Well met dear readers, welcome to another in-depth analysis of Dr Grant’s highs and lows on the UK SBG tournament scene. This time we are journeying to East Grinstead for the modestly named ‘Best Event Ever’, the third event of the 2014 GBHL season. This one-day event will be shorter than some previous reports but it is still likely to be long in the telling so grab both tea and biscuit, find sofa and settle down at the back.
One common mistake that a lot of SBG players make is that if you pick a good army, you can turn up to any tournament and have a good chance of wining. Of course your army selection matters (without a good force you won’t stand much of a chance) but what truly dictates victory at tournaments is often down to understanding the tournament structure and making a best guess about what the competition will bring. James and Jamie often talk about exactly this issue in their tournament reviews and it’s something that takes a while to truly understand; you might be able to write a brilliant list but that brilliant list has to be able (at the very least) to win the last scenario of any tournament. If the last scenario is Seize the Prize then the army that wins the tournament is likely to be very different to the army that would win a tournament if the last scenario was Hold Ground. Similarly, knowing that your opponents will also be considering such things, and choosing their army based on them, means that you should have some idea of what your opponent might bring to each event and thus you may well be able to plan a force that can defeat the forces you are likely to face. Thus, your chances of success at a tournament can often be greatly increased or decreased based on your preparation and planning.
Why I am talking about such in-depth meta-gaming? Well because before East Grinstead I did NONE of this. GBHL James was staying at my flat on the Saturday before (along with Kieran Street (Gondorian Captain) and Thomas Harrison (Flotsam and Jetsam) and we spent the whole day filming lots of content for the channel (including the rather awesome Ambush at Amon Hen Battle Report that, at the time of writing, has just gone live on the Youtube channel). As a result of this I spent my time in the lead up to the tournament painting stuff for the Saturday games and devoting all my time to that, the idea that we were actually going to a tournament on the Sunday had almost slipped my mind! So it was that, in the lead up to the tournament, I hadn’t picked an army, hadn’t played any practice games and hadn’t tried out the custom scenario - this was bound to go well! If you watch part 2 of the Amon Hen Bat-rep on the channel you may well occasionally notice a lap-top on the arm of one of the sofas, this was there because as Tom and Kieran were moving their models, I was on the laptop frantically typing up an army list! So it was that, around 3am, I decided it would be easiest to dig out my trusty Ferals and, as I had no time to really think about an army list (I was too busy trying to save Merry and Pippin!), I just decided to take exactly the same army I’d taken to the Preston tournament in October. It had performed reasonably well at that event (4 wins out of 7) but I remain convinced that my Feral heavy Isengard lists aren’t particularly competitive at 500 points due to the lack of a decent mid-level Hero to be your leader. Still, it was far too late to do anything about it now, my list was as follows:
Leader - Uruk Hai Captain, heavy armour, shield
Vrasku
8 Crossbowmen
Sharky & Worm
5 Feral Uruk Hai
2 Beserkers
Armoured shaman
7 Feral Uruk Hai
1 Beserker
500 points
27 models
7 Might
Break point - 14
So with that I was done, at 5:30 AM we finally called it a night, just to recap, I hadn’t played a game with my Isengard in 4 months, I’d never played 2 out of the 4 scenarios in the tournament and I was getting 90 minutes of sleep before heading to the tournament. To see how we all felt about our chances, check out this video recorded about 5am
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhyJiK1uGWoSo, after shutting my eyes for what felt like 10 seconds, we all somehow managed to get up and hit the road on time. The only way to ensure I stayed awake was by blasting the stereo and singing along which led to the now infamous ‘Hungry Eyes’ video (again, thanks so much for putting that on the internet James!) and after the sat-nav decided to freak out and get us lost we eventually turned up at the venue with about 2 minutes to spare! The venue was the Dorset Arms pub in East Grinstead, a tournament in a pub - assuming I didn’t fall asleep this would be a great day!
Rushing to my first table I was genuinely delighted to see I had been drawn against Mark Boyland (KnightyKnight). I’ve never actually played Mark before but he’s an absolutely top bloke and we were long overdue a maiden game. He’d brought his stunning new Erebor army along which I’d been keen to see in the flesh having drooled over it online so it was good to start the day with a positive game. However, I was somewhat apprehensive, Mark had brought along Thorin, Dwalin and Balin all on ponies leading about 30 D7 Warriors of Erebor - ouch, At the Preston tournament in October (where I had been using exactly the same army I had with me at East Grinstead) Sam Page (Southern Dunedain) had soundly beaten me using his own, very similar, Erebor army. The D7 of the dwarves utterly negates my S4 advantage (in shooting from my crossbows and in combat from my entire army) making them very tough for my Ferals to break through.
The scenario was Wargonation, a custom scenario for the event that, as mentioned previously, I had never played. 5 ‘Warg Pit’ objectives were placed in a very similar manner to domination and then 2 Wild Wargs were placed on the centre objective and 1 more on each of the outlying objectives. The wargs would charge the nearest model and for every warg killed a player got 1 VP. As we deployed, Mark essentially put one of his warbands on his 2 home objectives and his final warband led by Dwalin near the central objective, I deployed in bulk on my left, ready to pelt his right hand warband with crossbows and advance in force down the left flank and hopefully destroy Balin’s isolated warband. Almost as soon as the game started I saw my mistake and the logic to Mark’s deployment, as we killed the warg’s already on the board, they re-spawned randomly at any of the five pits (one of the 4 outlying pits on 1-4 and the centre pit on a 5-6), thus, holding the objectives was vital as it allowed you to quickly kill any wargs that appeared there. In addition, Mark had been smart to deploy Dwalin in the centre pit as that’s where the wargs were most likely to appear and so he could cut through them easily. Still, things started pretty well, I was able to surge down the left flank and attack about a third of Mark’s dwarves with practically all my Ferals and after a few turns of bitter fighting I was able to kill most of them and take down Balin, I was now holding my left objective and Mark’s right objective but Mark had the other three so, as the turns went on, he was getting more wargs deployed near his models and creeping ahead in VPs. Once 8 wargs had been killed a Warg Chieftain was deployed (worth 3 VPs - only one per game) in the centre pit and of course Dwalin chopped it up in one turn (after a lucky escape in which he resisted Sharky’s Immobilise with both of his Will and a Might point) putting Mark further ahead in VPs. I was then able to roll into the centre and gradually overwhelm Dwalin’s warband and eventually take down the mighty dwarf himself. I was feeling good about the game, Mark was broken and my losses were relatively light but I began to realise that it didn’t matter, Mark had killed more wargs than me and his remaining dwarves were still in charge of 3/5 of the Warg pits so he was able to maintain this lead every turn. As time was called we counted the cost and I think Mark won 20-17 - Dwalin killing the Warg Chieftain had swung it for Mark. Looking at the table I couldn’t help feeling frustrated with myself, I had clearly won the battle in a numbers sense, Mark had very few models left and if we played the game to the end I think I would have won. However, I had made the classic mistake of seeing the Red Mist, going all out for the kills and losing sight of the objectives, I had concentrated on breaking Mark which only gained me 3 VPs whereas Mark had concentrated on killing the wargs which of course was the main objective. It was exactly as I’d feared, playing this scenario through even once in advance would have taught me these important lessons and meant that I’d played a very different game, even if the result may well have been the same. However, I can’t feel too bad, Mark played a brilliant game and fully deserved the win, he’s a great guy and we had a really nice, relaxed 90 mins, cracking start to the day.
The next game was Hold Ground and I found myself drawn against a young guy called Tom who was playing only his 6th game of SBG. Looking at his army I must admit I was feeling confident, he had a Mordor shaman, Grishnakh and a Mordor Troll Chieftain leading a mix of about 30 Mordor orcs, Morranon orcs and orc trackers. Whilst the Troll Chieftain was a scary proposition, I hoped that Sharky would be able to Immbolise it whilst a horde of Ferals overwhelmed it without too much trouble. Deployment didn’t go well for me, Vrasku had to burn a point of Might to get on the board alongside my leader and my Shaman rolled a 2 meaning that Tom would be able to deploy my relatively small warband behind 2 of his where they would soon be overwhelmed and destroyed. With that in mind I decided to use the shaman’s 1 point of Might to change the roll down to a 1 so they would not turn up. Infuriatingly, in the next turn the Shaman rolled a 3 and Tom placed him on the board edge opposite Vraksu’s warband. Tom was sending his Troll Chieftain’s warband straight for Vrasku and my leader whilst his other two warbands were piling into the central objective. Already I was beginning to panic, my deployment was in complete disarray and I genuinely didn’t know whether to try and take down the troll or pile into the middle. I ultimately decided to take down the troll and get some VPs for the leader kill, in the early turns Tom had placed the troll behind his main line of orcs so by charging all the orcs I was actually able to ensure that for two turns the troll couldn’t get into combat. Unfortunately, the troops I had in combat were my crossbowmen rather than my Ferals and so, despite being better troops, my uruks were being overwhelmed by the superior numbers of the orcs. Still, Sharky was nearly there and Vrasku was getting ready to take down the chieftain. However, before he could reach the chieftain, Vrasku charged a Mordor orc supported by an orc spearman, I nonchalantly rolled the dice and got a 3 highest (he only had 2 Might left), somewhat surprised, Vraksu backed away and Tom rolled to wound getting 5 and a 6. Cursing that I might have to waste Vrasku’s Might on a Fate roll I rolled for his fate and got a 1. There was nothing I could do, 2 orcs had just killed Vrasku with 2 Might remaining. This was pretty representative of the luck I had against Tom, when my leader got into combat with the Troll Chieftain I failed to Immobilise him, my leader was killed and then the troll rampaged through my ranks. Seeing things going badly in the troll chieftain combat I had sent my shaman’s warband into the centre to try and contest the objective but sadly 8 Ferals with 6+ Fury couldn’t compete with about 20 orcs and 5+ Fury and the last remnants of my army were overwhelmed and wiped out. The game finished with a crushing and humbling 20-0 victory to Tom. There’s no doubt I had some terrible luck in this game (particularly with deployment), but you can’t blame everything on that, Tom played a great game and fully deserved the win. As much as it went against me this time, I love the fact that SBG has enough tactical depth to allow newer players with what might be seen as uncompetitive armies to defeat more experienced players. Well played Tom, a very much deserved victory.
After that we broke for lunch where my fairly appalling form was the subject of some good-natured mockery. Just like the last East Grinstead event, our lunch orders had been taken during the second game and we all piled down into a reserved area and had some great pub-grub, war stories were swapped and early contenders for the title were discussed.
After lunch I found myself with the dubious honour of playing on the bottom table. The scenario was Lords of Battle and I was playing Craig from the East Grinstead club, I normally feel pretty good abut Lords of Battle with my Ferals but the way things were going today I was nervous to say the least! Craig had brought along the elf twins, Glorfindel, about 6 High Elves and Tom Bombadil - very interesting. I don’t think I’d ever actually played against Bombadil before but knew he would be frustrating when paired with Glorfindel and the twins as I’d essentially need to take them down in a single turn - no easy task. However, there was something in my favour, wounds and Will points restored by Tom do still count towards my VP score, essentially giving me far more VPs to earn across the course of the game. As the game began I naturally let Craig come to me whilst pelting his army with crossbow bolts (it took about 5 turns for him to reach me), I began to see how frustrating the Bombadil combination could be when I took one twin down to 0 fate and 1 Wound in a single turn of shooting but he was back up to full health two turns later. With this in mind I started targeting the High Elf warriors instead in an attempt to thin out his numbers and managed to kill a couple, When the lines eventually clashed it became quite nerve-wracking, I was able to take down the elf warriors without too much trouble but the Heroes were something else. Craig was able to use his Might to boost rolls relatively risk-free as Tom could then just top them back up in the next turn. I attempted to mitigate against this by surrounding Tom with my troops and trying to put as many bodies as possible between him and the elf heroes. Unfortunately, this isn’t too easy as Tom automatically wins and pushes your models back, in addition, they were models I sorely need to be throwing into the fights with the twins. By this point Craig was broken and so we were rolling to see if the game would end, time after time the dice came up as a 3+ so we kept going, I was getting nervous by this point, I was ahead but with all the warriors dead there were no more cheap wounds to be had and the elf heroes were gradually hacking through my ranks. Thankfully, I was eventually able to gain the upper hand by declaring a Heroic Strike with Vrasku and a Heroic Combat with my leader, I then threw both of these onto one of the twins along with 2 Ferals. I was able to win the fight, kill the twin and then Heroic Combat on into the next twin and kill him too! It had been a big risk investing 2 Might in the move but ultimately it had paid off for me and swung the game. By this point Craig only had Tom and Glorfindel left and, despite Glorfindel fighting me off again and again, I finally rolled that magic 1/2 and the game ended. I can’t remember the exact VPs but I think I won by something like 20-15, it was a really great game, lots of fun and could’ve swung either way several times but ultimately the fact that Craig had half his points invested in Tom meant that I was eventually able to win through sheer weight of numbers.
Somewhat relieved to get a win under my belt I headed to the last game feeling somewhat optimistic and was pleased to find myself drawn against Damian Grantham in a final round Damian-off. I know Damian pretty well now as we go to the same games club in Finchley so I was looking forward to a fairly relaxed final game. The scenario was Seize the Prize - interesting! It was the first time any of the Desolation of Smaug scenarios had been used at a tourney and it would be the first time I’d ever played Seize the Prize. Damian had brought along his well-practiced Moria army consisting of a Moria Captain, Shaman, a Wild Warg Chieftain and Druzhag leading about 30 goblins, 6 prowlers and 6 wargs. As per the usual Seize the Prize tactics I immediately Heroic Marched over the prize and set up a fairly strong defensive line on Damian’s side of the objective. I immediately tried to dig the prize up with a Beserker reasoning that his D6 and Courage 7 would help with his survivability if Damian targeted him in combat or if my force was broken. Things started relatively well and I think I dug the prize up at the second attempt, I then immediately ran back towards my table edge leaving a line of Ferals and Beserkers to hold Damian up and hopefully slow him down. Damian immediately assaulted the line with the most accurate Prowlers I have ever seen! I’m pretty sure he hit with 6 out of the first 7 of his throwing weapons (needing 5+!) and took down a fair few of my Ferals quite cheaply. He was also assaulting my lines with enraged Wild Wargs courtesy of Druzhag who were absolutely tearing through my ranks. Despite having the prize and being on the run things were certainly not in the bag, there was a huge goblin army on my tail and Damian had the advantage of Might (I had burned through a lot to get to the prize and dig it up first). So we entered the second half of the game and the dynamic changed with it now becoming a really intense chase where I desperately tried to protect my Beserker who was running for the table edge by surrounding him with a protective ring of my models whilst Damian tried to break through. I thought I was in a pretty good position but as the turns wore on Damian was using his Might advantage to swarm my rearguard models, breaking my army and gradually starting to overwhelm me. Right at the death there were two huge moments, firstly, one lowly Moria Goblin who had moved took a pot-shot through two of my Uruks at the Beserker holing the prize. I watched confidently as Damian started to roll, firstly he hit on a 6, then he got past the first Uruk on a 4+, then he got past the second Uruk on a 4+, starting to take note I stared in disbelief as he then rolled a 6 to wound the Beserker! Surely the greatest Goblin shot in the history of SBG! With trembling hands I picked up the dice for my Fury roll and got…a 6! I roared in delight and Damian collapsed back in disbelief - what an incredible series of rolls! After that lucky escape Damian had one last trick up his sleeve, with my Beserker 3” from the table edge he was able to charge him with his Wild Warg Chieftain, thankfully Damian had had priority so I was able to throw a few more models onto the Chieftain to even the odds, in the climactic fight I was thankfully able to get the better of Damian’s Warg and kill him. With the last major threat removed I moved my Beserker off the table for a 5-0 win that had been as close as you could possible imagine! It was a great game played in great spirits as expected and it was great to see it go right down to the wire and end the tournament on such a high note.
And so that was that, the tournament was over and we all helped pack away whilst the organisers worked out the winners - suffice to say I wasn’t hopeful…In the end The Great Goblin himself Jamie Giblin had won the event and in doing so won 2 consecutive events (a league first - bravo!) and his GBHL partner James had secured 2nd place - it was a great day out for the GBHL boys! I was also pleased to see Mark win Best Army for his fantastic Erebor conversions - very much deserved buddy - well done! With 2 wins and 2 losses I found myself joint 12th out of 22, exactly the same position I’d been in Mansfield! Just like Mansfield I’d earned myself 50 league points, I was certainly going to have to up my game if I wanted to be even vaguely competitive in the league this year.
Overall it was a great day out at East Grinstead, Sam and Joe ran an awesome tournament and I had 4 great games, I was slightly disappointed to have not been more competitive but can’t grumble after having such an awesome day out. I remain slightly perplexed about quite why the Feral heavy army (SO effective at less than 350 and more than 700 points) struggles so much at this points level. I think ultimately I may have gone too heavy on Heroes and in future I might drop the D7 captain or Sharky & Worm in favour of another 3 Ferals and 3 crossbowmen or similar.
So that was that, we headed back home after a brilliant weekend of SBG frenzy and had a nice long sleep. The next event in the schedule would be the 350 point Shadow and Sorcery tourney in Finchley in March which would determine the final standings of the 2013 league AND count towards the 2014 league, it was also looking like being the largest independent SBG tournament ever - the Ferals would return to regain their honour!
Until next time!
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