Azog rampages to the top tables: Australian Masters Part 2

 

Azog getting ready to krump some Dwarves

After an excellent Day 1, I was still undefeated, and ready to make things happen. I had clearly been a bit too hyped up the night before and hadn’t gotten more than a few hours of sleep, but a strong coffee and a hearty breakfast fortified me enough for Round 4.

And mercifully, I’d worked out that I’d be facing the Kingdom of Moria in Divide and Conquer. That’s one of my better matchups, and I hoped it would start my day off well…

 Game 4: Kingdom of Moria in Divide and Conquer, 9:3

I did have a good giggle over 'The Kingdom of Moris', but this list does look quite optimised overall

I was pretty hyped about this matchup for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it’s super thematic, with Azog continuing his mission to wipe out the people of Durin. And second, it’s a matchup that really favours my list on paper. I’ve got the mobility, the Might, and get to start with my whole army together and March to the middle at double the speed of the stumpy Dwarf legs. And, of course, Azog is absolutely terrifying for everything in a Dwarf list. Also, the board we were playing on was a stunning Orthanc board, and it just looked awesome.

Initially, the game played out as I expected, with my Captain Marching my whole army towards the centre while the Dwarves slogged their way forwards at 5” a turn. Matthew played it quite cleverly, recognising that a rush towards the centre would be met with a big swing into whichever group was more exposed. 

The three objectives are on the other side of Orthanc, so Balin has a way to go

Instead, he kept at a distance, forcing me to come to him with Azog. As such, we ended up with a clash between the King’s Champion’s warband and a somewhat-larger Hunter Orc/Gundabad grouping, while Balin was chased down by Azog and much of his warband.

Balin ends up fleeing around this machinery as Azog slowly chops through this flank

As such, the battle rapidly became a war on two fronts. On Balin’s flank Azog chased the King of Moria round the terrain, having several turns of quite poor rolling and bouncing off a pair of Dwarves even with 8 dice to wound. 

Azog Combats into the Khazad and Iron Guard but absolutely botches

Balin did manage to get into Hunter Orcs and start chopping, but I was eventually able to run him out of Might by threatening to Combat into him, before charging in an using him as a springboard to Combat my remaining models on this flank back towards the centre. 

Balin gets absolutely wrecked and Azog zooms back towards the centre

However, it had cost me more turns and many more models than I’d expected, with one particular Iron Guard killing a model every turn until he was left alone to contest the nearest objective. Another Iron Guard had also slain my Hunter Orc Captain, who hadn’t really had a great game overall.

My Captain dies this turn, but at least I'm able to win the following Move-off and start threatening Combats into Balin

On the other flank things had gone even worse, with good engages failing to convert into kills. On the first turn of combat I actually traded evenly, despite 4 Dwarf archers facing 4 Hunter Orcs and 2 Gundabads. The flank started to crumble rapidly, and it looked like Matthew would be able to pour models through to the centre.

Before...

...and after. This flank crumbled way faster than it should have!

So we came into the first turn after we’d each Broken. I would be able to hold one side objective and had slain Balin, while he got two models onto the other side objective after literally every model on that flank failed their Break checks. In the centre I just had Thrain, and his King’s Champion was narrowly within 8” of the objective. Thrain had already justified his inclusion in my list at deployment alone, but everything might turn on whether I got to control Thrain this turn.

He rolled his Courage check, and passed on doubles. It was time for Super Thrain! I moved him into a position to block off the King’s Champion, so Matthew could charge him but couldn’t get within 3” of the objective. The Champion went in and called a Heroic Combat with his last Might, hoping to kill Thrain and run onto the objective. This was definitely the right call, because Azog was looming with three Might remaining and would clear out that objective easily if the game went on another turn. But who was winning if the game ended this turn would depend on whether the King’s Champion could kill Thrain.

I replace my converted Thrain model with Thorin King whenever he goes super mode. It just feels fitting, you know?

Thrain got the six, the Champion didn’t, and the best Dwarf on the field even managed to wound his opponent! This meant that I was winning whether the game ended or not, and it was all down to Thrain showing his quality.

As it happened, the game continued for another turn, Azog killed the King’s Champion and literally everything else on the central objective, and it ended up a decisive 9:3 win. But the real MVP for me was absolutely Thrain.

Azog has just killed the King's Champion and an Iron Guard, and is now cleaning off the rest of the Dwarves

This game ended up being way tighter and more interesting than I’d expected, and I think a lot of that came down to Matthew’s strategy of hanging back and letting me come to him. It was risky, because it meant that I was holding all the points for the entire game, but it very nearly worked. I do think that the dice were pretty against me overall (clearly Thrain was stealing all my good luck), and those Dwarves killed their way through my warriors much faster than they should have/have done in past practice games against Dwarves. But definitely kudos to my opponent for figuring out the best strategy in a tricky matchup for him.

Unfortunately, it looked like the favourable matchups were at an end for me. Destroy the Supplies was next, and while that scenario is often a good one for Pits, the Isengard list I’d be facing was looking pretty scary…

Game 5: Isengard in Destroy the Supplies, 10:0

In Destroy the Supplies, this looks extremely scary for my list

Michael’s list was a really scary one for me in general, and especially for this scenario. Nearly a dozen crossbow shots, backed up by lots of Berserkers and F4/S4 Uruks, is always gonna be scary in a 24” deployment scenario. Moreover, the lone Crebain was a big concern, as if it got loose it could gleefully flap its way through all three of my Supplies. I’d need to play very carefully indeed to pull this one out.

The terrain did thankfully favour me a little, with a nice solid building in a perfect staging position for Azog. I also managed to ‘lose’ Priority on the first two turns, which allowed me to respond to Michael’s early movement and position myself to strike on Turn 2. 

That central building was absolutely clutch, and Azog ended his first turn hidden snugly behind it

This started with Azog pouncing on two probably-mispositioned Uruks, threatening a Heroic Combat into Gorulf to make him Strike and then jumping on Michael’s banner for a nice VP swing.

Two Uruks get left near where that die is to tempt Azog into the open, but he laughs off the shooting and uses them as a springboard...

...to get to here. Michael's banner is dead, and I'm in position to start clearing off this objective

As Azog started his rampage and the bulk of our armies lined up against each other in the centre, smaller clashes were happening all across the board. On the right flank, two Berserkers and a pike were met by 4 Hunter Orcs and a Gundabad, while the left flank was a source of significant unease for me. Vrasku and a buddy had run up with the Crebain along the raised platform, while I frantically scrambled enough Hunter Orcs to try to match them. And in the centre-left and centre-right, small gaps had developed between Michael’s flanks and his centre. Pushing Wargs forward, I set myself up for a devastating Surprise Attack on Turn 4.

Those Wargs are in position to potentially jump on a Supply, but the Crebain and Vrasku are looking scary

All across the battlefield, getting to automatically move first gave me a huge advantage. Lone Wargs were able to get onto the right and centre supplies, while Hunter Orcs threw themselves in to tie up anyone who could have charged/shot at the critical Wargs. 

There's a Warg just out of sight, touching that right Supply but unable to be shot or charged. Sneaky!

On the far right the Berserkers and pike were trapped by my little group, while on the left I was able to tie up Vrasku and trap the Crebain with a Hunter Orc and Warg.

Not even Berserkers like these odds!

At this stage in the game, I had distinctly put myself in a winning position: I’d guaranteed the destruction of two Supplies, while killing Michael’s banner and protecting my own. Azog had chopped his way through to start threatening the Isengard heroes again, and I was quite up in the kill count. What should probably have happened from there is Vrasku and the Crebain should have burned one or more objectives, while we probably broke each other and I won on banner VPs. That would have felt like a fair and well-deserved win for me, in a fairly adverse scenario and matchup.

Instead, what happened is that my dice told Michael to go jump off a cliff. This started with Vrasku, who had attempted to Heroic Combat through a Hunter Orc to save the Crebain. With two Might remaining he rolled a 4-high to my 6, and opted not to spend his last two Might, joking that he’d need them to Might up the 2 he’d inevitably roll on his Fate. I joked back that this was sensible because I was about to wound him twice, and my Hunter Orc promptly rolled two 5’s to put Vrasku in a Fate-or-die situation. Of course, this meant that Michael needed ‘anything but a 1’ on his Fate roll, and even before he rolled it we both knew what was going to happen. Vrasku died, and we absolutely cackled.

There is no way that I should win this flank, but by the end of the turn the crossbow Uruk is the only survivor

Elsewhere my Hunter Orcs went on a tear, chopping through Uruks on every front and even bringing down the Crebain. Gorolf also lost his fight and was wounded, embarrassingly enough. This was all followed up by winning the central Move-off on the next turn, tying up all the remaining Isengard hitting power and allowing Azog to threaten a Heroic Combat into either Gorolf or Lurtz. 

Azog is about to swing around the corner into the Berserker to threaten the Combat into both Isengard heroes, but Gorulf doesn't even need it in the end

This forced them both to Strike up, and naturally Gorolf promptly died to a random Hunter Orc anyway. The last Uruk on my left flank got chopped up, while the right was reduced to a lone Berserker. Michael was well-and-truly Broken, and after Azog Heroic-Combatted off Lurtz it was cleanup time all round.

One Uruk crossbow managed to protect the final Isengard Supplies from two Wargs, but at game’s end I was sitting on an extremely unexpected 10:0 win.

The surviving Uruks desperately protect on last Supply

This was by far my favourite game of the tournament, for many reasons. Firstly, I think I played an excellent game, and was really proud of putting myself in a winning position from a matchup that looked about as bad as it gets. This was probably my best play of the two days, and it felt good.

Secondly, Michael was one of the most enjoyable opponents I’ve ever faced. He was that perfect combination of competitively switched on and relaxed, and it made the game a delight. The competitive side of things came through in all the excellent pre-measuring and gentleman’s agreements, on everything from Feinting to small take-backs as our tired brains fumbled through some tight positioning. And the chill vibes were on show all throughout the game, with the wild swings of the dice being met with nothing but laughs.

And finally, this was the game in which everything in the list just worked. Azog was terrifying and sliced his way through everything I pointed him at, the Wargs snuck through to burn multiple Supplies, Hunter Orcs chopped through on every front, and Surprise Attack flatly won me the game. The list just worked, and it felt awesome.

That Warg at the bottom about to use a guaranteed 'double-turn' to sneak forward onto the Supply

After pulling a big win out from a scary matchup, I was riding high. I’d already achieved my goal of losing no more than one game, and I was likely to be on the top table in the final game. Unfortunately, so was Alex Colasante and his Corsairs-plus-Suladân list. The nightmare had finally arrived.

Game 6: Corsairs/Serpent Horde in To the Death, 1:9

The nightmare is here, and in the worst possible scenario for it

I was facing one of the best players in Australia, with the army I was most afraid of at the event, in my worst scenario to face it. Things weren’t looking great. The table did me some favours with lots of big Dwarf buildings to hide behind, but I knew that things were heavily stacked against me.

In saying that, you can’t win a game that you give up on from the start, and I was determined to give the Corsairs a bloody nose before they took me down. The first few turns were quite cagey, with me hugging cover as I tried to stage forward while Alex crept forward to establish firing lanes. I was definitely grateful to be on a dense board, as a shooting gallery like my second board would have made this a total whitewash. 

The army blobs up, preparing to March forward next turn

The trap I'm about to March into

Eventually, I Marched with the Captain to put Azog into range of three of his crossbows, hoping to either force them to retreat (and sacrifice shots) or start the rampage early.

Alex instead opted to line up a bunch of crossbows and throwing daggers at those two crossbows, hoping to shoot them out of combat if I charged and maybe mow down Azog to boot. It sounds like Alex was also hoping to lure away Azog from his heroes, which was cunning.

Azog kills the two Arbalesters before slamming into the centre of Alex' lines

I decided to take the bait, Marching my whole army forward as far as it could get and charging in with Azog. This split Alex’s shooting between my fragile Hunter Orcs and Azog with In the Ways on his own models, and in the end neither Azog nor the models he was fighting were killed. With my army in position to Surprise Attack in to charge next turn, I’d managed to make it into combat with only 5-6 casualties, which was a great outcome.

I need to Surprise Attack to escape this chokepoint, but at least I've made it across the field

Unfortunately, Azog had decided that this was his game to be a diva. Across three rounds of combat he was forced to burn 4 Might to win duels, and still lost a duel and got wounded for his troubles. I think he had only a single fight all game that he managed to win without burning any resources, which definitely stung. And his turn of failing to kill three Corsairs on the charge was frankly embarrassing. 

This actually looks like a pretty good position for me, but Alex's fierce counterattack and my rough dice mean in falls to pieces pretty quickly

The rest of my Hunter Orcs didn’t underperform quite that badly, but there was still a lot of ‘I’m wounding on threes with two dice, and… nothing.’ I also lost the two critical Heroic Move-offs, which was devastating: both of our armies are total glass cannons so picking the fights is a huge deal, and that’s saying nothing of the 11 throwing weapons, Backstabbers and Reavers that Alex had, or Azog’s critical charge bonus that I missed out on.

Azog is pinned in place, and my lines are stretched thin by the Corsairs

In the event, Alex quickly carved through my left flank while Azog was left to slowly kill a handful of Corsairs. I was rapidly Broken but managed to pass my banner off to one Hunter Orc after the next, before finally getting myself quartered to deny Alex at least some VPs. That gave the Corsairs a comfortable 9:1 major win, to hand Alex the tournament!

The last stand of Dol Guldur. My banner is that spare base there, and it manages to get handed off to the nearby Hunter Orc to preserve me 1VP

Alex ended up about 3-4 models away from Break, and I was a bit disappointed that I wasn’t able to get him there. It felt like with average dice (say, winning one of the two Move-offs and Azog getting to properly rampage) I could have picked up those last few kills and managed to prevent Alex from wounding Azog, which would have taken the score to a solid 6:4 loss. With some quite good dice rolls (say, winning both Move-offs and spiking a bit in combat) then I think things could plausibly have swung into a narrow 6:4 win, as I was actually only a single kill behind at the end of the first turn of combat. On the other hand though, I can hardly complain too much about my luck in light of the previous game; on average dice I should have probably gotten a minor win and a minor loss in the last two rounds, and the dice skewed to a major win and a major loss instead, which would have put me in exactly the same position regardless. And on average dice Alex definitely still smokes me (and thus wins the event), just not by quite as much.

And more importantly, none of this is taking anything whatsoever away from Alex’s play. He leveraged his army’s strengths really well and punished me with them, taking advantage of Suladân and Dalamyr’s combat punch to churn through my left while keeping them safe from Azog on my right. I had hoped to be able to swing Azog back over to threaten them later in the game, but Alex did an excellent job of luring and screening him away from the critical targets. That obviously wasn’t helped by Azog being unable to reliably beat basic warriors (or by not getting to move first), but Alex did a great job of making it hard for him regardless. It was really tight play all around, and he absolutely deserved the win. Even the matchup advantage is a reflection of him having correctly assessed the tournament pack and built for the last two scenarios in particular, which is a key skill for any tournament player.

Azog is on one side of the combats, and the Corsair heroes are on the other. That's not ideal for me

Alex was a delight to play against, and the game was as enjoyable as the matchup could have possibly been. This final win left him as the only undefeated player, for another well-deserved tournament win (which you can watch an excellent rundown of over on Mountain Goat Gaming; they do some great analysis, mixed in with a little bit of classic Australian shit-talking for giggles).

Overall that put me on three major wins, one crushing win, one draw and one major loss. Not only did this accomplish my goal for the day of losing no more than one game, it was good enough to secure Best Evil General (most total VPs scored)! Amusingly, the prizes for this position included a Ruins of Dol Guldur set and some Dol Guldur dice, which I took as a sign that the universe had dictated that this was where I should finish. My Padlet post about the Hunter Orc Captain shredding Raza also won me the Worthy of Remembrance price, giving me some cool Fangorn dice and a truly cursed Gollum plushy. Definitely a great outcome!

I kept meaning to put in more good moments into the Padlet, but apparently one was all I needed! 

Tournament Review

 This event was absolutely awesome. It’s only as I’m writing this that I’m realising how smoothly it was run, because on the weekend everything just sort of… worked. The amount of effort that must have been going on behind the scenes to have everything starting and ending on time across 2 big days is intense, and a huge credit to Emily and Andreas that they were able to pull it together in such a short timeframe.

The prize support was great, the venue was really spacious and convenient, and the terrain was excellent. The little things around the edges like the Padlet of cool memories or the Rings of Power were really cool, and the trivia on the Saturday night was a good way to relax after a hard day of gaming.

The only quibbles I had were truly minor things, and often down to personal preference. I’m not a big fan of fixed scenarios for tournaments, but these were definitely well-chosen ones that didn’t skew too hard in any direction (and didn’t have any of the awful scenarios in them, mercifully). And the venue not allowing in outside food was tricky for people with dietaries, although it was nice that you could grab a beer and drink it at your table.

Overall, just a great event, really well run. I had 6 great games against 6 awesome opponents, and what more can you ask of an event than that? 

List review

Perfect, no notes

I’m in love. This list is just a blast, and is so much better than it looks on paper. It has its weaknesses, but I was able to face down 5 shooting lists across 6 games and only came unstuck in the very hardest matchup of them all.

In general, the list does really well at both smashing people fast and grinding out the long games. As my third and fifth games showed, it can absolutely inflict a cataclysmic blow early and win the game off the back of that. And when that doesn’t work, the staying power of Azog and all those A2 warriors is often able to just keep going. In Round 1, for example, I’d lost 11 models before I’d even killed a Haradrim, but Azog and his boys were able to grind it back and Break the Serpent Horde in the same turn they Broke me. And messy lategames are a good place to be with Azog, with enemies running low on resources while he’s still Combatting for free.

Azog is always going to clean up once he gets to this sort of endgame

As ever, it’s good to look at the controversial aspects of the list to see how they held up. The Hunter Orc to Gundabad ratio felt about perfect in all of my games; I would probably have taken a couple less casualties crossing the board into the 5 gunlines I faced if I had more Gundabads, but I also would have had less Hunter Orcs available when I got there. That’s a big downside, because a Hunter Orc can still kill stuff while outnumbered in a way that Gundabads generally can’t. Even in my final game, it was mostly my Hunter Orcs who took Alex to the edge of Breaking, and I don’t think I could have relied on my Gundabads to put me in that position. Plus, Reavers with axe weapon swaps don’t struggle to kill Gundabads either; they’re potentially wounding D6 on 4’s! Similarly, the reason that Round 2 ended up as a draw is that the Hunter Orcs managed to carve through Laketown Guard once the Master’s buffs were finished; if I’d had Gundabads then I may have been slower to Break, but I definitely wouldn’t have Broken Riley back.

It was the steady chopping of these Hunter Orcs that swung my Round 2 back to a draw

And of course, that’s saying nothing of Round 5, where my Hunter Orcs killed two heroes, a Crebain, and most of Michael’s list. Nor of Round 3, where Éowyn, Gamling, and literally every warrior in Xavier’s army was dragged down by the Hunters. When these guys get going, they give me scope to do damage so much faster than any other army in the game. In my view it’s actually critical to how Pits plays; if you’re wholly reliant on Azog then sometimes he will disappoint you (see: Round 6), whereas if your warriors can get the business done themselves then you can make things happen regardless.

Finally, was including Thrain the right choice? Absolutely hell yeah. In Capture and Control he gave me a big informational edge on the critical initial deployments, and held my back objective to boot. In Fog he survived all game, and was not a liability at all. In Command he was ready to provide a Stand Fast to some Wargs if I Broke, and in Divide and Conquer he effectively saved me two Might on Azog (because I only needed to March with one of my heroes not both) and then fought off a King’s Champion to lock in a win. In Supplies he made sure that there was never a turn where the Crebain could have gone onto my objective, and in To the Death he… didn’t die I guess.

Hell yeah Thrain! Absolute MVP from this game

I don’t think that Thrain is always the right choice for this Legion, but I really don’t think he’s the liability that people think he is. In Fog or Assassination, you can generally just hide him, and he can’t be targeted on the turns that opponents get to move him out of cover. Plus, this list has the White Warg and a Hunter Orc Captain; your opponent isn’t short of targets if they’ve got someone like Legolas or a Witch King along! 10 points for a deployment drop is amazing, and the extra Stand Fast can be clutch as well. No regrets, I’m on the Thrain Train for life.

Overall, I don’t think this list was the optimal list for this tournament; that would probably have been a Corsairs list, or maybe Assault on Lothlorien. But it really outperformed expectations, and showed that it’s capable of winning into even some of its worst matchups.

Tournament Wrap-up

This was such a fun tournament, and I’m really proud of how I performed. I definitely made mistakes throughout the tournament, but I think my play was tight in every game and none of the mistakes are clear ‘if I’d done this then things would have gone better’ moments. I’m also really proud that I was able to beat 3 shooting armies with Pits and draw against a 4^th, including in multiple 24” deployment missions. A lot of games came down to me knowing my army back-to-front, and that was a product of playing a lot of practice games. Game 5 in particular felt like it was decided by me really getting how my list functions in Destroy the Supplies, and how much force I needed to allocate to each of the many fronts. 

The perfect number of Hunter Orcs to send over to kill these Berserkers

More importantly, I had an awesome time. My opponents ranged from ‘really great dude’ to ‘one of my favourite opponents ever’, and there were no bad vibes the whole time. It was a pretty exhausting time overall, but absolutely worth it.

Massive shoutout to Pat for hosting me, and to Emily, Andreas, Kylie and Tim for putting on such a good show. I’m already looking forward to Masters next year!

This weekend has really gotten me hyped for tournament play, and I’m already planning out my next few events. There’s a cheeky 500-pointer coming up in the same venue that I might bring my Hunter Orcs to again, and I’m contemplating Battle Hardened in Melbourne the weekend after. Not sure I’ll be able to swing both, but I want to make it happen. And from there we’ll be into a new edition, and who knows what that could bring!

Hard to argue with this at 500 points!

Comment below your preferred Hunter Orc to Gundabad ratio, and give me all your best stories of Thrain absolutely wrecking people (the 10-point Thrain, not the 120-point one; that’s not as cool!).

And until next time, may your Hunter Orcs always outfight your enemy’s heroes!