Monday, February 29, 2016

Clash of kings Tournament with the DC Hobbit League

One of our members, Chris H, contacted Devin of the DC Hobbit League and in conjunction the two devised a tournament to highlight mighty heroes.  This involved the generation of unique scenarios (pdf) which centered around the king in your army.  This was a charity event held at our awesome FLGS Battlegrounds, which opened early and provided us with exclusive use of as many tables as we needed.  We had a total of 14 players so we took over their tabletop room which has 8 6x4 tables.  Good enough for us.  I brought 2 dozen donuts from Sugar Shack which originated here in Richmond and we started gaming about 10am.
My army list:
Warband 1
The Knight of Umbar with Fell Beast;
6 Haradrim Warrior with Spear;
6 Castellan of Umbar

Warband 2  
Suladân the Serpent Lord with Horse;
6 Serpent Guard
6 Castellan of Umbar

Warband 3
Haradrim Chieftain with Spear;
1 Haradrim Warrior with Banner;
11 Haradrim Warrior with Bow; Spear;

Warband 4  
Corsair Bo'sun with Spear;
1 Haradrim Warrior with Spear;
5 Haradrim Warrior with Bow; Spear;
5 Corsair Reaver

51 models, break at 25, 16 bows with poison as well as some poison with the serpent guard.

The first game was the Behind enemy lines scenario, I faced Cole, who brought an army led by Gulahvar with a cave troll, 3 spectres and 8 orcs in his leaders war band, then a shade and more orcs and the dwimmerlaik and black numenoreans.   Made the mistake of casting too much too close to the dwimmerlaik and my Knight of Umbar went poof.  I reduced his leaders war band to 2 and I put two wounds on gulahvar, which ended up being regenerated ( more on this later ).  we totally calculated points wrong in this game.  We stated he scored 4 for killing my king ( although Cole did not, my king lost all his will and dissipated) and I scored 2 for killing more than half his kings war band.  I should have scored 2 more since I wounded his king, but forgot.  Goes to show you, read the scenario and calculate the points correctly.
Second game was the scenario grudge match, I played Joel B who brought Elrond on horse, storm caller, captain and a mix of kings guard and regular high elves.  We started with about six or seven rounds of our kings slapping each other and not wounding, managing to remove both of our heroes mounts.  In the end Elrond removed all the fate on my king and the knight of Umber had to limp off the field. Which he did, earning me five points.  I was going to keep my kings war band back but decided to risk them in order to garner more points. I then managed to kill half Joel's king's war band earning me a further 3 points.  No one was broken so I ended with 8 points.
Third game was Regicide, I played Jacob brought the mouth of sauron( king) 6 black numenoreans, 6 morannons w/ shield and spear, a dragon with fly and breathe fire, the dwimmerlaik on fell beast and an unnamed wraith on horse.  This scenario really hurt me due to my king not being able to kill things and the two wraiths attempting to sap will my king ( and the dwimmerlaks special rule would have cost roughly 50% more will to resist).I kept the dwimmerlaik tied up in the middle with all my bowman, while chasing his king with my other units.  Jacob moved his king and favorites into the corner, I did the same in my corner.  His dragon chewed on some harad/numenoreans while I tried to chase his king with reavers and more numenoreans. Between the wraiths, the dragon and their terror a lot of my models were frozen in fear.  I finally managed to get his king trapped next to a building but with only 4-5 units, while he still had his full war band ( and his king acted as a banner).  He tried like hell to kill suladan, but never pulled it off.  I could win some fights but could not kill very well.  Ended up zero zero, no one broken and I lost only one kings favorite( black dart).
Now during this game we realized that Gulavhar should not have regenerated wounds from throwing a model, which means my fights with Gulavhar in my first game should have gone differently and I probably would have killed him.  Oh well.
My last game was against Alex ( I think, I was pretty burned out by this point ) who brought Durburz, Gundabad captain and shaman, the spider queen and a drums, spiders, marauders and goblins.  First thing I did was try and shoot the spiders and kill the spider queen.  Two turns and the knight of umber killed the spider queen, I then lost the knight of umber after rolling two 1's for a fate roll.  That did not cost me points though. I knew losing my king was not points worthy for me and used him aggressively.  His shaman got off earthquake which was very effective at killing, I will watch out for that one in later games.  So I killed his highest point, non king model with my king and it was more than half my kings cost, plus his king was still alive at the end, earning me 7 points.  I almost broke him, one more turn and I would have, but we ran out of time.
Overall I earned a 3rd place, not bad, probably could have been higher had I paid closer attention to the scenario victory points.
I will link to photos when Devin post them
Thanks for reading.