Review of LOTR in Da Grand Waaagh 2009

Last year, the gaming club I belong to, Da Waaagh Mob, decided to put on an Independent Grand Tournament in Alameda, CA on the USS Hornet, an aircraft carrier that has been turned into a museum. Originally, we were planning on running just two systems, Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000. But a month ago, I was asked to add Lord of the Rings to the tournament. We’d originally thought to add it next year, but we had the space, so what the heck!

With such short notice, I knew we couldn’t get a huge turnout, but I did manage to scare up five players, which made for a very interesting tournament – every player would get to play each other. There was no Swiss system, but instead a pure round robin where the winner would be determined with almost no consideration to pairings or early/late placement. I also knew I’d be playing the ringer, since we had an odd number.

I also wanted to make sure that there was a variety of scenarios, and I wanted them to be different than other scenarios they had played. I took some inspiration from the Legions scenarios, changing them around to account for a time constrained environment and the army favoring characteristics of a few of the scenarios. I also hate random scenarios – I’ve lost games just because of a few bad rolls (the number of times I’ve failed to get a Major Victory in Domination because of that stupid “game ends!” roll…) and I know that just sucks. So I tried to limit the randomness. I’ll detail the scenarios in my battle reports.

One thing about being the ringer is that you’re there to provide a service only – make sure everyone gets to play every round. After all, that’s what the players are there for, to get in a game. The ringer isn’t supposed to be highly competitive, though they’re not supposed to be a pushover, either. I flatter myself in thinking that I’m a pretty good player, so I decided against going with one of my first string armies. After DundraCon last year with the “Oh, so it’s your turn to get beaten on by Gandalf” comment, I knew that the Errand wouldn’t fly, and I thought that even the Shadow list from Vegas would be pretty nasty. Of course, I haven’t painted a full army of anything else, so I used those armies for my basis.

To make things more enjoyable for the players, I decided to come up with multiple armies and let them choose the list they wanted as ringer. I also wanted to try playing with models that I normally wouldn’t consider using in a tournament. My first was pretty simple – I swapped Gandalf for Aragorn on a horse in the Errand, downgrading Ecthelion to a standard captain. The second list I came up with was a variant on the Shadow, where I dropped all of the Morannon Orcs and upgraded the wraith to Khamul the Easterling on an armored horse. I wanted one more option, and decided to go totally goofy. I called it “So Boromir picks a fight with a Balrog…” and took four models; Aragorn, Gandalf the Grey, Legolas, and Gimli. 600 points right there.



I arrived at the tournament in the early afternoon of Friday to set up. After my experience at the Necro, I wanted a really interesting skirmish game with LOTS of terrain, and there was a pretty good stash to raid. Only having three tables to fill made it easier. I set up three tables.

First was a small highland village, surrounded by small, steep hills. I wanted to use several buildings to get in the rules for fighting inside the fortress – doors, defended obstacles, stuff like that. The effect was that the center could be full of choke points if it was actually defended, otherwise it would be fairly easy to move through.



Next up was a pretty typical wooded area, lots of trees and areas of undergrowth with a few hills thrown on. The hills on both this table and the first one were slab sided – no slope at all. I made the call that it was WYSIWIG – lots of jump and climb checks were involved. It made it interesting for cavalry forces, that’s for sure.



The last table was inspired by the fact that several large pieces of fortress and the like were ignored by the other systems for being cumbersome and difficult to fit units onto. No units in this game! I tried to go for a kind of “ruined fortress” look with the four large pieces in the middle surrounded by a few large hills and individual trees.



So with that, I sat back to wait for check ins. As it turned out, we had something like three people actually play a game on the ship Friday night. A few other people checked in early, but apparently some of the ship security people turned some of our players away. That night cost us a lot of money for pretty much nothing. I doubt we’ll do that next year.

The next morning, I was raring to go. The five LOTR players showed up with plenty of time, and I presented the briefing and the options for the ringer army. A couple of people immediately said they didn’t want to see the all heroes army (if they drew that force on a couple of scenarios life would be very, very difficult), and the two people who voiced a preference chose Easterlings, so that was my force – Khamul and crew. The list was as follows:

Khamul the Easterling on armored horse (I think I forgot about paying the extra points for the armored horse during the games…)

Easterling Captain on armored horse with shield

6x Kataphracts
18x Warrior with shield
7x Warrior with shield and spear
12x Warrior with bow

Total Models: 45
Might: 4
Bow Armed Warriors: 12/43

I knew this was a suboptimal force when I took it. I particularly love Nazgul for their spell casting, and Khamul has the hardest time casting spells of any of the wraiths. With a Fell Beast, at least you have the chance of getting Will back to compensate for the extra dice you have to throw at spells. On a horse, the best you’re getting is usually staying at the same level of Will. I also knew there were no nutcrackers – D6 would be a major problem for me.

But hell with it, I wasn’t playing to win anyway! That doesn’t mean I’d try to make it easy for the people I would play…

Pulled a win in Contest of Champions

I played a warmup game with Wyn today - the Errand vs. a Dwarven horde list with Balin (no axe), a Dwarf Captain with shield, and 46 other dwarves, including a few Iron Guard and a scattering of Khazad Guard. The scenario was Contest of Champions, Gandalf vs. Balin. The board was the old pre-molded Fellowship of the Ring demo board that GW gave to stores carrying the very first game - no cover, but a few rocky patches.

Things started rough - I killed two dwarves with archery, but Wyn in turn gunned down Ecthelion on TURN 1!!! Remember, always put heroes a couple ranks back, always put heroes a couple ranks back... I caught up quickly once Gandalf was within Blast range, racking up two kills with the wizard in short order. As the lines closed, I also managed to kill a couple more dwarves with archery, picking on the D6 archers. I found the numbers starting to equal out, and more of my troops were in the fight than his due to spear support. The turn the lines hit, I decided to use Gandalf to Immobilize Balin - I threw 1 die and got lucky with a 6! Wyn chose not to resist it and Balin took a little break.

The game fell into the lines crashing into each other, with both sides suffering occasional casualties, but nothing amazing. Balin shook off the Immobilize and won a Heroic Fight to kill off one of my Rangers and Gandalf with lots of support was shoved back by a shielding dwarf. We were running out of time, so we decided to just skip everyone else and fight out the champions' combats. Wyn played for the win, with Balin calling a heroic combat with his last point of might against two spear supported rangers and Gandalf blowing his last point of might to bump the die roll of a Blast up to a wound, thus scoring his third kill. Alas, Balin had an attack of the rubber axe syndrome, getting defeated by the rangers, and Galdalf failed to slice up his opponent, so the game ended 3-1 in Gandalf's favor.

Main lesson here: Never, EVER put your hero in the front rank of an advance! Being able to be picked out by bowfire SUCKS. Also: Gandalf is the bomb. Boom.

Let's call it a draw

The Errand had another battle against the mighty forces of the Goblins of Wyn. This time we decided to try out one of the other scenarios, specifically Storm the Camp. I’ve developed some prototype rules for breaking ties to avoid the inevitable unhappiness with the victory point system. In this case, the tie breaker was if the game ended without a camp being captured then whoever had more models in the other’s camp won a minor victory.

Wyn’s force was exactly the same as last time, which was not a fun prospect – where I had the advantage in Contest of Champions, Wyn had a major advantage in Storm the Camp with 14 models on me, including a flyer. The table was also really full, as shown in the below picture. This reduced the effectiveness of my archery. I had swapped out one of my warriors with shield and spear for another Citadel Guard with spear.



I set up first, planning on using Ecthelion and a small contingent to block my right flank while sending Gandalf up to break through with my main contingent on the left. I knew I had to act quickly before I was overwhelmed. Wyn then set his force up with the drum in the middle, a shaman on each flank, with Durburz on my left and his captain on my right.


Rather than engaging in the typical archery duel, we both ended up rushing at each other. I think he realized that he needed his archers up front more than he needed to volley fire at me. We ended up funneling around the hill in the center – I delayed with Ecthelion’s force while rushing forward with Gandalf as planned. I didn’t want a gaping hole in my lines, so I tried to get a few guys up on the hill, but proceeded to roll 1s for almost all of them. Typically, Gandalf got Blinding Light and Terrifying Aura going, and Wyn started up Fury, though one of his shamans blew all of his Will to do it. As the forces closed, I threw a perfectly lined up Sorcerous Blast into a goblin warrior – with a good roll he would have slammed into Durburz, a shaman, and three other goblins! I rolled a 1 for distance. Sigh.


I smashed into Wyn’s right flank very early, turn four I think. Gandalf blasted a goblin into six other goblins, then jumped onto a lone goblin with a warrior. I then tied up the rest of his flank and started sending people around to try to turn it. I launched a Heroic Combat to get Gandalf past most of the goblins. Durburz and a bunch of Wyn’s goblins also came barreling into my line, but I managed to pile a Citadel Guard in with the Warrior on the Goblin King and supported them both with spears. The fight happened, we tied with 6s, and I won the roll off for tied Fight values (good thing I got in the Citadel Guard!). I then piled three wounds onto Durburz, which he saved on with Fury, but then rolled snake eyes for his Fate! All of his Might went into keeping the bugger alive. In the mean time, I was rolling 6s like a madman and the F2 goblins were getting the worst of it. I was also winning all of the priority rolls, and Wyn couldn’t compete with Durburz having blown all of his Might to survive.


On the other side of the table, things weren’t developing quickly. Wyn took cover behind some ruins and threw a couple of arrows my way to little effect. He then threw his captain and some troops into my line, but they just bounced off.


I then threw Gandalf into another Heroic Combat to get him and another warrior behind the goblin lines, and with priority I isolated Durburz and tied up Wyn’s goblins. Durburz fell to the spears of the Citadel Guard, and I blasted a gaping hole in the goblin lines with another insane round of 6s. Things were looking a little grim for Wyn.


He did manage to tie up my troops on the hill and send some goblins off on a dash for freedom.


Time was running out, and I won priority yet again. I bottled up the goblin breakout and sent a contingent running for their camp with Gandalf in the lead. Wyn started pulling troops back in an attempt to make it to the camp in the same turn as mine. Ecthelion and his troops held firm against the goblins pushing against their line as the rangers supporting them fell back to secure the camp and the Citadel Guard stepped forward in support. Another bloody round of combat found the Errand down four models to Wyn’s sixteen.


We checked the time and found we had only a couple of minutes left, not nearly enough for the two turns we’d need to finish the game properly. We both felt that I was on my way to a victory, but according to the agreed upon tiebreaker, we had a tie, since neither of us was in the other’s camp. This is one problem in that a well-constructed force can play for a draw simply through delay if they were so inclined, but I guess that’s a problem you’ll face with almost any scenario.

Again, I’m not sure what I could or should have done differently, but we both agreed that Wyn shouldn’t have thrown as much force against Gandalf’s contingent as he did. Rather than trying to kill them, he should have used shields to stop my movement while he rushed through the light defense in the center or spread my right flank so thin I couldn’t stop something from oozing through. By allowing such a large chunk of his force to be bottled up between the hill and the forest, he surrendered his numeric advantage, which left my superior Fight and Defense dictating the battle. Of course, I did roll like a madman for tons of fights, and winning Priority the last four turns made Wyn’s job nearly impossible. All in all, a very fun game which made us both think hard, and it wasn’t a blowout by any stretch of the imagination.

One kind of funny thing – while I know many people wouldn’t play with unpainted models, I’m more interested in getting some games in than having a fully painted army. But with that, I was working on the force during the game! I’d been working on shadowing the warriors’ cloth before the game. Once my first warrior died, I started shadowing, swapping out the painted warrior for one I still needed to do. I went through my entire force this way, so now all I need to do for the warriors is shade their cloth and detail them.

Another win with the Errand

I took another victory with Mithrandir's Errand, this time against a goblin horde force commanded by Wyn Robertson. For those who don't know him, Wyn is an extremely canny player who regularly wins local tournaments and fought me for the best overall at GT Vegas 2008. We played an unfavorable scenario (for him) this time, which was Contest of Champions.

I used the same Errand as last time. I don't remember the exact composition of Wyn's force, but at 600 points it had 59 models including Durburz, a Goblin Drum, a Bat Swarm, a captain with shield, two shamans, and 6 prowlers. I was outnumbered by 14 models, or over 30%. Yow. Gandalf was my champion and Durburz was his.

The terrain was pretty normal with lots of hills, a ruin, and one river blocking a quarter of the table. However, the center of the table was clear as required by the layout of the scenario.

The game started off with the predictable volley fire from the goblins, but I eschewed volleying in order to get closer. Gandalf turned on his Blinding Light and Terrifying Aura, while both shamans got Fury going. Only one of my warriors fell to the goblin archery. As I got to within 24 inches of Wyn's goblins, he kept most of his gribblies behind terrain, but I started to plink off one every so often, though I was disgusted at how my vaunted Rangers of Gondor were statistically matching goblins for archery. However, as more and more of his goblins became visible and the forces closed, I jumped Gandalf out and started throwing Sorcerous Blasts at his goblins.

At one point, I saw a terrific opportunity to blast Durburz back into a shaman and four other goblins, and ran him up to hop up a 1" climb to blast. I roll a 1. Grrr. I burn a Might, after all, I've got 3. I then rolled three dice of Will (burning two from my store), and managed to only roll a 4. At this point, I'm pot-stuck as my poker playing friends would say, and I threw in a second point of might to make it happen. Wyn rolls one die to resist and throws a 6. Well crap. Just don't blast heroes is the lesson here.

An hour and a half of maneuvering around each other finally saw Gandalf blast a goblin out of existence which put Wyn behind the 8-ball. The goblins were getting the short end of the stick in the archery game with about seven of them dead to still only one of mine. Wyn started to move in closer, and I pulled together a shieldwall across the center with a corner near the hill that Gandalf had to use Might to climb. Gandalf headed away from Durburz towards my left flank while Ecthelion went to deal with the goblin king.

Wyn finally managed to hit my line with about 45 minutes left. Gandalf jumped in and blasted some goblins who were stuck behind the lines then charged a lone goblin. Glamdring cleaved it, bringing Gandalf's tally to three, while Durburz still hadn't hit the line. Along the line the goblins threw themselves onto the shieldwall only to be repulsed with serious losses.

Durburz finally hits my line, but it's looking tough. Wyn very cannily isolates Ecthelion from Durburz, but I manage to peel off all but one enemy while putting spear support on both of the warriors Durburz charged. Alas, I forget to call my Heroic Combat until later. Before that, Gandalf butchers another goblin (two wounds, though he managed to roll 6-5 for Fury: whew!) and Wyn's line is collapsing and I'm turning his right flank. We play through until we get close to Ecthelion and Durburz, and I ask for a mulligan Heroic Move. Wyn gives it to me and while I win the combat I fail to kill the gobbo. Oh, well. Durburz then butchers the two warriors opposing him, we check the time, and have one minute of play left. Wyn asks for a mulligan Heroic Move for Durburz and just for sport we do it. He manages to kill another warrior, but that still leaves the tally at 4-3 in favor of Gandalf.

This scenario played Wyn's instincts against him. Wyn is a very deliberate player who knows how to place his specific models. He also regularly plays Wood Elves, whose archery is vicious. He's used to hanging back and drawing his opponents to him through withering bowfire, and the goblin archery was more annoying than deadly. My rangers and Gandalf on the other hand were seriously scary and once I'd killed a goblin with a blast the pressure was really on Wyn to even the score. Here his deliberation helped me as I whittled down his forces at range.

In this case, he should have rushed his entire force (minus the drum, of course) straight at mine. He'd suffer some minor pricks from my archery, but he needed to get Durburz into the thick of it, and his greater numbers would have put me into a seriously tight place. On the other hand I pretty much played it how I should have, forcing him to come to me and scoring kills at range with Gandalf.

I'm looking forward to playing Wyn some more in the next few months, and I think we'll deliberately choose some different scenarios.