With
a hobby budget somewhat constrained by having done silly things like getting
married this year (priorities!), it didn’t really make any sense for me to
travel back to Queensland for the annual Grand Tournament. Sure, I’d won it
last year, and it would be great to defend my title, and it would be a good
excuse to bring back some of the wedding gifts we still had stuck in Brisbane.
But flying halfway across the country (further than from Paris to Berlin, for
my European readers) just wasn’t on the cards this year.
So naturally, when Sean messaged me saying that there was one ticket remaining, I caved almost immediately. We’re heading home for the last tournament of the edition!
Tournament Format
Nothing too complicated here: 5 rounds at 750 points, with random scenarios but no repeats from each pool. The two-hour time limits were a little tight for 750, but it was broadly just a down-the-line competitive event, and nearly identical to last year (which you can read about (here and here).
Listbuilding
I
did a lot of soul-searching in the leadup to this tournament about what I
should take. 750 gives a lot of options, but I was constrained somewhat by the
last-minute nature of the decision: I wouldn’t be able to get in enough
practice games to be comfortable with a new list, so it should ideally be
something I already understood well.
To
that end, two of the first lists I considered were:
Both
of these are variants of lists I’d run in the past, with the Pits one being a
scaled-up version of my Masters build (which you can read about here and
here) and the Angmar one a modernised version of the build I won this
event with last year.
The
Pits list honestly felt great in testing, with really solid numbers, the
ultimate heavy-hitter and a terrifying damage output. However, I did start to
worry that at 750 the number of lists that could answer Azog would start to
increase, and the matchup into the Dragon Emperor was a particular concern. Plus,
I’d have needed to source another dozen Gundabads, and that’s an even less
financially-prudent decision than flying up to Queensland!
The
Angmar build, on the other hand, was totally tried and tested, and had the
tricks to really perform at this points level. The question was whether I had
the practice to pull it off, having not really touched Angmar in the last year.
A build like this has so much reliance on perfect play, and I worried that
without that practice I wouldn’t be able to overcome the inevitable bad
matchups.
It seemed that I was looking for a build somewhere in between these two lists, with a few more tricks than the Pits list but a more solid battleline than the Angmar one. This inevitably led me back to Mordor, and to the perennial Mordor listbuilding question: Suladân or Spider Queen?
Both
lists have the same (excellent) foundations, which you can read about in action
here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
The Witch King is ludicrously good, so he’s the leader. The Mouth is the
perfect support piece for him, providing hitting power while still functioning
as the critical second-caster. Zagdush brings extra Might, Strike, and combat
punch to help me carve through critical sections of the enemy lines faster. And
the battleline he’s leading is one of the best in the game, with Terror/Harbinger
and F4/S4/C4/D6 all the way along. It’s ludicrously efficient, and is the key
difference-maker from the Angmar build: where those tricks are backed up by
basic Orcs, these builds can fall back on raw muscle in a lot of situations.
Finally,
the one ‘new’ element is the 7 Trackers that I finally got around to sourcing.
For 35 points, these guys bulk up the numbers and provide so much raw utility.
It’s literally another arrow in the quiver of tricks, and it’s always hilarious
when they spike up.
Of
the two lists, the Serpent Horde variant had a lot of obvious things to
recommend it. To start with, it had an extra 4 models in the battleline, taking
it from 15-wide to 17-wide. That’s not essential, but it does flip a lot of
grindy matchups from ‘I need my heroes to do work’ to ‘my warriors got this’. That’s
obviously accentuated by Sully’s 6” banner, as well as getting the Mordor army
bonus for a braver frontline and army-wide rerolling on ones to-wound. Suladân
is also a lot less vulnerable to magic, because he’s more durable, isn’t
bringing along an eminently-Compellable Bat Swarm, and is providing a lot of
his value just by existing as a 6” banner. Given how much the Queensland meta
has apparently embraced magic since I left, these were big selling points. I
also had much more practice with him than with the Spider Queen, which was
significant.
On
the other hand, the Spider Queen list brings tricks. That starts with
the Bat Swarm, which immediately gives me answers to a lot of heavy-hitters
that could otherwise pose a problem for the list. Terror can slow it down, but where
that’s absent the ability to combo with one of my heroes (or even basic
warriors!) to drag down an enemy hero is excellent.
And
of course, the Spider Queen herself is a force of nature. She’s exceptionally
vulnerable, with D4, no Fate, and only 3 Will (which she ideally wants to save
for Broodlings or Courage checks). However, her shenanigans more than make up
for it. In scenarios like Reconnoitre or Destroy the Supplies, being able to
move 10” then place a Broodling swarm 3” away–
which can then itself move another 10”–
is incredible. They’re also great for tying up casters or banners, blocking off
gaps and just being nuisances. In general, any kind of trick that can effectively
auto-win games is worth a lot in big tournaments, because it’s one round that
you shouldn’t have to burn too much brainpower on.
That’s
all saying nothing of their mother, who hits like an absolute truck with F6/S6,
Monstrous Charge and Venom, and has the mobility to make use of that hitting
power. She’s basically a mini-Gûlavhar, giving me that same ‘if you misplay I
will instantly kill your leader’ experience at a fraction of the price. And
much like Gully, being a monster means that she gets to Hurl and Barge to her
heart’s content, which is also very useful in certain situations.
Both
lists are excellent, and I was totally torn between them. In the end, the
deciding factor was that I expected the Spider Queen to be Swift-Moving into
the sunset with Legacies, so this might be the final chance to try her out at a
big tournament. With that, I was locked in, and we were heading home for the
last event of the year!
Game 1: Khazad-dûm in Heirlooms of Ages Past, 9:3
I’ve
played Liam a couple of times in past tournaments and had some mixed
experiences, but he’s a solid player, and his Iron Guard-spam list looked quite
scary for my Black Númenóreans. That being said, the scenario heavily favoured
me, with the exceptional mobility of the Spider Queen’s Broodlings and Bat
Swarm giving me a huge advantage going into it. I promptly built on that by
placing my three objectives on top of buildings (with internal staircases),
which Liam’s Dwarves could access but would struggle to get to before my
Bats.
None
of which mattered, because I promptly ‘lost’ Priority, brought in the Spider
Queen, spawned a Broodling and instantly picked up the relic. That was
basically game over there and then, with Liam’s nearest Dwarves several turns
away and Zagdush and the Witch King’s warbands coming in nearby to screen it
off.
The
rest of the game went about as you might expect, with the Broodlings zipping
away with the Witch King and my banner (‘the 10VP squad’) to a nice safe
position far from harm. Liam’s King ended up on the other side of the board and
slowly slogged towards me, while I managed to bait the King’s Champion into
deploying behind Zagdush’s warband by intentionally leaving my backline
exposed. It allowed him to do a bit more damage to the warriors in that area,
but also left 2/3 of his force pinned right into the corner. Plus, my
significant Might advantage allowed me to keep moving first on that front,
slowing down the Dwarf advance until reinforcements could arrive to turn the
tide.
The Spider Queen also went on an absolute rampage against Liam’s Captain’s warband, using a Barge to get into the Shieldbearer and shred him, before doing the same thing to the Captain on the following turn.
Moments after the Spider Queen shredded the Shieldbearer
By this point the Mouth had also been
doing some work and this flank was basically cleared out, allowing the Spider
Queen to zip back to the centre and take advantage of some cheeky Compels to
assassinate the Dwarf King as well. That’s three Dwarf heroes and the 6VP
objective all thanks to her, which is more than Suladân could have managed!
We
eventually timed out, with Liam having Broken me by 1 model while I was 1 model
off Breaking him back. It was a little unfortunate because we’d been trading so
evenly all game, but I certainly wasn’t complaining about a healthy 9:3 major
win to start things off!
Game 2: Army of Dale in To the Death, 12:0
Seeing
the matchup and scenario immediately had me wincing: facing 13 Elf bows in To
the Death is no one’s idea of a good time, and 48 F4+ models would be hard to Break. Mercifully, however, the table we were playing on was dominated
by a huge central building in the style of Meduseld. This made things vastly
easier for me, as it meant that I was able to get into the centre without
Callum’s bows really impacting me at all. Callum’s army also came forward to
meet me, which we agreed subsequently was probably a mistake: it turns out
Callum is just too nice a player to run a shooting army in the soul-destroying
way it should be used!
As
our lines were about to clash inside and around the Great Hall, Callum made
another significant mistake: he threw only one of Bard’s Will at resisting a
Compel, which naturally resulted in him rolling a 1 and getting yanked forward
to be jumped on by a trio of warriors and the Spider Queen. She promptly burned
Might to get the kill, Heroic Combatting off him to Hurl a warrior all the way
down his line. This only killed a couple of models, but one of those was the
model touching his banner. I managed to win the next Move-off, charge everyone
into his prone frontlines, and Black Dart his banner to death for good measure.
It was a devastating play all around, and it put the game heavily in my favour.
Bard II is facing the Spider Queen on the right hand side there, and I'm about to hurl all the way down that juicy battleline
From
there, the centre devolved into a swirling melee, while the flanks fought their
own battles. On the right I feinted forward to pin a large group of Dale
warriors backwards, before pivoting my heavy infantry into the hall to prevent
Callum taking advantage of his local numbers edge (while also picking off
models with my cheeky Trackers by shooting them in the back).
These guys pivot back into the hall and hold the line against 11 Dale
On
my left, the Mouth went on an absolute rampage, winning every fight and killing
7 models in 3 turns without even needing to burn Might. It was devastating, and
I was swiftly able to clear that flank and Break Callum. The Mouth then went
cantering around to the other side of the hall, where he successfully
Transfixed Brand before getting his horse shot out from under him by some Dale
archers. They also did the same thing to my Witch King after I stupidly put him
in an exposed position– I need to stop doing that! (Spoiler alert: I did
not, in fact, ‘stop doing that’).
The Mouth absolutely slaughtered his way through this flank
The
LL’s bonus of Sworn Protector was still holding Dale in the game, however, so I
set about trying to assassinate Brand with the Spider Queen. I believe he lost
the first Strike-off (or maybe didn’t get a 6, my memory is hazy here) but
narrowly managed to survive, before being finally taken out by her on the last
turn. This also quartered the Army of Dale, giving me a resounding 12:0
victory!
Brand falls at last as the Spider Queen continues her rampage
A lot of this game came down to the superior grinding power of my list, with D6 everywhere and a lot of S4 to seal the deal. The Spider Queen was also excellent, killing Brand, Bard, a Captain and many warriors to boot. I’m definitely not feeling the absence of Suladân yet! I had some great dice too, which always helps: the second Dale Captain died with a Might in his store against 4 Morannons, who merrily rolled three 5’s to flash-kill him. The Move-off after the Hurl was also incredibly clutch, and did a lot to turn the fight in the centre my way.
With that, however, I had flown too close to the sun once more. My next matchup was Alex Colesante’s Grand Army of the South, and I was feeling like a repeat of Masters might be on the cards…
Game 3: Grand Army of the South in Clash by Moonlight,
4:6
After
a couple of big wins at recent tournaments, Alex had decided to bring the Mûmak
as something a bit more whacky than his standard gunline fare. That said, this
scenario would play well into his skew, with all 12 VPs available to me likely
requiring me to kill the Mûmak or models inside the Howdah. The matchup also
made me immediately regret my decision not to bring the Morgul Blade: that liability in the previous 28 games would have felt worthwhile for this one!
The
game opened with the Mûmak stomping forward, while the Haradrim cavalry mostly
maintained an appropriate distance. I poked into range with my Witch King and
successfully Compelled the Olophant into stomping through a single Serpent
Rider, but the rest were (sensibly) well outside my range.
On
the next turn Alex won Priority and stormed his Mûmak straight towards me,
putting my lines under pressure right away. I decided this was the turn to
pounce and jumped on the Mûmak with the Spider Queen and a number of warriors
(while carefully keeping the Witch King out of the fight to avoid the free
Heroic Strike that the Legion would give the Mûmak). I was also able to push up
on the left flank, although I promptly lost two D6 models to four blowpipes.
Ouch!
That's a lot of troops fighting the Mumak, they'll definitely be able to do some damage, right? Right?
This
trend was continuing in the centre, where several spear supports (and my
banner!) were picked off and the Spider Queen wounded before combat even
started. The Clash by Moonlight bonus to the Harad shooting was coming in
clutch, and over the course of the game I ended up losing more than 20
models to the devastating darts and arrows flying down from the Mûmak.
Given that almost every casualty was D6, this attrition was a lot more than I’d
been expecting, and put me well behind. Some back-of-the-envelope maths says
this shooting was approximately 2.5 times as effective as it should have
been, which certainly tracks with how brutal it felt in the moment! You heard
it here first, Australian MESBG community: Alex uses loaded dice = confirmed.
It's a blurry pic, but that whole pile on the right was casualties from shooting!
Even
worse, combat against the Mûmak proved pretty fruitless, with the Spider Queen
wounding it once on the first turn of combat and a second time on the next
round (after I won a big Heroic Move-off). On the plus side, a cheeky Drain
Courage I’d thrown on the War Leader and some rubbish rolling from Alex
combined to cost the War Leader a lot of Might and Will to pass the Trample
checks.
However,
I lost the next Move-off on this front and the Mûmak was free to rampage,
smashing its way straight through the Spider Queen and a half-dozen other
models. It was now out of Might and Will, but was also no longer in a position
where I could realistically threaten it at all.
There used to be a Spider Queen underneath where that elephant is now
As
such, I realised that I would need to take some unconventional measures to
salvage any points from this disaster. Given that Alex was now ahead on hero
kills (3VP) and was almost certain to Break me (5 VP), I needed to kill one
more hero and Break him back in order to salvage a draw. If I could do that,
then I could also maybe throw a cheeky Black Dart at the War Leader for the
win.
Before
that, however, I would need to kill literally everything on the ground
(including Suladân!) and one more model from inside the Howdah (my Trackers had
managed to snipe out two Haradrim with their cheeky Orc bows). The Witch King
would be the key tool against the Mûmak, and he went to work by Compelling it
away from the battle to buy me some breathing space and (over the course of two
turns) Black Darting another Mahud out of the Howdah. This meant that if I
could just clean up the Harad cavalry and keep my heroes alive, then I could
snatch a draw from the jaws of defeat!
The odds of doing so seemed alright, as I’d managed to swing a bunch of troops into the ground fight and was pulling ahead there. The shallow water that crisscrossed the battlefield was extremely annoying, but I was able to setup a great assassination run on Suladân with the Bat, Mouth and a few warriors.
Sully gets dismounted, but survives
A
lone Serpent Rider passed his Terror check to peel off the Mouth and Suladân
narrowly survived, then won the next Move-off to tie down the Bat (although I
did manage to wound him with the Mouth, which was nice). Finally, I managed to
bring him down on the third attempt, only to lose Zagdush to a charging Serpent
Rider who won the fight while rolling 2 dice to 5 and then flash-killed my hero.
Ouch!
I finally manage to take out Sully here, but Zagdush is dead and the Mumak is looming once more
This
kill put a win or draw out of reach, as I couldn’t realistically kill Alex’s
final hero (the War Leader). Moreover, with five minutes to go a single Mahud
Raider had survived the melee, and we didn’t really have time for another turn.
However, Alex was generous enough to let me move just the Witch King, who threw
two of his last three Will at a Black Dart on the Mahud and managed to get the
kill. This Broke Alex back, dragging the score to a minor 4:6 loss (although we
reported it as 3:6, because neither of us remembered the extra VP I should have
received for keeping at least one hero alive). Given the circumstances, I
thought this was a pretty great outcome overall!
The
interesting aspect of this game from a strategic perspective is that both Alex
and I had assumed that I could kill the Mûmak, thanks to my magic and
shenanigans. As such, Alex had committed his cavalry on the flank, presumably
hoping to draw models away from the clash with his giant elephant. But in
hindsight, there was never actually any realistic prospect of me killing the
Mûmak. I was unlikely to ever do more than a handful of wounds to it, and he
was unlikely to ever fail a Stampede check. And eventually, he was going to win
a Move-off and stomp all over everything that I’d put in his way, because I
didn’t have any models that could reliably stop a Trample move. My Spider Queen
might get two turns of doing damage, or even three, but after that I’d lose my
Spider Queen and he’d still have his Mûmak.
The unstoppable Mumak after stomping all over my army
Some poor Orc getting shredded by a crocodile
As
such, Alex could have locked me out of the game entirely if he’d just held his
cavalry back and refused to engage. It would have made for a less interesting
game, but would have prevented me from Breaking him and salvaging a minor loss
from what should have been an utter stomping.
In
any case, this gave me another loss to Alex, which I’m sure you’ll be able hear
all about from him over at the excellent Mountain Goat Gaming (plus a cameo
from yours truly!). Next edition, Alex, next edition! 
That's two tournaments in a row where Alex's shooting has stopped an undefeated run!
At
the end of Day 1, I was sitting on two major wins and one minor loss. That meant
I wouldn’t be defending my title from last year, but did leave a podium
position within the realm of possibility. And with my three worst pools out of
the way, I was hoping for some nice easy scenarios tomorrow for my Spider Queen
to dominate.
Before
that came dinner and drinks, which were a delight. A number of players who were
just getting into the game when I left Queensland are now hardened tournament
veterans, and it was great fun catching up with new and old faces alike. There
were even some fireworks, which I assume were to celebrate my being back in
Brisbane.
After
standing outside and watching the spectacle for a bit, I headed back to my
family home to catch whatever sleep I could, before another big day of games
tomorrow.
We’ll
leave things there for now, right as the quest stands on the edge of a knife. Could
I pull things back to a podium, or had the Queensland scene improved faster
than I had? Check back in tomorrow and find out!
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