I’d made myself a promise before Cancon that if I did reasonably well with the Eagles there, I’d bring something else out for my next event. No spoilers for that tournament (go read about it here and here if you haven’t already) but I felt like the honour of the birds had been sufficiently satisfied to try out something else. And what better alternative than to bring than one of the unsung heroes of last edition, flying under the radar with some noticeable buffs: Ugluk’s Scouts.
Tournament Format
Dagor
Dagorath is a charity event first and foremost, and that shines through in
every part of the event. This year it ended up raising over $3800 for the Sony
Foundation, which translates to 40 nights of accommodation for rural and
regional kids with cancer while attending specialist treatment in the city.
This has been the ongoing goal of Dagor Dagorath the years I’ve attended, and
just like last time it was really special to be able to make a small difference
while moving our little toy soldiers around the field.
Format
wise, the event was 600-points, with three rounds of 140 minutes. The two key
elements from a competitive perspective are that the event valued big wins
quite highly (with an 11-VP differential
being worth 33% more tournament points than a smaller win), and the three
scenarios were listed in advance. With Domination, Reconnoitre and Destroy the
Supplies (in order), lists with mobility and numbers were going to be heavily
favoured going in.
Listbuilding
My first
thought in planning for this event was to run Eagles, because Gwaihir/2
Fledglings/2 Great Eagles is one hell of a 600-point list. It’s pretty
close to the peak points level for the birds, and given how much I’d enjoyed
practicing with them in the leadup to Cancon they seemed like a great choice.
But after 40+ games with the faction in the new edition, and having done well at Cancon, I felt like a change was in order. I contemplated Depths of Moria (with the Balrog, the Watcher or just 78 Goblins), Army of the White Hand (Saruman and 46 models) and Minas Morgul (Witch King on Fell Beast with 45 models). These were all really solid, scary lists, and I think they could have done reasonably well at the event. In the end though, there was only one choice:
This list
is absolutely nuts. Just looking at raw stats, it’s got 48 models, 15 S3 bows,
9 Might and 2 banners. It has a heap of F4/S4 models that move super fast, can
March to go even faster, and can easily bring +1 to wound all across the board.
Ugluk can boost that to +2 to wound in a pinch, as well as removing the list’s
Courage issues. It kills extremely quickly when it gets going, plays the
objectives better than any other list in the game, and generally just has the
tools to play into anything. In particular, it’s excellent at dealing
with all-monster lists, thanks to auto-passing Terror checks and being able to
stack multiple sources of +1 to wound.
More
important than its general power, however, was how well it played into the
scenarios that would be at this event. Ugluk’s Scouts really wants to
face a spread-out list, where it can leverage its inevitably-superior numbers
and Animosity (plus surprising mobility) to get a big advantage early.
Domination forces enemies to fight in at least a couple of places, while Recon
and Supplies can scatter them across the board trying to stop the swarm
breaking through. In practice games, opponents were often left questioning
whether it was better to keep their army clustered together (and accept that
I’d dominate the scoreline) or spread it out and risk me slaughtering their
army to boot. Never a great set of options to choose between!
If there
was ever a perfect set of scenarios for the list, this was it.
Game 1: Halls of Thranduil in Domination, 11:4
On
paper, this matchup favours me in Domination, because I have a whopping
20-model advantage and can use that to dominate (ha) the field.
In
practice, however, Chris had a lot of things in his favour. That began with the
table, which was a beautiful urban setup with lots of unscaleable walls and
bridges between platforms. Winning the deployment roll-off, he was able to sit
his army comfortably on two platforms, from which he could either descend or
move along the bridges. In contrast, I had to spread my forces between the
ground and the platforms, because the ruins meant his Mirkwood Rangers would be
able to shoot me to pieces with impunity. The terrain ended up being a huge
headache this game, preventing me from leveraging my numbers and keeping up to
half my list out of the fray at any given time.
Chris
had a very clear plan throughout this game: hold the platform (and objective)
on which Legolas had deployed, do the same with most of Thranduil’s infantry on
the other flank, and push with Thranduil forward in the centre. My list
normally likes to use its mobility and numbers to avoid having to commit
against big heroes or fight through chokepoints, but that simply wasn’t going
to be an option here: I had to swarm Thranduil and try to push through some of
these two-Elf-wide chokepoints.
On
the left flank, that went alright: I was able to trade fairly evenly on
shooting kills, while sprinting some Orcs and Uruks around to attack Legolas’
warband from two sides. After a bit of a false start (sometimes Elves just roll
sixes, whaddya-gunna-do) I was eventually able to force my way onto the
platform, swarm and wrap the warriors and kill them quite rapidly. Legolas,
however, proved a tougher nut, surviving turn after turn and just blasting his
way through my poor D4 warriors with his shooting. A second attempt with both
Captains and several warriors did see him unable to get the six, however, and
he was immediately ganked: this list does not struggle to kill heroes once
they fluff! In the end, I was able to clear this platform quite handily, with
just a couple of stubborn Mirkwood Rangers that refused to die but couldn’t reach
the objective.
I had also been sending troops back from this flank towards the central objective, where Thranduil and his cavalry had been caught in a trap. A couple of clutch Heroic Moves from my nearby Orc Captain (shouting up at his boys from the ground) had allowed me to swarm in on the cavalry and set up some extremely favourable combats, but to little avail. I had a lot of luck with winning Priority this game, but Chris’ rolls in combat were excellent: watching multiple Orcs and Uruks charge cavalry and then lose the combat to a fluke 6 turn after turn was quite challenging, and meant that I was haemorrhaging models in the centre. I would have loved to send more dudes up to help from Ugluk’s force, but thanks to the terrain they would have had to travel something like 40” to get there.
As such, Ugluk’s band was forced to keep slamming themselves into the two-Elf-wide block atop the stairs, taking casualties but ever-so-slowly pushing their way in. At last, I was able to break through and flood onto the platform, contesting and threatening to flip the nearby objective.
But by this stage, Thranduil’s relentless chopping had managed to Break me and nearly clear out the centre, and he was riding fast for one of my back objectives. As such, I determined that I needed the game to end this very turn, and set about forcing this.
To
start with, my Scout Captain on the left platform passed his Break check and
went hurtling down the stairs, removing his Stand Fast from his friends (save
the nearby banner) and instead providing it to the Orc on the back left
objective. Most of my warriors that had been facing Legolas scarpered, with
just enough sticking around to hold the objective and keep the Rangers pinned
away from it. Even the Orc Captain fled after I chose not to spend his Will
point to keep him on the table.
Taking
a few more Break checks with warriors before heroes on the other flank allowed
me to drop my numbers to 13 models remaining – one off quartering. A Scout
passed his Break check and attempted to leap across a gap and onto the
objective, only to roll a 1 and fall several inches to the ground. He survived
the S3 hits, only for Ugluk to turn around and execute him: such is the price
of failure. This quartered me, and allowed Ugluk to extend a 12” Stand Fast to
the Orc on my back-right objective, holding it safe. Finally, the remaining
models on this flank surged over the Elves, with the Orc Captain getting a
critical kill that Broke the Elves and gave me majority control over the
objective.
In
the end, my strategic quartering of my army ended the game just in time, with
Orcs on 3 objectives uncontested and majority control of a fourth. That gave me
a solid 11:4 win overall, which didn’t really reflect how close the game had
felt throughout.
Chris
played a really solid game, making the correct call not to fight me in the open
ground and instead to push along to the centre. He was perhaps a little
conservative with his Might, not contesting Heroic Moves a couple of times when
it really would have made a difference, but for all we know he might have lost
those Move-offs anyway.
For my part, I think I messed up in my deployment somewhat. I should have put more models on the centre and accepted that we were fighting there, because Chris had no realistic reason to come down onto the open ground and fight me. It was a classic case of planning for what I would like my opponent to do, without really thinking through why they might not want to do so.
However, I was
really proud of my strategic pivot to get down to exactly quartered on the
final turn, while still holding every objective. I think I played that final
turn about perfectly, and I ] that did a lot to seal the win.
With that, I was on to a much more open board, and a matchup that promised a fairly easy ride…
Game 2: Breaking of the Fellowship in Reconnoitre, 16:0
Yeah,
poor Aidan was not thrilled about this matchup. It was obviously exceptionally
theme-y to have the Breaking of the Fellowship taking on Ugluk’s Scouts, but
perhaps too much so: there was every likelihood that the game would be decided
by Ugluk and a handful of boys running off with all the VPs while the
Fellowship slaughtered loads of Uruks.
Aidan
could see how the game was going to play out just as well as I could, and to
his credit he made the absolute most of it. That included going for a clutch
assassination run with Legolas’ and Aragorn’s archery after I left Ugluk a
little too exposed, and charging his heroes bravely into the throng after we’d
both Marched twice towards the centre.
Unfortunately,
his dice had clearly been demoralised by the matchup, and went cold as ice. The
4 hits on Ugluk translated into 0 wounds, and Gimli and Boromir had to burn 6
Might between them in the first turn to win fights. In combat, he was also
suffering from a key strength of Ugluk’s Scouts: the ability to very
efficiently make a fight existential for a hero. Gimli would ordinarily be
totally fine with losing a fight or two to some warriors, but 2 Uruks and an
Orc (with spear supports) near Ugluk could very plausibly one-shot him. Most
lists would have to invest real resources to threaten that kind of damage, but
this list can access it in every single fight.
Elsewhere,
I was able to exploit a small gap in Aidan’s lines to sweep Scouts around and
into his Hobbits, while Ugluk and two boys ran off the board. Discretion is the
better part of valour, it seemed. Frodo was able to survive quite well with
Heroic Defences, but Merry and Pippin were torn apart, and Sam’s attempt to
Heroic Combat into Frodo’s fight saw him get hacked down by an Orc Captain.
Legolas managed to assassinate a banner with some cheeky shots out of combat,
only to whiff his duel roll and get flash-killed.
That
left a Might-less Gimli – who hobbled along for quite a few turns before being
dragged down – plus Frodo, Boromir and Aragorn. Boromir had to burn a total of
5 Might winning duels (I decided to just not fail any Horn of Gondor checks)
and botched a Heroic Combat with the 6th Might, but he did manage to
keep killing across the whole game. And Aragorn won all three Move-offs and
never failed to win a fight, hacking his way through piles of Uruks and
eventually decapitating my Scout Captain.
Frodo,
however, was not in a good state. He’d put on his Ring for protection, but
failed his check to see who would control him for two turns running and was
forced to charge my models. Eventually he was dragged down by the horde,
quartering and Breaking the Fellowship just a turn before they would probably
have Broken me.
Aidan
was a great sport about the appalling matchup throughout, even as his dice
failed him miserably. I think that with some more average dice, he should have
Broken me back and wounded Ugluk, and it felt somewhat unfair that neither of
those happened.
In any case, that shot me up to the top tables, where I would be having a rematch into an old nemesis…
Game 3: Muster of Isengard in Supplies, 8:7
The
old nemesis here was not actually my opponent, Michael Kerr. We’ve played once
before at Masters (which you can read about here), and had one of the
most enjoyable games of my life (I thrashed him mercilessly on the back of some
comic dice skew). Instead, the nemesis was his Muster of Isengard list, which
had been borrowed by Vaughan for last year’s Dagor. Vaughan beat me on the top
table with the help of an excellent defensive position and a scenario that
allowed him to turtle, and arriving at our table this time I was confronted
with a strong sense of déjà vu.
Like
Round 1, this beautiful table was made up of walled platforms linked by narrow
bridges. Unlike Round 1, the area between them was also shallow water. Great. I
would normally feel quite confident in Destroy the Supplies against Muster of
Isengard (I had played that exact matchup in a practice game and walked over
them, thanks to my ~17 model advantage), but here the bridges would make it
extremely difficult to force my way onto his side of the board. Moreover,
because of Grima he would be able to guarantee the destruction of at least one
of my supplies, so I couldn’t sit back and force him to come to me. I would
have to force my way through his block of 6 Berserkers backed by pikes, able to
sit in three small chokepoints and grind me down. Yikes.
The
one thing I did have going for me on paper was my shooting, with 15 Uruk bows
theoretically out-shooting his 6 crossbows by some margin. In practice,
however, it took me until at least Turn 6 before I killed a single model, with
a total of three shooting kills across the whole game from probably ~100 shots
fired. My best tool for opening up gaps in Kerr’s line had proved utterly
useless, and in return his crossbows were churning through Scout after Scout.
Oft
hope is born when all is forlorn, however, and things started to swing my way
in combat at a surprising rate. A combined crossbow and magical bombardment had
reduced my Scout Captain to 1 wound and no Will quite early on, so I played
recklessly with him, burning his Might on a Combat because I didn’t want to
lose him before he could spend it. This big play ended up paying off, and over
the first couple turns of combat I managed to kill 4 of the six Berserkers
(although at the price of quite a lot of my own models).
On
the left flank, and spurred on by his example, my troops were able to fight
their way over the bridge and into a proper melee, where they slowly gained the
edge against their armoured Uruk cousins. However, my right flank had been
slowly ground down, with an Uruk Captain backed by two pikes proving a
particularly insurmountable obstacle.
As such, I was forced to make a big play. I swung Ugluk around and into combat, charging the Captain and wounding him twice (although he passed his Fate to survive). I had finally managed to open up a gap, however, and I was able to start spilling models through.
But I had taken so many casualties doing so that
I couldn’t really leverage my position, and I was Broken with one turn to go,
as Grima finally committed to burning a Supply in my backfield. I had left an
Orc back there to fight him once he’d revealed himself, but naturally Grima won
the fight and shanked him. Urgh.
However, I did have a ray of hope on the left flank, where the grinding of my Captains (the Scout Captain still going strong on 1 Wound/no Fate) had managed to break a hole in Mike’s line. I was able to spin models through and tag Saruman with the Scout Captain, who ended up returning the favour by pushing a wound through all three of his Fate.
This also made up for Ugluk’s embarrassment on the other
flank, where he had called a Strike against the trapped Uruk Captain while
backed up by a friend (with one Might to spare) and totally whiffed, getting
wounded and failing his Fate roll. So at least points were even on that front.
On the last turn it all came down to Priority, which mercifully went my way. This allowed me to slide models through a gap to burn a single Supply marker, while using my Scout Captain and a pile of Orcs to kill his banner. Time was called and I was one off Breaking the Isengarders, but Ugluk’s 12” Stand Fast was able to reach a Scout in position to charge Grima and prevent him destroying another Supply.
This left us dead even on the primary objectives, with the game coming
down to me having the only banner left alive (for 4VPs) and Mike having Broken
me without being Broken (for 3VPs). An absolute nailbiter of a game that could
have gone either way until the very last moment. And indeed, we rolled out a
couple of key rolls from the next turn and I would have lost Priority and
failed the Scout’s Break check to stop Grima destroying one more Supply, so
even if I did get the final kill to break Mike we would have been left with a
draw!
I waxed lyrical about Mike in the writeup of our Master’s game, but all that was just as true this time around. I love playing someone who’s clearly playing to win (and doing so with great success), but is happy to banter and laugh throughout the game as well. It was also one of those excellent games where we were each willing to help the other out, working together to figure out whether a particular move was possible and how to make it happen. 10/10, would end Mike’s undefeated run again.
This
left me undefeated, but with comparatively few tournament points thanks
to not getting the crushing wins in Rounds 1 or 3. As a result, I ended up in
third, behind Vaughan in second and Mike in third! This was a truly comic top
three, for a number of reasons:
-
The three of us were also last
year’s top 3, but none of us achieved the same placing;
-
Mike’s Isengard list was the
winning list both years, but in Vaughan’s hands last time;
-
Mike had gone 3:0 last time and
been pipped by me on 2 crushing wins, with a total reversal there; and
-
Vaughan was once again one place
ahead of me!
In
any case, I was very happy to have ended the tournament with a podium,
receiving a nice Combat Company voucher, a cute dice tray and a slightly cursed
LoTR calendar (why are Gimli, Boromir, Merry and Pippin excluded but Wormtongue
gets his own month?). It wouldn’t be an MESBG event without a prize like that to
have a giggle over on the car ride home!
Tournament Review
Dagor
is genuinely one of the best tournaments I’ve been to. The ticket price is a
little higher than normal, but that’s totally fine when the money is going to a
good cause. And the tournament feels seriously premium, with beautiful terrain,
laminated printouts of all your models’ profiles with a marker pen to track
their resources, a hand-stitched goody bag with everything from dice to models
to a cute Anduril pin, and with a yummy catered lunch as well. Everything was
run smoothly, and while I would have preferred to play on a more balanced board
for the top table final game, it probably made for a more interesting battle in
the end (and was visually stunning to boot).
Great stuff, big thumbs up once again.
List review
This list
is seriously, seriously strong.
Starting
with the caveats, this tournament format was obviously great for it. No Fog of
War is a big help, and To the Death also is a nice scenario to avoid. When your
opponent has to spread out in all three scenarios, a mobile horde with
Animosity is an excellent pick. If I had had to play those weaker
scenarios then it may have struggled slightly more than it did this weekend.
On the other
hand, I’m now up to 32 games with this list, and it’s only lost 4 of those
(plus two draws). At 600 points it’s just a super strong list, hitting way
harder than people expect and with a surprising amount of flexibility. Having
strong shooting and great mobility lets you set the terms of engagement in the
majority of matchups, and the incredible numbers plus Animosity means you carve
through opponents once you get those favourable engagements. It has no great answers
to enemy heroes or monsters, but the cheap damage output it can bring means that
they often need to win every single fight or get taken out. That’s not something
that any hero can achieve forever, and once they botch it can go south quite quickly.
On the
other hand, it is a list with weaknesses. Games 1 and 3 both showed that it can
struggle when forced to push through elite lists in chokepoints. Now, the
shooting and mobility is such that normally you don’t have to do that,
but sometimes you’re just rolling crap for your bows on a map with
exceptionally dense terrain. And in those circumstances, the list doesn’t have
the big heroes to go in and chop a gap through.
In saying that, the list did actually win both of those rounds, and I think they were fairly close to worst-case-scenarios for it. On more traditional competitive boards, I think this list absolutely has what it takes to hang with the big dogs. I haven’t seen too much discussion of this list online, but at medium points values I think it’s in real contention as the best army in the game.
Tournament Wrap-up
This
was such a great event, and I’m so glad I made it up again. Thanks to Eric,
Chris and the rest of the team for an excellent event, and to all my opponents
for some great games.
In
the meantime, keep an eye out for my somewhat-delayed Eagles tactica, plus the
more important article on how to beat the bloody birds, as well as my
much-delayed writeup of the third day of Cancon (a teams event with 1400 points
per side!).
Until
then, may you always win that critical final Priority roll!
Congratulations on your wins! I have also had some success with Ugluk's Souts – the number of models and their combat threat is quite a thing to contend with!
ReplyDeleteHow do see Grishnak with the list? You'd have to loose two Orcs to upgrade an Orc Captain, but you gain another hero able to strike (albeit he's not that great at that) and I found it was realativly easy to use his Backstabbers rule to confirm kills. Still... The numbers!