The Scouring Tournament Report

Shagrat discovers exactly why he should fear the Ringwraiths... 

I had the chance to go to yet another 600-point event at Games Workshop Mount Gravatt this weekend, and couldn’t resist the lure of more toy soldiers. This is actually the second event I’ve been to in the last fortnight, but I haven’t yet had a chance to write up the previous one so they’re coming out in reverse chronological order. If that bothers you, just wait till later this week then come back and read this one. If not, then congratulate yourself on having the resilience to live in an uncertain and ever-changing world, and let’s dive right in!

Tournament Format

Fairly standard stuff here: 3 rounds at 600 points, with 2 hours per game and the veto system. The pools were actually released ahead of time (and list submission was a day-of thing, so you could tailor to the pools if you wanted), and had a good spread of different scenarios. Fixed veto is a fun bit of variety, and is probably my second favourite method of scenario selection after vetoing from randomly-drawn pools.  It ended up being quite a small tournament (apparently most people in the community aren’t up for two tournament weekends in a row!), but the quality of players attending would make up for it.

A good variety of scenarios in the pools, with pools 1 and 3 biased towards shooting and pool 2 towards combat

Listbuilding

This list was the subject of a huge amount of tinkering and fine-tuning over the month leading up the event. As a self-described ‘tournament player’, half the joy of events is the hours of discussion, analysis and playtesting that go into making a list, and I certainly got good value from that here. The army started as a scaled-up version of the 500-point Serpent Horde/Mordor build I ran at this tournament, but gradually morphed over time to a much heavier emphasis on the Mordor half and a shrinking Serpent Horde. That contingent is now less of a horde and more of a stag party, really, but Suladân is such good value that he’s easily worth slotting in. 

When I saw the scenario pools I did briefly contemplate switching back to my tried-and-true Watcher in the Water/Spider Queen build. Every pool was a good pool for that list, and in the end it would have had an easier time in all 3 of my matchups. I still wanted to test out the cool concoction I’d been testing though, so Mordor/Harad it was.

A classic mix of some of the most efficient models in the game

Warband 1

Witch King 3/10/2 on horse with Crown of Morgul (Army Leader)

11 Black Númenóreans

Warg Rider with shield and throwing spear

6 Mordor Orcs with spears

 

Warband 2

Gorbag

5 Black Númenóreans

Warg Rider with shield and throwing spear

5 Mordor Orcs with spears

Orc Tracker

 

Warband 3

Suladân on armoured horse

4 Haradrim with 4 spears and 3 bows

Serpent Rider

 

40 models, 5 bows, 9 Might, 5 fast models

In the end I caved to the sheer value of the Morgul Crown and added it (plus a horse and an extra Fate point) onto the Witch King. I still maintain that the 500-point version of this list was better without it, but at 600 I start to run out of excuses not to do the ‘normal’ thing. I am sticking with only 10 Will on him though, because frankly I think the popular wisdom is just wrong on how much Will the Witch King needs. 95% of games are decided within 5 turns of combat at the longest, and 10 is heaps of Will to spread over those turns.

Otherwise, this list is basically a wall of Black Númenóreans backed by cheap spear supports aiming to grind people off the table. All three heroes add something to the formation, whether it be magic and Harbinger from the Witch King, hitting power and a 6” banner from Suladân, or the cheap Might and Strike of Gorbag. It’s got decent shooting, plenty of fast models, a very strong modelcount, a Terror wall and F4/D6 on the whole front rank. Just solid, scary stuff. 

A pretty poor photo, but one that captures the scale of the list. It's a big frontline

It's especially scary against Evil armies with low Courage and F3, which made me feel pretty good going into Round 1 against…

 

Game 1: Mordor in Fog of War, 12:0

Sean O was one of many newer players to the Queensland tournament scene, and unfortunately he was matched into a list almost tailor-made to beat his. He’d brought along Gothmog, Shagrat, Goroth and a Shaman, which was a formidable suite of heroes but meant that he was outnumbered by a full 16 models. Given that the Witch King was always going to Sap the Shaman’s Will before Sean could engage, he would also be forced to deal with a Terror/Harbinger wall that had a higher Fight value than his warriors, all while his heroes got neutralised by my magic. Oof. I promptly vetoed Heirlooms of Ages Past because it’s the most luck-dependent scenario, and I felt very confident in my army to win either Fog of War or Storm the Camp. 

My archery chipping some inconsequential hits onto Sean's warriors as they advance

In saying that, Sean gave a good effort and put me on the backfoot at several points. He made good use of a central terrain feature to prevent me from leveraging my full numerical advantage, and his heroes put in a good showing. Shagrat Combatted through my lines, before getting lined up for a Transfix and charge by both the Witch King and Suladân. Shagrat resisted the Transfix and managed to get to the same Fight value as me (despite me Striking with both heroes), and even got the six he needed with no Might remaining. But alas, the roll-off went my way and the Orc veteran got absolutely minced by my bucket of dice. 

Shagrat getting run over, while behind him Sean's flank collapses

Over on my right flank, Gothmog and Goroth had swung across and started slaughtering the warriors I’d clustered there, putting the pressure on Gorbag (his target, and the model I was trying to protect!). After I boneheadedly forgot to Transfix Goroth he managed to threaten Gorbag, but a fluked combat win meant I kept Gorbag on the table. On the next turn Sean was able to get both Gothmog and Goroth into Gorbag, but by this point Shagrat was dead and his right flank had collapsed entirely. The Witch King and Suladân were thus free to charge into a lone warrior and call a Heroic Combat and Strike, setting myself up to ride into a helpless Goroth. Sean opted to copy the Combat with Gothmog, which was probably a mistake because I was then able to swarm him with other models and Strike with Gorbag. Gorbag promptly shanked Sean’s leader, while Suladân and the Witch King used their Heroic Combat to sweep into Goroth and ride him down. 

The central clash, shortly before Sean swings his heroes across to my right flank

We called things there, with Sean reduced to a single Shaman, who had survived 16 strikes by the horde surrounding him in order to scrape through the game. Unfortunately neither of us had allocated any points to him, so the scoreline was a pretty resounding 12:0. It was a game quite skewed in my favour from the start, but Sean put up a good fight and made me work for the win. He also took the challenges of the matchup in his stride and remained charming throughout, which is always impressive when the Terror checks start to bite!

Game 2: The Beornings in Capture and Control, 8:3

After facing a newer player with a list I was confident against, I was promptly matched up into Sean Rossato’s Beornings. Sean won the Queensland League this year, and the Beornings are one of the hardest matchups for this list by a mile. I’m terrified of his heroes, his warriors kill mine with disgusting reliability, and my heroes aren’t even good against his warriors! I immediately vetoed Contest of Champions from the scenario pool (for… pretty obvious reasons), while Sean predictably vetoed Destroy the Supplies. Capture and Control gave me some hope of winning on objectives, but one that Gandalf would definitely characterise as a fool’s hope. 

I managed to win Priority on the first turn, and used it to pin down Grimbeorn in human form over on one flank, although Beorn was free to rampage. Suladân went into a pair of Beornings and I was left with a dilemma. If I called a Strike, then Beorn would be able to call a Heroic Combat and Hurl into that fight, knocking me prone and making my Strike irrelevant. On the other hand, if I called a Combat then I could potentially avoid that outcome, and a successful Combat would let me either go into another Beorning or maybe into Grimbeorn (still human, and thus F5). The downside was that I had to beat two F5 Beornings to do so, and in the end I failed to roll above a 3 and got nearly killed by their strikes back. Beorn also managed to dismount Suladân with the Hurl, as he was now stuck in place. Urgh.

Shortly before disaster struck. I only took a single photo this game, as I was very focussed

Elsewhere, I lost about 8 models, for a handful of wounds on individual Beornings in return. That trend continued in the second turn, as while I managed to Transfix Beorn, his son and followers carved a bloody path through my ranks. It would have been bloodier still but a failed Terror check from a Beorning meant Grimbeorn (now a Bear) couldn’t get into combat with Suladân. Phew. Careful placement of control zones also meant that a Heroic Combat or Barge would still see Grimbeorn peeled off, so Suladân took advantage of the opportunity to hack down a singular Beorning. Gorbag was nearly killed by another Beorning on the right flank though, and the slaughter had continued apace. I believe I was about 5 models off Breaking at this point, having killed one Beorning. This Legion is so nuts!

Still, I was holding every single objective, and had done a great job of pinning the Beornings back in one quarter. A second lost Move-off allowed Sean to get Grimbeorn into Suladân, while my right flank crumpled and Beorn tried to rampage through my left flank to get to the objectives. I say ‘tried’, because a combination of Transfixes from the Witch King and poor rolls to win the fight saw Beorn struggle to fight his way out of the circle of Mordor warriors surrounding him. However, Suladân absolutely botched against Grimbeorn and couldn’t roll above a 4 on the six dice I had in the fight, despite Striking to F10. Unsurprisingly, the bear made sure he didn’t get a second chance. Gorbag also died to his Beorning, so that was just great.

All the slaughter had at least Broken me, so I just had to hold out one more turn and the game might end. The right-most objective was reclaimed by the Beornings, but the Witch King managed to survive a Beorning taking some swings at him. Grimbeorn also whiffed against a couple of warriors, preventing him from potentially Barging into the Witch King if he rolled high enough. I passed enough Break checks on the basic warriors that I could maintain a small amount of screening on the objectives, and at the end of the turn I still held 4 objectives to Sean’s 1. My army was a spent force though, and I desperately needed the game to end immediately. If it went on one more turn I could maybe scrape a minor win, but any longer than that and I was absolutely stuffed. 

I rolled the die, using the Queensland GT die that I’d won at the last event Sean TO’ed, and it came up with a 2. That left us with a score of 8:3, giving me a thoroughly unexpected major victory.

This was my first game against the Beornings at a tournament, and it was a really interesting contest. As predicted, they absolutely shredded my line, but I think I was still taken by surprise at quite how fast they did so. I was losing 5-6 models each turn from the warriors alone, and the heroes were even scarier. I do actually think my aggressive Suladân play was the right call in the end: either it failed, in which case I was just going to be left with the same ‘get myself Broken and hope I’ve got enough objectives when the game ends’ strategy, or it worked and I could dramatically reduce Sean’s killing power. It didn’t work, of course, and it was never a high-probability option, but in adverse matchups sometimes you’ve gotta just take the big swings and hope.

After that brutal game (only mitigated by how much of a delight Sean is to play), it was onto something a little more standard…

 

Game 3: The Black Gate Opens in Retrieval, 12:0

More Mordor! This time I was up against a veritable horde of Morannon Orcs with shields on both ranks, backed by the super-Troll, the Mouth and a mounted Captain. S4/D6 everywhere was somewhat of a concern, so I’d need to really leverage my Terror and F4 to pull things out. 

Out of a pool of To the Death, Retrieval and Breakthrough, I realised that the first scenario would let me leverage my superior shooting, while the second would give my cavalry something to sprint for. As such, I vetoed Breakthrough, and Aaron opted for the more aggressive scenario in Retrieval to get stuck in as fast as possible.

We both deployed right on the 3” line, and combat was joined across the front. Things immediately went quite pear-shaped for me, with Aaron’s Orcs being uncharacteristically brave and 5 Black Númenóreans being taken out for no reply. Suladân led a fight back and killed a couple Morannons, but had to burn Might to do so. Not a great start.

Wide deployments from both of us as we preferred for a massive confrontation around the ruins

On the next turn I was able to Transfix the Troll Chieftain, while throwing Suladân forward once more to try to break through in the centre. The fight soon deteriorated into a swirling clash of lines around the central ruins, with Gorbag and Suladân doing enough to swing things back towards parity as my warriors found their form. 

Winning the following Move-off allowed Aaron to swarm models back towards the centre, but I was able to retaliate by sneaking a Warg Rider round the flank and off towards Aaron’s Relic. The Troll was Transfixed again, and I was able to kill enough models in the centre and on my left flank to get a noticeable lead in the killcounts. 

The Move-off went my way on the following turn, allowing me to push forward in the centre and Transfix the Chieftain again. I managed to line up a neat Heroic Combat from Suladân into the Orc Captain (who had failed 3 Terror checks in a row, amusingly enough), but a counter Combat from the Mouth allowed him to charge into Suladân and pin him down. I did manage to win the duel and wound the Mouth though, so it wasn’t an awful outcome. Moreover, the Orc Captain lost his fight, got dismounted and then wounded by the two warriors he was facing, which was really in line with his level of success so far. Being pushed backwards here was actually the only time the Captain moved all game, which was a particularly damning indictment. I also managed to get my Warg Rider in Aaron’s backfield to within inches of his Relic, so I just needed one more turn and I’d be up 3 VPs.

The 5th turn was the decisive one, with Aaron winning the Move-off and successfully resisting the Witch King’s magic with his Troll Chieftain. It went on a bit of a rampage on that flank, killing three models with a Heroic Combat and making very clear why I’d devoted one Will a turn to Transfixing it. The Mouth went into Suladân again, but this time I was able to sneak the Witch King through the melee and in to trap his last mounted hero, while another Black Númenórean with spear support went in to add dice to the clash. One Heroic Strike (plus another Might after I failed to get a 6 on 6 dice, of course) and the Mouth was taken out. 

The Mouth gets shown who the real emissary of Sauron is while my troops finally Break Aaron

Elsewhere, the dice went red hot for both of us, with 7 of my models and even more of Aaron’s (plus his banner) being hacked down. At this stage I could better afford the casualties, however, as Aaron was Broken while I was still 6 models off. Finally, my Warg Rider in the back dismounted and picked up the Relic, preparing to begin his slow walk back to my deployment zone. 

I managed to win Priority on the next turn, and quickly pinned down Aaron’s heroes. At that point Aaron decided to concede: his warriors were going to rapidly disappear to Break checks and he was unlikely to Break me, and he wasn’t anywhere near my objective. Things had turned far in my favour, and there wasn’t really anything that he could do about it. 

With that, I picked up my third major win, taking home Best General! I actually tied on overall winner with Sean Rossato, which amused me: it was the high sportsmanship score I (and his other opponents) gave him that stopped me edging in front. Next time I’ll have to remember to put him at the bottom of the list!

Tournament Review

The Games Workshop Mt Gravatt team did an excellent job as ever, with everything running exceptionally smoothly and some beautiful boards of terrain. It’s awesome just being able to rock up to a free event, and the store is a great one in any case. All three opponents were lovely, and bore the annoyances of a full Terror-wall with good grace. Otherwise, not too much to say here: just a good tournament run simply. Thanks to the Mt Gravatt team for running it!

Like all aspects of the tournament, the terrain wasn't fancy but was really functional and looked great

List review

As ever, no list that goes undefeated (even in a smaller event like this one) can be critiqued too harshly. It’s a solid list, with great numbers, good mobility, powerful heroes and a solid grinding core. In general I think it strikes a nice balance between having the flexibility to adapt to any matchup or situation, while having enough of its own tricks to make a mess of some opponents. Put another way, it has very few bad matchups, while plenty of lists have awful matchups into it. Terror and Harbinger certainly shone in my first and third matchups today, as did the F4/D6 wall at the list’s heart.

Pictured: a version of the list putting in work at a previous tournament

However, I do actually think I will be making substantive changes to the army before I next take it out. Specifically, the lack of S4 really hurt in all matchups and particularly the last one. A Morannon backline would reduce my numbers by 4 (to 36), but it feels like that’s probably worth it for the increase in hitting power and durability of my backline. It’s not a total slam-dunk: all 3 matchups this weekend happened to be either D4 or D6, and against a D5 list like Dale or Angmar I’d undoubtedly prefer the extra models. Moreover, the extra models help a lot with activating Mordor’s awesome army bonus, and were very useful in every matchup. Still, it’s hard to argue with that S4 backline after slogging away at a wall of D6, so I’ll probably be making that change going forward.

The other main discussion point before the tournament— the Witch King’s equipment and Will store—landed in a better spot, however. In every game I was happy to have upgraded my Witch King to a proper Crown-and-horse version of himself, and he was honestly the MVP for the weekend. Moreover, his Will store felt entirely adequate yet again: the lowest he ended a game was two Will in the second round, and if that game went on another two turns then it wouldn’t have mattered how much Will he had because I’d have been stuffed. He had enough Will to cast spells and fight on every turn that I would have wanted him to anyway, so any Will would have been entirely wasted. 

At this stage the Witch King still had about 4 Will left, and the game ended this turn. Feels like 15 wasted points to me!

Tournament Wrap-up

Another great event as the year comes to a close, with just two more left before Christmas time. I’ll be running something entirely different for the next one, so keep an eye out for that report. Also remember to check back in for a quite unique tournament report from the previous tournament, which I promise will eventually be written up and published. Thanks again to all my opponents and to the GW Mt Gravatt team for hosting.

Until next time, may the game always end on the turn you need it to!