Dr Grant’s Adventures at the Longbottom Carnival
Well met travelers, welcome to another of Dr Grant’s meandering mind-burps discussing his dizzying highs and terrifying lows in the UK tournament scene. As always, it won’t be short so grab a cuppa, plant yourself firmly in an armchair and come with me on a thrilling trip to Finchley.
To set the scene a little I’d like to draw attention to the Great British Hobbit League (see the thread below) which has been wonderfully co-ordinated by BlackMist this year and essentially means that your performance in every tournament goes towards a league ranking before the number 1 player is crowned at the end of the year.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=26381Throughout the last year I’ve attended 4 tournaments and have been lurking around 4th-6th in the league recently. Knowing that I still had the chance to improve my ranking I was keen to put in a good performance at Finchley. What was also very interesting was that all of the top 8 or so players in the league would be there and competing against each other in a ranked tournament for the first time all year - it was sure to be a highly competitive event.
With that in mind I quickly decided to take my Feral-based Isengard horde that had done so well at East Grinsted in June, it was a very similar army just jigged a bit to incorporate my shiny new mounted Saruman model, my glorious horde was thus:
Saruman (leader) on horse
2 Uruk Hai with pikes
5 Feral Uruk Hai
Lurtz
7 Feral Uruk Hai
Uruk Shaman with Armour
7 Feral Uruk Hai
Vrasku
11 Uruk Hai Crossbowmen
Grima
750 points
A few practice games against regular opponent Tom Harrison had led to promising results and I’ve played a lot with this type of army recently so I at least fancied my chances of putting in a good performance. However, I was 99% certain that there would be Gundabad Moria horde with shades, Full Fell Beast armies and Wood elves with Leggy and Thranduil mucking about so it was certainly not going to be easy.
The tournament was on the Sunday and Monday of the August Bank Holiday, Tom was off to a stag do on the Saturday and getting the train to Finchely Sunday morning so had asked me to bring his army along for him. Great, even more pressure that I’ll forget something, Tom had a lot on the line too as he was currently number 1 in the league and had to defend his position.
So, at 8am on a grey Sunday morning I packed up my toys and headed off to Finchley, arriving at 9am as the doors opened and everyone chipped in to help set up and catch up with old friends/rivals. Some of the tables were absolutely fantastic, particularly the top table which was an Erebor themed board full of columns (mission for the weekend - play a game on that table).
There were also some lovely certificates on display and the top prize was the WETA replica Key to Erebor, we wanted it precious, all our thought was bent on it.
The shiny prizes
The coveted Key - we wants it precious
One of the highlights of this tourney was that there were 26 players signed up which I think makes it the best attended indie tournament all year, fantastic stuff. However, at 9:50, there were only 25 players, Tom H. hadn’t turned up and wasn’t answering his phone, it seemed it had been quite the night out...I finally got through to him at 10:15 at which point a very sleepy voice groaned his apologies down the phone and promised he’d be there in an hour, the fool of a took had missed his first game.
My first game was against TO Damian Grantham (The One Ring’s Damian) and the scenario was Reconnoitre. Recon had been modded for this tournament to award the following VPS
• You score 1 Victory Point if more of your models than your opponent have exited the battlefield via the table edge opposite your deployment zone.
• You instead score 3 Victory Point if twice as many of your models have exited the battlefield via the table edge opposite your deployment zone.
You instead score 5 Victory Point if three times as many of your models have exited the battlefield via the table edge opposite your deployment zone.
You score 1 VP for wounding the enemy leader or 3 VPs for killing them.
You score 1 VP for breaking the enemy or 3 VPs if you break the enemy and remain unbroken.
I really liked these changes as it increased the significance of breaking the enemy/killing the leader whilst still maintaining the spirit of the scenario. It also meant the horde armies couldn’t just run 10-20 models off the table and then hold up the enemy in the centre, it was really well thought out.
The first round gets underway with a packed hall
Damian had gone for a themed North Rohan list with Aragorn, Leggy, Gimli, Treebeard and mounted Eomer leading 3 Royal Guard and a Son of Eorl. To his credit Damian always takes fun, themed lists with cool characters however much they might struggle competitively. With only 9 models Damian was always going to struggle in this scenario and so it proved. Damian had deployed with his cav on one flank and his beasty heroes on the other, Grima was with all the heroes whispering in Aragorn’s ear and calling him fat, neutering his Mighty Hero rule. Gimli soon put a stop to that by charging Grima every turn and pinning him in place. Damian’s Rohirrim bravely charged into the ranks of Ferals but just couldn’t compete with the numbers and were eventually overwhelmed thanks to Saruman keeping Eomer busy with a few timely Immobilises until he was overwhelmed. By this point Damian only had 4 models (albeit very tough models) on the board so, under the new victory conditions, I only had to move 12 models off the board to guarantee the 5VPs. Once this was achieved I then turned my attention to Treebeard (his leader) and, after a few turns of heroic strikes and Immobilises, was eventually able to take him down scoring the maximum 11 VPs. It was a fun game and having the three hunters and Treebeard on the board made for good fun but there was only so much that a 9 model army could do to stop my 40-odd models running off the board. Most importantly though it was a lot of fun and played in a good spirit, my campaign was underway!
About halfway through this game a ropey looking Tom H. had turned up explaining he’d only got in at 5am and cursing his alarm clock and the effect it had had on his chances in the tourney. Don’t drink kids.
After a spot of lunch I found myself drawn against Mik (The One Ring’s BlackMist) at Lords of Battle on table 2, I’d never played Mik before but his reputation preceded him having won the UK Grand Tournament twice. This was not going to be easy. He had brought a very interesting army, he had about 50 Moria goblins, 2 shamans, 2 Gundabad shamans, Durburz, a couple of wild wargs and...6 Warg Marauders. Hmmm, I’d played a couple of Marauders before but never this many, it worried me somewhat. However, I must say that it was refreshing seeing a competitive Moria tournament army that avoided their traditional tricks: there was no Groblog, no Gundabad D6 front-line, no allied Shade or wraith, it was a well-themed, different force, albeit quite a scary one!
The scenery I was hoping would funnel his numbers
Deployment
Scenery helped me due to the presence of 2 huge buildings that channelled his forces down 2 narrow gullies, preventing him bringing his full numbers to bear. I had a bit of bad luck early on, losing the roll-off for a heroic move, if I’d have won I could have pinned him back blocked by the table edge and one building meaning he could only have about 6 models fighting at a time, as it was he was able to pour forward out of the gully and bring far more of his numbers to bear. I also made a fairly stupid mistake early one, after Mik called a Heroic Move I then positioned my troops as if he had completed his move, lining up some great shots with my crossbows. Mik then of course moved the rest of his models out of the crossbows arc and swarmed my models. I couldn’t believe how stupid I’d been! The game then became a bloodbath with all of our models quickly drawn into a massive battleline. The Lords of Battle score was tight throughout with the kill-count moving up fairly evenly through the teens and into the twenties, however, Mik’s Warg Marauders were really starting to dominate, 4 attacks on the charge and then 8 attacks against the knocked down losers was tearing big holes in my force and my ferals just couldn’t seem to get those crucial 6’s to win the combats. Even worse was that when I charged them (the traditional way to deal with cavalry) they still had 3 attacks to fight back with and even when I did win a fight their 3 wounds each meant I barely made a dent - horrible things. Still I was holding on and things were still even, thanks in large part to a rather spectacular Sorcerous Blast from Saruman that killed about 4/5 goblins. Going into the last turn it was really tight, it was time for my heroes to prove their worth! Lurtz promptly lost his fight and was ground into the dirt. Right. Saruman, who had been trapped by a marauder and 2 goblins, also decided enough was enough and lost his fight. Mik then had 10 dice needing 5’s to wound, 6 wounds later (!!!!!!) and my leader was a red stain on the battlefield. We counted the cost and Mik had won 36-27 for a 9 point victory, in the last turn Lurtz had given away 3 VPs and Saruman 6, if they’d won their fights it would have been a draw, if they’d then killed 1 tiny goblin I would have won. Absolutely agonising. However, as close as it was I can’t take anything away from Mik, he played a great game and deserved the win, it was really fun playing against a very different kind of Moria army and Mik was a really nice guy to play against which made losing that much more bearable. Seriously, though, those Warg Marauders, yikes.
The battlelines clash - note all the Warg Marauders causing havoc
And so I went tumbling down the rankings to table 5.
There I met Charles Simms and his monster army consisting of Druzhag, a Spider Queen, Dwimmerlaik, 2 Dwellers in the Dark, a Troll Chieftain, 5 Giant Spiders (think that was it). It was an intimidating force and I was perturbed to see the Dwimmerlaik in there, however I had the sort of army that could beat monsters so I figured I had a decent chance. The scenario was Domination where my large numbers would help but his beasties were on me very soon...
Things didn’t start that well, Saruman had to burn Might on a heroic move to get away from the Dwellers and certain death and my ferals proved unable to beat the relatively weak spiders in combat (who with their F4 and S5 made the perfect Feral killers). In the first few turns the Dwimmerlaik’s filthy rule was also very effective, draining Saruman’s Might and Will and Lurtz’s Might, the wraith also sapped my shaman’s Will so Fury was out of play making it a lot harder to charge and trap the terror causing griblies. Eventually though I was able to make some progress, taking down the Spider Queen and her broodlings and enough spiders to break Charles. He still had a lot of big griblies around though making a mess of my guys. Vrasku charge the Troll Chieftain with some crossbowmen and called a Heroic Strike, promptly rolled a 1 so the Troll still had the higher Fight and then was hurled through two crossbowmen, both of whom died, Vrasku then took 2 S3 hits and 1 S5 for the hurl, all of which wounded, killing him outright. Probably the most effective hurl I’ve ever seen. Lurtz was also failing courage tests with upsetting frequency and hiding in a wood refusing to charge anything. I’d also managed to beat and wound the Dwellers a few times only for them to regain their wounds in subsequent turns - curses! However, Saruman had now got into a position far enough away from the Dwimmerlaik to immobilise something every turn without risk and in doing so I managed to take down the troll chieftain, as always with monster armies, once a few of them fall you’re left with some very big holes in the line and I was able to bring numbers to bear on the others, finally taking down one of the troublesome Dwellers. I’d also managed to nab 4 of the objectives so was in a pretty good position. I managed to get Charles down to 25% whilst I was 1 model away from breaking and managed to win the game 18-0. However, I must say that that doesn’t give a fair representation of how close the game was and how easily things could have turned. I only had 1 or 2 models on each of the objectives and, had I been broken, they could easily have failed courage tests, immediately changing the score to 3-1. Still, as it was, I hadn’t broken and I was glad to have come through a tough game with such a good result.
As day 1 ended I was pleased with my progress, there were 3 players on 3 wins and a whole bunch of us on 2 wins, I’d need Joe H. Jamie G. and Mik to make a slip-up on day 2 if I was to have any chance of taking home that shiny key.
And so we all headed to the pub to debrief over some pub-grub and a quiet pint. 5 hours and a similar number of pints later and we were all feeling rather exuberant and heading home for a good night’s sleep seemed like madness (club chairman Dave’s Jagerbomb round might have had something to do with this), at kicking out time we were thrilled to find a late night bar open with a DANCEFLOOR! Tom H. had had quite enough by this point being dead on his feet so headed back to the B&B whilst I and the remaining 7 or so players headed into the bar. By this point I must confess that my memories are mysteriously confused, I do however remember throwing some shapes with TO Chris (The One Ring’s White Wizard) on a dancefloor full of youngsters who were staring at us in awe (YES IT WAS DEFINITELY AWE). Sometime later, having put the youth of today to shame we wandered out into the night and headed for the nearest kebab shop. Upon reaching the B&B a sleepy Tom had to come outside to let me in and was ABSOLUTELY THRILLED when everyone pulled him into a group hug and I repeatedly offered him the remnants of my kebab.
The next morning Tom asked me if I remembered stripping to my boxers and singing him the theme tune to Phantom of the Opera. I did not.
So there we are, the end of the first day, still reading? Good for you, why not stretch your legs though, go and make yourself another cuppa, cos on day 2 things are gonna get INTENSE.
My alarm went off around 7:45 and I woke up. I wished I hadn’t. In a somewhat unsurprising twist I was not feeling all too clever, we headed for Breakfast at the B&B and, well, let’s just say I had to run back to the room twice and spend some time in the bathroom. By about 9am we needed to head to the club and I was feeling just about human enough, the one thing I was certain of was that I didn’t want to concentrate intensely for 9 hours on a strategy battle game. Oh.
Upon reaching the club I was somewhat relieved to see several other faces looking as bad as mine and we exchanged some wary smiles and nods, Dave hadn’t even made it in, apparently unable to leave the bed!
My first game of the day was on table 3 against Faan who had travelled from the Netherlands to attend the tournament! That was some seriously impressive SBG dedication! Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the distance he’d travelled, Faan had a very competitive army, he had Damrod and Madril each leading about 12 Fountain Court with shields and Thranduil and Galadriel each leading about 12 elf spearmen. Essentially this meant that Faan had a 24 long D7, F5 battleline with two attacks if they win a fight. The scenario was Hold Ground, one of my favourites, deployment went well, Galadriel had to burn 2 Might to appear in the right place and I was able to position myself well in a long thin semicircle. The battlelines soon clashed and my 2 attack Ferals proved their worth again and again, going toe-to-toe with the battleline in the centre and allowing my right flank crossbowmen to sweep round the back and attack the elf spearmen, denying Faan the spear support and Fight value advantage. My ferals on the left flank had also got in amongst the squishy Wood Elves meaning the Fountain Court were left on their own. A good sorcerous blast from Saruman killed a few elves and wounded Galadriel whilst I started to fold around an increasingly small circle of elves and men. However, Faan still had a lot of models and a good Nature’s Wrath from Thranduil cost me a lot of ferals. With Fann out of Might Grima made an uncharacteristically heroic move, charging 2 elves to pin them in place away from the objective, he was subsequently charged by another but in a glorious twist won the fight! He then failed his courage test in the next turn and legged it but that’s beside the point. With both forces broken things were getting desperate and everyone was descending on the objective, every kill mattered here and even Saruman was charging in on his horse and riding a few elves down. He also blasted Thranduil into a wall which was fun to watch, even if the cursed elf survived. With Fury in play and Saruman’s voice of command, being broken didn’t affect me too much and the ring closed ever tighter around the objective. The first time we had to roll for the end of the game I think Faan would have won but thankfully I rolled a 4. In the next turn I was able to jump on Galadriel (who now had no fate and 1 wound) and kill her gaining me a few precious victory points. We then rolled to end the game and got a 1. It was time to count the cost. The tally revealed that Faan had 13 models within range of the objective to my 12, we were both broken making the score 14-13 to Faan but in that last turn I’d taken down Galadriel which made it 16-14 to me giving me the narrowest of victories. It was unbelievably close, the odd dice here or there and everything could have changed but sometimes that’s the way it goes and I was relieved to have come through such a grueling game. Particularly given how grim I was feeling.
At this point Tom and I wandered around the corner to get some food, I was just about feeling up to eating, however, upon getting back to the hall another wave of nausea hit me and I made my third trip of the day to the loo.
Suffice to say, as I rocked up to my penultimate game I was still feeling pretty grim. I think by this point Jamie and Mik were the only players on 4 wins and so they were drawn against each other, meaning one of them would drop a game. I was pleased to be drawn against Joe (The One Ring’s Suicidal Marsbar) on table 2, as anyone who follows these forums might know, Joe and I have a fairly bitter/friendly/hateful/hilarious rivalry and had now met in all 3 tournaments that we’ve both entered. Anyone who read my East Grinsted report may remember I managed to destroy his all monster army with some insanely good luck so Joe was keen for revenge. Joe also took one look at me and offered to call it a draw, very kindly offering to not play the game to give me a chance to recover. However, there was no way I was missing the chance to add another chapter to our rivalry so I sucked it all up and plunged onwards. He’d brought an improved version of his monster army consisting of: a Troll Chieftain (leader) Burdhur, 2 Cave Trolls, The Goblin King, a Dragon Knight and the thrice-cursed Dwimmerlaik. the scenario was To The Death and we deployed awfully close together. Things started well with my crossbowmen gunning down one of the cave trolls, The Goblin King then charge a couple of ferals and I sent in a few more in the hope of drawing some might. I watched eagerly as Joe rolled his dice and they came up 2,1,1 - even with all 3 Might the Goblin King couldn’t win the fight, my ferals rolled their 6 and then did an obscene amount of wounds (around 8 5’s from 10 dice or similar) Joe rolled his blubber saves and 4 got through, the Goblin King was, rather unexpectedly, dead. Neither of us could quite believe this, it was the exact same thing that had happened to Joe at the East Grinsted tourney and he began to mutter good naturedly about cursed dice when playing me - I was starting to believe him. I pinned Burdhur in place with 1 crossbowmen and then fired the rest into the combat, reducing him to 1 wound, Burdhur then got revenge by barging into more crossbowmen and smashing them up. I was eventually able to overcome the Troll Chieftain with immobilise and lots of ferals and the other cave troll fell in combat with another roll of 2,1,1. Late in the game the dragon knight managed to charge Saruman but I was able to swarm him and get the upper hand. The Dwimmerlaik was the last to fall and as he disappeared in a cloud of smoke Joe and I were left, again, staring at the board in confusion about what had just happened. Joe took solace in the fact that this time he’d killed 6 of my models, twice as many as last time. It’s hard to know what to say really, there’s no doubt that I had some good luck (although not as much as last time) but my army also has the weapons to beat this kind of monster army, Joe does seem to roll absolutely appallingly against me, I guess he’s just too nice
Most importantly, we had a good laugh again and Joe played in a really good spirit, he’s great fun to play against and, remarkably, the game cured my hangover completely, by the end of the game I was feeling much better and ready to move on to the final game!
By this stage, Mik was now the only player on 5 wins with about 4 of us on 4 wins. I was drawn against Jamie Giblin on the top table (HORAAY! I got to play on Erebor) whilst Mik was playing Tom H. on table 2 (despite missing the first round, Tom had won all 4 of his games since and so was right in contention).
The Awesome Erebor board
The final game was a custom scenario in which 5 hobbits are placed in a similar manner to domination, each turn they are moved up to 4” by the player with priority and players can pick them up and carry them as heavy objects. Each Hobbit was worth 2 VPs to whoever was carrying it at the end of the battle. You also got 3 points for killing the enemy leader and 3 points for breaking the enemy and remaining unbroken.
At this stage, Mik was 1 win ahead of me and 14 VPs (the decider if TPs were drawn). We realised that if Tom H. beat Mik and made sure he scored 0 VPs AND I beat Jamie and claimed all 16 available VPs I could win the tournament. Right, that should be easy...
I knew Jamie but had never played him before, he was playing to claim the number 1 spot in the league and so was sure to play a tough game. He’d brought a fairly standard Moria tournament army, lots of Gundabads, lots of moria spearmen, Groblog, shamans and then a Ringwraith and Saruman and Grima for some offensive magic. I must admit I was pleased to see no Shades. Right from the start I could tell this was going to be a fun and somewhat bizarre game as we both placed our Grimas with each other’s Saruman’s - seems we were going to be using our own tricks against each other! The deployment for the scenario was the same as in Hold Ground and I got really lucky rolling 6’s for 3 of my warbands so I was able to set up a really strong battleline on one side of the table, Jamie had completely opposite luck and had to spend 4 Might to stop his warbands being placed behind mine and slaughtered. Right from the start it was nice to see the friendly banter going on between the top tables. These games would probably decide who won the tournament (between Mik and I) and who went to number 1 in the league (between Jamie and Tom) so there was a lot at stake but both games were played in a really light-hearted manner, perhaps not what you might expect in the last round of a tournament. Right from the start the game came to life, the moving objectives making for a very interesting dynamic, totally different to the normal rulebook scenarios. Early highlights included both of our Saruman’s Sorcerous Blasting each other’s Grima to death and a fairly unique situation where we both wanted to use our Palantir in the same turn resulting in a Palantir-off roll
And they say Blue V Blue games are silly.
My crossbowmen really shone in this game, scything down the warband across the table from them and constantly killing the model holding a Hobbit making them drop it. You could also compel models holding objectives to drop them so my Saruman and his Saruman and Wraith spent a lot of the game doing that. Having 3 magic users on the table made the game even more dynamic and objectives were changing hands almost every turn, it was brilliant fun. The Hold Ground style deployment and need to grab objectives had meant that Jamie hadn’t been able to form up his Gundabad/spearman battle-line and he got really unlucky with one shaman who failed to roll the 3+ for Fury twice and so was wasted. The Erebor scenery was absolutely fantastic though, it was something genuinely different as it blocked LOS without making it hard for models to stand up on difficult ground/slopes etc. This led to models with objectives cowering behind pillars out of charging/shooting sight and Sarumans ducking behind pillars and leaning out to immobilise each other - it really was great fun. As Jamie didn’t have a solid battle-line, my ferals were bale to gain the upper hand, even against the goblins greater numbers and I was closing in on Saruman and an objective quickly. Saruman fled into a concealed corner and set up a net of goblins around him whilst he leant out and blasted ferals left, right and centre. On the other side of the board Jamie was holding two objectives (2 goblins on each) and I had no models near them, thankfully, Jamie then broke and 3 of the cowards fled, the game had just swung dramatically back in my favour. Right at the death, Saruman decided that now was the time for heroes and so charged 10” towards those objectives and into Groblog, promptly failed to immobilise him and lost the fight, thankfully Groblog didn’t wound him though and he had achieved his objective of keeping Groblog away from the objectives. Next turn Saruman did immobilise him and then rode over the objective and claimed one of them - truly the work of a general! As the game ended Jamie’s Saruman had just about escaped, in a tiny corner of Erebor one goblin was holding a Hobbit and cowering behind Saruman whilst about 8 Ferals growled at them from about 2” away! It was an absolutely fantastic game that swung back and forwards several times and really highlighted the cinematic nature of SBG and the fact that the actions of a single lowly goblin can have a huge impact on a game - it was the best game of SBG I’d played in ages and a brilliant way to end the tournament.
The game ended 9-2 so, unsurprisingly, I hadn’t gained the VPs I’d needed, it was all a bit irrelevant though as Mik had slaughtered Tom on the neighbouring table, much to my disgust.
Near the end of game 6 - Note Saruman in the middle, poised to make a heroic charge into the goblins with the objectives in the bottom right corner. Jamie's Saruman and a goblin with an objective are cowering behind the triangular wall in the top right corner - great stuff!
And so that was that, tales were told and everyone helped put all the tables and scenery away with a heavy heart whilst Chris entered the final results and counted the cost. There were some awards given to players who had come from afar and Damian picked up another well-deserved Best painted army award. It surprised no-one to see that Mik had won the day, winning all 6 games and scoring the highest number of Victory Points. It was a well-deserved win and I was pleased to see a different army win a tournament, not the usual Moria-meta list - massive congrats to Mik on a well fought weekend. I was thoroughly chuffed to claim 2nd place and 2nd highest VPs and get a very lovely certificate, 5 wins from 6 games and losing to the winner is a good result by anyone’s standards. Far more importantly I got to play 6 great games of SBG and had a really wonderful weekend which of course is the main point that I attend these things.
Tom and I and a few others (including TOs Damian and Chris) then headed to the pub for a debrief and a drinky (coke I should add) and to discuss the weekend. We had nothing but good things to say about the tournament, it was fantastically well run, had some great scenery, great armies and great people. I can honestly say it was probably my favourite tournament I’ve been too and I’ve now come away with nothing but good memories. Massive congrats and thanks to Damian and Chris for organising, can’t wait for next year!
On reflection I wouldn’t change anything about the army, its a solid list that can deal with most situations, Saruman’s horse was a fantastic investment (totally worth swapping 2 beserkers for 2 pikemen to afford it) as it allowed Saruman to get to where he was needed each turn and to stay away from enemy spell-casting range and the Dwimmerlaik’s area of effect etc. The crossbowmen and Grima were great and I maintain that Ferals are, point for point, the best troops in the game. As a result of my performance I managed to climb to 3rd in the league with everything to play for heading into the Preston tourney in October.
Until then my friends!
Dr. G.
Photos courtesy of White Wizard, Souther Dunedain and BlackMist
If you enjoyed this meandering report, you might also like these other adventures starring Dr Grant:
East Grinsted SBG tournament
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=26183Warhammer World Battle Brothers doubles tournament in June
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=26054Warhammer World Throne of Skulls in February
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=25237
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