In the Mind: Nova Open

 Nova Open:

Hey yall welcome back to the Mind of Moria and today we are discussing what I have been doing in order to prepare for Nova and how the whole trip went. So first off I decided after months of deliberation and thought to bring a semi meta army in the most anti meta way. After looking around I had some thoughts and I eventually decided I was going to theme my army around the Lake town Militia. After looking through my collection I had the models to take up to around 30 laketown but I never owned a bard since last edition it was super super solid and I didn't want to be that guy who ran the meta pick. So i ended up deciding on the battle of five armies focusing around my 2/3rds contingent of Militia. This is the exact list I ended up bringing to the Nova Open:

Gandalf (Leader)
8 Laketown Militia with Bows
6 Laketown Militia with Spears

Hilda Bianca
4 Laketown with Light Shields
8 Laketown with Spears

Tauriel (no bow)
5 Mirkwood Elves with Shield
3 Mirkwood Knights

Gwaihir

700 Points 38 Models 10 Might 8 Bows

The issue was is that all of these models were either unassembled or I didn't have. So I had to go and get the elven side of the force really quickly from some local guys and paint them up as well as assembling and painting a eagle, Hilda, and the 26 or so laketown troops. I had an old Gandalf with a layer of paint on him so I cleaned him up a bit gave Glamdring a glow effect and got to work with the rest of the army. I had a Gwaihir but wanted to paint a new eagle so just decided to paint up a whole new eagle for him and for the event. After 4 weeks of nonstop painting I "finished" the list. And by that it simply means i did all the layers and washes just needed a bit of highlights and the eyes and free hands as well as the finishing highlights to the elves Non Metallic Metal armor. My best friend and I flew out to Nova Open early Friday morning walked around a bit and went to the doubles where we ran a almost entirely cavalry white hand focusing on the 15 or so warg riders which was super fun and we came in like 16th of the 38 or so teams. We dropped the contest of champions game versus 2 dragons so we had fun and played well but more fun than anything which is what i think the doubles is all about. Now by this time I am seeing some of the level of play and internally I was actually freaking out. I was doubting if I could actually compete at this level and eventually calmed my nerves by simply committing to an intense style last doubles game rather then simply having fun. I went into day one of the GT extremely nervous to say the least. 

Day 1:

Game 1: We arrived for day 1, checked in and got ready. I was paired against Dale in pool 6 in which all of them are wide distance to travel scenarios. I quickly vetoed Fog of War and he vetoed clash by moonlight. We rolled and got Convergence. I split my force into the laketown and allied portions and ran Gwaihir with his elves at one force and ran my laketown from the other corner at the same force using a bunch of will to keep up blinding light against the 16 or so bows and the 2 windlances. This was decently effective and i simply lost my 3 elven cav and 2 laketown on the initial run and then wiped out a warband and a siege weapon before switching to his main force. I ran to the middle we each had 2 objectives but I had a kill lead to his positioning in the middle. I was worried i would get blocked off the objective and lose that way. So I pulled perhaps the trick i was most proud of in the event. I weighted one side of my force to this off flank where he had around 5-6 guys and he immediately ran around a bunch of support so i couldn't continue picking on 5-10 guys of his army piecemeal with the entirety of my army. I set it up and when i lost priority he moved up to his choke and instead of engaging I jumped Gwiahir 12 inches to the side right into the middle where his remaining army was and instantly got another one of the heirloom things. at this point he spent a turn transfixed (second turn of that total) and then I go the last objective in the final turn after throwing a couple sorcerous blasts off at Girion forcing out all his will and fate but not getting the leader wounds. It ended up being a massive 15-1 Major win to me after game one. 

Game 2: Army of the Great Eye-Pool 1: This game was so much fun and I had a great opponent. He had the Witch King a Great Beast and Guritz and a horde of 48 models. I won priority and let him move first. He got a compel off on Gwaihir that I didn't even bother resisting and let him run him 6 inches straight backwards. He then moved up and his great beast came in on one side where he could devastate my line. I opened a gap up to send in Tauriel, Hilda, Gandalf, and 7 laketown (4 spear supporting) and they just sat there ready to use their might as much as needed to take it down in one turn. The rest of my line semi engaged only having elves fighting creating this semi circle arch to protect my heroes and the great beast fight. I lost one elf and a laketown in return for 3 orcs and more importantly the great beast. Hilda Bianca with her plus 1 to wound bubble did the trick and I didn't even need to trade any other resources. Sadly a good amount of orcs are a great counter to laketown paying the same points to wound them on 1 better and have higher fight value. I slowly got chopped up on that front while Gwiahir killed through a bunch of his troops and resisted the only spell he needed to block and kept his might to threaten the witch king which kept out of range the whole game. We both broke but I had Gwiahir near all of my troops on the far objectives so I stayed around while he fled giving me a second major win 10-5.

Game 3: The Shire-Pool 4: I saw the Shire pop up and I was like ok no surprise its the best list in the game for sure. I dont care what people say about how well balanced the white hand is it at least has counter play. It would be like if you could take a barrowwight and a shade from last edition in one profile for 30 points. You get some of the craziest value in the tiniest and best packages. From 6 inch banners for 20 points to a cart that can knock down a hero, do damage, make models suffer a -1 in combat for 25 points and is nearly untouchable yea... very hard to play against. And a 20 model that can for free stop any model rom activating and making them 1 attack for 20 points. The value is just insane. That being said I saw the pool. I new veto to the death I was fine in the other 3. Contest or Lords of battle should be an absolute easy win, but I knew nothing was certain. We vetoed and rolled off and got assassination. I new this would be an uphill battle as his heroes revolve around not being in combat while mine require it. I was able to isolate and take out my target super early however as the terrain got wonky and Gwaihir was able to confirm the kill even after fluffing his resist on a 2 with all 3 will the first turn he went into paladin. I got the kill the following turn and proceeded to kite the shire for about an hour and 20 minutes before I had this awkward situation where a combination of archery through like 4 in the ways and Gandalf's magic took out Hilda. I then assumed it was a 9-12 score and decided all i needed was a leader wound and still keep from breaking. So i kept up the heavy skirmish and caught Gandalf with a hurl from Gwaihir taking out the cart and creating a massive hole. I swung Tauriel and a few troops around the other side of a building and started munching hobbits i counted and left exactly 20 models hidden so i could fight him but never be broken. I got him 2 models off, had a fight against his assassin that if i had won with Gwaihir would have given me a vp to win and fought 3 turns against Gandalf in which i had him prone once on the charge and rolled a 2 high on 4 dice then was transfixed once, won once and barged to get my knock down ran into just Gandalf who rolled a 6 and i rolled a 4 on 4 dice. Then he got into maggot and lost a fight by rolling a 4 on 4 dice yet again. If i had won any one of those fights where i could have done damage it would have been a nice big win. But... it was not to be so. 3 hobbit archers had been taking shots. My Gandalf was at 1 wound and 2 rerollable fate. He had 3 shots. Through 3 in the ways. 3 shots hit. 3 shots pass the first in the way, 3 shots pass through the second in the way, 3 shots through the third, 3 shots wound... Gandalf dead 13-13 draw for round 3. Dice could have gone many different ways but I was kinda not happy with Tauriel and Gwaihir's as well as Gandalf's performances thus far. Tauriel in one game had won 1 fight all game, Gwaihir had done well in one game, was a threat in another, and did nothing other then a few hobbit kills then roll horribly the rest of the game in another. Gandalfs spells thus far had done virtually nothing. That being said I was super happy with the combined threat of the tools I had at my disposal and I had been playing defensively enough to where after day one i had broke once and only lost 1 hero in one game. The combined threat was super nice and was well worth it even though I did invest heavily into the points to do it. I was happy with the micro and macro management of my force and it was enough to pull day 1 undefeated which was the goal I had set before the event. 

Evening: We went and ate dinner as a Texas team with a few others at a Thai place then went back and played a hilarious game of 2v1 using my list versus our new found friend and awesome dude Caleb. We had an absolute blast we played retrieval and I was so tired I told Michael he could do what he wanted and we ended up having a funny situation where we let him have Tauriel for free basically and then used Gwaihir to combat and burn all his might to kill Cirdan after losing the fight. We did pull a cool sorcerous blast trick to knock his elves prone that were fighting Gwaihir so the combat would go off. It was fun then we ran Gwaihir out and grabbed his objective while his combo of Eanur and Glorfindel had chopped through some laketown to pick up ours early as well. We played just a fun messing around game and ended up pulling my favorite spell collapse rocks on Eanur and doing a wound then going in and losing the fight to him which was super funny even after Gandalf struck up with the elven blade. We had a Gwaihir-Glorfindel fight that Glorfindel won in a few turns giving him the win. the best moment was when he broke us he left all the laketown unengaged then Michael proceeded to pass all but 2 of the many courage tests we had also reminding me my troops are courage 7+ not 8+ as I had been playing them all event. 

Day 2: After getting back at almost midnight we slept as much as we could and headed back for day 2. 

Round 4: Reclamation of Osgiliath-Pool 5? Whichever set of scenarios the objective ones are it was that. We ended up vetoing into Treasure Hoard. This game may be the one I am most proud of as I pulled out so many tricks and baiting tactics that I was super proud of. Turn one, Tauriel picked an objective up and so did Gwaihir. In return he moved up and picked up one himself. The following turn I had an elf with 2 cav and 2 laketown on a flank pick on up but he had 3 cav and a handful of Gondor troops bearing down on their position. I through a 3 dice sorcerous blast and got the 6 he ended up throwing all of Boromir's will and 2 might to keep his horse but crucially was outside of 3 inches of farimir. The following turn he won priority and set up a defensive position he could easily go offensive from. We were in this Easterling village and all the borders to the buildings were about and inch and a half to 2 inches high so super easily defendable as well as some Easterling pillars. He set up between those pillars with a building on one flank. I got a second objective on Gwaihir which was great and was charged by a single Minas Tirith warriors. Farimir charged Tauriel and struck and then spent some more might to wound her and the following turn we repeated. I struck both times first tied with the elven blade on the strike then rolled a 5 to his 6 spent a might lost the roll off, the following turn we both struck and I got to fight 9 to his fight 8 and he won still and killed Tauriel with more might from Boromir. Thankfully that trade took 5 might from his army after spending 2 to resist Gandalfs spell which had been duplicated the following turn unhorsing Boromir. I simply set up and continued barging and getting into good targets eventually taking out both Boromir and Farimir and broke him. Gwiahir collected yet another objective and ran to my enemies board edge. After 3 turns of losing priority I won once on the far flank and passed the objective off to my horse elf and he was able to escape. One elf survived on that flank and was getting trapped every turn by 3 rangers one of which had the objective. I spent 2 turns using strengthen will and got a will back on Gandalf who ran 6 inches to get in range and cast sorcerous blast through a corridor at the ranger with the objective who dropped it then my elf picked it up moving 6 inches away and watched one ranger flee then the other ran back and tried to kill my elf who shielded and survived giving me a 20-1 Major win. 

Game 5: THE FINALE: Men of the West: Maelstrom: This was a pivotal game. We are on table 3 playing for a potential podium finish. I am drawn against a very skilled player whom we played against in doubles and his Gwaihir-Aragorn-28 model count men of the west army. Turn one he comes on first in Sites of Power and I come on second. He has Aragorn and Gwaihir come on opposite and his captain does not show up. Hilda gets sent right by Aragorn and I then had to spend a whopping 4 or 5 might or something to bring on Tauriel Gandalf and Gwaihir to support Hilda and to turn the ambush on Aragorn. It was slowly spending might on each warband and then it was a awkward position he moved first ran in and moved barely out of Gwaihir's reach. I used a bunch of will to magic on Aragorn which i got off once which did not matter at all and only successfully cast a spell 2 times the entire game so not much for Aragorn to even try to resist. I set up and he had his captain ambush Gandalf and Tauriel So now it is a double stack of Hilda and Gwaihir pinching Aragorn against my Gandalf and Tauriel which are being pinched by Aragorn and the captains warband. I send out laketown to grab the objectives and they slowly get eaten by his Gwaihir. I set up and do about 5 hurls into Aragorn all game since he kept striking and I never wounded him once sadly. I broke him and he eventually broke me by one model at the end of the game. He got one objective fully, one was untouched one I had, and the final one I had a dude in a building and the first combat of the turn his Gwaihir barged on top of the building to get line of sight to charge the next turn not realizing this was the last turn giving my a narrow 7-4 minor win. 

I ended up becoming the youngest ever player to podium at Nova open at 17 years old placing 3rd at not only my first Nova but my first big out of state event. I am super happy with how I played and Texas had a good showing with a few good finishes of the 3 man team we had come up. I really hope to return int he upcoming years and keep up with the competitive edge I bring with weird lists. On that subject I do want to talk a bit about the list I ran. 

I love how it plays first off, a heavy skirmishing force that engages hard and fast and does the job before moving off and doing it again. The 5 elves were just enough to blunt the attacks of most armies and the cav were the perfect peel units for Gwaihir and in most games Tauriel flew right under the radar unnoticed because of the Gwaihir Gandalf combo. Gandalf was a super nice utility piece as he is super hard to get to and still affects the battlefield. While I never particularly rolled well on his spells I came in expecting that. Sometimes it was annoying but even in the moment I instantly was switching to my backup plans and the plans behind those. Gwaihir was awesome. He truly is just so fun this edition and sure he is a meta pick but what i backed him up with is not. The "competitive" pick for five armies is normally Legolas, some sort of dwarf hero and maybe 3-6 laketown spear/bowmen for a high numbers very elite army with the dwarves/elves combo to do work and Gwaihir to just do his thing. This list played more like an Angmar list. Time was something I was always facing as I had to play quickly get in do the damage get out and rehash it over and over again to secure maximum victory points every game. The list from the beginning was not optimized and I knew that from my first game. Adding 3 more elves and dropped 5 Lake town would have kept my quarter the same, my break 1 less and left me with a much stronger list overall but I wanted Lake town not elves to be my backbone in the list and I pulled it out. And I did all of that without a banner...

As always, this is the Minds of Moria and Lake town are the best troops in the game. See you next time!