Our very first event of the year was organised by Conquest Creations' own Jacob Lucas, with his 500 point tournament- Triumph. Overall I've now been to several of Jacob's tournaments over the years and they have all been a great time with plenty of awesome terrain and competitive matches. So, there was no way I would be missing out on it, and I would highly recommend getting down to the next whether you're experienced in the tournament scene or not!
Format
Like many tournaments in the Melbourne scene, Triumph would be a 1 day event, but we would be squeezing in 4 games which definitely was a slog, but I'll happily take it in order to achieve more accurate final results with less tiebreakers. Each round was assigned one of the 6 scenario tables from the Matched Play guide in the Players Pack, with the veto system deciding which would be played for each round. With no other special rules to worry about it was time to make a list!
The List
Keeping up with my horrible habit of only taking newly acquired models I had never used, I decided to turn my attention to the spooky, scary skeletons that reside in the Angmar army list, but obviously with a fun twist. Everybody has seen the classic Witch King x Guluvhar double team that is an absolute powerhouse of a combo (and possibly one of the best in the entire game), and although I have a certain winged vampire on the painting table, I knew now wasn’t the time. Instead, I turned my attention to the devastating staples of the list: Barrow Wights, Spectres and Orcs of course! Very quickly I formulated a warband for them that covered all the bases:
Barrow Wight
4x Angmar Orc Warriors with Shield
4x Angmar Orc Warriors with Shield and Spear
1x Angmar Orc Warrior with Bow and Two-Handed Weapon
1x Angmar Warg Rider with Shield and Throwing Spears
1x Dead Marsh Spectre
The warband looks to serve as a multitool, with Defence 5+
on the vast majority of troops, movement and shenanigans from the Warg Rider
and Spectre, killing power via Blades of the Dead, lots of axes on the front line and the Two-handed weapon, and a
cheeky honesty bow. Obviously the threat of the Barrow Wight is the main thing
we are relying on here both to remove enemy heroes and give Terror to the
rank-and-file Orcs. So, with such an apparently well-built warband built, I
simply doubled it!
With 274 points spent and 24 models, it was at this point I realised that my army had a leader-sized hole in it and a serious lack of Might points. Despite this it was only thematic at this point to take another potent spellcaster, but one who also lacked the all-important Might points; The Dwimmerlaik! A Ringwraith that I had never seen played on the table, the Dwimmerlaik sports the incredible special rule Sap Fortitude, allowing him to spend one of his 16 Will points in response to an enemy hero spending any points of Might, Will or Fate within 6”. On a 4+ the opponent would need to spend another point of that type or have the original point be lost and any Heroic Action being called to be cancelled altogether!
This, paired with the barrage of Paralyses from the two Barrow
Wights would make resisting their spells far tougher. Hilariously though, this
took my Heroes to a cumulative 0 Might (ooft), 26(!) Will and just 2 Fate. Now
with a dangerous trifecta of spell slingers capable of dropping all but the
most resilient of heroes on their backsides and many terror-causing orcs (assisted
by the Nazgul’s Harbinger of Evil), this unique army looked as such, ready to
bring down the world of men:
Dwimmerlaik on Armoured Horse
6x Angmar Orcs with Shield
4x Angmar Orcs with Shield and Spear
1x Angmar Orc with Banner, Shield and Spear
Barrow Wight
4x Angmar Orc Warriors with Shield
4x Angmar Orc Warriors with Shield and Spear
1x Angmar Orc Warrior with Bow and Two-Handed Weapon
1x Angmar Warg Rider with Shield and Throwing Spears
1x Dead Marsh Spectre
Barrow Wight
4x Angmar Orc Warriors with Shield
4x Angmar Orc Warriors with Shield and Spear
1x Angmar Orc Warrior with Bow and Two-Handed Weapon
1x Angmar Warg Rider with Shield and Throwing Spears
1x Dead Marsh Spectre
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| Ready to Triumph on the battlefield! |
With a veritable horde on the board at 500 points with
plenty of Terror and magic to assist in controlling the tempo of the match
(particularly as I am lacking the usual might to call heroic moves and
marches!). Obviously the Witch-King or possibly even the Tainted may have been
a better option in a list such as this, but the allure of an army with not a
single point of Might was hard to pass on, as well as the simplicity of never
having to worry about when to utilise Might, only when to steal it from the opponent!
Overall, I think the fact that the Manoeuvring and Maelstrom scenarios were not
being played at this tournament gives some leeway to the army, as I’m sure in
those scenarios my army would be far more likely to meet a brutal end.
Strategy
Obviously, the list relies on all the heroes being safe
behind the lines whilst their auras and spells enable the Orcs to eventually get
the job done. Overall, the strategy is actually fairly simple. Against armies
relying on their big heroes it’s a matter of throwing Paralyses at them whilst
the Dwimmerlaik is nearby and watching them either use up all their resources
to resist them (and eventually be paralysed unopposed or simply transfixed) or
go down and be hacked away by the Orcs, particularly the Two-Handed Weapons, Wargs,
and Blades of the Dead-wielding Spirits. Meanwhile, fellow hordes will
generally be at a similar courage stat so using the Terror wall with Harbinger
will allow me to slowly take apart the enemy piecemeal, paralysing any major
threats (anything that will easily charge and do lots of damage).
The absolute worst thing I could come up against is likely
any elite force, especially one that also sports Terror, or doesn’t rely on
their hero to be fighting up the front. If my magic users aren’t taking heroes down and my troops
can’t use their numbers to their advantage, it wont last long at all! In my
practice games so far the worst matchups I had faced was massed Uruk-Hai and Dwarves as
well as the Host of the Dragon Emperor LL, so here’s
to hoping I wouldn’t see any of them on the day (Spoiler: I definitely would!).
With that, it was off to the races up at House of War in
Ringwood, hoping that the No Might Angmar army would be able to spread
darkness across Middle Earth!
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| Luckily I managed to paint the whole army in 3 weeks, including finishing off these great sculpts the night before |
The Tournament
Game 1:
Retrieval vs Nick W's Mordor & Serpent Horde
For the first game of the day, I was confronted by a small
yet elite all-mounted list, with plenty of hard-hitting poisoned war spears led
by two of the most effective heroes on the evil side: The Witch King of Angmar
and Suladan the Serpent Lord. Luckily, Nick vetoed the scenario I was most
afraid of playing in Seize the Prize, and I followed up by choosing to play
Retrieval so I wouldn’t have to spread myself too thinly trying to protect my
objectives from an all-mounted list in Destroy the Supplies.
Nick’s List
Mordor
The Witch King of Angmar with Crown of Morgul and Horse, 3/14/3
Serpent Horde
Suladan the Serpent Lord with Armoured Horse
6x Serpent Riders
7x Haradrim Raiders with Bow and War Spear
Haradrim Chieftain with Horse
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| I assumed I would end up fighting on both my flanks, so left the middle intentionally weak to try and tempt a charge there so then I could bring the magic into play in a more advantageous position. |
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| The forces ready to go at it! |
The initial turns saw the Haradrim Raiders take out 4 Orcs via shooting, and although I still had the numbers in my advantage I was wary of being thinned out and flanked by the cavalry towards my objective far behind my lines. Thankfully, the trusty old Spectres paid their points back infinitely, as they made two of Nick’s 16 models jump forward right in front of the Terror wall to be charged and torn apart by the horde of orcs.
The impact of this was obvious, as Nick and I both realised that at this rate Nick’s would definitely run out of his troops far before I would, especially as he lost more and more bows. So, the cavalry did what cavalry does, charging straight into the depths of my force, with all three heroes calling their own Heroic Combats to capitalise on the fact I had won priority that turn and wasn't able to hit any of the enemy threats with a Paralyse or Transfix. It was also during the charge that we both realised that the Dwimmerlaik's Sap Fortitude was a Passive ability, and thus wouldn't be turned off by a Transfix from the Witch King; nasty! As such, the Dwimmerlaik turned around and made all three heroes spend 2 Might for their Heroic Combats, massively depleting all their resources very early into the engagement.
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| The ultimately doomed charge of all three of Nick's heroes |
Unfortunately for my opponent it was at this point my dice decided to press the advantage, winning priority and stealing Suladan's remaining might and thereby cancelling his Heroic Move. The next two turns saw both remaining heroes paralysed, hilariously wounded falling off their horses (automatically Knocked Flying off their horse from the nasty magical power), before being ripped apart by the ghosts and orcs surrounding them.
This moment defined the game, as although a Hail Mary flank by some of the last remaining Serpent Raiders threatened my objective, I had now removed the threat from the heroes and had free reign with my magic to go and secure the objective with one of the Warg Riders, whilst a Barrow Wight and the Dwimmerlaik flooded back with nearly a full warband of orcs to guarantee the safety of my own objective. |
| 1 of the 4 remaining Serpent Raiders who attempted to sneak around the flank but were quickly met by retreating Orcs and their Spirit masters |
Henry’s List
Goblin Town
Goblin King
10x Goblin Warriors
3x Goblin Warriors with Two-Handed Weapon
Moria
Durburz
4x Goblin Warriors with Shield
5x Goblin Warriors with Spear
1x Goblin Warrior with Bow
1x Dweller in the Dark
Moria Goblin Captain
4x Goblin Warriors with Shield
4x Goblin Warriors with Spear
3x Goblin Warrior with Bow
1x Bat Swarm
Immediately our
forces slamming into each other with 8 goblins and 5 orcs respectively falling,
as the Fight 3 of my orcs won many a drawn combat whilst the monsters began
throwing aside the orcs against them. Immediately the Barrow Wights attempted
to stop the two monsters in their tracks, but both failed to roll the necessary
4+ to cast on two dice. Whilst my left flank began to decisively hold the
objective and push through against the lone captain’s warband, Durburz's heroic
combats were going unchallenged from the Dwimmerlaik and began to push my
forces back on the left with the help of the Dweller, while the Goblin King
swung a hole through the line whilst his goblins desperately tried to tie up
the rest of my troops (when they could pass their courage tests at Courage 1
via the Dwimmerlaik's Harbinger).
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| Our match was so intense that I forgot to take any pictures during the match, but you can see Henry's army here with all the gribblies! |
Although my magic wasn't doing much to stop the enemy (as
both Barrow Wights again failed to cast Paralyse with 2 dice!) I was
lucky in that the Dweller and Goblin King were miraculously halted by the
apparently thick armour of the orcs, as only 3 orcs went down across two turns
between them. Yet, Henry still had a bat swarm positioned behind his lines in a
forest (meaning I wouldn’t be able to spectre or compel him more than a few
inches at a time) which I was incredibly scared of being involved in a last-minute attempt
at grabbing any of the objectives.
By the time I started to cut down the low defence goblins in
the middle and get Henry's forces to break, I only held 2 objectives to Henry's
3, and although I may be able to get a wound on the Goblin King via a Black
Dart (which he had already failed to cast on 4 dice the previous turn- the
magic of Angmar was indeed doing little-to-nothing) the best I saw myself
playing for was a draw, especially with the Barrow Wights having used 8 of
their 10 cumulative Will and still failing to cast a single Paralyse to slow
the advance going into the start of the final turn (with time being called just
as the movement phase began).
With one turn left Henry only had to hold on to his
position, as enough goblins remained scattered around the board to plug up the
area around the middle objective (whilst we both held our back and left
objective securely) and a win was likely imminent. Winning priority, the Goblin
King prepared to rally his troops and hold the line… and miraculously rolled
only a 5 high on his break test! With only a single Might point remaining and
both Will used (1 from the Dwimmerlaik stealing it!), the Goblin King promptly
fled the field, leaving a massive hole in the middle! This opened up a chance
for me to steal the middle for a sneaky win at the death, and with goblins
failing their courage test to charge in droves it was just a matter of three
point trapping the objectives to prevent the bat swarm from getting in and I
had somehow walked away with a win!
Overall we had a
great tactical game marked by massively unlucky moments on both sides as our
heroes underperformed, but luckily my heroes did so slightly less than Henry’s
and the Orcs knew it was their time to show their worth! It was obvious how
good a player Henry is and I’m keen to play again soon!
MVP: The Orcs! Not often going into a tournament do you
think that Fight 3 will be king, but here it probably won me the game, with many fights ending in draws that went my way against the Fight 2 gobbos.
Final Score 8-4 WIN (3 objectives secured, enemy broken, enemy leader killed vs 2 objectives secured)
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| A few of my converted and weapon swapped Orcs, what a game for them! |
Game 3: Lords of Battle vs Jordy M's Host of the Dragon
Emperor (LL)
With two wins in hand and a decent VP differential I was
pleased to head to the top tables to face friend of the blog and co-host of The
Two Towers Podcast Jordy, who had brought along his unconventional Host of the
Dragon Emperor, with the aforementioned Dragon Emperor on his mighty Palanquin,
a Captain on foot and drum with the warbands containing virtually nothing but Dragon Cult
Acolytes!. Funnily enough Jordy and I had played each other in practice games leading
up to the tournament, so we had seen and played against each other’s list, just
not with the lists we eventually took, so we generally knew how we would each be
playing it.
As mentioned previously though, this was far from the army I
wanted to face, especially against such a good player as Jordy is, and
particularly in the Kill scenarios! Jordy obviously removed To the Death and gave
me the choice of either kill count missions: Lords of Battle and Contest of
Champions. Although I had planned prior to the tournament to probably choose
Contest of Champions (the enemy leader being forced to the middle of the board
where they can be barraged by magic from all my heroes was appetising to get a
quick kill and eventually get the Dwimmerlaik a few kills for the win), the
Resistance to Magic and inability for the Emperor to go prone (and thus get
double strikes to remove him) made me lean towards Lords of Battle, hoping that
my piercing troops wounding on 4s would be able to get an early lead in kills
and then neutralise the Emperor with magic.
Jordy’s List
Host of the Dragon Emperor
Dragon Emperor of Rhun
15x Dragon Cult Acolytes
1x
Black Dragon Kataphrakt with Drum
Easterling Captain with Shield
5x Dragon Cult Acolytes
2x Black Dragon Warriors with Pike and Shield
1x Black Dragon Warrior with Shield
Deploying in my now-standard formation of the Dwimmerlaik in the centre flanked by the Barrow Wights, I won priority for the first 2 turns, allowing Jordy to use his drum to maximum effectiveness, eventually hitting my flank with everything, felling multiple orcs under the hail of throwing daggers.
Rolling a natural 6 on my first Paralyse directed at the Easterling Captain, Jordy chose not to resist and hold the Will for a later time, as I only had the one turn to try and take him down before he was quickly surrounded and resuscitated by a handful of Acolytes, with me dealing just a single wound to him. Meanwhile, the Fight 5, two attacks and 12" banner were wreaking havoc, as even those that didn’t charge were able to throw their daggers, dealing many wounds across the line.
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| Jordy's stunningly painted Dragon Emperor and Acolytes slammed into my flank with the use of the drum to quickly change direction. |
After three more turns of engagement and having not having won priority even once the Dwimmerlaik was proving decisively useless, having no enemies who needed to use their stats, as even the Dragon Emperor was content to provide his buffs and kill a single Orc or two a turn. Unfortunately, my once steadfast dice turned fickle and across the entire battle line Orcs were either killed or were failing to wound even when only needing 4s to do so. At this point the kill count was approximately 5-15, and unless there was a swing of the dice allowing me to break him and kill the Dragon Emperor, I was just trying to ensure I didn't give up too many VP's to give myself a chance of saving my podium hopes in Round 4.
This was followed by two more turns of lost priority, where Jordy pressed his advantage and effectively hammered in the nails of my coffin, as the kill count ended 8-24 in his favour, with my force broken for the first time throughout the event and the Dwimmerlaik failing to get a much-needed kill to prevent my kill count being tripled against an isolated and outnumbered drummer in the final turns.
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| Without winning priority once after the lines clashed, there was quickly not much left of the Dwimmerlaik's forces |
Overall, I'm still not sure if Lords of Battle was the right pick as I may have been able to keep the Dragon Emperor quiet in Contest of Champions, but ultimately the scenery in the middle of the board (which was my eventual demise in the game) also convinced me to not choose it since it didn’t allow me to bring my numbers fully to bear.
Thus, Jordy has all the bragging rights on me in our local
group until the next time we throw down, although thankfully we were able to
have a good laugh at my abysmal luck all throughout what was an absolute
demolishing of my army, also being one of the first few losses it has suffered
since I began running it a month ago. I would highly recommend checking out the Two Towers Podcast on Spotify, especially if you're keen on hearing about local tournaments and plenty of hobbying.
MVP: Dragon Cult Acolytes! What a cool profile and backed up by the Dragon Emperor getting to Fight 5 with the massive 12” banner is a force to be reckoned with, essentially an army of captains!
0-10 LOSS (Kill count tripled, force broken without being broken)
Game 4: Fog of War vs Huon T's Helm's Guard (LL)
Huon and I had
previously come up against each other at Silmarilli 2022, where his Radagast’s
Alliance absolutely destroyed my Isengard list, as they were able to
effortlessly fly around a stunning Laketown board and fly off with the Prize as
my Uruks stumbled around in the water. Revenge desperately needed to be
enacted in the final round as I faced a scary Rohan list.
Huon’s List
Helm's Guard
Helm Hammerhand with Horse
10x Rohan Royal Guard with Horse and Throwing Spears
1x Rohan Royal Guard with Throwing Spears
2x Riders of Rohan with Banner
Captain of Rohan with Horse, Heavy Armour, and Shield
With a big loss in the previous round, I knew that only a big win for myself and some draws on the other top tables would get me onto the podium, so I was mostly pleased to come up against Helm Hammerhand in his Legion, with a Captain of Rohan, two banners and lots of mounted Royal Guard in tow. This would allow me to focus on the two heroes who Huon would probably be relying on for the majority of his damage, especially in the upcoming scenarios. I immediately vetoed Clash by Moonlight to negate the Throwing Spears of my enemy, leaving Huon with a tough choice between Assassination and Fog of War, especially knowing that in either one he would be relying on his Captain to both not die but possibly be responsible for killing my Heroes. Opting not to worry about relying on the Captain to take out one of the Barrow Wights, Huon chose to play Fog of War.
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| Ready to receive the eventual charge of the Rohirrim |
With his superior speed Huon had the choice of place to engage, whilst I patiently waited in my now reliable formation with the Barrow Wights flanking the Dwimmerlaik. With a few kills with his throwing spears on the way into my right flank after he had won priority Helm, the Captain and 5 of the Royal Guards crashed into the shield wall in an attempt to break through quickly and take out the dangerous spellcasters behind the line. With an attempted Paralyse on Helm making Huon use most of his Will to resist, followed by a Transfix that took the remaining Will from him, Helm was primed to be taken apart by a Paralyse in the coming turns.
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| Both Good heroes were quickly thrown into the fray but were soon at the mercy of the devastating magical barrage from Angmar. |
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| The deadly trifecta of magic wielders, and their immensely effective underlings |
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