Last tournament of the edition: Queensland GT Part 2

Half my army jumps on one poor Elf to Heroic Combat towards the prize

After an enjoyable Day 1, it was time for my comeback arc. As I noted yesterday, two major wins and one minor loss meant a podium position was still possible, especially because the three pools still on offer (objectives, manoeuvring and object scenarios) were my best ones. My fingers were crossed for Destroy the Supplies and Reconnoitre, where my Spider Queen would give me a huge edge in almost any matchup.

As it turned out we rolled up Domination, which is generally still one of my preferred choices. Against a 48-model Arnor list, however, it would be a struggle to grind them off those objectives…

 

Game 4: Arnor in Domination, 11:0

Another 48-model F4 list with heaps of bows. Excellent. This will be fun

In fairness though, Evan's army did look beautiful

Evan had a pretty standard Arnor LL build, with all 4 named heroes, two banners and 48 models. Yikes. The 5 objectives in this game ended up spread out in a rough star formation, mirroring that of Capture and Control. And just like in Capture and Control, we both deployed right on the centreline, ready to grind things out in a big melee from Turn 1.

After my first Movement phase, the lines have very much clashed

And grind we did, with me winning the first Priority and smashing into the Arnor lines with full force. I also Transfixed Malbeth to turn off his aura, and that swiftly started to have an impact on Evan’s left flank where his lines were thinner. Aranath attempted a Heroic Combat off a lone Black Númenórean but botched his rolls, while Zagdush responded on the next turn with a cheeky Heroic Combat of his own to assassinate the Arnor banner on this flank.

Zagdush zips through the lines to kill a banner

The centre was filled with more grinding, but Evan had an edge here thanks to a combination of Malbeth’s Foresight points (which flipped three Priority rolls his way) and winning all three Heroic Move-offs to boot. This allowed him to pin the Mouth with a bunch of warriors and get into him with Arvedui, although some poor rolling and a successful Fate save from the Mouth meant that he survived three turns of this. The Witch King attempted to turn things in my favour with more Transfix attempts on Malbeth, but consistently failed to cast or was resisted, which stung a lot. As a result of all these, my superior troops were beginning to crumble in this area, although Evan’s S3 across the board meant that he was struggling to actually convert kills at any great rate.

This line and the area to its left began to crumble under sheer weight of numbers

Elsewhere, Argadir had led his cavalry on a flanking manoeuvre around into my backfield, hoping to seize my back objective and put the Witch King under pressure. I countered with the Spider Queen and the Bat Swarm, who trapped Argadir while using the Warg Rider and a Broodling to pin down the other Knights. Argadir called a Heroic Defence, but thankfully my Spider Queen’s 6 Strikes with full wound rerolls were enough to convert the kill and take him down. The remaining Knights ended up turning tail and fleeing into Evan’s backfield, hotly pursued by the Spider Queen.

Seconds before disaster for Argadir here

Back over on the left, Aranath had gone into Zagdush, but found himself trapped by two more Black Númenóreans after Evan opted not to peel off Zagdush with his own warriors. Aranath won the Strike-off but failed to get the 6 he needed and was nearly killed, before going back in on the following turn and getting totally punked. Zagdush followed this up by hacking his way through several more warriors on this flank, turning it decisively in my favour. This allowed me to not just clear off the left objective, but begin sending models back to both the central objective and Evan’s rear one.

The swirling melee has turned hard in my favour, especially towards the top of this picture

However, a cunning move by Evan in the centre threatened to swing things back in his favour. He moved Arvedui back away from the Mouth and around to the Witch King’s front, using his auto-pass Courage bubble to sneak a warrior through to pin down the Wraith while his other models swarmed my Spider Queen. She burned her last Might to survive and kill two Knights, but failed to get the six again on the next turn (after I lost another Move-off) and got one-shot by a charging Knight. Ouch.

It wouldn't be a tournament with the Spider Queen if she didn't get randomly punked by warriors at least once

However, my warriors had been continuing to out-grind the Arnorians, and I finally managed to win a Priority on the turn that Evan ran out of Might. This let me swing the Mouth back around to Transfix Malbeth and charge into Arvedui, causing a number of the surviving Arnor warriors to flee without his Stand Fast. The Mouth also managed to fluke another combat win against Arvedui and several warriors, and then to kill the Last King of Arnor in one go! Elsewhere, the Knight on Evan’s back objective fled to allow the oncoming Mordor warriors to claim it, and I managed to clear the right objective as well (thanks to a cheeky Bat Swarm killing the last Knight). Across the battlefield the carnage quartered Evan, giving me a surprisingly-solid 11:0 win!

The Mouth coming back for round 4 against Arvedui and absolutely wrecking him

This game really highlighted the sheer pushing power of the list, and its ability to keep scrapping into a long game. Quartering a 48-model Arnor list in two hours felt pretty great, and I was happy that I was able to stay in the game through the 4 consecutive turns of moving second.

 

Game 5: Khazad-dûm/Halls of Thranduil in Seize the Prize, 7:0

Mathematically-inclined readers might realise that Iron Guard with Elven spears are a little bit better than Black Nums and Morannons. Just a little

Erin used to consistently win Best Painted before she pivoted to winning events, and it's not hard to tell why

Dedicated followers of the blog (both of you) may recall Erin from this doubles report last year, where our combined Gûlavhar/Spider Queen nonsense tore through our unsuspecting opponents, as well as from this narrative tournament where her Spiders eviscerated my poor Fellowship. Since that point, Erin has gone from being a talented but inexperienced player to the top of the Queensland League, so I was excited for a rematch. Picture Obi-wan returning from the Outer Rim to duel Anakin, if you’re not opposed to genre-mixing in your LoTR blogs.

Erin had a particularly nasty combo of Iron Guard backed by Elf spears, with Legolas, a Dwarf King and a King’s Champion to round it out. That’s a terrifying frontline, but the scenario heavily favoured me, thanks once again to my Spider Queen. I might not feel confident in my ability to beat Erin’s army, but I didn’t have to beat it in this scenario.

The Elves and Dwarves begin Marching up to field to threaten the centre

We deployed in a fairly standard Seize the Prize formation, with everyone ready to March to the centre and our fast models in front for maximum reach. Erin won Priority, which was fortunate for her because I’d been contemplating charging her King with Broodlings to switch off his Heroic March if I had been moving first. She moved up fast, and sensibly chose to block off the Prize with her two cavalry instead of dismounting to dig it up. Nonetheless, my shenanigans would not be denied, and I moved the Witch King before the Mouth to Compel one of the Mirkwood Knights forward and jump on it with a pile of models. They all Heroic Combatted forward to bounce into the centre, although I messed up my positioning slightly and the Spider Queen couldn’t get into a second fight.

That poor Elf is about to have a really bad time

I also flung forward two Broodlings and a Bat onto the objective, unearthing it with the Bat while sheltering behind the Broodlings. The Broodlings did promptly die to throwing axes though, and the Bat was wounded twice and on the frontlines. Concerning! However, my Trackers retaliated by killing three Iron Guard in a single volley, which immediately put Erin on the backfoot from a killing perspective.

These guys had already paid for themselves by the end of Turn 1

Things swung back to Erin somewhat in the next turn, as she won the inevitable Move-off and was able to charge the Bat with the King’s Champion and an Iron Guard. I was able to Transfix the King’s Champion with the Mouth, but the Iron Guard did nonetheless kill the Bat to grab back the relic and put Erin back in the lead. The Dwarf King did end up Compelled forward to get ganked by the Spider Queen, however. He was out of Might and ultimately not that relevant anymore, but he added to my Spider Queen’s tally of slain heroes from the weekend (taking it to two Dwarf Kings, a Shieldbearer, two Captains, Brand, Bard II, and Argadir. Plus all the dead warriors of course!).

Elsewhere, our models were clashing in the other gaps of the ruined bridge, grinding each other out in ultimately-useless clashes that mostly just made us hate the beautiful terrain. Our models inside the tunnel were especially irritating, with an incredibly awkward shuffle of Morannons, Iron Guard and Black Númenóreans happening turn after turn.

Reaching into that tunnel to make some meaningless warrior fights happen was frankly a waste of time

The Move-off on Turn 3 went to me, and the tricks sprang back into action. I Compelled out the Iron Guard holding the prize, had him drop it at his feet, then ran him down with the Mouth while the Spider Queen picked up the prize and zipped around into cover. 

The Dwarf King is dead and the Spider Queen is happily hidden safe behind my lines, holding the prize

I did manage to leave the Witch King in the open for multiple turns running though, where he was wounded by Legolas and forced to burn a Fate and two Might to stick around. Apparently I’ll never learn!

Legolas about to shoot at my leader again. Urgh

However, my attrition (including the devastating fire from the Trackers, who had continued to drop Iron Guard and Elves every turn) and a botched Heroic Combat from the King’s Champion allowed me to grind through in the middle, eventually starting to spill around and start getting the traps and multiple combats I needed to guarantee kills. 

There's still a King's Champion here, but my numbers are starting to tell

This was helped by Erin pulling back many models in an attempt to head off the Spider Queen, who had taken her prize and begun the end run around the bridge and into Erin’s backfield. She copped one wound from Legolas after he called a Heroic Accuracy, but then managed to pounce on a Dwarf Warrior after the Witch King Compelled him into a prime position. She used the Dwarf to dodge shooting (aside from one whiffed shot from Legolas), then Heroic Combatted away down the flank, before taking advantage of one final Compelled Dwarf to Heroic Combat off Erin’s board edge to freedom.

An overall shot of the board, showing my mobile heroes zooming to the left flank

First one Dwarf gets Compelled and Combatted off...

... then a second, and my victory was sealed

With that, the game was over. Neither of us were Broken (Erin was about 6 off and I was about 10 away), Legolas was still safely ensconced in his sniper’s nest, and the Witch King remained alive despite all of my attempts to throw away my leader. With that I was left with a comfortable 7:0 win, thanks once again to the Spider Queen and Witch King’s shenanigans. This put me on four major wins and one minor loss, which was enough to propel me into second place!

Easiest not to ask about most aspects of this photo (particularly whatever Jay is doing), but hey, I got an award!

Over on Table 1, Alex stomped all over Jay’s Easterlings with his Mûmakil, putting Alex solidly into first while dropping Jay to third. This was just low enough that Erin remained on top of the Queensland League leaderboard as the season concluded, so in a way everyone on the Top 2 tables was a winner!

Tournament Review

This was an awesome tournament, and I was so glad I made it up. There were some administrative mixups (watching Sean redo Round 4’s pairings again and again was very amusing), but the feel of the tournament was excellent and it had a great vibe throughout.

Prizes were also excellent, even if they couldn’t quite top the ludicrous haul I received last year. I walked away with a $200 voucher for the Combat Company, some dice, a 2^nd place beer mug (for drinking away my sorrows apparently) and all the assorted goodies in the gift bag.

The terrain was lovely, with beautiful boards in every round. There was admittedly a bit of controversy around Alex remaining on the same board (with its useful water features and Mûmak-friendly channels) for 3 rounds out of 5, which did seem strange. That’s obviously no shade to Alex, who played an excellent tournament and took home another well-deserved win with a thoroughly off-meta list. I’m sure that someday he’ll even learn how to win tournaments without Suladân, I’ve heard it’s possible. And from Sean’s perspective, I also appreciate the challenge in moving the Mûmak to a different table when it will inevitably require some more terrain rulings and adjustments when you do so. The heavy water features and general lack of cover did make the board feel a little too well-suited for the Mûmakil though, and I think on balance it would have been better to shuffle Alex around a little more (or at least to make Table 1 a bit more of a ‘normal’ board). He’d probably still have stomped people, but it might have taken away one potential excuse!

Having to fight massed cavalry on this much water was a bit of a pain

Also, Sean, you really need to roll some better random scenarios. Heirlooms, Clash and Seize the Prize are easily the worst from their pools (and frankly some of the worst in the game), and To the Death is hardly great either. I’m sure if we’d rolled up the manoeuvring scenarios we’d have been on Storm the Camp too!

For all I tease though, I had a really great time at this event, and am so glad I made it back up. The Queensland scene appears to be going from strength to strength, and I’m a bit envious that I’m not a regular part of it anymore. Hopefully next year I’ll be able to make it to a few more to keep cutting these whippersnappers back into shape!

 

List review

I think by this point it won’t come as any surprise if I say that the Spider Queen absolutely earned her place. She instantly won me the game in Round 1, before assassinating 3 heroes to seal the major win. Then in Round 2 she killed Brand, Bard and a Captain, as well as about 6 of their buddies. Round 3 she was my only hope against the Mûmak, and Round 4 she traded admirably into Argadir and several Knights to entirely see off the threat to my back objective. And finally, in Round 5 she combined with the Witch King to entirely win me the game, while even picking off the Dwarf King en route. She was devastating in every game, and I was glad every time that I’d picked her over Suladân. That was obviously skewed by the fact that I never ended up facing any magic, but it's nonetheless clear that she was the correct meta call for the lists that did well on the day.

Sully is great, but he doesn't let me absolutely rinse enemy heroes like this

In general, the Spider Queen did address a problem I’d identified with the Suladân version of the list, which was that the army sometimes struggled to capitalise on the edges it could create with its magical prowess. With the Spider Queen, that problem ceased: anything that got Transfixed or Compelled into a bad spot generally died, and fast. This extra bit of punch did a lot to get things snowballing in my favour. In a way, this actually made the list easier to play than the Suladân version: her extra fragility and tools meant I needed to think more on every active turn, but her ability to rapidly seal games meant that I often didn’t need to think for as many turns. Plus, she was just a bit more fun: Broodling shenanigans and Hurling people down battlelines is cool, who knew?

The Trackers were also excellent, punching well above their weight thoughout the event. In Round 2 they outshot a Dale list, in Round 3 they were my only route to mitigating the loss (by killing models in the howdah), and in Round 5 they killed more than triple their points cost in Iron Guard and Elves. Hard to argue with that!

The battleline was as solid as ever, and the Mouth/Witch King combo remains one of the most cost-effective sources of magical dominance and combat prowess in the game. Their combined cost is less than that of Gandalf the White, which is a particularly hilarious (or bleak, depending on your perspective) comparison. In game after game, having that big magic edge was absolutely devastating. And the Mouth’s extra combat punch was critical in the grind of Rounds 2 and 4, where his hitting power was worth far more to me than anything another Wraith could have provided.

The Mouth kills 7 models in three turns here. No basic Ringwraith is ever doing that!

Zagdush also really justified his place in the list, putting in solid work in every game. I would have preferred a second Ringwraith in Game 3, but in every other matchup I think Zagdush’s extra Might and killing power was optimal. Game 4 in particular was really won by him killing Aranarth and helping to clear that flank of enemies, which ended up snowballing into two objectives entirely clear and the centre in my majority control.

And finally, one last time before the edition changes and all is made irrelevant: did the Witch King need any more Will? Overall, I think his 10 Will did come up in three of the games, but never in a way that had any impact. In Round 2 he would have thrown a final Transfix at Brand on the final turn if he had another Will, but Brand died that turn anyway. In Round 3 he would have liked another Will to throw at the final Black Dart, but it went off regardless. And in Round 4 he would have liked to throw a Transfix at Arvedui (who did still have all his Will remaining) on the last turn, but Arvedui lost his fight and was run down by the Mouth anyway. So, on balance, in none of these games would a higher Will store have given me any benefit. And moreover, in several of them I would have been sad to miss the extra Trackers that the saved points allowed me, especially in Round 5.

In saying that, I will admit that the Spider Queen variants of the list (at least ones without a second Wraith) are a bit more Will-heavy than the Suladân ones. I was often throwing two dice at a Compel because it would allow me to set up an excellent assassination run if it worked, and that did run me a little lower on the Will stores than I’m used to. If I did run this list again (which I will not, because new edition!) then I probably would try and fit in an extra Will, or maybe even two. At lower points and in the Suladân or Angmar variants I’ve run, however, I maintain that 10 Will is entirely sufficient.

 I also did absolutely wish that I had the Morgul Blade in my Round 3. I still maintain that taking it would have been the wrong call with the information I had at the time (and it would still have done literally nothing for me in the other 30 tournament games in which I've used the Witch King), because I think my list doesn't need it to beat Mûmaks in most scenarios. But if I'd known going in that I would be facing one in Clash by Moonlight or another killing scenario, then I would absolutely have brougfht one along.

Tournament Wrap-up

This brings us, believe it or not, to the end of my competitive experience for the edition. I’ll probably write up a full retrospective article in the coming month, but it feels crazy to have no more tournament lists that I need to be mastering. How do non-tournament players decide what to bring to casual games when they’re not on that practice game grind?

In any case, this was a great send-off for the edition for me, and I’m glad that I was able to make it onto the podium again in my old stomping grounds. Thanks to Sean for putting on a great show as ever, and hopefully I’ll see you all next year!

If you’re worried that there’ll be a shortage of content on the blog between now and the edition though, don’t be; I’ve got a huge pile of articles I need to post before the new edition, and precious few weeks in which to do so! Keep your eyes peeled for an interesting rules query (‘can Good models shoot into combat?’), hopes for the new edition, a hot take on Survivors of Laketown, and a new ‘MESBG Fundamentals’ series that I’m hoping will be particularly useful for new-to-medium players looking to up their game.

Until then, may you always win the Move-offs you need in Seize the Prize!