Ok so, the 750pt East Grinstead tournament ended like 40 minutes ago, so while everyone else is rushing home, head in their hands (because of how well I did haha), I figured I would write up a report. I did rather well with an army that isn't really part of the meta, so this may well prove to be an interesting read to all sorts of people. I brought two armies, one good, one evil, and here they are:
Good army (the crips):
Gandalf in Cart
Saruman on horsey
Eorl the young
Aragorn on horsey with armour
Boromir of Gondor on horsey
Evil Army (the bluds):
Dwimmerwaik on armoured horsey
3 cave trolls (snap, crackle, and pop)
Mordor Troll Chieftain
Goblin King
Spider Queen
As you can the more inspired army is the evil one, as all monster armies have generally been considered not too competetive. My good army was kinda bland, although Aragorn, Boromir, and Eorl are not standard choices for the brawlers of the all hero format. The oaths were:
Kill a monster in one turn of shooting
D6 Magic Kills
More models in enemy deployment zone at end of game
Don't Break
Have one of your heroes outkill an enemy hero
Game 1:
I was up against Chris (WhiteWizard on One Ring) and his uruk hai. He was fielding beserkers, ferals, 2 shamans, vrasku, and crossbows, and I was using my good dream team. Now is probably the time I should mention there was a 90 minute limit on all games. I was unaware that the time limit would end up bagging me an easy victory when I chose the mounted army, but I credit my first victory entirely to that. The game type was reconnoitre, and I basically heroic marched from cover to cover thanks to aragorn being a total g. Once combat began there were a few crowd fights but eventually Chris' tactic was to feed my big boys a model or two every turn, and then shoot into the combats as his men would likely die anyway. This was rather effective, killing both Saruman and Boromir's horse, but boromir is a tank so he was fine. With Saruman I made the tactical choice to be incredibly shrewd and basically lie him down in a labyrinth of rocks, then spend 2 turns standing him up, sorcerous blasting, and lying down again. This was kinda petty, but I only had five models, so I figured I had to make the most of all of them, or risk defeat. Then, as soon as my guys had used up their fate and were only one a couple points of might each, we were told the game was over at the end of our next turn. Because my army was cavalry, I had ridden up to his half of the board, and all the fights were taking place pretty much within 10" of his edge, so I just rode my men off, and then the game ended.
Reconnoitre only works when you can play to 25% of your starting number, because models running off the board edge do not count as casualties, and thus you need to have a proper scrap, then run some guys off to win, with the time limit I had just enough time to get down to the other side, sustain myself until games end, then run off with 3 models and win. My oath was for Aragorn to get more kills than Vrasku, i got that.
Game 2:
I was against Sam (SouthernDunedain), who had kindly arranged the event, and I was now using my big bad evil army. The scenario was 'to the death'. Sam's force was kinda perfect for my monster army, he had no casters who could null anything, and dwimmerwaik prevented heroes from calling heroic strikes to outfight the trolls, meaning as long as I rolled well (and he failed enough courage) I could just sit there and smash things. This game was really in my favour, I didn't lose a single model, I killed his leader in the first two turns, he never got a successful fury, and then I assassinated Kardush with the spider queen. Having 5 models that can hurl basically meant I could walk through the hunter orcs and morranons who had no way to boost their courage or fight value. My oath was to not break, I did not break.
Then there was a lunch break where we all had delicious meat! In this break I heard I was currently drawing with Dr.Grant for first, which shocked me. We chatted tactics, and he was anxious to play the monster army, worried that the high strength and fight value of my monsters, combined with Dwimmerwaik making spellcasting a living hell for Saruman, would give him a run for my money. He said something along the lines of "Hold Ground is the only scenario I stand a chance in".
Game 3:
The scenario was hold ground...
This is the most amazing (and atrocious) game of sbg I have ever played. Dwimmerwaik, his 3 trolls, and Spider queen deployed on the east edge next to Lurtz, Vrasku, and their crossbowmen/ferals, while the goblin king (who had grima attached to him) deployed on the north edge, and my troll chief came in from the south. Saruman had fluffed his arrival role so was out for the count in turn 1. In turn 2 saruman came up, burning 2 might to let Damian choose where to whack him, he came in from the south east corner (ironic cos the tournament was in the south east of England) and immobilized the spider queen, and because I foolishly decided to summon all three broodlings, she had no will to resist. As a result Vrasku heroic fighted (resisting Dwimmerwaik's effect) his way into the poor creature and slaughtered her :'(
From there on his ferals slowly but surely slaughtered everything on that side of the board, thanks to the ferals good courage, moving his chaps out of my charge range so crossbows could have their moment, and saruman immobilising the poor trolls. However, this fight was a good 18-20" away from the board edge, whereas I had the Goblin King, and a Mordor troll chieftain within 6", their only competition being a shaman and 7 uruks. My two monsters could totally tank those ferals right? Well no, infact their best collective roll over 3 turns of combat was a 3, both of them went down to no fate and 2 wounds at the least. The goblin king died, and then it seemed like the mordor troll chief was all alone. He did win the final fight of the game and hurled some ferals around.
All in all, I lost, thanks to foolish use of spider queens will, terrible dice roll (i did not roll a single 6), Damians excellent deployment, and really just how economically his army was built; he squeezed in loads of two attacks models, ferals, had an excellent caster, and clearly knew exactly how to play his force. It just goes to show that 'standard' armies made up of rank and file troops, even when led by a big hero like Saruman whose profile is like 11 years old, can beat any army. I think the key is just economically building it and making sure you know what you are doing with every model. It was a solid game, although getting only 3 kills was a bit embarrassing considering I was on a solid winstrek.
Game 4: 'That damn time limit'
Ok so this one was domination with my good force against RunePriestRidcully from TLA. I had palyed against him before at the 300pts event, and In my report of that we played the same scenario, and he won fair and square despite fielding an army with like 1 spear in it. So this time, although I liked the guy, I was eager for revenge. Domination isn't ideal for an all hero army, but I felt I had a solid game plan for this scenario, his army was a dragon, 4 black numenorians, a castellan of dol guldor and about 24 easterlings, plus a shaman and amdur. Now, In turn one Boromir charged the castellan and brought it down to like 5/6 will, meanwhile gandalf and saruman kept commanding that dragon the flip away from my lads. Eorl the young and Aragorn charged into amdur and his 16 or so easterlings (who were soon joined by Boromir cos he is great). Now, Ben had only lost like one model up until the last 20 mins of the game, but my army being an all hero one, I was still winning almost every fight, and had reduced Amdur to one wound and no fate, and because I have aragorn and eorl, I had alot of free might to constantly boost my rolls with (yey), and because of the fact it seemed like he wasn't getting anywhere, when in reality I had used up half of all my m/w/f on almost every hero killing like 6 models collectively, he wasn't feeling all to good, probably also because the room was boiling. As a result he offered to just take his models off the table multiple times, and second guessed alot of my moves, which I don't blame him for because models like Aragorn do feel invincible to play against, but nevertheless he had actually managed to tank strikes from all 3 of my big heroes without any assistance from the dragon, so he was really doing quite well. Nevertheless it is hard to play against someone you feel you are annoying, so I held back on sorcerous blasting constantly in favour of immobilising his heroes, and let him move his dragon even though it had been commanded, because it wasn't key for me to do either, and ir really didn't want to annoy him. Irregardless of all that, by the last turn, I had not lost a single hero (i think saruman took a wound but that was it), I had 9 might collectively, I'd got the vp for killing his leader, he broke on his last turn, with no heroes except for a dragon that was 18" away from any of my mates, but, because we only had 90 minutes to play the game, we had to end there, even though next turn I could literally have ridden over all his men who were on the floor to objectives, and let his soldiers flee/command the odd man or two he had committed to an objective. No disrespect to Ben or the organizers, but if i had just one more turn, I likely would've won.
It was a good game in theory, by the end I had killed an awful lot of models, but i'd say it was a game I felt guilty about, and the wariness comes with not wanting to upset my opponent cost me the match. I was on the table just below top, so it was not exactly a 'casual' match, and thus I wouldn't expect to be angering or annoying people when I play my army the way it is supposed to be played. I'm not saying it would've been a piece of cake and a definite win (although it may have) had I had another turn, or if i weren't being careful for the sake of Ben's patience, but it would've been a different game. It is not just I who suffered either, I think he forgot his dragon had resistance to magic, because he didn't want to waste will on resisting command spells, and I reckon that is probably because he became so wound up on the fact Boromir was beating the castellan and aragorn kept beating Amdur, (even though in theory, mathematically, that is good, you have a 40pt model keeping a 115 pt model wound up for two turns, and a 100pt model keeping a 190pt model wound up for 4 or so turns, that is a success not a loss) that he forgot his dragon was resistant to magic.
Even though my advice isn't much, if you ever feel totally helpless in a game because your 'best' model is dying or whatever, or because special rules are hurting you, there is no need to voice any anger to your opponent, as that just draws focus from your tactics, and if you are playing a sensitive soul like me it will have an impact on their approach to the game, so even if you win, they were not playing to the best of their skills, and sort of situation doesn't need to happen in a tournament.
Game 5: The Comeback
Ok so this match I was up against Tom Lee, who as far as I am aware is not on the forums, but if you are, hi! His army was probably my favourite in terms of it's contents, it contained a warband of goblins, a warband of uruk hai, a warband of harad, and a warband of morranons. I chose to use my evil army, because they were excellent against standard 'rank and file' armies. Now this custom scenario was basically all about killing heroes, you got 3vp for killing the leader, and 1 vp for every other hero, and your leader basically gave your models insta-courage to nearby models. I smartly chose to deploy my lone troll chief slap bang in the middle, so he deployed a warband to counter it (with his leader in it), and i then whacked down the rest of my army as far to the east edge as possible, hoping he would deploy units there to counter my monsters. Luckily he did this and thus my master plan was hatched, because his leader was in the middle and the rest of his army were on the edge, the bulk of his force had to keep on doing courage tests to charge my blokes, so I still got the advantage for the wraiths -1 courage to enemies. over there. Luckily the troll chief tanked everything that came it's way, and kept Mauhur (his leader) wrapped up all game long mwahaha. Meanwhile the spider queen died in like turn 2 (again) but the rest of my trolls cleared up and I won hooray.
Ok so that leaves me with 3 wins, 2 losses, and 2 oaths, and I cam third with Ben, and my mate Joe. The fact that Ben came third does show he is a good player, so if you are reading this Ben (or anyone) I wasn't trying to discredit you in the report, just being honest about what went down, and hopefully spreading the message that keeping a cool head is the most important thing when playing warhammer, otherwise if you do win thanks in part to a time limit, or something else outside of the game itself, your opponent will be bummed out a bit more that the guy who claimed there was no point playing, actually won.
On a side note I would just like to congratulate the winner Dr.Grant, but also my friend Joe, who came third using an army of underpowered soldiers, warriors of karna, an underpowered hero, Dalamyr, and really only one remotely competitive component to his army, the golden king. I have no idea how he did it but I'm glad he did.
Just some general tactica about my army now, in case anyone is interested as i was told there were a few things i did that were out of the meta, but were still effective. First off, Eorl the young is the best 90 points in the game, when you pair him up with aragorn you get 1.5 free might every turn, and he can act as you go to guy to call the heroic move, incase you need aragorn to do a heroic strike of something. Also if you have two wizards in your force, Boromir of Gondor is a solid option for the points, as two wizards can pretty much stop anything seriously threatening in it's tracks.
Now for the monster army, it's all pretty basic stuff. Station Dwim so he is out of enemy charge range, but can still hit all heroes and warriors with both 12" auras. Havign an aoe model like dwim makes the army playable because it means heroes have a hard time heroic striking trolls, and amkes warriors less likely to fight them. Barge and Rend are just as useful as hurl, knocking a whole block of infantry to the floor AND 3" away is a huge bonus, and in the final game it meant hunting those heroes down was so easy as i could just walk over the prone enemies right up the filthy shaman/chieftain. Also if you have one model massively surrounded, then make an ally hurl the dudes at the back, once they fall over your bloke has room to back away an inch and is no longer trapped
I would say that the Spider Queen was the most useless out of the bunch, which is funny because 2 years ago she would be by far the most essential. It is not even because she id bad just that low defence makes her flimsy, especially in an army where it is all about crossing your fingers and hoping for a 6, because. Also 2 attacks makes her vulnerable. The beauty of this army was that i didn't need to call heroic moves, like i said i could just tank blows and my trolls positioning did not really matter because I can just hurl the model i am fed, or barge right through the line.
It was a really cool tournament, and it was really nice to see so many unconventional armies. There were also no shades thank god
P.S: I am well aware that the time limit also won me a game, but that game was far from over, whereas game 4 was literally a turn away from victory.
I've not long got back 
that is the good thing about running a tournament in a pub.
