In the third of an ongoing seres of reports, how did Dr Grant get on at the recent East Grinstead Wargamers Club SBG tournament? Get cuppa. Put feet up. Read on!
I was quite excited in the build up to this tourney as it was only about 45 mins away so nice and accessible. There would be 5 scenarios, 4 rolled randomly from the source books and 1 custom scenario, each game would last 90 minutes. The points limit was 750 and I settled on a bigger version of the army I took to the 300 point Close Encounters of the Third Age tournament in Finchley.
An interesting twist for this tourney was that you could take either 1 or 2 armies. If you took one then you obviously played all the games with it but if you took 2 (1 Good, 1 Evil) you picked which one you wanted to play with in each game but you had to use each army at least twice. I opted for one army as not only was it less models to paint/carry but it also meant there was no risk of coming up against an army that your Evil army would be brilliant at and having to use your Good army. I like keeping things simple. My army was thus:
Saruman (Leader)
2 Beserkers
5 Feral Uruk Hai
Armoured Uruk Hai Shaman
7 Feral Uruk Hai
Lurtz
7 Feral Uruk Hai
Vrasku
11 Crossbowmen
Grima Wormtongue
The basic tactics were to Channel Fury on the first turn to make my ferals even tougher than they already were and ensure that they wouldn’t get scared if I needed them to charge anything big and scary. Saruman would be running interference, primarily using Immobilise and Command to neutralise anything threatening in the enemy army, hopefully I’d be able to combine this with trapping the immobilised model with at least 3 ferals and then killing it to death. Grima would probably be deployed with a 3 Might hero, where he’s at his most useful as he essentially reduces them to a 1 Might hero. He’s easy enough to deal with but can be a deeply frustrating thorn in your enemy’s side for the entire game if you get lucky.
There were 5 oaths for this tournament, you had to pick one before each game and if you successfully completed it it was worth 1 extra tournament point. I’m a big fan of oaths at tournaments, they add an interesting extra element to the mix and ensure there’s something to fight for even if you’re losing a game.
The night before, my regular opponent Tom Harrison came over for a couple of practice games, he’d brought a slightly different army to his traditional all conquering elves adding in Treebeard and an Ent. He’d brought it for the fun aspect but it was certainly no pushover and after 2 games honours were tied at 1 apiece. The combination of gaming, beer, catching up, Hobbit Blu-ray and curry meant that we didn’t get to bed until about 2am, a foolish stratagem considering the 7am start that lay ahead....
However, the next morning we awoke on time, fairly rejuvenated and headed off round the M25 and 45 mins later we’d found the place without issue and headed inside. The venue was the function room in a pub and after everyone mucked in to help set up we were ready to go around half 9.
My first game was against semi-regular opponent and forum lurker Tom Lee, I’ve played Tom a few times now and he’s a really nice guy who fights a competitive game so I was looking forward to the game. Tom had brought a Pick n’ Mix evil army that was something like: Uruk shaman leading 12 warriors, Mauhur (his leader) leading 12 ferals, Vanilla Wraith leading 12 Morannons, Haradrim Chieftain leading 12 Corsairs/Watchers of Karna, Gundabad shaman leading 12 goblins. He had about 20 models more than me but I was relieved to see there was nothing on the board that really terrified me. I was however slightly concerned about the Wraith’s abilities, particularly Sap Will directed at my shaman and Saruman. The first game was Reconnoitre and, after a couple of turns, deployment rolls had largely favoured me, I had everything on the board and he was still missing two warbands making numbers roughly even. I’d deployed Grima alongside his (as yet unarrived) Uruk Shaman to prevent him channelling Fury to protect his Ferals (that’s my trick!) although when they did arrive Grima got surrounded by a bunch of goblins and quickly neutralised. The battle-lines then closed quite quickly with mixed fortunes, over on my left flank Lurtz had led the ferals into the Watchers of Karna and Corsairs and got fairly soundly thumped, Tom’s wraith had (as feared) sapped my shaman’s will and without Fury, the corsairs F5 meant my ferals went down alarmingly fast. The right flank was more positive though, another batch of ferals defeated his ferals in a fairly unique ‘feral-off’ and my crossbowmen who had deployed in a long thin line about 15” up the table were wreaking bloody havoc on his troops (Crossbowmen are very handy in Reconnoitre when your opponent often has to walk directly towards you). In one turn alone they managed to shoot down a handful of Uruks, his Uruk Shaman and his leader Mauhur! Not to be trifled with! It was around this time that the time limit started creeping up and I started to change my tactics, I’d killed his leader, Saruman was my leader and pretty safe and he was pretty close to breaking. Realising that we’d never have got to the 25% mark I forgot about trying to get off the board and just concentrated on breaking him. Ultimately, I was then able to bring my greater numbers to bear by throwing Vrasku and all my crossbowmen into the fray and things slowly turned in my favour. He made a bid towards the end of the game to heroic move/march his chieftain and about 7 warriors off the board but Saruman called a counter heroic move, won the roll-off and immobilised the chieftain, cancelling his heroic move and preventing him escaping - sterling stuff from my leader - BWA-HA-HA-HAAA! So the game ended with a 6-0 victory to me but with neither of us getting anyone remotely close to the board edge, Reconnoitre really isn’t built for a short time limit! My oath for this game was to not break which I achieved so I got off to a solid start to the day! Great game against Tom though, he manages to play a very tough game without taking particularly cheesy lists, really great opponent.
Game 2 was To the Death against a lovely guy called Joe and his Harardim army. He had the Golden King, Dalamyr, and a Haradrim captain leading about 40 haradrim, watchers of Karna etc. and a Dunlending chieftain leading some uruk crossbowmen and beserkers. To The Death suited my army well, I sat back and formed a net of uruks whilst my crossbowmen fired at the squishy D4 Haradrim. Joe was left with little choice but to attack me full on and charged a huge block of his army into my thin but deadly feral net. Over the next few turns a brutal fight broke out but slowly my Fury protected ferals were able to gain the upper hand, helped in no small part by Saruman immobilising his major heroes and Lurtz and Vrasku hacking them to death. Joe dealt with Grima nicely by surrounding him with some of his countless minions so he never really had an effect for the second game running. The biggest surprise of the game was when Joe sent about 6 Beserkers, his Dunlending Chieftain and his Corsair Captain (his leader) to deal with my 11 crossbowmen. I’m not entirely sure how but a few turns later all that was left was 4 of my crossbowmen! Best Crossbowmen ever! Ultimately I was to break him and kill his leader although in the last turn he was able to break me too so I got a 4-1 win. My oath was for Saruman to kill D6 models with magic, I got lucky and rolled a 1 and a few Sorcerous Blasts later that was done. Joe was a very nice chap too and played a good game, ultimately though his largely D4 army was always going to suffer against S4 Ferals and S4 crossbows.
At this point we broke for lunch. I’d been very impressed throughout the morning that the tournament organisers had brought pub grub menus around and then later come around and taken orders, we then all headed down and ate together in the same area of the pub, it was all very smoothly organised and was far better service than I’d expect from an indie tourney so well done to the TOs there!
Also at lunch I ended up eating with Suicidal Marsbar from this illustrious forum and we realised that we’d be playing each other next as we were both on two wins and two completed oaths. Joe had brought 2 armies along, an all hero Good army with about 6 models and an all monster army with 7, I think he just didn’t fancy carrying a lot of figures to the tourney! I’ve played Joe before and have a lot of time for the guy, despite having an all hero list it wasn’t ‘the’ all hero list you’d expect and consisted of Boromir of Gondor, Aragorn, Eorl the Young, Saruman the White and Gandalf the Grey, they were all mounted expect Gandalf who was on his cart. It looked like a fun list to play with/against. Similarly his all monster list was far from a meta list but still looked quite intimidating: 3 Cave Trolls, a Troll Chieftain, a Spider Queen, The Goblin King and...the Dwimmerlaik. It was this last addition that really terrified me, I thought I’d stand a good chance against the monsters: crossbowmen wounding on fives, Saruman immobilising, Fury making my Ferals auto-pass terror tests, Lurtz and Vrasku heroic striking to victory. Unfortunately the wraith could counter all of those things: Sapping Will on my Shaman and Saruman to reduce spell casting and remove Fury PLUS -1 courage to all my troops PLUS his filthy rule potentially making me use 2 Might every time I wanted to do a heroic action. I really did not fancy playing this list. Unfortunately Joe really wanted to use this list. Damn
The scenario was Hold Ground which gave me some hope. If I could get lucky with the deployment rolls I might be able to split up his monsters and deal with them 1 by 1. As he had so many monsters I picked an oath that meant I had to kill a monster by taking all its wounds in 1 shooting phase, if I was ever going to do this it would be against this army. I decided to deploy Grima with the Goblin King, effectively reducing his Might from 3 to 1, I thought this would be handy when trying to get through his frustrating Blubber save. As it was I think the deployment went largely in my favour with the Goblin King (mit Grima) facing off against my shaman and 7 Ferals, the Troll Chieftain in no man’s land and the Dwimmerlaik, 3 Cave Trolls and Spider Queen facing off against Lurtz, Vrasku, 11 crossbowmen and 7 Ferals. Saruman was yet to arrive...In the second turn I rolled a 2 for Saruman meaning Joe would be able to put him and his warband anywhere he wanted, knowing how important Saruman would prove to be I begrudgingly burned 2 Might to get him on the table where I wanted him. Saruman then immediately immobilised the Spider Queen (who had released all 3 broodlings so had no Will) and Vrasku was able to Heroic Combat into her and kill her in one Fight, that was an unexpected bonus. Early on I was also able to get a couple of cheap wounds on the cave trolls from my crossbows but they were getting awfully close. Meanwhile, Fury ensured I was able to charge the Goblin King with 4 Ferals (so glad my shaman was on the other side of the board to the Dwimmerlaik and his Sap Will) and I threw my 8 dice and got the 6 I sorely needed, Joe rolled his dice fairly nonchalantly and looked on in horror as he rolled 1,2,2 - jumping for joy I rolled my 16 attacks (re-rolling 1s for feinting) and did about 7 wounds. Then it was my turn to be frustrated as Joe saved 6 with his Blubber save and the last one with his Fate - Damn, I wouldn’t get another chance like that and the Troll Chieftain would be getting involved next turn. Sure enough the next turn the Chieftain had arrived to sort things out (having to move within 6” of Grima in the process) and I was now in trouble with 4 Ferals on the Goblin King and 3 on the Troll chieftain. I was dreading what was about to happen when he started Hurling and Barging me all over the place. Then the unthinkable happened, I got my 6 against the Goblin King and Joe rolled 1,2,4, thanks to Grima he could only use 1 Might and had lost again, this time I was able to do 2 wounds on him. Then the Troll chieftain rolled a 4,2,2 and thanks to Grima also couldn’t get to six, I was able to reduce him to 1 wound too. I don’t think either of us could really believe what had just happened. Over on the other side I was having good luck too, the high courage of my Ferals was ensuring I was charging the Cave Trolls despite the Dwimmerlaik’s Harbinger of Evil rule and Saruman was able to immobilise them one a turn and slowly take them down. Reducing the Troll screen also allowed me to get a clear path to the Dwimmerlaik, and I was able to trap him with ferals and take him down too. This really was going alarmingly well. At this point Joe’s force was now broken, the Goblin King took his courage and rolled a 3, he added his courage to make 6, he added 2 Will to make 8 and then realised that thanks to Grima he could only add 1 Might for a total of 9. And the Goblin King ran away. At this point the game was all but over and Vrasku Heroic Marched most of my army into the centre. By this point Joe only had the Troll Chieftain left and whilst he won a combat or two with him it was too late and the game ended with something like a 20-1 victory to me and I’d only lost 3 models. I wasn’t able to achieve my oath but I didn’t feel I could complain after that game. It was an odd game to reflect on, I felt like I’d played well but there was no getting round the fact that Joe had some simply appalling luck, rolling no higher than a 4 for the Goblin King and Troll Chieftain on 9 dice when all he needed was a 5, rolling a 3 on 2D6 for the Goblin King’s courage test when all he need was a 4, and me calling 3 Heroic Actions within range of the Dwimmerlaik and never making the 4+ roll to force me to expend 2 Mights points. I’m a firm believer that over the course of a game the dice rolls and the luck even out but I think this was one of those rare cases where it didn’t and by the end I felt quite embarrassed by a few of the dice rolls that certainly didn’t reflect what Joe deserved to get from the game. However, if was a fun game played in a good spirit and it was cool to play against a very different kind of army. I have to say a massive thanks to Joe for maintaining such a positive and easy-going attitude during what must have been a deeply frustrating game at times and this in part led to me giving him my Most Sporting Opponent vote at the end of the day.
At this point I was drawn against the One Ring’s own Southern Dunedain, tournament organiser Sam. I was looking forward to this as my first ever game against Sam felt long overdue and he had a very cool looking Hunter Orc army. Unfortunately as the TOs were (quite rightly) keen to ensure everyone played a different opponent we had to swap tables. In the end I was drawn against Godolphin and his fun looking Good monster army, Treebeard, an Ent, 2 eagles and Aragorn Elessar with Anduril. The scenario was To the Death and I couldn’t help but feel quietly confident about this one, 3 of his monsters didn’t have Might and he would need to spread his 5 models across at least 3 of the objectives if he wanted to stand a chance. I formed a thick Uruky line and slowly started to push forward, things got off to a good start in the first 2 turns as I was able to kill both Treebeard and the Ent with crossbow fire. I got quite lucky with my rolls to wound but ultimately 22 crossbow shots and 4 from Vrasku with Might were always gonna have a chance of some good rolls as they only needed 6s to wound the ents. After that the game became one of manoeuvre, he dropped his eagles and Aragorn back to hold 1 objective before he realised that he’d have to go after several if he hoped to win the game. Ultimately he was overwhelmed by Fury Protected Ferals, Saruman Immobilising, Lurtz and Vrasku Heroic Striking and Grima neutralising Aragorn’s Mighty Hero rule. I held 4 of the objectives by the end and so things ended with a 18-0 victory to me. My oath was to finish with more of my models in my opponents deployment zone than my opponent and I was able to achieve this. Godolphin played a good game and was a nice opponent to play against but he was always going to struggle with that army in that scenario.
And so the final round began and who should stroll up to the table but Thomas Harrison, I’d be playing my arch-rival in the final round to decide who would win the tournament - it couldn’t have ended any other way! I’d only met Tom in a tournament once before and he’d won, he also has an annoying habit of beating me again and again and again so I knew this wouldn’t be easy. On the plus side, this was the scenario that I’d beaten him at in our practice game the previous evening so I knew I had a shot. Tom had Treebeard, an Ent, and Legolas and Thranduil leading about 12 Wood Elves each. This was the tournament’s custom scenario, it was To the Death deployment and you scored 2VPs for every hero you killed and 3 VPs for killing the enemy leader. We both had more to lose by losing the match than we had to gain by winning the match so what followed was probably the cagiest game of SBG I’ve ever played. Killing heroes was all that counted so we both dropped them back out of range of the enemy force’s dangerous missile fire, this meant that for most of the game the armies were about 25” inches apart whilst Leggy inched forward with a bodyguard of elves protected by his elven cloak, using his auto-hit rule to try and take down one of my heroes (and he came very close). There wasn’t much more to report about the game until right at the end, Tom’s oath was that he had to kill 2 models with magic and the only way he could achieve this was by channelling Thranduil’s Nature’s Wrath and hoping the S2 hits took down 2 uruks. In the penultimate turn he had finally got him into position and let rip but unfortunately (for him) he was only able to take down one uruk. Then, right at the death, Saruman was able to command Thranduil out from his hiding place and into plain view where his elven cloak wouldn’t help him. I was then able to level about 8 crossbows at him and a few moments later all that was left of the King of Mirkwood was a bloody smear - seemingly from out of no-where I’d killed a hero and snuck a win - HUZAAH! My oath was for Vrasku to make more kills than Treebeard which I failed as they both killed a spectacular 0. In a lot of cases this wouldn’t have been a massively fun game but Tom and I know each other really well and were both playing the same way, I think it would have been a very different game if either one of us had been playing someone we didn’t know but as it was we actually had quite a laugh trying to outmanoeuvre each other and it was fun to play my arch-rival in the final game of a tournament.
And that was that, we had a brief break and swapped war stories as the TOs calculated the final result. The One Ring’s Damian took home a very well deserved Best Painted award for his Fellowship on display base, it was nice to see Damian rewarded for taking such a fluffy but uncompetitive army to a tournament and he’d done a staggering job of making the MOM plastic Fellowship look absolutely gorgeous - very much deserved. My first opponent Tom won the most sporting award, again very much deserved for an easy going guy who’s a lot of fun to play against. And finally I was delighted to be awarded the winner’s trophy, as there was only 14 players we knew the result before it was announced but it was still a cool feeling to win my first tournament particularly after coming through some tough matches. I was also pleased to see I’d received 2 or 3 Most Sporting Opponent votes, it’s nice to know that even though I won matches my opponents enjoyed the encounters, happy to know I’m playing in the right spirit!
Finally, Tom H, Southern Dunedain, Keith (who’d come second) and I all then went downstairs and had a few debriefing pints and discussed how the whole day had gone. It’s always nice to debrief with a few players after an event and discuss the highs and lows of the day once the in-match tension has diffused! Sam, Adrian and Craig put on a really brilliant tournament, it ran really smoothly and it was great to fit 5 games against different opponents into 1 day, massive thanks to them for all they did and I can’t wait for the next one!
On reflection I was really happy with the way my army performed, I honestly don’t think I’d change a single thing if I had to play it again. Normally you have a ‘man of the match’ or a ‘troop of the match’ that really stood out but I think everything performed admirably for me across the day: Grima was largely neutralised in 3/5 games but still managed to prevent an Uruk Hai chanelled Fury in 1 of those, won me the game against Joe’s Troll Chief and Goblin King and helped out against Aragorn in the 4th game. Vrasku and Lurtz were great as usual as valuable Might batteries, taking down a lot of monsters and heroes throughout the day. Saruman was spectacular as always. Immobilise on a 2+ is more often than not a game-winning spell and his Palantir allowed me to grab a crucial priority in nearly every game. The crossbowmen were absolutely brutal taking down Thranduil, Treebeard, an Ent, Mauhur, an Uruk Shaman as well as countless warriors throughout the day. And the Ferals, my dear, sweet Ferals, were once again worth every penny, tearing the heart out of the enemy forces again and again, reinforcing my belief that they’re the best troops in the game.
So that’s that, Tom and I drove home via a victory McDonalds for the second burger of the day (a good day) and I proudly placed my trophy right in front of the TV, much to my wife’s delight. Can’t wait for next year’s tourney where Dr Grant will return as defending Champion of the South - HUZAAH!
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Nice report, always good to hear about stuff from other people's perspective. Look forward to you coming down next year to defend your crown 
