Hey, well I had the tourny yesterday and i thought Id leave a bit of feedback for you guys
this is the list I took:
Durburz 70
Druzhag 100
The Dwimmerlaik (allied) 125
7c goblins with shields 140
6c Goblins with shields 120
6c Goblins with shields 120
5c wargs 100
5c wargs 100
1c goblins with bows 20
Dragon with magic 475
Shade (allied) 100
Fate: curse of morgoth 25
1495pts
firstly Ill say that this tourny was at a GW, and we didnt have very many ppl come this time (only 7!) and there were only 4 ppl that seemed to really know what they were doing. 2 of them were guys from my club (one took gondor w/ no magic, but lots of might, the other watchers of katara battlehost w/ dalamir and khamul (only 3 might but alot of stuff)), sadly i didnt get to go up against either of them as they some of the best in the area, the other 2 is me and this guy about 17 named Cailen, but he still made some big errors. the other 3 ppl were 2 old guys and this other guy whos about 17 as well.
ill try to be brief in the bat reps as i could rant on about tons of stuff
first game against Cailen who had 4c GC, 4c Ogsciliath vets, 4c rangers, 3c and 5c of knights of MT, with gandalf and aragon (both were in GC most of the time). oh and glorfindel
malstrom, the high ground.
most of my stuff came on the bottom or left, and most of his stuff came of the right (nazgul and 7c gobs came on right, but wings of terror to safety). pretty much he spent too much time shooting while i cleaned up the 3c knights (my 6c gobs came in behind on the left XD) and made a battle line (now it was like battle for the pass). the dragon charged the GC in the flank and heroic fight (gandalf epic def), leaving them with 1.7c of GC left, and not putting a scratch on my dragon. cause of pall of night, and the threat of a dragon of the flank, he never charged me w/ his big formations. in the end i moved my gobs and dragon on the hill, but there was like 3mm of space for him on there, so he epic journeyed.... (dwimmerlaik failed to stop it). dragon was F0 cause of gandalf, didnt want to charge them w/ dragon cause duels from gandalf and aragon could REALLY hurt, and aragons company gets +2 to wound.... so it was a draw (but if the game went longer i would of wiped him out). oh, and the shade failed to show up this game
when i got home i did the math and i think if gandalf also called a duel as well as aragon they could of killed the dragon (if i charged who ever won that fight would win the game cause of all the points we would of given (dragon and aragon and gandalf are expensive, so whichever side gets wiped out loses...))
that game was annoying, I pretty much had the game but forgot about epic journy, if i remembered that i would of completly covered the hill w/ gobs
oh, and glorfindel was annoying that game, he heroic fight from wargs into gobs, then dueling druzhag... (which i found out is illegal, duels have to be called at teh start of the phase...)
the next 2 games were against the old guys
next was battle for the pass, sieze the prize against gondor again
the 2nd game was a bit silly, the dragon ripped his army apart. he charged it w/ small formations of knights alone..... so they got wiped out and this big 6c got flanked by the dragon.... so they lose 3c in 1 fight phase. after that i jsut had my whole army attack at once, and annihilated him. I only lost 1c of wargs that i summoned and the shade just stood in the back of my army.... didnt need to worry about duels cause they used all the might to resist magic
3rd game was shieldwalls, field of swords against isengard
Id vs'd this guys a few times before, so he knew how dangerous my army was. i had him go first but he just stayed there. everything of mine moved up, the dragon right im front of his morgul knights. knowing he couldnt let the dragon charge he had the knights charge him, heroic fight and i wiped out the knights. he moved his army almost to the back of the board to avoid the dragon getting behind. this is where the shade got its time to shine. his isengard trolls were useless cause of the shade (3 attacks from them lol), so i wiped them out, lurtz was usless as ES wouldnt work and he couldnt call the duel in the first place (dwimmerlaik), but the dragon and durburz who were out of the shades range called duels, ES, heroic fight on his 5c uruks w/ saruman and lurtz. we called it there as he had no chance and had barely hurt me (killed 4c of wargs and 2c of gobs)
at first i was happy i was going up against the old guys, but then it turned out to be no challenge at all. hopefully Ill be able to vs the other 2 next time at the club. that way I'd get to see how good my army really is.
what i learned:
blackshields are good, but not that necessary, not having them didnt make a difference
the dragon + heroic fight annihilates everythings (use durburz's OL so u can use the dragons might to resist magic or for when the dragon is out of range of durburz)
the shade is REALLY good if you can get him in the right place, if he's in a bad place he could ruin the game for you. (I want to keep him for now)
the dwimmerlaiks rule is really good, everyone take khamul/betrayer/ KoU cause its easy to see how good they are. the dwimmerlaik is just as good (some ppl stopped using heroics cause of him, so even if he does fail to block, just his presence will deter ppl)
OMG the dragon is sooo good, cause he is flying is easy to avoid dangerous stuff, and most ppl dont have really elite stuff to take him down, i reckon everyone should have a really elite unit. an army made up of average stuff just cant deal with the dragon (although its still possible, last tourny the dragon almost died to the guy in my 3rd game (sarumans magic)). sure he costs 1/3 of my army, but he is just as good as 1/3 of my army put together
I said that my army is like a hammer and anvil, well its more like a nuke and anvil (dragon being the nuke
)
Edit: i just counted the approximate points that the dragon killed through out the tourny: 1200pts
so ya. thanks General Elessar, spuds4ever and Blackmist