A Sword Day Grand Tournament
As I mentioned in my preparation blog a week ago, I was going down to College Station for the final grand tournament of the year. I decided after Nova I wanted to settle back into some super fun wacky style lists (not like I hadn't all year or anything like that). So I ran the Grey Company.
Game 1: Alex in Divide and Conquer: Shadows of Angmar
This was the one matchup I was loathing to see across the table. To match up against a good friend and excellent player round one in the maneuvering scenario when he has a big bat, 3 shamans, and 2 barrow wights with 42 models. Nevertheless we vetoed into Divide and Conquer and set up. I ran Aragorns force at the side without Gulavhar and used Legolas's half of the force to make Gully take the long way around staying outside of range because of the shooting lanes I had set up. My shooting started off solid spending a might and a bunch of shots to take out 1 shaman and over the next few turns just took out some orcs and chipped a wound off a wight. This was important as when i finally made combat with the one small portion with my half army with the twins and Aragorn a random shot with a might killed his barrowwight on that side. Sadly by then one twin was at strength 1... so he died from a wither the next turn and gully killed the other twin. He accomplished that by baiting me forwards by letting me charge the bat. But it meant that I would give up my kiting and shooting. I took it because when you get to engage gully especially in a choke I feel confident. So I ran in with the twins one to combat and kill a shaman that had been exposed. The other ran into the bat and struck. The first twin rolled a 2 high lost his combat and backed away. The next rolled a 3 high and gully's 5 won. He barged killed the healthy twin before the wither took out the other one. Then Aragorn got into the bat and i used my rangers of the north to act as a shield. They minced the orcs around while Aragorn took turns whittling Gully down. Once gully was at one wound leggy shot him out with his one-shot and I cleared the center. I then just mopped up for a board wipe and a nice 20-0 to start off the event.
Game 2: Barad Dur: Destroy the Supplies
This game was a super quick one. He had Sauron and two chieftains. Turn one i chipped off some wounds off the trolls. Then I marched into his face and met in combat and chopped through the 2 trolls in 3 turns. I then just put everything into Sauron and expecting to quarter myself and win that way I just kept at it. But.... Aragorn did Aragorn things and after 11 ring saves and 3 might later Sauron fell. At this point I had reached and destroyed all of his supplies which left me with yet another successful board wipe and another massive win.
Game 3: Ride Out: Lords of Battle
We were in pool 4. I was facing another player that is very talented and another good friend. After a year with this list he had racked quite the record and ended 3rd in the event and the league. There were some really fun big ruined buildings with 3 levels... I decided that since they were in the middle of the table I was going to deploy right up in them. I thought about being on the ground for this and just setting up so that my big heroes would be the only ones able to be charged... But then i remembered how poorly my twins and Aragorn had been rolling to win combats. So I decided to let my 14 bowshots with 20 (plus free) might do the talking for me. And since he had 6 or so bows and 8 throwing spears I felt this wasn't a total just non play way as he had ways to fight me just not get mass cavalry charges off. We started off and both called shoots with our Aragorn's he went first and chipped some fate... I went next and with might tallied a nice 8 wounds on horses and 5 riders (3 of which were royal guards). The next turn his throwing spears had 3 hit... 3 pass the in the way to hit Aragorn... and 3 wounded so I used all 3 fate and the free might to block some wounds affecting my leader. I returned fire and took our some more horses and riders getting up to 12 tallies. This continued and he engaged eventually I beat off his Aragorn but never got to kill him. His Théoden was behind terrain the entire game sadly enough, but it worked out well enough for a 3rd massive major victory.
Game 4: Army of Erebor: Lead from the Front
I was playing against an army that I simply do not fancy my chances in simply a straight fight. Thankfully the Grey Company is so flexible it allows me to engage when, where, and how I want. I used a might turn one to chip off a wound off of Gloin. The rest of the game I got one shooting kill (not even a single kill with Legolas) I then set up to get the right sequence of priorities to get shooting lanes where I marched right into his face when he finally stepped into a little choke. Normally dwarves love this... but not against 4 fight 6 heroes and an all hero list. Throughout the next 3 turns I lost one fight (with Aragorn). I used might on my rangers to keep winning and had to use 3 of the 4 might on the twins to win combats as well. Through this I brought his numbers down to a much closer about 25 of his to my 13 at this point. He started with 38 so I felt great about this. Because I had threatened his heroes early he put them behind 2 ranks to keep them safe which is why the choke was so important as Gimli fought 1 fight all game (Which he lost and took 2 wounds) and gloin fought 2 (where he was killed). His king on the other flank sat nicely practically by himself where i late game sent 3 rangers running at him got a trap after tagging his other friends and had 8 dice with 2 might to win... and promptly rolled 4 high on 8 dice... so that was fun and I didn't get his leader. I ended up just mincing all of his dwarves taking 2 casualties and held 3 objectives 2 entirely and one with the highest tier. This ended up giving me yet another massive win heading into the final round.
Game 5: Eomer's Grief: Breakthrough
Other then game one I think this is the game that really showed you dont need the Grey Company to shoot and more then that that they are way more lethal in combat. He set up and charged into my face after deploying back. He didnt send in his heroes and kept the two big beat sticks safe to keep vps and protect his objective. It was an interesting choice but it forced my hand. Sadly enough for him... I know this list super well and rushed a twin with 4 rangers up the one far flank taking out all of his cav and securing the objective before running to his back objective. On the other flank I sprinted Aragorn the other twin and my other rangers right into his cav and chopped them down in a few turns. He held the side objective for a few turns but in ultimately even after Imrahil engaged I had to many numbers and won out. Legolas was sniping will protecting my own objective. He took out 3 wounds off of Eomer with a stellar roll and all 3 might. Eomer promptly rolled a 1 on his first fate and decided to use all 3 might t save the fate and trust. He then classically rolled and passed the other 2 fate not giving me the leader wound. Ended up another decent sized major victory as I secured my own objective, the two side objectives, break without being broken and he failed to do any damage to either twin while barely keeping the majority on his own objective giving him another vp. End score 7-3 major win.
The end result was great. I ended up beating the 2nd, 3rd, and 4rth, place finishers who all only lost to me. I placed first with a 5-0 entirely major wins event. It ended up that even if I lost my last game I would have won simply because of how many victory points I had achieved through my differential. So thus concludes the journey the Texas Fellowship this year. A grand slam of the 100 point events. I did that with the Realms of Men at 800, Khazad dum all captains with a king at 700, and with the Grey Company also at 700. As a recap of the year in general I ended up having five 1st place finishes, one 2nd place finish and a 3rd. That third being my worst finish of the year at the Nova Open. Through that time I went 28-1 at events playing lists that all were considered decent, bad, or not very good. (Other then some people consider the Khazad Dum a good list even though I took only 2 khazad guards and the rest rangers and iron guards)
This year I took
Rise of the Necromancer
Wolves of Isengard
Rangers of Mirkwood
Realms of Men
Khazad Dum
Laketown Heavy Five Armies
Grey Company
Next year I am looking at taking some of these lists...
First to major events I will be taking Umbar or the Grand Army of the south focusing the lowly Corsair as I think that the Hasharin and Corsairs combination lists are the best in the game.
Umbar
Grand army of the South
Host of the Witch King (All cav)
Battle of Greenfields
Fell Beings of Mirkwood (without the spider queen)
Arathorn's Stand
Pellenor (with Halbarad and spam Rangers)
Army of Edoras
Hunter Orcs
Expedition to the East
Khand
and finally The Survivors of Lake town... perhaps the greatest Darkhorse no one has seen coming.
Thank you for reading and I look forwards to seeing more play at events and hopefully if I am able to make it show some competitive spirit at Adepticon's newly minted North American Masters with my Umbar.
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