So last February I wrote a long, rambling report of the Throne of Skulls weekend at Warhammer World and posted it on here, feedback was good so I thought I’d do another one! Hopefully this will allow anyone who wasn’t there to get a feeling for what it’s like and maybe encourage you to go to one of these great events next year. As before, it’s certainly not short (we’ve got to cover three days and 5 battle reports after all!), so grab a cuppa, put your feet up and enjoy....
So for this Battle Brothers (read SBG doubles event) I was bringing my friend Tom along, my partner from last year’s wife was due to give birth around the weekend so he wisely stepped down. Tom doesn’t collect or paint but he’s a big Tolkien nut and loves the game, we’d spent the last 2 months playing practice games and he’s been reading the rulebook on the way to work to make sure he was up to speed.
I’ve been playing with my Isengard army quite a lot recently and fancied a change, I don’t have the largest collection in the world so this pretty much left some version of my Rohan army. I decided to go for all mounted Rohirrim because it looks so cool on the table, I added in Radagast and 2 eagles to give the army some power and a few tricks and to hopefully guarantee it wouldn’t get slaughtered in every game (can you imagine what would happen to an all cavalry Rohan army at a competitive tournament full of Thranduils, wizards and monsters? Just doesn’t bear thinking about really). It’s a fun army to use and had a nice theme to it by taking all the family (Theoden, Eomer, Eowyn) despite the fact that Thedeon is overpriced. It was very much chosen for the fluffy/fun side of things rather than the gaming side, I was really hoping for a Best Painted Army nomination too, hopefully it would pay off!
Anyhoo, here's the army we settled on:
Leader - Radagast, Sebastian, horse
Great Eagle
Great Eagle
Eomer, Knight of the Pellenor, armoured horse
2 Mounted Royal Guard with Throwing Spears
2 Westfold Redshields
1 Westfold Redshield with Throwing Spear
Erkenbrand, horse
2 Westfold Redshields with Throwing Spears
3 Westfold Redshields
Theoden, armoured horse, heavy armour, shield
2 Mounted Royal Guard with Throwing Spears
2 Westfold Redshields
1 Westfold Redshield with Throwing Spear
Eowyn, shield, armour, horse
2 Mounted Royal Guard with Throwing Spears
2 Westfold Redshields
1 Westfold Redshield with Throwing Spear
27 models
Break - 14 dead
13 Might
The tactics were to channel Radagast’s Aura of Dismay on turn 1 and throw a couple of Will at it to give him a 12” terror bubble. This should help mitigate infantry counter-charging our cavalry and prevent them getting swamped. We would also try to use our speed and the full width of the 6x4 boards to form a circle around our opponents, maximising our 15 bows and throwing spears before charging in from all sides at the same time, hopefully disrupting any spear walls we might face, how would we get on? We’ll see...
We headed off to Nottingham about 4PM on Friday, picking up Tom Harrison (who won the Throne of Skulls in February) on the way. Around J22 we hit the horrendous traffic that has plagued us on every Friday trip to Warhammer World so far and so once more took a detour through Loughborough to reach Nottingham. We checked in to our hotel, met up with Tom’s partner Chris (doubles partner, not life partner) and headed to our now traditional dinner at The Curry Lounge, much curry and a few beers later we headed off to dreamland and a 7am wake up call.
Suffice to say we were not feeling overly bright the next morning as we headed off to Warhammer World for the obligatory Bugman’s breakfast. Upon registering I was somewhat surprised to learn that there were only 16 teams in the event, marking a huge fall from last year when there were around 45 teams. The TOS singles in February had 50 players which should amount to around 25 teams so I’m really not sure what caused the drop.
Our first game saw us drawn against a father and son team from my local gaming club. They’d gone for a rather eclectic hero-heavy army with Treebeard, Aragorn Elessar, The King of the Dead, Radagast with 2 eagles and Eowyn leading a warband of Rohan warriors. It was interesting to see who would win the battle of the Radagasts and eagles! The scenario was To the Death and off we went! We stuck to our tactics of spending a long time getting into position and taking pot shots at their troops in a desperate attempt to kill Aragorn’s horse or wound Treebeard (their leader). They had no bows so we were fairly safe manoeuvring outside their charge range into a big ring. It was a cagey game vying for position and after about an hour and a half only 3 models had been killed. Eventually, our positioning was complete and we charged hard, aiming for the Rohan warriors in an attempt to break them quickly. Thankfully it worked and we killed about 7 in one turn which broke them giving us valuable victory points. However, Treebeard, Aragorn and their eagles were still making a mess of our warriors and Aragorn was using his free Might to chase after our Radagast at every turn. Our Radagast had a lucky escape when an eagle hurled a Rider of Rohan into him killing his horse which actually worked out well for us as, now on foot, Raddy could leg it through a forest in which Aragorn would be heavily slowed down. We then made a big push on Treebeard, charging about 5 Royal Guard (who auto-passed courage tests thanks to their bodyguard rule), Theoden and Eowyn into him. Eowyn was there, as ever, as a Might battery to call a Heroic Strike, Treebeard countered with one of his own and sadly ended up with a higher fight value, cue one of our Royal Guard being hurled through about 5 other riders - ouch. The next turn we pressed in again, and again had a Heroic Strike-off, this time we tied on Fight 10 and we won the roll off. The ensuing 15-20 attacks were too much even for Treebeard and he went down. It would have been a thoroughly convincing victory to us but on the last turn one of their eagles hurled a Rider into another one, killing the poor fool and making us hit our break point. It ended with a 6-4 victory to us, although if that cretin had survived we would’ve won 8-1! It was a great game, played in a great spirit against a young player who had clearly chosen his army based on the models/characters he liked rather than because they were competitive - an attitude to be admired!
We broke for lunch and I entered one of my eagles into the Monster painting competition and my mounted Radagast conversion into the Hero competition, voting took place over lunchtime and there was some really great stuff on display. A special mention must go to Jay Clare who had combined the Three Trolls set (painted as stone) with a citadel wood to create a Trollshaws scenery piece. It was a rather extravagant use of £68 but it looked fantastic and would make a great scenery piece to play over, if I ever find myself with £70 lying around I might just nick the idea...
We also took the time to have a look at the other armies and see which we’d want to fight and which we really didn’t! There were at least 3 Thranduils present which put me right off as well as a fair few Trolls which with their Hurl attacks could make a mess of our cavalry. More than anything though I was really dreading Ed and Sam’s army, Ed had brought 3 Ringwraiths on Fell Beasts and Sam had a goblin hoard to back it up, I didn’t fancy playing that one little bit...
Our second game saw us drawn against a fairly large Haradrim army with about 35 cavalry and 20 infantry led by the Knight of Umbar and Suludan, it was a cool looking army that outnumbered us 2-1 but one against which, if our eagles, Eomer and Radgast all put in a good performance, we had a chance. The scenario was High Ground - Damn, never good when you’re heavily outnumbered. We split our army and deployed wide on the flanks and quickly rode up the sides of the board, we were hoping to use the huge numbers of the Haradrim against then, by anchoring ourselves against the short edges of the board it ensured that they couldn’t get behind us and swamp us. This approach largely worked and two bitter battle-lines broke out with the Haradrim unable to bring their full numbers to bear at the same time. Radagast and the Knight of Umbar were duelling for most of the game: us trying to immobilise him and draw out his will, him trying to immobilise our eagles that were having a gay ‘ol time throwing Haradrim cavalry about. It must be said that Eomer had an awful game, our opponents were careful to try and put a cavalry model in every fight thus robbing us of our charging cavalry bonus, a tactic that hampered Eomer more than anyone, he’d win fights easily enough but then resolutely refuse to kill anything, all told he probably cut through about 10-15 Haradrim but they were largely insignificant models and he was trapped in a corner for most of the game. Ultimately, as was perhaps inevitable, we won the left flank with our eagles and Radagast, eventually taking down the Knight of Umbar but the right flank had fallen and Erkenbrand had been killed taking his horn with him (never a good sign for a Rohan army). We were broken but we still had a chance; they were outnumbering us on the hill but we had a lot of guys heading for the hill including one eagle who in the next turn could grab a Haradrim, throw him off the hill and knock down a load of his mates, it could just turn the tide. The turn started, the eagle failed his courage test and legged it. Damn. With that out hopes were all but extinguished and we rolled the 1/2 to end the game. The game ended 20-5 which I think sounds like more of a pounding than we actually received. We’d made a big dent in their army but ultimately they had more models on the hill when it mattered, our low numbers cost us, still, it was a good fun game in which I think we gave a good show of ourselves.
After a short break we were drawn against fellow One Ringers Cereal Theif and Farmer Maggot (or Owen and Nick). I can honestly say I was thrilled about this, not only did I think they had an army against which we might have a shot but I knew Owen and Nick were good guys, the last game on the Saturday normally involves a beer or two and it was nice to know we’d end the day playing a fun game against nice opponents. We rolled Hold Ground this time, in this game we weren’t outnumbered that heavily, Nick had brought 500 points of Gondor: warriors, Fountain court, rangers etc. led by Cirion, Beregond and Madril and Owen had gone for Gil-galad, Glorfindel and Saruman the White - all mounted. Madril’s Rangers were deployed somewhat isolated on the right flank and we took the opportunity to jump on these weak, fragile troops, wipe them out quickly and then move on. Unfortunately our eagles failed to do anything against them and we were only able to kill a couple, helped in no small part by Saruman and his absurd 18” transfix. Suddenly, things were looking a bit grim and there were 2 elf lords on horses charging at our eagles. What happened next was upsetting, suffice to say Owen gave us a fairly harsh lesson in Noldor v Bird warfare and, one heroic combat later we’d lost both eagles. This did not bode well for the rest of the game. However, up in the centre Theoden and Eowyn were having a good go of it at fighting the rest of the Gondor troops, wrapping around them to deny the spear support and having quite an even fight, the game was definitely on. Unfortunately, what was left over on the right flank wasn’t able to offer much resistance against the remaining rangers and Elf Lord/Saruman combo. Glorfindel got into a multi-turn game of cat and mouse with Radagast, who first gained the upper hand by Panic Steeding Glorfindel’s horse away, before Raddy’s own horse was shot out from underneath him and the chase continued on foot! With most of our right flank resistance dead Saruman and Gil-Galad then turned their attention to the fight in the centre and then things really went downhill. Saruman immobilising all our key heroes from a billion miles away and Gil-Galad chopping them up. Slowly, their numbers were telling and our resistance was faltering. Finally Gil-Galad, sensing victory was near, noticed that Radagast had wandered into charge range whilst trying to evade Glorfindel so smiled, lowered his spear and charged his horse into the old man on foot.
Who promptly beat him in combat with the aid of his brave hedgehog! It almost made the crushing defeat bearable to be honest. The game finished 21-1 but more importantly, as expected, it was really good fun and a great end to the first day’s gaming. It’s possible if we’d just been a little more careful with our eagle placement things might have been different but who knows....
After dinner we headed into Bugman’s for the pub quiz where we joined up with Tom Harrison and his partner Chris for a foursome of glory. The first round was attributing 10 quotes from An Unexpected Journey to the right characters (this is where all those cinema/blu-ray viewings came in handy!), we got 10/10. The second round was recognising tiny photos from parts of models (including the backs!) and again we got 10/10 (including the small grey square that was the back of Thror’s cloak!!!! Yay nerds!). The third round involved a combination of nerd knowledge and maths, they gave you sums like: ‘Elrond’s point cost minus Gandalf’s defence divided by Bombur’s combined M/W/F’ it was extreme nerd knowledge and I think we got 3/5. The fourth round was obscure hobbit knowledge (publication date, word count, UK box office gross etc.) and we managed to get 4/5. Finally there was the now traditional dice-off round where you had to bet on who would win between two characters (the safe bet was worth less quiz points) before you all gathered round the front and rolled giant fluffy dice to decide the winners, we bet on all the safe bets and won 5/5. With that we ended up with a mighty score of 37/40 (I know the above doesn’t add up to that, I’ve obviously misremembered somewhere) which won us the quiz by a clean 5 points and meant that me and Tom had retained the Bugman’s Rangers prize from February’s TOS and got a free round at the bar - Woo and indeed Hoo! The evening then wound down as it always does into sitting around a table with friends, chatting about toy soldiers like there’s nothing more important in the world. We met up with One Ringers Knighty Knight and Muppetslayer and had a lovely evening discussing the day’s events and looking forward to next day’s battles.
When we got back to the hotel The Rock was on TV - win.
The Sunday morning 7am start is always far more horrific than the Saturday one but we managed to drag ourselves back to Bugman’s for breakfast in good time. Our fourth game saw us drawn against a 52 strong dwarf army led by Murin, Drar, Dain, a King’s Herald and a Shieldbearer. The scenario was Reconnoitre.
At this stage I’d like to explain how the tournament worked. Your overall ranking (and so the winner) was worked out purely on the VPs you scored, not anything to do with how many games you won. The simple fact is for SBG this system doesn’t work as A) not everyone has the same number of VPS to risk/gain in each game and B) Different scenarios are worth different numbers of victory points. For example, we won To the Death and scored 6 VPs (from a maximum of 10) whilst a Goblin horde army won Reconnoitre and gained 59 VPs. It essentially meant that armies with a low model count were heavily penalised throughout the whole event, it also meant there were some bizarre possibilities like a horde army losing all of its games but still winning the whole tournament if they accrued enough victory points on their way to losing. Perhaps worst it meant there was no incentive to win the games, just score the most Victory Points possible (in Hold Ground, High Ground and Reconnoitre). Reconnoitre was the worst offender for this as it meant that the most sensible tactic (for both sides) was to walk off the table on opposite sides without ever engaging each other, it simply wasn’t worth risking the VPS you would lose trying to break the enemy or kill their leader. This was one of my biggest concerns going into the tournament and thankfully our Hold Ground and High Ground games had been great competitive ones, but now we reached Reconnoitre...
So, dreading the situation outlined above, we chatted to our opponents (one of whom was the One Ring’s very own MoriaMadness) and explained the situation and basically said, shall we just walk off? they’d get 52 VPs, we’d get 27 VPs and we could then replay the game for fun afterwards. Thankfully, MM and his opponent weren’t there to win, they were there for a good game and they wanted to give it a go. So, with no clue how we could ever win this we got stuck in!
Deployment was the first stumbling block, we only got 2/5 of our warbands on the table and none of our opponent’s turned up! A couple of heroic marches later and by the time the dwarves finally arrived we were already halfway across the table. In an attempt to counter our superior movement they had deployed quite thinly across the board and one flank was largely held by Murin, Drar and about 24 Dwarf Rangers, we pointed our entire army at that! This largely left Dain and about 30 dwarves over on one flank and our opponents started marching them towards our table-edge to get a hefty VP lead. We got some bizarre luck early on, 4 throwing spears thrown at Murin/Drar (can’t remember which), rolled 2 sixes to hit followed by 2 sixes to wound, he then rolled a 1 for his Fate roll meaning he had to use all 3 of his Might to stay alive - best throwing spears ever! Losing this much Might early on meant our cavalry could almost always get their way via heroic moves at the battle-line and over a few turns Eomer, the eagles, Erkenbrand and the cavalry were able to chew their way through most of the rangers. Then we hit upon a cunning plan. Our speed/Heroic Marches and the dwarves poor deployment rolls meant that the main battle-line was only about 7 inches from the dwarf table edge. Against all our expectations, the decisive blow against the ranger warbands had meant that we’d killed about 15 dwarves and we might actually have a chance of breaking them and winning the game. We immediately started running all our Riders of Rohan and Royal Guard off the table, getting a comfortable 15-20 VP buffer, then we sent the Eagles, Radagast, Eomer, Erkenbrand, Eowyn and Theoden dwarf hunting! We figured these hero models were worth far more to us on the table and their large movement could run down the slow dwarves heading for safety. Cue a second half of the game more akin to a chase with us desperately trying to break the dwarves before they got to safety. Theoden did a particularly good job of chasing down some stragglers but our heroes of the game again were the eagles who caught the last 5 dwarves about 3 inches from the table edge and killed just enough. As we counted the cost we realised that we had both got 23 models off the table edge but we had broken them so edged it with a 26-23 win. I must say this was our proudest moment of the weekend, we felt like we’d played well and worked hard for a victory that I don’t think many people would have bet on us before the game started. However, I must say a massive thanks to our opponents who were both lovely guys, put up a great fight and played in utterly the right spirit, putting a good game ahead of tournament placement, it was a commendable attitude from two great gamers.
What made this game even better was that Nick (Events Manager) came round in the middle and told me I was one of three nominated for best army - Yes! It had been worth taking the pretty but uncompetitive army!
I put my army in the cabinet over lunch while voting took place and then headed off for some grub thoroughly chuffed with the morning’s events.
So we came to the last battle and rocked up to the table to find waiting for us....the 3 Fell Beasts and Goblin horde. Damn. Sam had something like Groblog and 2 shamans with 12 goblins each and an allied Shade with 12 orcs. Ed had brought The Knight of Umbar (their leader) The Undying and one more, The Dark Marshall I think, all on Fell Beasts. Ouch. The scenario was Domination. Having played Ed’s 6 Fell Beast army at TOS in February I knew how powerful they were and I quickly realised that the objectives didn’t matter, if we split our forces and went chasing after 5 objectives we’d get blown away by magic and swamped by goblins. Our only hope was to throw everything at the Fell Beasts, pray we could take them down and then see what state the board was in after that. As such, we made a huge circle of our Riders sitting on one objective with our heroes all in the middle of circles of warriors (I didn’t want the heroes being compelled out of position or immobilised and charged on their own). The game started with a risky gambit from us, all 3 Fellbeasts were within 3” of each other so Radagast channelled Panic Steed, unfortunately our casting rolls were poor and it was easily resisted. Then it began, the Ringwraiths immobilised the eagles, then each one charged a rider guarding Radagast, they both called Heroic Combats, won the fight, knocked down their opponents (who were of course unhorsed), Hurled one of them through the tightly packed ranks of riders who were not only unhorsed but took 2 S3 hits (one for the Hurl and one for being sent flying), the Ringwraith then charged into someone new with the heroic combat, won the fight, knocked everyone down and then killed a few. THREE TIMES A TURN. Sadly Radagast fell to this attack very early on removing our spell-caster whose Immobilise, Panic Steed and Aura of Dismay could have been really helpful (his Staff of Power meaning he’d be able to cast spells even if they sapped his will). I’m sure you can all imagine how destructive the three Wraiths were, Fell Beasts used to be effective, with the new monster rules they’re absolutely horrific. So, for a good hour we scrapped in this one corner whilst Sam moved his goblins around claiming the other 4 objectives, I felt quite sorry for Sam actually as he was all but spectating in this game (although he later told me it was a fun game to watch). However, eventually the Ringwraiths had run out of Might and were running low on Will and we still had a fair few heroes alive and were able to get the jump on them. After losing a LOT of Rohirrim we were able to trap two of them with an eagle in each combat, win the fight, rend the Ringwraith and kill The Knight of Umbar and the Dark Marshall in 1 turn. This was quite the turn-up and we certainly celebrated this small victory. However, the cost had been high and we were far too weakened to consider challenging the goblin horde for the other objectives (not to mention the fact that we were now almost all on foot so couldn’t get there on time. Unfortunately, at this point mental fatigue slipped in (the fifth game is always tough after all the late nights and early starts) and I made some catastrophic errors. We were broken and I confidently rolled Erkenbrand’s courage test first, he failed and legged it taking his horn with him, Eomer then rolled his courage test and failed by 1 (long since out of Will and Might) if I had rolled Erkenbrand last Eomer would have passed - ALWAYS ROLL ERKENBRAND LAST!!! With Eomer gone, the Royal Guard no longer benefitted from the Bodyguard rule so a few of them legged it. However, one of our eagles had flown over the table and was contesting one of the other objectives against 5 orcs, there was certainly hope there. Then I made my worst error, the game would end when we reached 25% - 7 models alive - and we had 8 models, Eowyn passed her courage text and I stupidly moved her to within range of all 6 of my guys holding the objective so her Stand Fast covered them all. If I’d have moved her out of range of a couple, one of them would surely have fled (courage 2 thanks to the nearby wraith) and the game would have ended 14-7 - not too shabby at all. As it was, Ed and Sam were very careful to not kill anyone that turn and the game went on. I still had a hope though, the goblins were still 2 turns away from our objective, as long as we lost one figure this turn (I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice) we’d maintain the score. Unfortunately, whilst our eagle passed his courage test for the force being broken, he then failed us at the last and refused to charge the Fell Beast who then flew over our thin green line into the last Rohirrim guarding the objective, ending the game and delivering Ed and Sam a 19-4 victory.
Looking back I was frustrated with myself, if we’d protected Radagast a little better he could have been important throughout the game but, far more importantly, if I’d been that little bit sharper in the last few turns we would’ve ended up with a far more satisfying scoreline. Ah well, blame the beer
Ultimately, Ed and Sam played very well, they had 2 strong armies that complimented each other very nicely, Ed could largely destroy the enemy army on his own whilst Sam could go and claim objectives, they were great players who ended up justifiably winning the tournament after getting 5 wins out of 5.So, that was that, we all retired to Bugman’s while the organisers counted the cost. We met up with Southern Dunedain who had travelled up for some Sunday evening gaming and was very kindly handing out awesome Bag End birthday cake! That made a nice end to the weekend and we all discussed the last couple of games and pondered who might have won...
After about half an hour we all gathered in the main hall for the awards ceremony, we were shown a sneak peak of the awesome new Warhammer World 6x4 goblin Town board (the sneakiest of peaks as it tuned out as it was moved into the hall the next day!), if you haven’t seen it check it out below, it really is awesome:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set= ... 700&type=1
First up was an unexpected and thoroughly decent move on GW’s part. At February’s Throne of Skulls there were some data entry mistakes that meant the wrong person was awarded the trophy and they put it right here, getting Tom Harrison to go up on stage and present him with the Throne of Skulls trophy. I thought this was a great move and certainly flies in the face of the ‘they don’t care about mistakes’ opinion that often flies around the forums, it was great for Tom to get his moment of glory!
We were then called up for the Quiz winners certificate, followed promptly by the completely amazing news that I’d won both the Hero and Monster painting competition - couldn’t quite believe it!
My Radagast conversion
My Eagle
Next up all 3 Best Army nominees were called up and they announced that Sam and Paul’s staggeringly well painted and themed Helm’s Deep army had won the trophy - very well deserved winners! They then announced the top three winners and, surprise surprise, we weren’t involved but there was one final bonus as it turned out we’d won the most sporting opponent award! We were really made up about that, you hear a lot of cheesy talk about it being the most important award but it was really nice to know that our opponents had enjoyed the games and we’d been playing in the right spirit, presumably helped by the fact we brought a fun, fluffy list rather than one designed to kill everything in its path. They handed out results sheets at the end of the day and it turned out we’d placed 10th out of 16 which we were very pleased with, our sporting votes had moved us up from 13th so that was a nice bonus too, I think we were just chuffed to have not finished last as we feared we may! My partner Tom had a great time too which was awesome as, not being a hobbyist himself, I was worried how he’d find the whole experience but he was thoroughly positive about the whole event.
I was pleased with how the army performed overall, 2 wins was better than we were hoping for. I think Radagast and the eagles are a really great addition to a Rohan army, compensating for some of the obvious Rohan failings and adding some competitive power to the army. Radagast and Eomer were both great for us over the weekend but the men of the tournament have to be the eagles, they were absolutely great in 4/5 games and were real game changers just when we needed them. I was glad that those 4 figures I’d been slaving over for the last few weeks played a good part in our campaign! As all crazy hobbyists do, I’ve already started planning my top secret army for next year....
And that was that, everyone said their goodbyes and headed back to the real world and the drudgery of work on a Monday. It was another incredible event at WW, the events team really do put on a great show there, friendly staff, great facilities and a wonderful atmosphere all combine to make these weekends a clear highlight of the gaming year. It’s also great having got to know a lot of lovely people (many from this website) and having a great weekend catching up with some good friends.
Album of photos from the weekend is online here:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set= ... 700&type=1
As a final note I would just like to urge anyone on here in the UK to try their very hardest to support these events. There was a huge drop in attendance this year and I’m sure the events team will be thinking very carefully about that for next year. I know we all complain that SBG doesn’t get enough support from GW but one place they are supporting it is through these events, if enough people don’t show an interest in turning up then they’ll stop holding them altogether which would be a real shame as they really are a wonderful weekend of socialising, smiling and crushing all before you (kinda).
Hope you enjoyed this dissertation and I hope to see you all at the Throne of Skulls next year!
