The Tournament
This was an EAHC league event with 900pts per player. There was also the secret objectives in play from the Matched Play Guide as a tiebreak and bonus prize.
And finally, we could each bring a piece of scenery (Believe up to 8" squared in size or something), ideally themed to our army, and replace a piece on the board with it. Another option was to bring a large piece of terrain that could cover a board edge (one guy brought the Black Gate).
The final rankings would take a vote for each of the best terrain piece and most sporting amongst your opponents and add them as soft scores to get a final ranking.
My Army
I was unsure what to bring for this, as the birth of our next child is approaching, so I was to vary my armies as much as I can prior. After some browsing, I decided to take the Army of Erebor, with father and son duo, Gimli and Gloin.
For my terrain piece, I remembered our local, CJ, giving away misprints from his 3d printer for free, and I had claimed a throne of Erebor. At 1"x1" it was an utter waste of a gaming advantage, but it gave me a reason to get it painted and fit the theme perfectly.
Game 1- Breakthrough (Vs. Fergus (Rivendell))
Opponent's Heroes: Elrond, Glorfindel, Elladan, and Elrohir
Opponent's Warriors: Rivendell Knights and High Elf Warriors
*Objectives in all pictures are marked in red.
We both deployed our lines, I made a strong wall across the centre with crossbows to the front and Fergus put his cavalry a little outside my charge range. Another block of infantry with archers to centre of my line, also far back, and Glorfindel with his unit to my far right.
I had Gimli and Gloin to my left, Dain in the centre and the captain to the rear and right.
The elves all sit and shoot at me, but most miss. I return my shots and kill a couple of the archers. My captain rushed with his unit around the ruin to engage Glorfindel’s elves.
The following turn, the elves advanced, and not wanting to concede ground, I also did. The captain’s unit attacked Glorfindel’s. The goat riders flanked and killed a few elves with their warspears after the captain used his free heroic combat to slingshot them around.
Gimli and Gloin were engaged by the elven cavalry. Over the next several turns, Gimli fought Elrohir and eventually dismounted him. While Gloin faced Elrond and dismounted him before he and his dwarves took him down to 1w, 0f.
Elladan then stepped in and took Gloin away from his father. Managing to incredibly withstand ~9 strikes on his horse, before losing it to Gloin’s rerolls. Elrond similarly used his special wrath of Bruinen rule and failed to hit 9 dwarves, only knocking over Gimli and killing a crossbow.
Meanwhile, the Captain’s unit decimated Glorfindel’s elves and managed to stop him breaking out to seize our rear objective. The Captain himself withstanding several combats with the big man himself and surviving the game on 1w, 0f.
Dain’s role in all this was to barrel into the infantry before him and use overwhelming force to smash through, getting to the archers at the rear, who he slew to claim the far objective for us.
I had claimed both central objectives with more models in range, claimed the one in Fergus’ deployment uncontested, wounded Elrond, broken the elves and had a banner remaining to win 12-0.
My secret objective was to have my cheapest hero not die, which I narrowly avoided.
Game 2- Command the Battlefield (Vs. Will (Battle of Fornost))
Opponent's Heroes: King Earnur, Glorfindel, Cirdan and Minas Tirith Captain
Opponent's Warriors: High Elf Warriors, Minas Tirith Warriors, and Knights of Minas Tirith
I got generously gifted priority by Will. And ended up with Dain in the South-East, Gimli nearby in the South and the Captain in the West. Gloin hadn’t arrived.
Will had Earnur arrive slightly North of Dain, Cirdan came on in the middle of the South, Glorfindel in the North-West and I placed his Captain right behind Gimli, who tried to slip away.
The following turn, I let them take priority without contest and the Captain ran, with a knight charging Gimli’s unit to hold them back. In response, Gimli charged him with many dwarves and called his free Heroic Combat. Giving chase after bringing the Knight down, and the next turn, catching and killing the Captain also.
As this happened, Cirdan had placed himself between the edge of the board and a building. When Gloin’s warband arrived behind them, trapping them between those that had recently arrived, and the quickly approaching unit of Gimli.
Cirdan made a break for it, but Gloin quickly tore up his rearguard and Gimli caught him against a wall. And with a, completely unnecessary, Heroic Strength was instantly slain.
Glorfindel was hurrying down the board to attempt to save Cirdan. When it was clearly too late, he instead did a hairpin turn and rushed my screaming Captain, who was now facing his second Glorfindel in as many games. He and his warband were dead in a turn!
Gimli and Gloin regrouped and moved on Earnur, as Glorfindel hurried up to join the fray, dodging the occasional crossbow bolt. The dwarves began fighting the King’s men and killing several, but struggling overcome the leader himself. In the last turn, I had one last shot on him with Gimli and Gloin doing a Heroic Strike, but he managed to win the roll off and repel the attack. Otherwise, he’d have faced rerolling strikes from Gimli and Gloin as well as several warriors, a few supporting for wounding bonuses.
Dain had been stuck in a chokepoint along the East board edge and eventually pushed through, going for a Heroic Combat to finish the plugging men off, but blew it. In the last turn, I wanted to push into the North-East quadrant but couldn’t reach. So dedicated far too many dwarves into murdering the banner bearer. Near Glorfindel, one of my crossbows fired a cheeky shot that killed the elven banner in the South-West.
By the end, Will had uncontested control of three corners, while I had tightly contested control of the South-East, I had broken and 25%ed him. We recorded the result as a 9-5 win to Will, but as I write this, I seem to be getting a 9-6 result. It doesn’t matter too much, but I’m not sure where the mistake has come in.
For my secret objective, I had to claim a building with at least three guys to no opponents. I could have easily done this with Dain’s unit, but bloodlust for the banner came in hot and i forgot.
Game 3- Lead From The Front (Vs. James (Men of the West))
Opponent's Heroes: King Elessar, Eomer, and Legolas
Opponent's Warriors: Minas Tirith Warriors and Warriors of Rohan
For this last game, it actually turned out that my silly thematic terrain piece was turned deadly. As i subbed out a large piece Dol Guldor terrain for a small throne, allowing unrestricted shooting at the approaching Men of the West. This hadn’t been my intention, I’d done it to simply make a massive area for us to battle in.
I’d deployed Gloin to the left of the main force, Dain to the right and my Captain in the middle. Gimli was separate off tot the left.
James had placed Elessar in the middle, Eomer to my left and Legolas to my right.
James galloped Eomer up, hiding behind some stairs. After narrowly dodging a throwing axe from Gimli, rushed him into my exposed flank. Gloin fought him there and managed to dismount him and cause several wounds. Elessar and his men then joined the battle and attempted to rescue the King of Rohan. Gimli ended up facing Elessar and took a wound.
After this, I managed to keep troops between Elessar and my heroes as they cut down the Rohirrim and Gondorians. Eventually, Gloin’s dwarves slew Eomer. And as the end of the game approached, I tried one last gambit to overwhelm the King of Gondor, getting the deadly father and son duo upon him with many troops. We both struck up to F9 and Elessar managed to win the roll off, even disregarding the elven blade bonus. He had escaped my trap and struck down Gloin on the way out!
Dain, during all of this, had rushed up towards the right objective. Beside it, Legolas had run inside a ruin and hid on the balcony to shoot. Dain’s dwarves hit the defenders like a train and they killed the Rohirrim in very one sided fighting. Legolas shot at Dain throughout, but could not land a wound. As the end neared, James leapt him down from the balcony to try to contest the objective. I had Dain use his last might for a Heroic Combat and trap the elf against the wall, where he was hewn and slain!
The game ended with only Dain in range of an objective as Elessar, Gimli and my Captain were blocked from reaching others. I had broken James and neither of us had removed the other’s banner, giving me a 7-0 win.
My final secret objective, turned out to be the same as James had, to get double your opponent’s numbers within 6” of the centre. I outnumbered him, but he had managed to hold me off well enough to stop me.
Results
I had, for the first time in maybe two years, managed to go top heavy with two wins and a loss. And while the wins weren't titanic, the loss was pretty small too. This gave me 24VPs scored and only 5 conceded all day.
Once the soft scores had been added, and final rankings had been announced. I was pleasantly surprised that, amongst our ten players, I had managed to get the silver! With my opponents, Will and James getting gold and bronze respectively.
Events that I'll attend
18th July- You Shall NOT Be The Fellowship Of The Ring (Hosting- EAHC)
8th Aug- EAHC Event (TBC)
12th Sept- I Can't Carry It For You, But I Can Carry You (EAHC Doubles)
