The comeback arc: Clash Part 2

 

Scouts v Elves on the top table

After an excellent Day 1 with my Ugluk’s Scouts, I was moderately rested and hoping to clutch out some good results on Day 2 of Clash. Thankfully, the sixth round at this event meant that I could still plausibly podium with one loss (as it turned out, not even the winner was undefeated), so there was still everything to play for.

With all that said, let’s dive right into first game of Day 2…

Game 4: Battle of Fornost in Hold Ground, 7:0

A controversial lack of mount for Earnur here, but still two very scary mounted heroes

Up next was my second Battle of Fornost matchup in a row, which was amusing. Thankfully, while yesterday I had to bring down Glorfindel to win, this time around I just had to outnumber them in the centre. With a model-count advantage of 20 and the ability to get Dominant (2) on the centre objective, it felt like Wade would need to work pretty hard to have a shot.

Things started well for me, with Wade’s two warbands split up and 37 angry Orcs and Uruks swarming Glorfindel’s warband. Glorfindel called a Move and promptly legged it for the centre, leaving his warband to die – I don’t think this Lord of the West had read the Silmarillion!

Glorfindel takes one look at this and nopes right out

In any case, the rest of the Elves died in an extremely one-sided clash, while Wade hustled towards the centre with his Gondorians. 

 A predictable outcome here

My Scout Captain’s warband had come in on the flank, and Glorfindel and a Knight charged in to neutralise them. My Captain and 4 Uruks botched a Combat off the Knight, but managed to make it happen the second time to slingshot themselves towards the centre. I also did quite a good job of frustrating Glorfindel by pinning him in with lone Uruks, far away from the centre.

A blurry pic of this flank, just before the Scout Captain botches hard against that Knight

In the main clash, Earnur managed to win two critical Move-offs to pin my main force between two buildings and away from the objective. I bullied through and began opening a gap, but Wade had finally Broken and was still contesting the centre quite well.

As in my last game, Wade did a great job of assessing the situation and realising that he was absolutely stuffed if the game went on more than one turn after Break. As such, he threw everything he possibly could at that turn, even dismounting Glorfindel to get a couple more kills off a Heroic Combat.

The Scouts surge around the Gondorians, but are they fast enough?

The little Hobbit off near Glorfindel is the centre objective. Can I get the critical doubling VPs?

For all that, I had managed to open up a gap and start pouring models through it. I also set up a great assassination run with an Orc Captain onto Wade’s banner, only to utterly fail to wound despite the trap. In any case, after a frenzied turn of combat Wade had narrowly managed to prevent me from doubling him out on the centre.

He rolled the die, and it came up a 2. With the Gondorian banner alive and my numerical advantage not quite in position, Wade held me to a 7:0 scoreline, which was just exactly enough to deny me the major win. It was great play from Wade to identify that he only had any kind of shot if the game ended on the first possible turn, and to play for that at the cost of his future position. It obviously was a little lucky that the game did end on that turn, but you’ve got to credit a player for identifying the risk that they needed to take and taking it. Wade was also a delight to play and chat to, and I hope we get a chance for another game at a future event.

Game 5: Battle of Fornost in Domination, 19:0

Hey, at least it's a different way of building Battle of Fornost?

I played Andrew Colman in a delightful Round 5 of last year’s Clash, so it was only fitting that we matched up now. And to complete the repetition, he was also running Battle of Fornost, making it a 3-in-a-row sweep for me. I was hopeful for the hat trick, but Andrew is one of the best players in the country and was sure to make it tough for me. He’d also brought a nearly-all-cavalry list, which concerned me: my experience on the first day against F5 lance cavalry was not great, so the game could rapidly get away from me if I gave them the engage they wanted.

A full charge from these guys would hurt

I did have a couple of big things going for me though. To start with, the board was quite terrain rich, with beautiful long strips of woodland terrain that gave me built-in defensive positions all across the board. My shooting was also serious enough to force the engage, while the scenario meant that dominating (ha) the board with my numbers could easily translate into the VPs I needed. Plus, I even remembered to Get a Fire Going on one of the objectives this game! It didn’t end up doing anything, but, like, I remembered, so I felt pretty proud of that.

A few more big swings in the early game put Colman under a lot of pressure. Earnur was a tiny bit out of position and paid for it with his Fate and horse as five Scouts spiked their shooting into him, alongside some other good damage in the first turn. And more importantly, I was able to win the first two Priority rolls (and hand them to Andrew), which immediately put him under so much pressure. I could creep forward, shooting away and maintaining a strong defensive position, while he would be increasingly compressed away from the objectives.

Look at that for an anti-cavalry position: Woodland terrain everywhere you could want!

As such, he was forced to be aggressive, pushing up to just outside 8” on both fronts. We joked about the inevitable Heroic Move-off on the following turn, but in the end I was actually able to use the terrain to ensure I didn’t even need to move first. On the right flank in particular, I was able to block the 4” passageway between two bits of forest with one beautifully-positioned Uruk, who I promptly shot in the back when Earnur and a Knight charged into him. That shooting also wounded Earnur again, and I had used the time it bought me to swarm over the poor Hobbit archers on this flank and secure a fifth objective.

If I move first here I get to charge a heap of cavalry and Hobbits; if they move first, they charge one Scout. Nice

As such, Colman ended up mostly abandoning the right flank, with just Earnur and a Knight hanging in there for turn after turn. They did a great job of chipping through me and preventing me from moving too many models away from that objective, but in the end they weren’t able to break through anywhere or threaten my VPs.

A very blurry shot of the right flank as Earnur and his buddy carve through warrior after warrior

The left flank was hairier, with Glorfindel zooming around making a nuisance of himself and Colman launching a determined attack on the objective. I was helped massively here by the strip of woodland terrain that took away his charge bonuses and crippled his movement, and even a botched assassination attempt on the enemy banner after losing the first Move-off wasn’t enough to threaten me too much. This was helped by Glorfindel botching hard against my warriors on at least one occasion, and by the time I won the second (and more important) Move-off it was all game over. A plucky Hobbit archer managed to get his third Uruk kill of the game (two in combat!), but Glorfindel was bogged down and the Knights butchered.

I think I went into this game holding a lot of the cards, and got some great luck over the first few cards that really put me in a winning position. But I was also really proud of my play this game. It felt so good to be able to put myself in a position of not even needing to go first against the cavalry army 5” away from me, and I just never let Colman get into a position to deal the blow he needed to. Without the ticking clock of Reconnoitre to hinder me, I could slowly take apart the second all-cavalry army I faced without needing to risk things on roll-offs and Priority.

As ever, Andrew was a delight to play, with that excellent combination of being happy to joke around and be accommodating while still playing a razor-sharp game. He was cheating at every opportunity, of course, but I suppose I should forgive him in light of the 19:0 thrashing. [Obligatory clarification that no real cheating occurred and no internet witch hunts should be started over this game].

Alas, that thrashing had been comprehensive enough to shoot me back to the top table to face the famous Kylie in a second final-round-face-off. Was the submarine finally reaching the surface, or was I an Icarus about to have his wings burned off? In any case, let’s dive into the game before I think of any more overused metaphors to throw out.

Game 6: Lothlorien in To the Death, 10:2

A lot of shooting to face in To the Death

Kylie had carved her path to the top table with a lethal pyjama party of Lothlorien Elves, headed by the iconic power couple of Galadriel and Celeborn. To the Death was certainly not the scenario I wanted to face them in; a sizeable proportion of my tournament losses can be described as ‘ran into Elven bows on To the Death’, and I wasn’t looking forward to a potential repeat.

Not how my army wants to engage

That said, I did think I had some play in this game. To start with, my second banner gave me an immediate leg up in points, and meant Kylie couldn’t play entirely cagey. The Lothlorien Elf low Defence meant that my shooting could actually threaten a little damage back (hitting on 5’s wounding on 4’s is actually pretty reliable by the standards of Evil shooting), and once I got close my 15-model numbers edge could potentially translate into a lot of kills on the squishy Elves. Plus, the normal power of the double casters was pretty mitigated here: what’s Galadriel gonna do, Transfix Ugluk? 

Before we get into the game, I do think that it’s worthwhile emphasising an underrated aspect of competitive play: believing that you can win the game. When you’re facing someone intimidating like Kylie (or Alex Colasante or Andrew Coleman, for that matter) it’s very easy to count yourself out of the game before it’s even begun. And realistically, that’s not entirely unreasonable: the reason that these people have reputations is that they win a lot of their games. Statistically, they’re probably winning something like 5/6 of the time (based on the data I track for myself), so your odds of winning are unlikely to be amazing.

But do you know what other conclusion we can draw from ‘they win 5/6 of their games’? It’s that they lose 1/6 of them! And there is absolutely no reason that you can’t just be game number 6 on that statistic. Moreover, by playing like you have a real and genuine chance to win the game, you’re so much more likely to spot the opportunities available that could let you do so.

As such, I was going in determined that I had a shot at victory. I didn’t start things off well though, as I used my banner VPs to draw her out of a good defensive position (by standing 27.1” away from her archers) into what ended up being a better defensive position. Urgh. In any case, there was then nothing for it but full send, with 4 Marches being called over two turns to absolutely leg it through the hail of Elven arrows. Kylie’s shooting underperformed a little (by about two kills under the average), and I was able to get into a threatening position relatively unscathed.

Kylie then made a very interesting call. She Compelled out one of my now-Mightless Orc Captains and jumped on him with six Elves. This was a decent shot at a kill and a VP, but it ended up effectively denying her one extra turn of shooting, especially after his D6 saw him survive her pile of strikes. I found the move curious, but subsequent discussion after the game revealed that her scoring at least one VP would guarantee a favourable result in the overall tournament placings. So she potentially reduced her chances in this game a small amount in return for a guaranteed better placing on the podium. Cunning!

The Elves come forward to ambush my Captain, but put themselves in a risky position to do so

In any case, the Captain did go down on the second turn of combat, but his sacrifice had allowed me to start spilling into combat and hacking down Elves. The Lothlorien Elf battleline with Celeborn and a banner can be quite genuinely scary, but my numbers and better durability meant that I was actually able to trade quite well. Mathematically, two of my models trade pretty evenly into two of hers when she’s away from Celeborn or the banner, and aren’t too far behind when she’s got her auras in range. With my huge numbers edge, an amount of grinding down was likely to happen here.

The Elves are enveloped and start to take some heavy casualties

This was certainly accelerated by some great combat rolling for me, which saw Elves falling at a rate of nearly 1:1 at points. In hindsight, this wasn’t quite as far from average as it felt at the time (there were a decent number of fights outside aura range and plenty of 2-on-1 fights going on in the melee), and there were dice swings in both directions (Lothlorien managed to win something like 12/14 Priorities, which even with the Mirror is a long way from average). But overall, I definitely did get the benefit of some good dice in the grinds, and they went a long way towards letting me snowball into a good position.

The last Elves retreat to try to escape the Scout hordes

Another cheeky source of attrition that I think we’d both underestimated was my archery. Because I had so many models, there were often a decent number of my archers out of combat. And because I was actively looking for any possible edge (because I believed I could win the game!), they were shooting up at Elves on rooftops, peering through windows, leaning round corners and generally just taking any shot they could get. One archer even ended up climbing onto the rooftop Kylie was castled under and firing down at spear supports. Neither of us expected much of them, but it turns out that when you fire enough shots hitting on 5’s and wounding on 4’s, you eventually get some kills. This ended up translating into something like 4 dead Elves, which was absolutely huge in letting me grind through the Lothlorien forces.

Cheeky Scouts taking potshots through doors, windows, and whatever other gaps they can find

In any case, after many, many turns of combat, the Elves were first Broken and then quartered. On the final turn, Kylie needed 4 more kills to Break me back, but the weight of numbers saw me win just enough fights to hold it out and take the major win!

This was a really interesting game, and I think we actually both made a few mistakes (as is inevitable on Round 6 of a big event). My initial choice to retreat backwards was sound, I think, but I should only have done it once: continuing to retreat after that first move was what let Kylie get the position she wanted, and it wasn’t a mistake I needed to make. I also failed to box in my banners, which let Kylie Compel them out and then subsequently keep them locked in place with Celeborn. That was annoying, but really wasn’t so much a mistake as a trade-off to some extent: the models that could have been boxing in the banners actually had other jobs to do by the time the magic started turning their way, so it would have cost me some spear supports to keep them present. An error overall I think, but not a hugely impactful one, especially because it effectively tied down Kylie’s magic.

From Kylie’s perspective, I don’t think she used that magic to the fullest possibility. She dropped one Writhing Vines early and it was a massive pain to play around, but she then left off that spell and started Immobilising either Ugluk or basic warriors instead (or eventually the banners). I was still relying a lot on my speed to shift models around between the different entrances to her little castle even into the lategame, and just halving my speed in key spots would have been far more impactful.

One good Writhing Vines would have been so annoying here

I think Kylie did fall into the trap that many Ugluk’s Scouts players fall into, ironically, of overestimating Ugluk’s ability to kill an Orc to hand out +1 to wound. It’s a neat rule that’s situationally very useful, but I did some maths during the game that said my one dead Orc would translate into roughly 0.2 of an Elf. Not even Ugluk’s Scouts have the model count to make that trade regularly! I still did use it once to trigger the Fearless (guaranteeing a charge on Celeborn to shut off his magic), but it was sufficiently niche that Ugluk getting Immobilised was really not a concern to me.

In any case, with that major win I was left on 2 majors, 2 crushings, a minor win and a minor loss. And my inability to clinch the major that morning came home to bite me, as Kylie narrowly held me off to leave me in second place!

This was an awesome result for one of Australia’s biggest and most competitive events, and I was beyond buzzed. I got a cool Isengard battlehost (even more Scouts!) and a beautiful trophy that I immediately dropped and broke (sad). I was most excited, honestly, to have beaten Kylie: I’ve beaten a lot of good players over the last year but fallen short three times against her and Alex Colasante, so it was great to cross one more name off the list.

Vengeance has been secured for this drubbing!

Tournament Review

As with last time around, Clash was an absolutely awesome event. Spreading out the games across different classrooms in the school kept that crazy carnival atmosphere without actually feeling claustrophobic, and all the kids helping out on the day were amazing. $4 bacon and egg rolls are actually exactly the food I want at an event, and I’m surprised more events don’t take advantage of this cunning trick of paying caterers in school credits. And logistically, everything ran pretty smoothly throughout, which is super impressive for an event of this size.

Socially the event was awesome, with so many good friends to talk to that I had basically lost my voice by the end of Day 1 (although that could have also been the second-hand smoke from the pub). Alas, poor Ned’s 3:0 run on the first day had Icarus’ed him into Kylie, Alex Colasante and then the Three Trolls, but Riley and Xavier both snuck into the Top 10 to protect the honour of the Canberra scene (honour and Canberra both defined loosely). Pat picked up runner-up for Player’s Choice, while Katt received the Best Newcomer award and did remarkably well for her first event.

And of course, the famous Best meme competition was won by Alex Colesante, with this masterpiece:

Baby Sean is a scary sight

List review

I am in love with this list. The numbers, the speed, the killing power, the flexibility, the distributed centre of gravity, the ways to respond to adverse matchups… It just has it all. If I had to pick one list as the best 600-point army in the game, this would be it; and yes, I play Eagles!

In saying all that, it’s not quite the easiest list to play. Of the five Ugluk’s Scouts lists attending the event, we actually distributed ourselves quite evenly throughout the final standings, ranging from second all the way down to wooden spoon!

The Clash meme competition is truly excellent (credit Noah Kennedy)

It does reinforce my view that this probably isn’t an easy army to play. I feel I can sometimes get a little out of touch about these things (‘What do you mean you didn’t know about that combo? Didn’t it come up in your first forty practice games with the list?’), but there is definitely a lot of ways to mess up with Ugluk’s Scouts. In particular, their core problem of ‘how do you deal with big scary things’ is a question that can totally be answered, but not in the way that many lists traditionally do so.

And finally, the one major listbuilding question for the army: was I glad that I took the two Orc Captains over Grishnakh and Snaga? Yeah, absolutely. Extra models helped in every game, and the D6 with March was absolutely huge in the last round. Against those Elves I would have preferred the Captain to Grishnakh even if they were the same price, as that D6 was what allowed the left Captain to survive that critical first round of combat to pull Kylie out of position and into the brawl. And in most of the other matchups, it didn’t really matter which hero I had, because they were generally hiding from Earnur and Glorfindel anyway! There was exactly one moment in Round 4 when one of my Captains had trapped the enemy banner and failed to get a 5+ on 4 dice, so it would have been nice to have Grishnakh there. But Snaga would have been equally useless, so it’s very much a toss-up even then.

If pink-band Captain was Grishnakh here I may have won Clash, but if he was Grishnakh in Round 6 I may not have even podiumed

Overall, great list, 10/10. Not actually as easy to play as it looks, but have no fear, because I have a tactica article for them all written up and ready to go!

Tournament Wrap-up

What an event! Clash is always amazing, and I think this year was even better than last time. Every game was competitive and tight, none of my opponents were dickheads, and the social scene was amazing. I’m super proud of my run, and am already excited for next Clash!

I’m currently in the middle of a TTS tournament (again using the Scouts) that I may or may not get around to writing up, but I’ve got a couple larger events coming up in the next few months that I might try to make it to. These will probably force me to diversify from my current approach of ‘run Scouts -> win games’, but I’m excited to try out some new brands of cheese. 8 Angmar Shamans anyone?

Until next time, may you always be in it to win it!