Battle on the Range Tournament Report

 

The Dead walk again!

This weekend I had the opportunity to attend another tournament at Battlestation Toowoomba. I’ve been pretty under the gun recently with a theatre performance, graduate diploma and a new job, so had written off this tournament as one I wouldn’t be making it to. But the Valar smiled upon me, so up the Range I went and into battle!

The tournament, organised by Luke Kronk, was a standard 600-point format, with 4 games, random missions and a Swiss scoring system. Being somewhat out of practice, I opted for a tried-and-true heavy infantry army, capable of pushing up the field and winning the game for me through sheer weight of stats. The list might have no tricks and only a single Might, but I’ve been shocked at how much I’ve enjoyed playing it.

 

Dunharrow

King of the Dead              100

2 Riders of the Dead                       48

28 Warriors of the Dead with 13 spears, 22 shields and 1 banner                452

 

31 models, 1 Might, 2 fast models, no shooting.

 

The story of this list is told in those first two stats: it has 31 models, but 1 Might. 31 may not sound like a horde, but when everyone is D7-8 and effectively S6 or so, it’s a pretty terrifying force. The price for that is the second stat of just one Might. With just the King of the Dead I have no real answer to enemy heroes or monsters, except for bogging them down in D8 models and wiping their armies. I’ve experimented a lot with Aragorn, but he drops my numbers by 10 models and inevitably creates a point of vulnerability for my opponent to target. Aragorn clearly adds a lot to a list, but he also forces much more careful play from me, and I wasn’t having any of that nonsense!

 

Tournament Review

It had the cutest little blurb, which I personally adored 

Luke was thrown into running the tournament at quite late notice, but did an excellent job for all that. Things ran pretty consistently smoothly throughout the day, terrain was great across all the tables, and the prize support was excellent. Luke stuck pretty strictly to the random drawing of scenarios, which was the right call but did mean we ended up playing Storm the Camp and Reconnoitre. At least it wasn’t Contest of Champions though! Overall, a really excellent tournament, great work Luke.

 

Round 1 against Saxon’s Black Gate Opens, 10:0

The King of the Dead calls the advance against the Orcs

This matchup was a beautifully thematic one, with massed ranks of Morannon Orcs backing up a Troll against my ghosts. It looked just like the docks of Harlond, and unfortunately played out pretty similarly as well. To the Death didn’t give Saxon any room to play for objectives, so it just came down to my Warriors of the Dead scything through his ranks while the Troll Chieftain slowly crumped his way forward. 

The Dead overwhelm the Orc lines

Saxon could probably have made better use of terrain to restrict how quickly I could cut through him, but ultimately it was a pretty adverse matchup for the Orcs. I was able to clean up the main bulk of the Orcs, kill both banner bearers and eventually quarter them, all while keeping the King and my own banner safe from the Troll Chieftain. I saw what that Troll did to Aragorn in the movies!

A satisfyingly bloody game to start off the day with, and a solid 10:0 win for the scoring.

 

Round 2 against Michael’s Ents, 3:6

The hardest part of facing this army: remembering that they're not just terrain pieces

This Dunharrow build has a real weakness to armies that don’t have any tasty warriors to massacre, and unfortunately the softest targets in this army were Merry and Pippin on Treebeard’s shoulders. Storm the Camp at least gave me some hope of victory though, as I flooded forwards to occupy Michael’s camp with my superior numbers. I managed to drag down Quickbeam and could have taken out one more Ent, but 20 wound rolls over two turns failed to show more than two 5s. In return, the Ents waded through my forces with aplomb, rapidly Breaking my undead host.

In the end, the game came down to whether I failed any Break tests in the penultimate turn. If I did, then the game would end that turn and Michael wouldn’t be able to get Treebeard or his Hobbits into my camp and I would win 6:3. Running the numbers, it was roughly a coinflip, but the dice weren’t with me and all of my ghosts stuck around. Michael then got to move into my camp, disembark Merry and Pippin to outnumber me in it, and win 6:3. I obviously wish the dice had gone differently at the end, but it was a great conclusion to a really hard-fought game and Michael deserved the win.

 

Round 3 against Mick with Lurtz’ Scouts, 8:0

 

My frustrated Warriors of the Dead finally start to carve through the Scouts

This game, fought on Command the Battlefield, was extremely cagey right from the start. Some initial rolls in my favour saw only Mauhur’s warband come on, with Lurtz and Ugluk choosing to remain off the board for a turn. I then came in on both sides of Mauhur, ready to rumble, only for the Uruk-hai to win Priority on the next turn and sprint away. Ugluk came in around 18” away and his warband started peppering me, while Mauhur’s warband threw down some more shots from range as they continued to retreat. I sent one warband to pursue Mauhur’s troops as they spread out across the southern half of the board, while the other two stomped grumpily towards Ugluk.

After 3-4 turns of this— with Lurtz making use of his ability to just not come in— I finally managed to pin Ugluk’s warband against some terrain. Mick won Priority and could probably have slipped away from me again, but instead chose to bring in Lurtz and pin me in place with a screen of Scouts. I think the plan was to avoid the risk of Terror checks messing up his lines, but it allowed me to charge each Scout with multiple Warriors of the Dead and kill around 7 in the first turn of combat. Subsequent turns saw me press this advantage, with my two warbands on this front gradually chopping their way through most of Mick’s army. This was helped by my Terror, which oscillated wildly between pinning the whole Uruk army in place and being laughed off by several turns of Berserker-brave Uruk-hai.

On the southern board half, my third warband was finally able to get to grips with the rest of Mauhur’s troops. They were obviously enraged by their long turns of skirmishing and promptly slaughtered everything they touched, with the whole southern half getting cleared of Uruks by the time Mick was Broken.

Some good rolls here saw all these Uruks killed within 3 turns

In the end, the Uruks did remarkably well with their Break tests but ended up being quartered by the slaughterhouse of the main melee. This left the north-east corner exactly tied, while my ghosts in the north-west killed just enough Uruks to outnumber them 2:1 and claim me that quarter too. With the south in my hands and the Uruks Broken, we were left with a scoreline that in no way reflected how close the game had felt throughout.

I felt like Mick played this game really well, and was extremely impressed (and infuriated) by his skirmishing away from my heavy infantry. I think this game was ultimately decided by my Terror convincing Mick to give me a good first round engagement, allowing me to pull ahead on killing. I was also pretty proud of myself for not getting caught in a haze of bloodlust and forgetting about the rest of the board. I really wanted to pull my third warband into the melee instead of chasing down random Scouts across the board, but clearing out those two quarters was ultimately an 8-point swing. Well worth the frustration of being kited by Move 8 archers!

 

Round 4 against Nick’s Lothlorien, 10:0

 

I forgot to take any pictures this round, so here's a pretty Rohan army I saw at the tournament instead

The pairings and scenario for this round were announced, and a wave of boos filled the room: we were playing Reconnoitre. I actually don’t mind this scenario too much though, as long as you’re playing with someone who’s willing to speedrun the first few turns. Nick was great for this: we basically took our first three turns simultaneously, with whoever had Priority signalling where they would be moving each of their warbands then the other player moving in response to that information. I get the hate for this mission, but it’s a lot more enjoyable with this kind of play.

Come turn 4, we were in position to fight. Rumil and his warband came crashing forward into my first two warbands, while Galadriel’s troops and 10 more ghosts hurried to catch up. Nick was perhaps slightly too aggressive on this first turn of combat, and this combined with some rough rolls to see much of his centre rolled up immediately. I was able to break 4 warriors through to slowly clear up his backfield archers, while the rest of my force slammed into the Elven flank.

The outcome of this was an interesting push-pull situation, where Galadriel’s pike block slowly whittled down a thinning line of ghosts on my centre-right, while their flank gradually crumbled to the rest of my forces. There were also skirmishes happening on the far-right— where a pair of Warriors of the Dead and a Rider killed off a Galadhirim Knight and a pikeman— and on my centre-left, where those 4 warriors I mentioned earlier killed a few Galadhirim archers. The net result of these skirmishes was that I was able to get 3 warriors off the board edge, giving me a critical 7 points as long as I could keep Nick’s main force pinned in.

This I was able to do thanks to the sheer grindiness of the Dead, despite the rolls swinging back against me a bit. My overwhelming numerical superiority on the centre-left was translating into kills at a snail’s pace, and my outnumbered centre-right started to crumble without reinforcements. The King ended up finding himself on his own for several turns, but a combination of some good rolls and high Defence saw him tough it out without any lost wounds. On the flipside, Galadriel managed to roll the 5 she needed to win on Fight value against my 4 Warriors of the Dead, dodging some potential leader points.

In the end, we ran out of time with the Elves a couple of models from quartering and my forces 3 models from Break. It was an absolute bloodbath, but the 7 points from the ghosts that made it off gave me a solid 10:0 win.

This game was probably my favourite of the tournament, as Nick was an absolute blast to play against and the game was filled with interesting tactical moments throughout. A great way to close out the day!

 Another pretty army I saw, this time with some cool ambush-themed Haradirim

This left me on three major wins and one minor loss, which was just enough to push me into 3rd place overall! As mentioned, all of the prize support was excellent, and I was able to snag a nice dice tray and set of basing grasses— both things I’d already been planning to invest in anyway! First place went to a nasty Mordor list, while second went to Assault on Lothlorien: those sneaky Goblins/Spiders definitely seem like they’re the strongest thing to come out of War in the North.

 

List Review

They're such good boys, their oaths are very much fulfilled

I think I’m falling in love. This list is wholly uncomplicated, yet so deceptively strong. Even matchups that are traditionally viewed as uphill battles (like Elves!) actually start to become favourable once you take into account the D8 and surprising numbers. It has bad matchups into all-hero armies and monster mashes (at least the ones that don’t care about Terror), but those are a pretty small chunk of the meta. And against everything else, that grindy resilience and Blades of the Dead lets you pull well ahead in the melee. Factor in the numbers and Riders to play objective games, and it’s a surprisingly powerful combination. Terror is basically just a little cherry on top, generally not doing much but occasionally showing its head to absolutely dominate a matchup.

I had a few people ask me whether I regretted the lack of Might, and honestly I think the answer is no. It’s not an army that cares much about moving first, because it’s a wall of Terror-causing, D8 infantry, so Heroic Moves are pretty much off the table anyway. And the King is such an unimpressive combat piece that I tended to play defensively with him anyway. Heroic Strike is good, but being safely behind a wall of undead is even better.

The King of the Dead in his traditional place: safely behind the main battleline, protecting my Army Leader VPs

With that in mind, I really don’t think I’d change a single thing about the list. There are lots of things I’d like to add to it, but every upgrade or hero erodes my numerical edge and I think they probably aren’t worth it. At larger points I imagine I’d bring along Aragorn and likely Legolas too, but it’s also pretty tempting to just horde out even further. Magic gets more common the higher the points level, and getting to basically just ignore Galadriel throughout the whole final game was pretty great.

Overall, I had an absolute blast at this tournament. Luke ran a tight ship, and all 4 of my games were fun times against excellent opponents. Thanks to Saxon, Michael, Mick and Nick for the games, and to everyone involved in the organisation. I’m looking forward to 2023!

Until next time, may your warriors always win the war of attrition!

Comments

  1. Great write-up as always - I'm really disappointed that the Lurtz's Scouts list doesn't have a Shaman in it. Saruman does tell them, "You do not know pain, you do not know fear" - and yet the guy who could give them both of these things (Shaman with channelled Fury) isn't in the list. They do know pain (D4-5 on everyone except Lurtz) and they do know fear (C3-4 and not even the don't-test-for-break-until-you-reach-33% rule). It's just sad. Glad to see the tournament went well and better luck fighting the Ents next time (I hate those guys). :)

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    Replies
    1. Glad you enjoyed! It's definitely a matchup where the lack of Shaman really stings: turns out that C3 models without access to spears really hate facing Terror! Given that there's an Uruk-hai Shaman model dressed up to run with Scouts, it seems like a gaping absence in the Legion.

      Next time I'll get those Ents, I just need to remember how to roll 5's to wound. Apparently my Dead have gotten lazy after all those games of wounding on 3's!

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