Pits of Dol Guldur at Australia’s premier event: Masters Part 1

 

Azog about to bounce off the King of Rohan

After Clash, the next biggest Australian event is generally Masters, with a strong focus on competitive play and good vibes. And given that it was just down the road (read: 4 hours drive away), I figured I might as well pop in and try my luck. Could the terrifying Pits of Dol Guldur carry me to victory, or would my run end in a hail of arrows and ignominious defeat? Read on and find out!

Tournament Format

Initially, Masters was billed as a 550-point, 7-round event with random scenarios, spread across two days. With the short round times this entailed, it seemed like lists that hit hard and got points early could be the way to go. Lower points tend to favour shootier armies, but equally the round times would have favoured lists that wanted to get stuck in early.

However, real life took the original TO out of the picture, and Emily and Andreas had to jump in to bring Masters together with only a couple of months to go. A new Player’s Pack was released, with only six scenarios (a mercy) and pre-set missions each round: Capture and Control, Fog of War, Command the Battlefield, Divide and Conquer, Destroy the Supplies and To the Death. This definitely favoured shooting more heavily, with 3.5 shooty scenarios and a skew towards the back half as well. Ending on Destroy the Supplies and then To the Death meant that the critical final rounds might be decided by weight of bowfire.

That Day 2 looks like it favours gunlines!

Listbuilding

I went back and forth between a lot of different lists in the leadup to this event. In the initial format I was most excited by an Azog’s Hunters list with the three named heroes, 36 Hunter Orcs, and a Goblin Mercenary Captain allied in. Several variants of Angmar tempted me heavily, with Host of the Witch King being particularly appealing because that list goes hard at 550 points. An Isengard gunline was tempting thanks to how well it played the scenarios, Witch King/Suladân was as viable as ever, and even the Watcher got a look in as an option.

All of these lists had their own problems, however. Azog’s Hunters were good at outshooting people with their 19 bows then swarming them with A2/S4 models, but the lack of any big threats or tricks meant that opponents were often free to execute their desired gameplans with limited interference from me. Witch King/Gûlavhar Angmar was too fragile at 550, while Host of the Witch King felt like it would struggle too much into all the Arnor I expected to see. Isengard was ruled out on the basis that I find shooting armies boring to play (despite how well they looked like they might do in the scenarios). I simply needed a break from Witch King/Sûladan, and I just couldn’t land on a Watcher build that felt reliable across six games.

With all of these ruled out, I landed on one of my new favourite armies in the game: the Pits of Dol Guldur…

If you’ve never played with or against Pits, then it can be a shocking army to face.

To start with, Azog is terrifying. Free Heroic Combats from F7 combo excellently with wounding heroes on 3’s and the 6 Might, making him a massive threat to warriors and heroes alike. Azog can bust a hole straight through a battleline, flash-kill heroes with ease, and force your opponent to play so cagey to mitigate him.

While he’s living rent-free in your opponent’s head, you get to massacre their army with 20 Hunter Orcs. These guys are often the list’s MVPs, and I’d never run many less than I did here. Yes, Gundabads are more durable against shooting, but Hunter Orcs give the list such a devastating one-two punch that I can never leave them at home. Put another way, fielding more Gundabads gives Azog more time to win me the game, but fielding more Hunter Orcs means Azog doesn’t always have to be the one winning me the game. The Hunter Orc-to-Gundabad ratio was definitely one of the more controversial aspects of the list, but in practice games I never really found myself wanting any more Gundabads than I had.

The Hunter Orc Captain is there as a cheap March caddy, who brings warband slots and can actually get a surprising amount of killing down with 3 Attacks. At 45 points these guys are an absolute bargain, and easily outcompete the other options available (including the Keeper, who forces me to drop 4 models, is less durable, and isn’t really much better at killing chaff than the Captain).

Finally, the real hitter in the list: Thrain the Broken. This guy is a 10-point deployment drop, and that alone is worth the price of admission. In Divide and Conquer he lets me deploy Azog and the Keeper together, and in every other mission he gives me some deployment information at a bargain price. He also provides a second Stand Fast sometimes, which is particularly excellent in Command the Battlefield.

His one downside (and the reason that the list reviews pre-tournament were opposed to his inclusion) is that Fog of War was in the tournament pack. However, I don’t really think this scenario is a big deal for Thrain unless I happen to be playing a list that can reach deep into my backfield to hunt him down. Those lists do exist, but a lot of them would also be able to threaten the Hunter Orc Captain, or even the White Warg instead. And Thrain can actually be really cheeky in Fog, because opponents can’t target him with shooting or charges when he fails his Courage check (because he’s one of their models for the turn). So he's invulnerable on the turns he’s most likely to be exposed, and the rest of the time I can generally protect him. He does overall weaken my list in Fog, but made it much stronger in Divide and was a useful improvement in the other 4 scenarios as well.

And finally, Surprise Attack is insane. Automatically moving first all across the board on the critical turn is often enough to win the game straight away, and the mere threat of it doing so can throw opponents way off their game. Getting to point out things like ‘I could charge into your frontline, Heroic Combat through them with Azog and then auto-win Priority to charge your leader’ is one hell of a drug.

Overall, the list is extremely powerful, but does have some big weaknesses. Terror is challenging when the opposing list also has the punch to punish me for it, and big shooting is scary in shooting scenarios. Given that latter point, this probably wasn’t the best tournament for Pits, and I might have been better off with Isengard instead (or Assault on Lothlorien, which I also considered). But Pits had captured my heart, and it’s the sort of list that can often pull through and get results in even the hardest of matchups.

All lists were made public a couple days before the event, and there were some interesting trends. Average and median modelcounts were about what I expected (28 and 30, respectively), and there were a lot of Angmar, Gondor, Arnor and Isengard. There was also tons of shooting, with multiple Serpent Hordes, Corsairs with Sûladan, Isengard crossbow spam and some very shooty Armies of Laketown. The Angmar builds also had lots of Terror, but given the lack of punch in most of them I thought I could probably muscle through.

The list that scared me most was a Corsair gunline with Sûladan, Reavers and a terrifying pile of crossbows and throwing weapons. Given that it was being piloted by Alex Colasante, one of the best players in Australia, it seemed like it would be a nightmare matchup in any shooting scenario. I had a recurring nightmare before the event of making it to top table, only to face Alex’s Corsairs in To the Death. My fingers were firmly crossed that someone else knocked him down a peg before I (hopefully) rose to that level.

That's a lot of crossbows!

I knew going in that Capture and Control was my best scenario, so I was excited to get stuck into… 

Game 1: Serpent Horde in Capture and Control, 10:1

And that's a lot of bows!

Duke had brought along a classic Serpent Horde list, with Sûladan, the Betrayer, and Raza, leading a range of punchy cavalry and 15 bows. Thankfully he didn’t have a lot of F4, so I felt like once I made it into contact things could start snowballing my way.

 The scenario was obviously extremely helpful here, as become obvious at deployment. By the time Duke's first two warbands were down (with both Azog and the Hunter Orc Captain still yet to deploy, thanks to Thrain sitting on my back objective) it was clear that I was going to start with an 8:2 lead on objectives.

A good central building for Azog to stage behind

Duke was sensibly keen to whittle my numbers down before he engaged, and some devastating shooting from the Betrayer’s warband managed to kill 5 models on the first turn. I’d pushed forward on my right to tempt Sûladan into a charge, and he took the bait, Heroic Combatting through my lines and doing some scary damage. Overall that put me on 10 dead models by the end of Turn 1, which wasn’t quite what I was aiming for.

Sûladan about to Combat through my lines and get some early kills

Thankfully, I had Surprise Attack ready to go, and I used it to blunt the cavalry of Sûladan’s warband while Azog pounced. I got Sûladan trapped and we both Struck up, with Azog heartbreakingly rolling a 1 before Duke kindly returned the favour with a 2.  Azog promptly did 4 wounds, and I’d taken Duke’s leader, banner and best combat piece off the field.

Azog about to do what he does best

Seeing that he was now unlikely to break through on his left flank, Duke began pushing up on his right with the Betrayer and Raza. I did jump on their warbands with my Hunter Orc Captain and his troops, but both remaining Serpent Horde heroes Heroic Combatted and I was feeling the pressure. 

My left flank tries desperately to hold back the Haradrim while Azog rampages on the right

My Hunter Orc Captain used his own Heroic Combat to retreat into what I felt was a safe position, but Raza was able to slide his was through the melee to strike. My Captain was unsurprisingly Raza’s target and Raza went up to F6, only to botch his rolls and get one-shot by the Captain. Awesome! The Betrayer also botched against a Hunter Orc with a Gundabad support and got dismounted, which was nice but less unexpected than the Raza fiasco.

Raza about to get schooled by my Captain

By this point we had both Broken each other, and Azog had (after his customary botch against two dudes) Heroic Combatted through Duke’s lines to claim his back objective. I called Heroic Moves with both of my heroes, but the Hunter Orc Captain promptly ran away to tell the tale of his defeat of Raza. Azog jumped back onto a model on the right in order to provide a Stand Fast to the Orcs on this flank, before Heroic Combatting off it to propel two Wargs onto Duke’s home objective while he zoomed around to the centre again to keep those objectives safe.

Azog about to propel those two Wargs over to neutralise the back Haradrim objective 

The last Haradrim on Duke’s objective survived against my Wargs to keep that objective tied up, but when the game ended on the second turn after break it was a decisive 10:1 victory to Pits. Duke could maybe have swung it back a little if he had more turns, but given that Azog was looming over the centre things were probably not going to get much better for him.

I don't think I was likely to lose the centre here, no matter how long the game went on

Overall, a good first round against a fun opponent. Duke’s list was really solid against mine generally, but in Capture and Control I felt quite comfortable throughout. That was less true going into my second round, against…

Game 2: Army of Laketown in Fog of War, 10:10

That's a lot of F4 models and a lot of bows!

Riley’s list was scary for mine, and especially in this scenario. He had a whopping 49 models, with 15 bows and Bard. Moreover, those warriors could all get up to F4 with a banner reroll for the critical turns of combat, and he didn’t really have any need to expose his multitude of weak heroes to my combat threats. If Bard, his daughters and Alfrid all huddled behind his lines, then I was never going to win this game. This wasn’t helped by the board, which had a little bit of cover but no LoS-blockers. If I wanted to get to the other side of the board then I was going to get shot!

Lots of bows, and not much cover to hide from them!

To that end, I decided to protect the Hunter Orc Captain, kill Bard, and claim a handy little patch of forest. My plan was to double-March up with the Captain then have him hang out behind my lines, while hoping that Bard would over-extend and I could chop him up with Azog.

Initially the game went more or less as expected, with Riley’s shooting spiking a bit and a lot of Hunter Orcs going down (as well as the White Warg being wounded and failing its Fate roll, annoyingly). Bard did make the call to spend two Might on shooting though, which I thought was probably a mistake in the circumstances. Alfrid also stole a Might point from the Master, although he did replace it on a following turn. On the third turn Riley left a couple of models within range of Azog, which allowed him to go in early and start evening up the kills. 

If you're contemplating whether you should leave models in range of Azog, the answer is very rarely 'yes'

On the following turn Riley won Priority and managed to pin in Azog, swinging Bard by him to start Heroic Combatting through my lines (although it cost him his last Might to get the Combat off). Elsewhere the Master popped his buff, and all along the main fight my warriors had a rough go of it. Azog did chop his way through 3 enemies, but I was feeling distinctly behind.

A blurry shot of Azog pinned in while Bard starts to rampage

However, I had a shot. I could call Surprise Attack, and it looked like I could wrap from one Laketown Guard into Bard to potentially trap and kill him. Bard had received one more Might point from Alfrid, but he was definitely feeling vulnerable. This was obviously a critical moment in the game, but it wasn’t quite clear whether he would fit. I offered to roll for it, but Riley understandably wanted to sort it out properly. We called over first Kylie and then Andreas to adjudicate, and in the end they each came down on opposite sides of the question. After 20 minutes of discussion, we finally did dice for it, and it came down in my favour. Riley and I shook hands, Azog got into Bard, won the Strike-off and reduced him to 2 wounds.

The Thorin, dead Elf and upper Hunter Orc models are there to represent control zones. Can Azog touch the Hunter Orc without hitting Thorin or moving closer to that bottom spearman? It's very hard to say

This was a tense moment, but I think everyone involved did a great job of handling it. Riley put his case really well but without getting too heated, and the TOs heard both sides out before making considered decisions. It was an important enough moment at a big enough tournament that neither of us wanted to let the other one have it, and I think that was totally legitimate. Andreas even gave us an extra 15 minutes for our game to make up for the long judge’s call, which was great (although we did end up finishing on time anyway; Pits plays very fast!).

In any case, the following Move-offs went Riley’s way, and he was able to get Bard to safety and away from Azog. However, with the Master now out of Might, my Hunter Orcs were able to start chopping, and I was able to quickly rack up the casualties. 

A lot less Laketown here, but I'm running low on models too

Azog was also able to Heroic Combat through enough models to get into Bard, and spend his last Might point to win the fight and kill him. 

My lines are starting to collapse, but Azog has finally taken down Bard

Going into the final turn, Riley had managed to Break me and had two models sitting on what was clearly his terrain piece, while I had a Warg sitting on mine. All three of my heroes were still alive, and Riley was only a couple of kills away from Breaking. From nowhere, it seemed like I could actually pull out the win.

That is, until 4 Laketown Guards in a row passed Terror checks to charge Azog (alongside one of Bard’s daughters, amusingly), and Azog botched his dice. Both the Pale Orc and the White Warg were hacked down, and given Riley’s lack of interest in threatening my other heroes I felt like this was a bad sign. 

I just need a 6 here (or for less Guards to make it into combat) and I take the win, but alas it wasn't to be

Moreover, it was now much less certain that I could Break Riley back to even up those points. But my Hunter Orc Captain showed his true quality once again and chopped down a Guard, Breaking Riley on the final combat of the game.

My Hunter Orc Captain vibing against the wall, killing whatever gets near him

It turned out that the White Warg was Riley’s target, and he’d been trying to protect Sigrid (safe behind his lines all game). After a mammoth game, that left us with a 10:10 draw, the highest-scoring draw possible!

This was a really interesting game, with some big swings. If I kill one less model then Riley takes it, and if Azog doesn’t die to random Guards in the last turn then I take it. I obviously got lucky on the initial Bard ruling, but then was unable to win a Move-off for the rest of the game to capitalise on it.

I do think that this game could have been entirely different if Riley hadn’t committed Bard next to Azog. If he’d just kept him on the far flank then I would have had no choice but to slowly grind through his 49 models, while Bard probably did nasty things to my Hunter Orcs over there or threatened my Hunter Orc Captain. More conservative play with Bard would also have allowed Alfrid to give one more Might point to the Master, which may well have prevented me from Breaking the Laketowners; F4 and a 12” banner is pretty clutch against Hunter Orcs!

If Bard had gone in here it could have been a much harder game

Overall, a really tight and enjoyable game, and I’m proud that I was able to clutch a draw from one of my toughest matchups in one of my hardest scenarios.

Thankfully, the universe rewarded me for that hard work with a game that would be over quickly one way or another…

Game 3: Riders of Théoden in Command the Battlefield, 12:0

Some big offensive punch here!

Xavier is another one of the Canberra (adjacent) crew, and we’ve talked for ages about fitting in a game with his Riders of Théoden against my Pits. Somewhere, a monkey’s paw curled, and here we were in Round 3 at Masters.

As a matchup it’s extremely interesting, because his heroes can absolutely churn through me if they get off a good charge, but Surprise Attack and Azog (plus A2 on everyone) can equally turn it into a massacre. It would be really interesting to see how the game played out, but either way it would probably have the benefit of being a quick one to close out the day.

Deployment reinforced that idea, and made entirely clear what kind of game we’d be having. Xavier ‘won’ the first Priority, and brought Théoden and Déorwine on together in the south with their little warbands (costing him a Might on Déorwine I believe). The two Captains ended up arriving miles away in the western corner, while Gamling and Dernhelm both rolled ones and were waiting for next turn.

These Captains have a long way to go!

In response, I got a 6 for Thrain (hiding him in a building far away from the scary heroes), and then a 6 for the Hunter Orc Captain. His warband came in right next to Déorwine and formed a nice quarter-circle around them, with Azog burning a Might to come on right on the other side of the main Rohan force and box them in entirely. It looked real rough for Rohan.

This is not a great position for the Riders to be in

Naturally, this was followed by the least-surprising Surprise Attack in the world, with Déorwin getting tagged and Théoden being Trapped by Azog and two Hunter Orcs. Dernhelm and Gamling ended up coming on nearby, but the game seemed like it was basically over.

From there, things honestly went Xavier’s way as much as they possibly could. Théoden won the Strike-off with Azog despite having F5 v F7 and 2 dice versus 9 and a reroll, and Déorwine managed to do a little chopping. 

Azog failing to get the kill here was unexpected

Rohan then won the next Move-off, called Death, and won a critical Heroic Combat roll-off to kill my Hunter Orc Captain and save Gamling from Azog (although I did take Déorwine’s scalp in return). The two Captains were marching furiously across the board, and it did feel a tiny bit like it was slipping away from me.

Dernhelm's Combat goes off before the Captain's, meaning that Azog doesn't get slingshotted into Gamling, who proceeds to kill 3 models while the Hunter Orc Captain gets ridden down. What a swing!

But then I won the next Move-off, and Xavier’s dreams evaporated. Azog was able to charge Gamling alongside 4 Hunter Orcs, trap him, and wound him 5 times even through Heroic Defence; turns out that throwing 22 dice is a good answer to needing sixes to wound! That let Azog Combat into Théoden, effortlessly killing the King of Rohan on the second attempt, while most of the Hunter Orcs swarmed Dernhelm and dragged her from the saddle. Merry actually managed to survive though, which confused us somewhat: does Merry stay mounted when Éowen dies? In hindsight this was actually answered by the passenger rules (he doesn’t, he gets automatically thrown), but at the time it didn’t feel worth it to fiddle with dismounts or look up rules when Azog was right next to him.

Azog about to kill first Gamling then Théoden

In any case, Azog did in fact kill Merry on the next turn, reducing Rohan to just the two Captains (chopping through a few Hunter Orcs in the centre) and quartering them. With models in every quarter and Pits still 7 models off Breaking, it was a clear 12:0 to Dol Guldur!

We’d talked before the game about how much alternating deployment would improve Maelstrom, and this game was a perfect illustration of why. Getting to deploy my entire army after Xavier had finished (and mere inches away to boot!) is always just such a big benefit from a single die roll. Add this specific matchup of armies into the equation and you get the perfect storm for a stomping. Xavier was a great opponent, and took the utterly devastating initial positioning in his strike. I’m looking forward to fitting in a practice game that’s… not like this one.

No one's idea of how this game should go 

After a brutally one-sided Game 3, we were off to a fun LoTR-themed trivia, with sections on the MESBG rules, community and lore. Finally, I headed off with Pat for dinner, before back to his place where he was graciously hosting me. Pat had decided to bring along Warg Pack for a laugh, and had only dropped one game so far: Fog of War against a Sauron! After dinner at a tasty but somewhat weird Japanese restaurant and much discussion of our games so far, we headed back for bed to prepare for the next day’s battles.

Check back in tomorrow to see how Day 2 goes: can I capitalise on my excellent 2 wins and a draw with an undefeated run to the top tables? Find out in the next instalment!

And until then, may you always lose the first Priority in Maelstrom!