This blog normally focusses on competitive content, from tactics articles to high-stakes tournament reports. Today’s report is… not that. Instead, it’s a 500-point tournament report from a unique tournament, in which you received tournament points not for winning games but for giving your opponent a good game! It was a wild time, and I (as advertised) had an absolute blast.
Tournament Format
On paper, things start pretty ordinarily here: 4 games at 500 points, with no special listbuilding restrictions here. Where things get wacky is the method of awarding tournament points, with points being awarded entirely based on how highly your opponents ranked you out of their 4 games. The scenarios were also extra silly, with 3 scenarios involving wild things like chasing Goblins around the map, objectives that handed control of your models over to your opponent when you picked them up, and a throne that slowly corrupted your leader with power as they sat on it. Crazy stuff!
Listbuilding
Can you optimise for fun? As a chronic overthinker it was a question I pondered a lot when designing a list for this tournament, and it’s honestly a really interesting question. What kind of armies do people most enjoy fighting? Some things were immediately out (goodbye Watcher in the Water, goodbye Angmar), but others took longer to rule out. One-hero Dunharrow and Dark Denizens were both heavily contemplated because I love playing them, before I realised that Terror can be an unpleasant rule to play against for a lot of armies. Getting to kill heaps of models makes Goblintown fun to face, but there’s also the risk of some scenarios favouring it too much and the game’s outcome being obvious from the start. Finally, my fiancé made a crucial point: people like to see the characters they know and love on the table. With that, my decision was made, and I was taking the Breaking of the Fellowship!
Warband 1
Aragorn
Boromir with shield
Legolas
Gimli
Sam
5 models, 1 bow, 17* Might, no fast models
Looking at this army from a competitive perspective, I can’t help but wince. It’s got limited mobility, tiny numbers, and way less punch than you’d expect; foot heroes without bonuses to wound really don’t hit that hard (Gimli obviously can get bonuses to wound in multiple ways, but one is pretty conditional and the other requires you to give up his third Attack and is thus very rarely worth it)! It also has no way to interact with the enemy outside of running forward and hoping for sixes, at least once Legolas is tied up in combat. And the modelcount means it’s starting from way behind in the large majority of scenarios. This is probably still the optimal way to build this Legion for 500-points (no, I refuse to hear that taking Frodo, Merry and Pippin is worth leaving Boromir at home!), but man is it still so rough.
Thankfully, this is the perfect tournament to which to take a sub-par list, and I was excited to see how my Fellowship fared!
Round 1: Mordor in Loot Goblins, 8:0
This scenario was a wild one, in which you had to compete with your opponent to capture 5 Goblins loaded with loot, which moved randomly every turn according to the roll of a scatter die. More interestingly, you could choose to fight and kill these Goblins instead of leading them around as objectives; if you killed one, then it would no longer be worth VPs but would gain you D3 Might, Will or Fate on that model! It was a fun concept, and the tradeoff of endgame VPs versus present stat increases would actually be interesting to explore in a more ‘serious’ context.
In any case, it didn’t come into play a heap, as Alex was running a Mordor list with 2 Mordor Trolls and 2 Troll Chieftains. As such, we were very quickly locked in pitched combat atop the awesome Weathertop board.
Turn 1 saw one Mordor Troll kill a Goblin and pick up 3 Might points, before a Heroic Combat/Strike combo from Boromir, Sam and Aragorn saw first a Troll and then a Troll Chieftain fall to my heroes.
On the next turn the gang went into the other Chieftain and picked it up, before Aragorn took on the final Troll (and its three Might points!) in single combat for several turns. While he did get Hurled across the board at one point, in the end the surviving Troll decided there was nothing worth sticking around for and scarpered to close out a very silly and very brief game.
Round 2: Evil Fellowship in Rings of Power, 7:5
This game was easily the silliest of the day, for many reasons. First, Liam had brought an Evil ‘Fellowship’, consisting of Groblog and Durburz as Frodo and Sam, the Mouth of Sauron as Gandalf, Lurtz, Vrasku and Mauhur as Aragorn, Legolas and Boromir, Gorulf as Gimli, and two Uruk-hai Scouts carrying Merry and Pippin as Merry and Pippin. So, we simultaneously had a Fellowship-off and a Breaking of the Fellowship versus Lurtz’ Scouts clash. Adding to that, the three relics (rings of power) sitting along the centre line were worth 9 VPs between them, but whichever models were carrying them would be controlled by the opposing player for all intents and purposes. With a total of 14 models on the field between us, it was always going to be a strange game.
Things started exceptionally thematically, with me reasoning that while I might not want Boromir to go charging into the midst of the enemy force alone, the real Boromir would see that Merry and Pippin were captive and go charging in regardless. So in he went, where he lost a Strike-off to Lurtz and the gang and got promptly slaughtered by the Uruk-hai. Great stuff. Thankfully, Liam reciprocated by sending a now Might-less Lurtz off to face Aragorn, who promptly massacred Liam’s Aragorn stand-in. Unfortunately the weird trading game we were playing continued, with Aragorn then getting swamped, rolling a 3 high, and dying instantly. Great stuff.
Elsewhere, the rings of power were causing a range of shenanigans. Sam (holding a ring, and thus controlled by Liam) ended up facing Merry’s carrier (also holding a ring, and thus controlled by me) in an epic duel for about 8 turns, in which each of us desperately wanted to roll low and thus get the model we were controlling killed. Nearby, Legolas was being entirely useless with his sniping, until Mauhur stepped into view and got shot down in a single volley of arrows. Legolas giveth and Legolas taketh away.
On the far left, meanwhile, Groblog and Durburz (Frodo and Sam) had been alternating which one was holding the ring, with me controlling whoever had it and using them to beat up the other one. In the end the Mouth (Gandalf) went in to try and sort out these two strange Goblin-Hobbits and ended up unintentionally killing both of them! This Broke Liam, and Merry’s carrier — fresh off finally killing Sam as I continued to roll hot for him— failed a Break test and scarpered. That left Legolas free to pick up the two rings the Uruk had been holding, winning me the game at the very last moment.
It was one of the wackiest games I’ve ever played, and Liam did a great job of leaning into the silliness and moving our models as the characters would thematically have wanted. When the discussion around the table isn’t about optimal strategies but whether Gimli would thematically have gone to rescue the Hobbits or Aragorn if both were in danger, you know the tournament is accomplishing its aim.
Round 3: Gondor in The Throne of Gondor is Mine, 5:1
Thematic matchups continued, as this time Aragorn would be battling Saxon’s Faramir (plus Ingold and Anborn and a boatload of Gondorians of various kinds) for the throne of Gondor. The twist was that half the scenario VPs were for having your leader sit untouched on the throne in the centre for turns without doing anything, and the longer they sat there the more likely they would be to get hit with a Channelled Transfix. Scary! This scenario looked particularly tricky in light of my tiny modelcount and inability to screen off Aragorn effectively, but it would be interesting to see how it played out.
I quickly raced for the centre, using two Marches to get Aragorn onto the throne. There was a nice ruined building around the throne, and I flung my other 4 heroes forward to try and fend off Saxon’s troops to let Aragorn sit in peace. That worked better than I expected, and I managed to keep the throne for two full turns to rack up some critical early VPs.
By that point the Gondorians were all around me though, and so we settled into a steady game of ‘hold the line and hope I can grind them out’.
Over many, many turns of luck swinging around, I was able to Break the Gondorians for the cost of Sam and a bucket of heroic resources. Saxon had managed to sneak Faramir onto the throne for one full turn, but I was still ahead on points as Aragorn broke through to face Faramir. 3 turns of combat ensued, with Aragorn losing two rounds and being wounded before stripping Faramir’s Fate back in the third round. Finally, Legolas fell at last, but Boromir and Gimli had hacked their way through enough enemies that Saxon’s lines had collapsed. Aragorn was able to get into a Trapped Faramir and finally finish the job, claiming the throne of Gondor once and for all. We called it there for a hard-fought and bloody win to the Fellowship!
Round 4: Dark Denizens/Mordor in Retrieval, 0:12
Round 4 saw me matched up against Erin, my Doubles partner from this tournament. She was running Spiders as ever, this time with Shelob and the Mouth of Sauron allied in for a second monster Spider. After 3 rounds of unusual scenarios, our 4th round was left entirely up to us: we could play whatever scenario we wanted! In the end we decided not to overthink things and rolled randomly, rolling Retrieval and getting excited from some capture the flag.
In this matchup and scenario, I’m clearly best off sitting all my models on my objective and just trying to Break Erin. But that’s boring, so while Sam, Gimli and Legolas tried to defend my objective, Boromir and Aragorn went storming forward.
Things immediately went pear-shaped, as the Spider Queen swept into Aragorn. They both Struck to F10 and got the 6, but the roll-off went to Evil despite my Elven weapon! Aragorn promptly got minced, although at least Boromir and Legolas each killed a Spider.
On the next turn, a throwing axe from Gimli killed another Mirkwood Spider, before he slammed into Shelob. I decided I needed to save my Might for the wound rolls, reasoning that Shelob was unlikely to roll a 6 on her single Attack. Alas, she did, and Gimli had his Fate stripped. On the next turn she pounced with more backup and Gimli botched things entirely and got taken out, while Sam nearby was slaughtered by the Spiders.
Boromir had managed to go into the Spider Queen at least, and this time the Strike-off went my way and I burned Might to avenge Aragorn. Boromir spent the rest of the game hacking his way through the Spiders Erin put in his way, but over on my objective Legolas was dragged down in predictable fashion by the chittering hordes of arachnids. My Relic was handed off to the Mouth, who raced happily back and off his board edge by the time the game finally ended.
This was probably my favourite game of the tournament, for all that it was my first ever tournament 0:12. Erin was just as fun to play against as she was to play with, and I’m very keen for a rematch (with a better army!).
That brought us to the end of the day, where I finished middle of the pack with at least one Best Game vote. Erin ended up taking out first prize, which was well deserved, even in the tight field of excellent sports.
Tournament Review
This tournament was a great time, and a refreshing change from the higher-stakes competitive events that have been cropping up recently. That’s not to say I don’t like those events; I’m a cheesy competitive player at hard, and my favourite games have all been tense ones filled with cunning ploys and countermoves. But it certainly was nice to switch off the competitive mind for a week and just roll some dice. The wacky scenarios certainly played into this, with round 2 in particular being perfectly-tailored to produce silly outcomes. The prizes were also great, even if Rhys had fallen into the trap of ordering something cool off Amazon and being disappointed by what actually showed up. Honestly though, I think it just adds to the appeal:
Thanks to Rhys for running a great tournament (plus a bar tab!), and for the staff at the Newnham for keeping us fed and watered throughout the day. If I’m back in Brisbane this time next year then expect me at the next one!
List Review: a.k.a. Why I hate the Breaking of the Fellowship
Obviously a list review is a bit of a silly thing to include in a non-competitive tournament writeup, but I just need to vent a bit: Breaking of the Fellowship is awful and I hate it!
I’d only played a few practice games with the army before the event, and I’m sure it could do a little bit better in a better general’s hands, but man did it feel hard to play. I don’t mean ‘hard to play’ in the sense of ‘has a high skill ceiling but is easy to mess up with’ either; in most of the games it felt like I had shockingly little control of the game at any point, without the modelcount to screen enemies out, the tricks to disrupt the enemy’s gameplan, or the damage to push through and put the opponent under pressure (except against something like 4 Trolls, where any list is great). Put another way, if an enemy model wasn’t on the frontline then I had almost no way to affect it once the lines clashed. Legolas could do so, but he was consistently tagged in combat by enemy models, and no one had the damage output to reliably Heroic Combat through the lines. As such, my plan against any actual army— like those brought by Saxon or Erin— basically had to be ‘move forward and hope I roll lots of sixes’.
Now, obviously my complaints about a lack of tricks could be somewhat alleviated by fielding Frodo and his Ring. But the Ring only works as an anti-hero tool when you can get two models into the enemy hero without either of them being tagged off, and there was no point in either game against actual armies where that felt possible. I had lots of moments where one of my heroes was facing an enemy hero, but there were always so many other enemies in the fight that if Frodo had been around to charge the big enemy then whoever was previously facing them would have been peeled off into the rest of the warriors. And of course, at 500 points fielding Frodo means ditching either Legolas or Boromir, thus exacerbating either the ‘lack of reach’ or ‘lack of damage output’ problems. At 600 points you can field everyone, but at that point enemies are starting to bring out their Bolgs and Glorfindels and things are looking scary indeed.
To make the obvious comparisons to the other three all-hero Legions: all of them are at least as good as the Breaking Fellowship at winning the grindy wars of attrition it likes (in the case of the Rise of the Necromancer and Vanquishers, much better!), but they also have tricks to influence the game in other ways. Rise of the Necromancer can use magic, teleportation, and resurrecting Nazgul to threaten anywhere on the board. The Vanquishers’ magical barrage is effectively unstoppable, while the Black Riders have enough scary spells to melt most heroes from 27” away. All of them have ways to play the game asymmetrically, while the Breaking of the Fellowship relies on one archer and a 4” move Hobbit to back up their S4 unmounted heroes with (generally) no bonuses to wound.
Now this all-hero Legion can project some legitimate threat
Finally, the most damning (and subjective) indictment: the Legion didn’t even feel that fun to play. I still enjoyed all my games because my opponents were delights, but the Legion didn’t feel exciting for me. I’d contrast it with the Vanquishers again here: each model in that Legion feels genuinely awesome, and you really get the feel of Saruman blasting one enemy away before whirling his staff round to take out another, or Galadriel summoning her ancient power to banish foes from the face of Middle Earth. In this Legion, on the other hand, the low damage output means that your awesome heroes are just rolling their dice and killing a dude, or occasionally two. It was obviously nice to get to use all my favourite characters at once, but when none of them get to do many cool things it ends up not feeling very worth it.
This shot was followed by about 10 turns worth of me missing most of the combats and killing 2-4 Gondorians, then us rolling for Priority and the same thing repeating itself. Sick
How would I fix this Legion? Honestly, I think the simple fix is to give all the combat heroes free Heroic Combats whenever there’s a nearby Hobbit in combat. It sounds like it would be wildly overpowered, but I can count on one hand the number of times one of my heroes killed everything they were facing in a single combat across the whole tournament (and three of them were in the first game!). What it would do would be allow the Legion to actually (threaten to) play dynamically, which would be a huge change for the better.
Anyway, that’s enough diatribe about a perfectly inoffensive Legion for now. The army was fun enough to play for a silly event like this one, and I had a great time overall. Thanks again to Rhys for hosting; it was awesome to attend such a cool and unique tournament to cleanse the palate after the sweaty GT.
Until next time, may your list always feel dynamic in the way you want it to!
In the defense of the Breaking of the Fellowship Legion (which I love), I think you're right that dropping Boromir to get three Hobbits is probably a poor plan - but dropping Legolas if you plan to just charge in with Boromir/Aragorn/Gimli actually works pretty well. Frodo's "flash light" is really helpful on a number of levels, as is the auto-passing Courage tests, not counting as being broken while Frodo lives, and of course, the Ring. Legolas is really useful in most situations, but without Merry or Pippin (or Frodo, depending on the scenario) standing next to him, he doesn't benefit from his gift and is probably not as useful as Frodo. While the synergies between Legolas and Gimli are excellent, I've come around to favoring Boromir over Legolas if you don't have to worry about scenarios where your opponent can sit back and shoot (though even then, having Frodo is probably better than having Legolas).
ReplyDeleteThe lack of horses and almost universal restriction to S4 (Merry and Pippin are pretty close to a S4 equivalent with their rerolls - even if you don't borrow Boromir's Might) is a thing, but most all-hero factions are limited to this (the Vanquishers are basically all infantry, Thorin's Company can get ponies, but they don't do cavalry things, a normal Fellowship list CAN get cavalry from Aragorn, Legolas, Boromir, Gandalf, and Arwen-with-Aragorn). The Vanquishers are certainly excellent at doing damage from afar (I mean, two Sorcerous Blasts and universal-Banishment are required in the list - that can do work), but the Breaking Legion has five options for Strike (roughly the same percentage as you'll find int he Vanquishers - but also almost twice as many models), non-personal banners on everyone (not just Elrond), excellent magic resistance (not just after you've buffed everyone with Galadriel), and Fearless while Frodo is alive (not just Gandalf . . . or anyone near Saruman . . . or basically everyone since everyone's C7).
All that said, there are things I'd like changed with the Legion - most specifically, a bow option for Aragorn (the Aragorn model from the Breaking of the Fellowship set has one), an extra rule for Boromir that makes him better when fighting near Merry and Pippin (maybe not losing his control zone - though your free Heroic Combat rule looks good too), and upgrading the swords that Aragorn and Boromir have to hand-and-a-half swords (since they use their swords with one-hand or two-hands at Amon Hen - and both swords are referred to by the Weta Workshop design team as hand-and-a-half swords . . . and so Aragorn has the option of two-handing without an Elven-made weapon or one-handing with an Elven-made, Uruk-Haibane weapon). It's a tricky Legion, but I can't help myself - I love it. :)
I thought I could expect a rebuttal to my rant on the Legion from you Tiberius!
DeleteThat is actually a really interesting thought about Frodo v Legolas, and I do think I agree with your reasoning. Legolas felt consistently pretty bad in this tournament, and I think the issue was largely just that he was tied up in combat so consistently. Frodo, Merry and Pippin at least give me a couple more bodies to screen off traps with for a few turns, and Frodo certainly does bring plenty of tricks.
I do think the subsequent analysis on the Vanquishers is selling their damage and durability a bit short though. Even post-nerf, it's very easy for them to do wild things like Banish the model facing Saruman then blast down several more enemies with him (including maybe blasting away the model facing Gandalf, who can then himself blast someone else...). At that point a good chunk of the models they're facing will be prone (even more if you free up Elrond for Wrath of Bruinen!) for doubled damage output, and you're now getting most of the huge damage boost that comes with being mounted, alongside having killed several enemies with magic. It's a very big damage increase relative to the Breaking of the Fellowship, and that's not taking into account the fact that you can be doing damage to models that aren't directly on the frontlines. And yes, they can't Strike with Saruman or Radagast, but neither can any opposing hero after the first turn or two of magical barrage because they'll be Immobilised whenever they might want to.
I do agree that the Vanquishers are forced to fight close together more than the Fellowship is (although really, that's true of any list with this modelcount in a lot of situations), but I'd really push back on their being more vulnerable to magic or courage. Even before Galadriel gets up her Fortify Spirits everyone has +1 to Resist (huge!) and big Will pools; I think in the ~30 games I've played with this Legion I've failed to resist only a handful of spells, all but one of which were in one game against the Black Riders. And as you say, they may not always be Fearless but there's never really a situation in which you might fail a Terror check.
I do agree that Thorin's Company has a lot of the same issues, although they at least can fit in a lot more combat punch in their models. Dwalin and Gloin will certainly kill a lot more stuff than Aragorn and Pippin, for example. But they definitely do still have a lot of the same issues (plus a few others of their own), and I'm not a huge fan of them as a result.
I would certainly agree with all of those changes (even if I'd probably never actually two-hand with anyone outside of very unusual circumstances), but I think this Legion needs a lot more to be balanced. I am glad that my subjective experience is not the only experience though, and I do know that I'm being a bit harsh on the Legion in that regard. Other people are allowed to like it, even if I don't!