THIS IS ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED AT THE TOURNY (just so you know what its about if your not sure if you want to read it all)
I just got back from the tourny and id say things went well. I got a minor victory against dwarves in ill met by moonlight, a draw in storm the camp (against haldir_strikes!), and a major victory against rohan and dwarves (rohan all cavalry)
in all the games i was super aggressive with the dragon, which paid of so much, even though it earned a reputation of getting terrible rolls to win (in everygame). shooting is key to getting good heroic combats
the first game, ill met by moonlight, was a great game. everything did what i hoped (apart from the dragon not killing enough). we got stuck in combat in turn 1, but by turn 2 the dragon was already doing his job and taking on the big stuff, principally dain (but killed him later on turn 4), then later on proceeded to draw the attention of gimli, balin, and up to 6 kazad, thus neutralising them for most of the game, and killing some kazads in the process. dwarven armor proved itself, even though he had only 44 models totals (to my 69 gobs and a dragon), he managed to break my force (i just cant roll any 6s), but because i won some heroic moves, and cause the dragon can get to heros to stop standfasts (flying stuff is THE BOMB!!!) alot of his army fled (a lot thanks to the dragons -1 to courage). in the end he had gimli, balin, and 2 kazads, and a shield warrior.... all attacking the dragon cause he was doomed. so i honoured his last stand and just had my goblins watch
things learned: the dragon is not reliable to win fights, after he uses his might, he often just got a 5, so gimli kept on beating him with his might. prowlers are worth their weight in gold, throwing weapons with +1 to wound, perfect against dwarves. and the shaman + durburz combo is sooooo nice
game 2 was storm the camp against Haldir_strikes. this was the most interesting game, as we both new the strong and weak points of each others army, and had a good idea of what the other person was going to do. the dragon powered forward and got straight to the elven line, next turn he won a heroic combat and charged galadrial (he had ppl blocking her, but my volleys killed them), but then rolled a 3 to win and failed to kill her (in fact he rolled that twice in a row, and later 2s and in others 4s....). after that i didnt get a chance to charge galadrial (i was lucky i got a chance in the first place), but the dragon did distract a sizable chunk of his force, including galadiral (always trying to immobilize). so in the end we both knew that we were going to play defensive, so he moved his archers and cavalry out, but i had a long wall of gobs waiting (1/2 of the wall was archers.... calalry got shot up a bit, eomer dismounted, and shot up other stuff that was coming at them). i had a group of goblins that followed behind the dragons wake, and could of gotten to the objective depending on how well the dragon did. so we ran out of time and called it a draw
this game would of turned out differently if we didnt have a time limit. he attacked a goblin wall that was about 18" long with just 8 cavalry, and several of them got shot down or dismounted (but if we had more time then he wouldnt of tried this).
things learned: archery plays a big part if you start from a long way away (i hid a big part of my army while my archers tried to take out his archers), and volleying is perfect for taking out shamans (D3 against str 3 bows, and once he takes a wound fury is gone (but i hid him for quite a while)). you cant rely on the dragon to kill stuff, but you can rely on him to distract a good chunk of their force
game 3... i liked game 3.... It was meeting engagement and i was against the mass cavalry, theoden, gamling with banner, and dain and his 10ish kazad. deployment was everything for me and i got to pick first. i chose a long edge that had 2 large woodland areas on the sides. this was just what i wanted as cavalry were usless in the woods and so were forced to attack me in a choke point (my goblins fit the gap perfectly, and i still had some gobs lying on the flanks), my archers split in to 2 groups, each went into one of the woodland areas. I was REALLY bold with the dragon this round, and had him charge headlong into all the cavalry (dwarves took a while to catch up). first turn on combat and the dragon was surrounded, but still killed 3 guys, after that he had most of his guys give up on the dragon and go for my army. the choke point was BRILLIANT, he had to charge me directly (if it was an open field, i would of gotten flanked so easily) and because i had so many guys he was always against at 2 or 4 guys, so even with the charge my gobs killed the same has him. the dragon got surrounded by all the dwarves but dain and a few RRK, lost combat but only took 1 wound (i lost 3 fate to a single volley shot.... OF MY OWN!!), next turn he flew out of there and charged theoden and gamling (i just HAD to get rid of gamling's banner). the rohirrim died off pretty fast, and the dwarves only joined in the fray in the last few turns. in the end his was fighting to break me (and hoping that we would run out of time), but his surviors were mostly on the right side, so i avoided them and simply surrounded the guys in the middle and left (save dain, a RRK and a kazad, they were far enough from my big mob of goblins to not get surrounded)
things leaned: cavalry need to attack the flank if they can or else they face too many ppl (well if fighting a mob army like gobs). if you dont have magic then the dragon is going to ruin your day, he will eat you bit by bit and will eventully get to your heros (he learned from my other games and had a triangle of guards around his heroes, but then had the rohan heroes fight on the front line, so i moved my goblins out of the way and charged the 2 guys with the dragon)
a trick that i learned is to volley/ shoot at ppl that block a path to something, i did this and was then able to charge galadrial with the dragon, even though he thought she was safe from him.. so if you want ur heroes to be properly safe from ppl w/ heroic fights then you need 2 layers of guards (evil has a trick to counter this: shoot into combat to kill your own guys and stop heroic fights)
this tournament had alot of variety, there were all sorts of armies: army of the dead, dwarves, goblins (me), elves -rohan, elves - gondor, dwarves -rohan, KHAND (ive never seen this army before, only in the books), isengard (with 3 bombs!), mordor, elves-numenor... some of the armies i REALLY wanted to vs was Khand, isengard (those bombs make for a very interesting game), and the elves-numenor army (it had gil-galad, isildur and elendil! that combo can kill just about anything!)
Even though i did pretty well, i came second last (because my army is only part painted... so if it was painted i could of gotten 6 more points, getting me to 3rd or 4th place)
i really liked todays games, and it has reinvigorated my love for sbg, wotr is fun, different, and has great combos, but sbg has all the little moments where a goblin holds off 5 elves, or a lone archers makes an amazing shot (one of my archers that sneeked behind enemy lines sniped a banner in game 1!)
annoyingly i got a really low score for army composition, i guess it was too power gaming having the dragon and then just the goblins essentials to get max numbers...
aaaaand i won something in the luck draw again!! they give out 4 of them and there are only 12ish ppl, so you have a decent chance of winning
anyway i got grimbold, but they allow you to trade in your prize for a different one or for a voucher! so i will soon have druzhag! (they didnt have it in stock, so i have to wait)
ive used the dragon a lot lately so i think ill hold off for a while and try to get more beasts (bats please!)
so now i think its time to finish the beast army that ive always wanted (wargs, bats, spiders, and the dragon at high pts lvl)
hell this is the most ive ever written (thats not an assignment), so thanks to anyone who reads it all