Emperor dead!
This was a devastating blow, especially so early in the game. So I started targeting the objectives, I tied up the dead and sent a couple of pikemen behind the army, rushing at Legolas. I also sent two of the warriors from the Palanquin towards the right objective behind the tower, while the rest plugged the gap in the line, left by the Emperor. Several Easterlings fell in the combats, but they managed to kill a few back this time, as if fighting to avenge their fallen leader. The Dragon Knight called a Heroic Combat, but failed to kill anything. Rutabi had broken free of the King and killed a dead warrior, as the King lost a wound to some Black Dragons.
Over the next few turns, I managed to seize the right objective with Rutabi and push Legolas off the rear one with the two pikes. Aragorn was surrounded by 4 Black Dragons and took three wounds, saving one with fate, before he pushed towards my rear objective but was intercepted by the two Palanquin bearers, who took the right. The Easterlings were broken as yet more fell to the blades of the dead.
Rutabi passed her stand fast and found herself becoming the focus of a concentrated assault as she sat on the central objective, but she shielded and managed to weather the storm. Legolas was repelled from his objective and the left one was blocked by warriors in front of the fence. Aragorn was held back by the bearers again and to his horror the game ended on the first roll.
Somehow, despite being absolutely slaughtered in the battle, we owned all the objectives, had wounded Aragorn but had lost the Emperor and been broken, leading to an 11-2 victory (it felt like it should be the exact opposite way round).
Game 5- Fog of War (Vs. Michael (The Black Gate Opens))
I was ecstatic to see that my next round was against Michael, as we had played a few times prior before the pandemic, including twice in a single tournament. To give context, this was in a doubles, where he had been paired with Harry Parkhill and I with Tom Hawker. We had gone through that tournament with what could well be a record breaking performance of drivel, with our Easterling army scoring only 3VPs all weekend, and they were in the opening game. By the time the dust settled, we were on -50VPD with six consecutive defeats.
Now here I was, with an Easterling army, against one of those opponents in the same venue! At last, a chance of redemption!
I chose my objectives as: Capture the tower to the right, slay the Morannon Orc Capt and defend Rutabi.
I marched up and then sounded the Drum to keep my main force in one pike block to the left, rather than split and, learning from what went wrong against the army of the dead, kept the Emperor behind the main line for now. Rutabi went beside the Troll and attacked the orcs as the pikes descended upon the troll and rest of the infantry. Meanwhile, the Dragon Knight and kataphrakts stood in the shallow pool to the right, threatening the Morannon Orc Captain's shieldwall.
As I charged the pike block on the bridge into the Troll chief, Michael had swung the shield wall behind him to cover his flank, so now that the Troll was safely covered, I threw the cavalry into a charge. The Dragon Knight went into the Captain and used a might to win the fight, before scoring two wounds, one of which was saved by fate. A few of the shieldwall fell to the charge alongside them.
On the other side, Michael's trolls scored a few kills with hurls through the pike blocks, but the men held firm supported by the Emperor's presence.
In the following turn, I got priority and I decided not to use the Dragon Knight's last might for a Heroic Move to counter Michael's Captain's one. He stood up and reengaged the knight as his orcs piled into the kataphrakts. On the other side, Rutabi Heroic Combatted to the other side of the tree before the Mouth of Sauron and a pike block managed to score two wounds upon the troll. The troll chief performed another hurl killing some more Easterlings.
The Dragon Knight's kataphrakts withstood the charge, thanks to the Emperor's banner and the hero himself, was saved by the might point he spent, as he boosted his five to a six before cutting down the Captain!
In the last few turns, the cavalry cut down yet more of the orcs and the Emperor stepped in to assist with killing the troll. Michael was taking heavy losses.
As we saw there was 10mins left on the clock, we knew that this would be the final turn. I won the priority and we both only had a single might left so saved them. The Dragon Knight retreated from the orcs, as I was wary of him being the target, and he went into base contact with the tower, as his kataphrakts charged the two closest orcs, and an orc who was, presumably, making a run for the objective. Rutabi saw the Mouth of Sauron exposed on the other side of the tree and charged at him and the Emperor engaged the Troll Chief with some pikes.
In the combat phase, several orcs fell, as their numbers had dwindled and they broke. I, myself, was only a single model from breaking! The Troll and Emperor had both called Strikes and the troll won on the roll off, managing to wound the enemy leader and slay a warrior to break the Easterlings. Unexpectedly though, Rutabi won her fight and outright killed the Mouth in a single combat!
With time called, we compared objectives. I had slain the Captain, kept Rutabi unharmed and captured the tower, while breaking the orcs. Michael had, sadly, lost the Mouth, failed to harm Rutabi and had been caught on his attempt to capture the ruins, but his leader had, at the last managed to break us so the game ended a 10-1 victory to me. I had finally, after four years, redeemed the Easterlings shame!
Game 6- Destroy the Supplies (Vs. Matt (Assault on Lothlorien))
For my final game, I had a slightly different approach to the Assault legion, this time there were many more beasts and Ashrak in place of the captain. With this being a scenario of attack and defend, I had the awkward choice to make of whether to hold my ground or push to destroy theirs.
In hindsight, I made the unwise choice of keeping back but sending my kataphrakts to try and destroy an objective. They didn't make it far up the table before being shot off their horses, surrounded by spiders and eaten. My God...I have become Denethor sending Faramir and his men to their deaths.
With that ill advised plan having failed, I decided to chance it on an all out assault. So the Emperor gave his orders and the men marched. We took a few casualties to the bowfire and throwing weapons, as to be expected. But then Rutabi, who was in the centre, surrounded a warg with a load of her men and called a Heroic Combat, pulling them up towards the woods.
The Emperor's warband were hit by the goblins and spiders and fought well, wounding several spiders and killing many prowlers. At the same time, Rutabi pushed up and slew a couple of wargs as her Acolytes threw knives, wounding a spider on the charge. The spider was obviously driven into a murderous frenzy as it killed both of them. Many of the wargs in Muzgur's pack were slain by the pikemen of Rutabi's unit. As all this was happening, a couple of spiders ran around the rear and destroyed all my supplies. Now I would have to push through them.
The Emperor's warband was doing stunningly as they butchered the goblins before them and wounded/killed many spiders. Rutabi was still at the fore, pushing hard to try and break through to the Shaman heroes but was being immobilised by Muzgur to stop her slaying his batswarm.
With how well the fighting was going, I began to hope that I could, maybe, kill the enemy leader, break them and destroy two supplies and even win this game, despite such a tactical blunder at the beginning. It was at this moment, Matt launched an attack of sheer tactical brilliance.
Having observed me do my move phase, he first immobilised Rutabi for the last time with Muzgur. He then cast enrage beast on a spider that I had been unable to reach. This was followed by Ashrak then casting Shroud of shadows on the same spider. Too late, I realised the danger, as this invisible, enraged spider sped through my lines and pounced on the Emperor, who was then trapped by a goblin and...a batswarm...oh no....
With my fight value halved, and Rutabi unable to Heroic Combat due to the immobilise. This enraged spider now had a golden opportunity on the Emperor. Despite him rolling a 6, he was defeated and I could only hope for divine intervention as the S7 spider had 8 strikes on him, rerolling failed wounds.
Predictably, I didn't have a leader for long. I also lost a bearer to the follow up strikes from the goblin and batswarm.
Having suffered a big loss, I pushed as hard as I could to try and get the objectives that I thought I could. In those last few turns, I managed to destroy the right hand supply, the furious Easterlings achieved the break on the enemy but were themselves broken and Rutabi got ahold of Ashrak with some warriors and slew him in the dying stages of the game. I could only glare at the fiendish Muzgur as the game ended, while he was almost within my grasp.
I had broken Matt and destroyed a supply, while he had broken me, killed my leader and smashed up all three of mine and got himself a, well earned, 9-3 victory.
Results
I had managed to achieve 3 wins and 3 losses, however with my wins being fairly wide margins and the losses not being too terrible, I had scored 38VPs and a difference of +13. With that I had placed 17th out of the 38 players and wasn't unhappy with that.
The only future tournaments that I am booked in for, at the time of writing, are:
To War! (EAHC league) (20th Aug)
Warhammer World Team Championships (10/11th Sept)
I will try to do a write up for one of or even both of those events, we shall see.
