In The Mind: Grand Tournament Review

 In the Mind: Am I Stupid or a Darkhorse of the Meta

Hello all, in this post I will discuss the tournament we had out here in the DFW over the past weekend. I will go in depth into each of my 5 games and discuss how each game went where i made mistakes and where my opponents made theirs (if any). For this event it was an 800 point event and my two best friends were taking very tough lists. I ended up taking a very straight forward and simple list.... Just kidding i went into the lore and found the battle at Pelargir. This battle is when Minardil and Hurin fought and lost to the Umbarian pirates. Ultimately this was because i just put up a poll for either the wolves of Isengard, the necromancer, or the realms of men as my list for the tournament. The realms one barely over the wolves of Isengard and I had quite the eventful event ahead of me. I knew Fornost and Minas Morgul were fore sure coming as those were the lists my two friends were taking and so with my theme I wrote my list. 

My list:

(Leader) King of Gondor (Minardil) Horse Lance Shield Heavy Armor
9 Knights of Gondor
1 Knight Banner
5 Warriors of Minas Tirith Bow
1 Citadel Guard with Longbow

King of Numenor (Hurin, the Numenorean Steward) Kitchen Sink
13 Numenoreans Spear and Shield
5 Numenoreans Longbow

Captain of Minas Tirith (Celdrahil)
10 Warriors of Minas Tirith w/ Shield
1 Warrior of Minas Tirith w/ Banner

48 Models 2 Banners 7 Might 11 Bows

This list is a very much my style of list from a year ago and before. It was a troop does it all list. It is very fun but different then what I have been playing as of late. 

Round 1: Round one I was faced off against a very fun opponent,  I was facing Ents. The scenario was destroy the supplies. I set up took some shots while they ran at me. They eventually made comment unharmed while i had already slid 3 knights and 2 warriors past them with some tricky movement shenanigans. They made combat and i set up so i could dismount half of my cav to trap a handful of ents. I did so and struck up with a charging king and instantly took out one ent. My other king who was in birchseed did the same but lost and took 3 wounds but luckily passed both fate. (he died the next turn though so that didnt do much). I took out 2 ents total kept both banners alive protected all of my objectives while taking out all of his leading to a massive major victory to myself. Ultimately we talked through and we both agreed he shoudl have anchored on two of his objectives using terrain and his bases to block them off and focus on getting the leader kill and break without being broken to barely win. 

Round 2: Wolf Pack of Angmar: To the Death

This game is was faced up against a familiar face to me. My good freind Nick, we had an excellent game in which his howl went off and he combatted through my frontline. Sadly I only won 2 of the tied fight value rolloffs we had of at least 15 throughout the following turns. He chewed through me slowly but not before I took out his lead warg chieftain and 1 other warg chieftain and had 2 others wounded. He killed my captain as i through him out as bait to bring out the howl turn 1. It came down to the fact that i shielded with a warrior and won against a wolf chieftain who was about to take out my last banner and that ultimately gave me the 10-9 minor win. 2-0 1 major 1 minor.

Round 3: Minas Morgul: Reconnoitre

This was against one of my closest friends Michael. This game was IMMACULATE. hands down the best game of the event. I new I would be able to do either two things. Keep his army off from escaping my board side at the sacrifice of the break points and get myself quartered OR rank up and use terrain to munch through him with my banners and higher fight value and let him get about 5-7 guys off. I decided on the first banking on the fact that i would be able to quarter before he got any models off. I quickly ran 3 cavalry off and put him on the back foot. I essentially created the biggest anti fly formation ever created and just spread out on my entire side of the board allowing him to gang up super slowly and munch through my army. This worked well, I sacrificed my leader to kamikaze in and take out the fell beast which worked and saved me so much as the WK then never had a chance to get off the board. He played the game extremely well with his spectres and mainly his drummer. I was in shock at the efficiency he used to get his army around while being engaged. He would engage part of his army and then drum and run the rest of his army forward gaining ground. I eventually pulled a little combat play to sling my captain off the board scoring more points. He eventually broke through and began engaging. Sadly nearly all of the 25 orcs i had killed were the bowmen, twohanded men, and spears... So he had almost entirely shields left and shielded for 2 turns while getting closer to the board edge while I was one model off quarter and didn't have a model leave.. We timed out the turn before he would have marched his drummer and 6 orcs off the table which would have given him a convincing win. Instead I pulled off another major victory giving me 2 majors and one minor and a 3-0 record headed into day 2. 

Round 4: Fog of War: Shadows of Angmar

This round was insane. I was playing a player from Louisiana and his wacky 16 werewolf list that had double banner and 40 models. It also had 2 barrow wights a captain and the shadow of ruhdar to boot. Of course on this insanely weird Lothlorien board with trees with connecting catwalks were all over the board. It was a very very very good game to say the least. With so many terrain pieces there were tons of choices. Neither of us ended up guessing which terrain we were going for. The game started out with a very fun separated deployment for me. I moved into this ring of trees and a staircase to anchor myself off of and let my numenoreans just go to work. He played very avoidance like to stay away from my main line for most of the game yet my cav versus all of his werewolves still chopped through about 10 werewolves and 4 or so wild wargs before he realized skirting the edges letting my kings and cav mop him up was not going to work. I brought my army to his group of about 15 orcs and engaged right before he broke. i killed a barrowwight and kept talking about the other barrowwight seeming to imply he was who i was going after that worked so well as this barrowwight who still had will ran up into a tree and hid the rest of the game. i was actually going after his captain. I tried to keep my captain safe and take a massive staircase. I kept my captain safe and he never even saw combat while being right next to combat the entire game using his might to influence the game. My king of numenor bit some bait to charge a handful of guys next to his captain nearly alone. The Gondor king with 2 might points combatted over to help out that flank. He brought another cav with him and with the kills they all got I had the numbers advantage. each of us still had a might point and after he won priority I called a move to try to get a charge on his mightless captain. He won the roll off after calling a move with his last point of might. He put a few models into my numenorean king including his captain and the shadow and tagged my cav and Gondor king. I then had to roll a 5 to win the roll against them with my numenorean king. I didn't... He then rolled 3 6's to wound on his 4 dice and I failed all of my fate and he died... I then won priority on the last turn and charged his captain with my Gondor king. With a banner in range, on the charge against a captain who wasn't shielding because he needed to do damage... I lost the fight... and nothing happened but still that would have been 5 more VPs in the bag. Thankfully I had psyched him out when it came to terrain and had like 5 guys on one tree and 2 guys on another he thought it was the one with 5 since i had been "focusing" on it all game but it was not. A convincing 13-10 victory even with horrible dice rolls all throughout the game. 4-0 heading into game 5 with Michael right on my tail. If i lost this game he could overtake me for the win. 

Game 5: Hold Ground: Host of the Witch King
Ok... common theme this event.. werewolves... 3rd time facing them in 5 rounds. BUT all 3 with different armies so that was cool. But with my lower end courage numenoreans and Gondorians I did not like these at all the entire event. I lost priority and deployed first. I did not com eon with 2 warbands and the other I chose to place near a small building. i half moved my archers in and that was fun. The witch king then came on right next to me. A barrow wight came on my other side and another barrowwight i through to the exact opposite side of the board. His other Barrowwight came on from the side to play the objective. Aldrac did not show up this turn. I shot with my half moving archers through two in the ways at the King and hit the two orcs and got two kills on 3 hits. The following turn he moved towards the objective and my Gondor king came on in a flank. I turned and shot all of my Gondorian archers and numenorean archers at his orcs and took out the 2 touching the banner AND the banner. The game progressed my captain turned up on turn 3 and started to the objective with his shieldwall. I broke him just when i got a very minimal advantage on the middle then Aldrac the werewolves and his remaining orcs and barrowwights got to work. I slowly chopped through them while being chopped up myself. Thankfully with no banner of him and my own banners both alive I had some threat. I also had the advantage and was slowly getting more of an advantage. Aldrac put in work yet eventually failed to get through my Gondor kings fate after I lost a roll off. The game ended and I had another win with the center being mine, breaking without being broken, and having a banner and killing his. This led to a big win and a 5-0 event. 

I did it! I took first and to boot I took best painted with my non-metallic-metal paint job on my Gondor. Michael and his Minas Morgul took second and my other good friend who I sadly never got to face took 4rth after forgetting several key rules that ended up costing him some games while still playing them so so well. Now it is preparation for Nova Open and our 1000 point event in which my friends wrote my list completely for me and i am takin the 9 with a bunch of cav and no necromancer... it will be an experience for sure. But i am probably only going to paint that list and get my first gameplay experience with it at the event. For Nova I am thinking of running the Wolves of Isengard, Men of the West, or a spectre heavy Minas Morgul... what do yall think I should take to nova? comment below and ill take your opinions into account.