The Ruin in the Riddermark Tournament Report

The Watcher in the Water is back, and ready to rumble!

I’m back, with yet another 600-point tournament report! I’ve really started to like this points value, and was very excited to head to another tournament using it. It strikes a nice balance between ‘no toys just boys’ and ‘all the toys and the boys’, which I enjoy. This tournament was hosted by the team at Warhammer Mt Gravatt, and ran exceptionally smoothly throughout.

 

Tournament Format

Nothing special here, just 3 rounds of 2 hours at 600 points. The slightly longer time per game was very pleasant, and I believe only a single game went to time all tournament. It’s always a toss-up between 4 games and shorter timeframes or 3 games at a more leisurely pace; while I tend to prefer the former at 600 points, it definitely felt nice not to be rushed.

The three scenarios were announced in advance as To the Death, Destroy the Supplies and Domination. Three of the better scenarios overall, in my opinion, so no complaints there.

 

Listbuilding

The list I very nearly ran

I went back and forth a lot on lists, spending much time considering my Dunharrow build in particular. It brings a banner, which would help in 2/3 scenarios, and in general it’s a solid army that can either spread out or clump up as needed. In the end, I opted against it for the simple reason that I don’t like unwinnable matchups, and if I hit Beornings in To the Death my list of options would probably start and end with ‘keel over and die.’

Instead, I brought back the Watcher. The Moria/Dark Denizens list I brought to the last event may not have a banner, but it was 3:0 in tournaments so far and was pretty solid overall. It’s got enough tricks that I never feel out of a game, and most of all it’s just great fun to play. Big monsters are super cool, and unlike something like the Vanquishers or Beornings, there are lots of nice easy targets for the enemy to slaughter. The Watcher and Spider Queen are capable of pulling some pretty dirty tricks, but at least enemies will generally get the satisfaction of Breaking me.

My list was as follows:

Warband 1

Durburz (Army Leader)                 70

Bat Swarm                          35

13 Goblins (6 with shields, 6 with spears, 1 with bow)                                      65

 

Warband 2

Goblin Captain                  35

12 Goblins (6 with spears, 6 with shields)              60

 

Warband 3

The Watcher in the Water                            200

 

Warband 4

Spider Queen                    115

Giant Spider                       20

 

600 points, 31 models, 9 Might

Break at 16 kills, quartered at 7 models remaining

 

A picture from last tournament, because not much has changed

It’s basically identical to the list I took last time, because if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. I decided to keep the Giant Spider instead of swapping for a Mirkwood one because I like the small base size, but swapped 2 bow-armed Goblins for models with a spear or shield. I’m not out-shooting armies unless they brought literally no bows, so one archer is probably all I need.

Otherwise, the list is basically a screen of expendable Goblins who hold up the enemy long enough for the Watcher to kill all their heroes and the Spider Queen to do crazy shenanigans. It matches up well into big combat pieces, and struggle into lists with lots of archery and high model-counts. If there aren’t great targets for the Watcher then things can get hairy, but it’s otherwise a pretty scary list.

 

Round 1 against Sean Rossato’s Ugluk’s Scouts, 8:3

Sean does commission painting, and armies like this are a pretty good indication of why

Round 1, and I’m matched up against a shooting army in To the Death. Excellent. Even more concerningly, Sean is an extremely solid player and regularly takes out Queensland tournaments, so I knew I was in for a fight. Thankfully, Sean had made these Scouts a labour of love, using exclusively metal models for the Orcs and Uruk-hai. It looked awesome on the field, but did mean he had no spears and only 8 bows. This gave me a bit more chance of crossing the field intact, and would make it harder for the Uruk-hai to bring their numbers edge to bear when I got there.

The game started with 3 turns of me slogging forward into Uruk-ai shooting, calling one March to speed things up. I lost a few Goblins, but nothing too backbreaking. Sean generously decided not to kite me for the next 2 hours, so I brought in the Watcher ready for some carnage. 

Sean's Scouts contemplate charging the Watcher. Most of them wisely fail their Terror checks

Grishnakh positioned himself behind a screen of Uruk-hai to pounce next turn, only to be yanked forward into contact with the Watcher and a Bat Swarm. That went about how you’d predict.

With Grishakh’s death the Watcher was free to rampage, as only Ugluk had any way to beat its Fight value (and weirdly enough, Sean wasn’t interested in bring his fragile Army Leader anywhere near my 6 Attack monster). Over the next few turns the Watcher tore its way through the Uruk-hai and Orcs, killing Mauhur, the Scout Captain and around 15 warriors single-handedly. Oof. On top of that, Sean knew he needed to keep tagging me with warriors to stop me shambling off and grabbing Ugluk or his banner bearer. When it’s C3 Uruks or C2 Orcs doing the tagging (in Harbinger range!), that meant there were often half-a-dozen of his models standing around after failing Terror checks.

The Watcher has already killed its points's worth and it's only the second turn of combat

Over on the other flank, Sean swarmed my lines with a horde of Uruk-hai and looked like overwhelming the flank entirely. Unfortunately, he’d made a key strategic error: he’d brought Ugluk’s Scouts. The last time we played, my Ugluk’s Scouts had ran headfirst into his Dale and been torn apart by some truly cracked dice-rolling. This time, the cosmic scales were in need of balancing, and my dice decided that they were made to roll 6’s. My ‘elite’ Goblins were soon winning fights all up and down the line, killing many times their weight in Uruks and eventually tearing the heart out of Sean’s army.

There were some amusing contrasts to this trend (my Spider Queen lost three fights in a row to a lone Uruk-hai and was wounded twice for her troubles!), but Ugluk was soon running out of models to protect him. A Heroic Move from Durburz let me get the Spider Queen into Ugluk and my Giant Spider into the banner bearer, and the resulting losses quartered his army on the same turn he Broke mine.

Sean’s always a delight to play against, and we had a blast seeing the Watcher go wild. I think the karmic scales of Ugluk’s Scouts are now balanced once more!

MVP: The Watcher

 

Round 2 against Sean Kirby’s Defenders of the Shire, 4:3

This was not even all the Hobbits: they didn't all fit on the display board!

Excellent, another shooting list and another tournament veteran. I’d never played against the Shire before, but was immediately intimidated. Sean had 85 models, and before the game had even begun he’d littered the board with traps and flowerpots. There were also 13 Hobbits in reserve, ready to pop out of any terrain feature or board edge on Turn 3. Given that there was a large house directly separating two of my Supply markers, I was pretty concerned. The resulting game ended up being one of the most interesting and strategic games I’ve played, so be prepared for a longer write-up than usual.

The first few turns were quite conservative, as we each moved slowly forward. I didn’t want to commit many of my Goblins till Sean’s reserves came on, while he was perfectly happy to creep forward and set up good firing angles. At last I decided I needed to make a play, and brought in the Watcher in the centre of the board.

In hindsight, this was about the worst possible thing I could have done. I was concerned about him getting swamped and taken out if I placed him too aggressively, or just not coming on if I held him in reserve too long. The outcome, however, was that Sean stayed just outside of Tentacle range and pelted me with stones and arrows. Three turns of bombardment and the Watcher lay dead, having killed 0 points worth of Hobbits. Oh no.

It may have died without accomplishing anything much, but at least it looked cool doing so

Over on the right flank, I sped the Spider Queen forward to wreak some havoc. This first took the form of a Broodling attack, using all her Will to tie up key models and get a Swarm unopposed onto a Supply marker. She then fought a delaying action on that flank, burning Pippin’s Might and killing a number of Hobbits before eventually scarpering back down the field.

A fighting retreat on this flank sees Pippin's troops too tied-up to get to my Supplies

In my backfield, the Hobbit Militia arrived on my backline but were headed off by a warband of Goblins and my Giant Spider. Sean stayed quite stationary with the Hobbits to threaten a volley of stones, and for several turns I kept just outside 8” to avoid the threat. Eventually I realised that 80 points of Hobbits were holding up ~120 points of my army, so I charged forward and got slaughtering. A couple turns of carnage and these Hobbits were wiped out, although I did need to burn all the Captain’s Might to make sure a lone Hobbit didn’t make it away to my Supplies. Still, they’d done their job and taken plenty of Goblins out of the fight.

Over in the centre, I was keeping my Bat Swarm just narrowly within 12” of another Supply marker. These Bats were defended by 4 Goblins in a narrow choke-point while I waited for a turn in which I lost Priority. Unfortunately, the turn this happened Sean chose to move some Hobbits back to try and screen me out. The result was that my Bats could definitely reach the Supplies, but it was unclear whether they could do so without entering the control zone of his Hobbit (and thus becoming ineligible to burn the Supplies this turn). In the end Sean decided I could fit when I went at an angle, but I wasn’t convinced enough to take advantage of his generosity. We rolled a dice for it, and the Bat flew over to put me ahead 4:0.

Unfortunately, by this point the cat-and-mouse game we’d been playing on my left flank had finally come to a head, and the Goblins defending my left objective found themselves badly outnumbered. Durburz flung himself into the fray and my Goblins sold their lives dearly, hacking through truly impressive numbers of Hobbits before going down. 

Normally it's the Goblins doing the outnumbering!

Their heroism was again improved by some crazy dice rolls, with sixes all across the field. These Goblins were F2, and they were determined to show it off! The four Goblins in the centre did similarly well, churning through at least a dozen Hobbits before they finally went down.

The Goblins get swamped, but they hold out for an absurdly long time

Unfortunately, on the final turn I was Broken, and Durburz was wounded by some cheeky Hobbit with an axe. But the valour of my Goblins had held all 3 Supply markers, giving me a narrow 4:3 win. If the game had gone on another couple turns then I think Sean would definitely have had it, but the sacrifice of most of my army had held him back just long enough to close out the game.

This was an incredibly engaging game, and I learnt a huge amount about Hobbits. Honestly, I think Sean outplayed me, and it was just the tricksiness of my list and some absurd rolling that let me scrape by. That Hobbit shooting threat is genuinely terrifying, and I think if we’d played in the first scenario then I’d have been toast. Sean was a lovely opponent, being consistently good-natured even in the face of bad luck and tricky measurement calls.  I’m very keen for a rematch!

MVP: My elite Goblins

 

Round 3 against David Thompson’s Azog’s Legion, 11:0

David's list minus the Gundabad Troll and some Goblins

After a couple of tricky matchups, I was somewhat relieved to see a list centred around big combat pieces. The last time David and I played he was fielding Mirkwood Rangers —probably my hardest matchup— and he shot my Goblins off the field. This time, he had Azog with all the goodies, a Troll, some Goblin Mercenaries and a small supporting band of  Orcs and Berserkers. Objectives were placed in a fairly central spread, and we both deployed on the line ready for a melee.

Winning Priority on Turn 1, I brought in the Watcher and tagged Azog, before yanking him into combat with a Bat Swarm and Durburz and slaughtering him instantly. 255 points killed on Turn 1 was pretty decisive, and it basically signalled the death knell for David’s list. The Spider Queen dropped off her Broodlings to claim three outlying objectives, before ripping through the Orc backlines and taking out David's banner. His surviving models put up a good fight, but ultimately they were too outnumbered to contest most of the objectives.

MVP: The Watcher

 

With two major wins and one minor, that left me in first place overall for Tournament Points and earned me Grand General!

Nothing like an awkwardly-posed picture with a blurry certificate to prove you got an award 

Tournament Review

This event was nothing fancy, but it did exactly what it said on the tin and ran smoothly throughout. Everything ran on time, the terrain was great, and I’m a fan of the points limit as well. I think in future making only one of the scenarios give points for having a banner may be fairer to factions which can’t include one, but that’s truly a minor quibble. The event was great, and also free! Very excited for the next one, and big thanks to the Mt Gravatt team for hosting.

 

List Review

The army getting ready to absolutely mince some Uruks

This list slaps. It’s really, really strong, and if I was heading to an event I desperately wanted to win tomorrow I wouldn’t change it in the slightest. It has enough sneaky tricks that you’re keeping opponents guessing and always have a way to come back from a difficult matchup, but it also has enough raw power to forgive a few mistakes. There are no matchups that it can’t win, and quite a few that it wins very easily indeed (alas for Azog!). I’ve played it into everything from Elven bows, to Angmar tricks, to Beorning brutality, and every single one of those matchups felt winnable. Indeed, this tournament saw it pull through against two of its harder matchups, which is always a good sign for an army.

In saying all that, I think I will put the list down for a bit. It’s always a blast to play, but its good matchups can be pretty bleak for the opponent. I’ll definitely bring it out again, but I’m giving it a well-earned rest for awhile.

In the meantime, I may bring out my Dunharrow again, or potentially the Serpent Horde/Mordor list I’ve been converting up. Alternatively, perhaps it’s time for a few more Spiders…

Until next time, may your Goblins always feel like the elites they are!