Drawn Combat goes to Desolation of Stockport

This weekend saw 6 of the Drawn Combat team head to Desolation of Stockport, an 800 point event hosted by James Clark. Massive thanks to James for giving us such a great event! We had a fantastic time and it was a very tough room! Despite that we did fairly well for ourselves. Have a read about it here!

Dan Slob
After spending 6 weeks painting up just over 1000 points of Dwarves specially for this tournament I decided on Wednesday to take my Angmar instead. If you ask anyone who knows me they will tell you this was not a surprise. I was just getting a bit bored of the grindy playstyle of the Dwarves and fancied a change. Enter Magic. I have hardly ever used it before so decided to jump in at the deep end and take the following:

The Witch King (3/15/3), Crown, Horse

7 Orcs, shields 

5 Orcs, spears

4 Orcs, bows

1 Orc, Banner

Gulavhar 

2 Spectres

Captain, Warg, Shield

3 Wild Wargs

Barrow Wight

5 Orcs, shields

3 Orcs, spears

1 Orc, two handed weapon

Barrow Wight

5 Orcs, shields

3 Orcs, spears

1 Orc, two handed weapon

800 Points, 8 Might, 45 Models

My aim for the weekend was to win a game. I ended up doing that and then some! TL;DR

12-0 win vs Mordor/Easterlings in Hold Ground (Nige Chorlton)

5-2 loss vs Rivendell/Fellowship/White Council in Retrieval (Ed Ball)

7-2 win vs Minas Tirith in Contest of Champions (Jace Fletcher)

9-6 win vs Minas Tirith in Assassination (Patrick sorry I have forgotten your surname!)

12-0 loss vs Azog’s Hunters in Domination (Will Champignon)

Sadly I had to leave due to baby duties before the last game but I was ecstatic to go 3-2! My two losses were against players several leagues higher than me so I will happily take those and the lessons I learnt from them! All of my opponents were thoroughly lovely and it was a great weekend. 

Learning magic was very interesting. It’s so tempting to go for Black Darts every single turn because that feels like you are actually doing something but actually just chucking out a cheeky Transfix on a single dice to wear the enemy down was almost always the better call. Paralyse from the Wights is a super scary threat but I think I only actually managed to get it off once the entire weekend. Again though, it drained my opponents resources and allowed the Witch King to do his thing. 

The absolute star of the army is Gulavhar though. Oh my god what a beast he is. Over the course of the weekend he ate Grishnak, Amdur, Gorbag, Shagrat, Elrond, Aragorn (Strider), Aragorn (Elessar), Hurin the tall, Hurin again, Madril and Yazneg, as well as a horde of regular troops. He is absolutely terrified of shooting and Heroic Strike but with the Witch King transfixing heroes to stop them Striking, and conga-lines of sacrificial Orcs “in the way” he is almost unstoppable. I love him. 

I’m not sure I’d change the army too much. Swapping the Captain for 10 more Orcs would help in some matchups, but the extra Might was certainly handy. Overall though, I really like the list and I think it has a lot of tools to deal with basically anything. 

Dave

I decided to take a Shire army list to Desolation, quite a difference from my last tournament list which only had about 18 models, this list had 69 models in total! This was my list:

Gandalf in Cart 

4 Shirrifs

6 Militia

Old Bilbo with Sting, Ring and Mithril Coat.

4 Shirrifs

6 Militia

Farmer Maggot

Dogs

2 Shirrifs

6 Militia

4 Dunedain

Each one leading 4 Hobbit Archers

3 Dunedain

Each leading 3 Militia and 1 Shirrif

Fatty Bolger

Lotho Sackville-Baggins

Paladin Took

It was a big list, and a lot of fun to play, but I certainly can't wait to not play it for a while!

I went into the weekend not expecting to win any games. My goal was just to have 6 fun games, and I achieved this goal, and my expectation, ending with a Win, Loss, Draw count of 0-4-2. I won't go into lots of detail about each game, as it'll take too long, but I'll go for a quick summary:

Game 1's scenario was Hold Ground, where we had to control a centre objective. I was against a Mordor list, which featured a catapult, with it's first round of shooting, it let off a bundle of flaming heads, which ended up causing 10 hobbits to flee or die! This game ended up as a loss, as my opponent was able to get more models in the centre than I could and he was able to wound Gandalf.

Game 2 I played a new scenario which was essentially capture the flag. I was against Ents and it was a blast. I sent my dogs out to get the objective, but my opponent kept an Ent on the objective and promptly smushed them to paste with a thrown rock each turn. I managed to kill an Ent with Bilbo and Gandalf's tag team, and was able to get the objective with a dog in the final turn, pulling the game to a draw (my opponent broke me and wounded Gandalf)
.

Game 3 turned into a blur for me as I made some pretty poor decisions against an Easterling/Khand alliance. I left Gandalf open to get ruined by a Heroic Combat from Khamul on a Fell Beast (I forgot Fly was a thing!). The real icing on the cake was the Khandish King chariot charging my line and killing 11 Hobbits with the chariot charge, only stopping when he got to Lotho since he had Fate.

Great game, I just played it really badly!

Day 2 and Game 4, after some post tournament drinks and me losing a drinking game, I was feeling a bit rough. But I had a blast of a game against Rivendell/Lorien alliance. It was a Blinding Light vs Blinding Light fight, and like the rest of my games, it went to time. This game led to a 0-0 draw, neither of our Assassins did much, and neither of us killed our targets, or even wounded them, despite us unknowingly having them in combat with each other for 3 turns!

Game 5 was another Blinding Light fight, I managed to keep his Gil-Galad occupied for most of the game, but my hobbits couldn't break through the line of elves, and a fantastic Heroic Combat play from GG meant he could swoop around to take an objective on my half, giving my opponent a convincing win.

The final game was against Gothmog's legion, and it was Reconnoitre, my hobbits just couldn't move fast enough, and my opponent smashed me, only giving me chance to get 1 VP for wounding Gothmog after a lucky Firework from Gandalf's cart dismounted him!

I had a great weekend, but 6 games going to time certainly takes it toll!

Will

So after a trip to visit the GT last weekend instead of painting and only managing to get the final models I needed a couple of days before the event due to swapping and changing my force composition, (Special thanks to Ed Ball, I never doubted your advice) I was painting my Mordor force right up until the Friday night. I had 2 practice games before this tournament on the previous Tuesday night and both went fairly well. Like Dan Slob using magic, and in particular for me the WK on Fell Beast, was interesting and I learnt a lot in those two games (Don’t send in WK against Aragorn…he dies really quick). I wanted an all-rounder list with a bit of everything, just so I didn’t feel like I never had a chance in a scenario. So I decided to go with the following:

The Witch King (3/15/3) Crown, Fell Beast

5 Black Numenoreans

5 Morannons with spear & shield

3 Orc trackers

Mouth of Sauron, armoured horse

5 Black Numenoreans

5 Morannons with spear & shield

3 Orc trackers

1 Warg rider with shield, throwing spear, bow.

Goritz

5 Black Numenoreans

5 Morannons with spear & shield

2 Warg rider with throwing spears & shield.

My beloved Shelob

800pts, 8 might, 43 models

My dream and I believed my highest possible ceiling for the weekend was probably 3-3 at best, due to the quality in the room and my lack of tournament experience. I was informed by my other team mates and others that I was being optimistic and just winning a game would be a win (I’d have taken that).

G1) Loss vs Tom Wigg's Defenders of Helms deep LL (Hold Ground)

G2) Win vs Amy Barfield’s Halls of Thandruils (Retrieval)

G3) Win vs James Clarke’s all mounted Fellowship (Contest of Champions)

G4) Win vs George Lee's Gothmog LL (Assassination)

G5) Loss vs Ben Pearson’s Grand Army of the South LL (It had an Elephant yayyyy) (C and C)

G6) Win vs Richard Woods’ Dwarves/Rivendell/ Lady of Light (Reconnoitre)

As you can see 4-2!! Well this was a surprise and a very welcome one, all of my opponents were great and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, lessons learned and most of all meeting new people.

As Dan has already covered magic I won’t harp on about it but, for me having the combo of Mouth and the WK was brilliant and was able to whittle down people's Will quickly. Transfix, Drain Courage, Harbinger of Evil and all my terror was amazing throughout the day. The WK being able to reroll with the Crown was great in some of the games when I was pretty conservative or cautious with the magic.

I would be lying if I was to pick an all-out star of the army. Every single piece played it’s part. Guritz with his reserve rolls and March. Mouth with his magic and March also, Shelob as an assassin or just as a general threat. WK………well yeah, he’s just a beast. Even the Orc Trackers helped out by increasing my break point.

As for changes to the list….hmmm, this is a tough one. I would maybe drop an Orc Tracker, the bow off the Warg Rider (never used it), my banner bearer down to a standard orc and add another Morannon with spear.  I would also like to experiment with other Wraiths than the WK. I was happy with all my heroes, I had Goroth in originally over Guritz but I feel in the tournament environment having those +/-1’s to reserves and March is invaluable. I am also considering a Morgul blade on WK. Let me know what you think.

Colm

It was my second big tournament after Scouring of Che-shire and I had another great time. My list was: 

Azog with the White Warg, Flail, and Heavy Armour

Warbat

Gundbad Orc with Shield and Spear

Gundbad Orc with Shield, Spear and Banner

Bolg with Warg

Fell Warg x2

Hunter Orc with Bow x2

Hunter Orc with Warhorn

Hunter Orc x10

Fimbul with Warg

Fell Warg

Hunter Orc with Bow x10

I decided what army to take shortly after the first February errata was released and as such I thought I would need a hero of valour to be able to ally in my Hunter Orcs with Azog’s Legion (and I was going to need to do that as I didn’t have enough painted to run either one individually), so Azog and Bolg’s Family Picnic was born.  Of course the errata was changed slightly so that heroes of fortitude would have been OK, but I’d already started a Bolg conversion so I decided to lock in, plus the list seemed quite fun. 

The obvious strength of the list is in having two incredible heavy hitters and my hope was that would be something that my opponents would have trouble dealing with. The flip side to this was that I was a relatively small model count compared to what you might expect for squishy Hunter Orcs. This turned out to be mostly true and Azog and Bolg put on a strong display all weekend, only really losing out to David Coleman’s Barad-Dur list with both Sauron and The Witch King on Fell Beast. However I had the numbers advantage in Reconnoitre so managed to squeak the win there regardless. 

As always with wargame tournaments there’s always the most to learn from your losses and my two were to Dónal Ó Carrúil and Ben Pearson. The first came in round 3 against Dónal’s Moria themed Khazad Dhum in Contest of Champions. I obviously thought I had an advantage here with Azog , but made what can only be called a rookie error when I didn’t call a heroic move on Azog as I wanted to save might. This allowed Balin and the King’s Champion to get into Azog, win the resulting duel, and got exactly enough wounds to kill him, meaning game over. One of the reasons I didn’t call the move was because the board we were playing on had a lot of ruins and I managed to stand in a spot where Balin wasn’t visible so literally didn’t see him coming. Lessons learned - maintain situational awareness of where the enemy’s threats are and it’s probably better to be better safe than sorry with might usage when your leader is in the scrum! 

Loss 2 was in Round 4 vs Ben Pearson’s Far Harad in Assassination. Ben was using The Grand Army of the South LL containing Suladan with some Haradrim Raiders, a Mahud King on camel with a few raiders, and a Mumak Warleader on Royal War Mumak. It was my first time seeing a Mumak on the table so I was excited to see what it could do! Ben played the game well, by pulling his forces back so he could use his longer range bows to pepper my troops and managed to kill quite a few and dismount Bolg. This drew me forward into a place where the trample of the Mumak was a real threat. Eventually I decided to engage the Mumak with Azog to try and kill it, or at least delay it, whilst my chosen assassin, Bolg, made his way towards his chosen target, the Mahud King. Bolg did manage to get the kill and there were several turns where if the game ended on a roll of a 1-2 I would have won, but it was not to be. I asked Ben after the game what he thought I should have done differently and his suggestion was to try and take down the Mumak ASAP and thinking about it with Azog’s flail, Bolg’s two-handed pick, and the 2A S4 Orcs I had a reasonable go of taking it down. It’s scary to engage as a lot of dice rolls need to go your way to not move second and get trampled, but it’s worth a go to gain a massive advantage. 

I’m not sure if I’ll use this exact army list again at 800 points, but it seemed better than I was expecting it to be! 

Steve

After a hurried couple of weeks painting up half of the army and changing it up three times I was all set for the DoS tournament. This year I was running the Defenders of Helm’s Deep legendary legion:

Théoden, King of Rohan w/Heavy Armour                            

Haleth, Son of Hama

3 x Rohan Royal Guard w/Throwing Spears

3 x Warrior of Rohan w/Throwing Spears and Shield

5 x Warrior of Rohan w/Shield

Legolas Greenleaf w/Armour and Elven Cloak

8 x Galadhrim Warrior w/Elf Bow

1 x Warrior of Rohan w/Bow

Gamling, Captain of Rohan w/Royal Standard of Rohan

Aldor, Rohan Archer

3 x Rohan Royal Guard w/Throwing Spears

3 x Warrior of Rohan w/Throwing Spears and Shield

4 x Warrior of Rohan w/Shield

Gimli, Son of Gloin

3 x Rohan Royal Guard w/Throwing Spears

1 x Warrior of Rohan w/Throwing Spears and Shield

4 x Warrior of Rohan w/Shield

Originally I had Aragorn in the mix, but without Anduril I honestly felt he wasn’t worth the points when I could easily drop in Legolas and Gimli in his place for some kill counting shenanigans. Aside from the gruesome twosome (and because I love theme) Aldor and Haleth were chucked in aswell for some handy regenerating might and buffs, a healthy amount of Royal Guard and the warriors brought me up to a nice model count of 43 for such a hero heavy list. The added addition of throwing spears being able to support is a tremendous buff to a Rohan list, making them quite versatile in that they can be very offensive when not offering support but there is a large lack of mobility - a fact I would contend with most of the day.

Throughout the day, I had some incredible matches often leading to hilarious situations whether it be Legolas being a thorn in Hurin’s side during game one against Jace Fletcher (he just wouldn’t die) or absentmindedly forgetting that Merry and Pippin were riding Treebeard and lost me the game because let’s face it; Theoden was not killing more ents than Treebeard was killing men. One thing during the day which hurt me more than anything was the lack of strength and defence in Rohan’s infantry. Often trying to wound against D6 or higher was an uphill struggle and the list at times truly felt like Defenders of Helm’s Deep because of it.

Admittedly, I could have probably been more aggressive in most of my matches, but some I was put on the back foot quite early. I final match playing Reconnoitre being one of them where I was waiting for most of my force to arrive until turn three, leaving Legolas and the elves trying to thin down a swarm of orcs from afar. But, as with all good tournaments I came out learning more because of my losses. I learnt that I do need to play a little more aggressively at times, that sometimes Legolas is better in a fight than he is at shooting and that I really need to learn some more profiles and rules! Overall I went 2-4 during the tournament, keeping my record from Scouring of Che-shire so I can’t complain too much! Next time however, I’m feeling something with a little more magic and a little more pzazz I think!

Dan Stu

My list:

Amdur on horse with 15 warrior
War Priest with 9 warriors & banner
Dragon Knight on horse with 3 kataphrakts, one with war dru
Khandish King on chariot with 3 charioteers

Very similar to my last large tournament army, but with a Dragon Knight for some extra punching power, and a War Priest for his fearless bubble. My only aim was to continue learning how to use chariots, maybe sneak a win or two, and have some fun along the way. 

Game 1: Hold Ground vs Colm's Azog’s Hunters / Legion alliance

Some bad deployment rolls put me at a serious might disadvantage early on - but I was happy I’d be able to drum my way to the centre of the board and grind out the combat, hopefully having more warriors left at the end of the game. However, I carelessly threw my chariots in on a flank with no real objective in mind, which were quickly eaten by Bolg. I couldn’t keep enough of a coherent defense together and was beaten here pretty comprehensively! Schoolboy errors were punished by smart decisions by Colm.

The pike block set up in the centre before being flanked and picked apart.

7-0 loss

Game 2: Retrieval vs James’ Fellowship

I deployed conservatively with the chariots, knowing that both Gandalf and Legolas are pretty hard counters – this was a mistake, I should have gone aggressive! The pike block drummed their way in, but I lost a few key heroic roll offs, opening me up to mounted charges from the Fellowship heroes. With some nasty heroic combats they were able to whittle down the force shockingly quickly. The chariots, who had retreated earlier, scored a wound on the ‘Gorn and neither objective moved - but I was broken easily.

5-1 loss

Game 3: Contest of Champions vs Josh’s Mordor

The previous 2 times I’ve played this scenario were against Sauron and Gulavhar as the enemy leaders – and this time it was a Troll Chieftain! This game was an absolute slog, with both leaders pouring all their resources in to staying alive. Ultimately the Chieftain emerged victorious, but with only one wound remaining, he was cut down the next turn!

Amdur and the Troll Chieftain slog it out, and Amdur falls in battle!

My chariots getting acquainted with the orcs on the right flank.

I was already 7pts down on the scenario (1 kill for the Troll vs 0 for Amdur), and with my leader dead, the only way to win was to table my opponent… Which I almost did!

The board at the end of the game...So close!

Time was called when Josh had 2 models remaining – gutted! One more turn would have secured me the win, but it was not to be. A great game though, really hard fought, against a lovely guy.

10-3 loss

Day 1 over, and I’m 0-3, ouch! I was a bit annoyed at myself for not getting the win after almost tabling my opponent, but lesson learned. After a night of thoroughly hydrating ourselves, and a few hours of kip, it was time for day 2. Dan Slob politely informed me that I ‘looked like s**t’ when I arrived, so it’s safe to say morale was low going in to game 4…

Game 4: Assassination vs Michael’s Minas Tirith

Big Boz and his Big Boz Banner is always a little scary to see deployed opposite you. I knew he’d be a wrecking ball in this game, but thankfully Leaders can’t be used for the objective (Amdur breathes a sigh of relief). My best tool for slowing him down was Amdur – so I threw him in to stall for time as long as possible. My target was Beregond, and with only 1 wound and 1 fate, I suspected he’d be susceptible to a chariot charge, so I nominated the King as my assassin. Thankfully my instinct was correct, and after deploying directly opposite Beregond and his Rangers, the King managed to get his mark on turn 1.

The chariots on the far left, with Beregond within Heroic March distance. This will hurt...

The chariots then wheeled back around to support the main engagement. All I had to do now was protect my heroes, which was easy enough after the main fight started to turn in my favour – with chariots returning to flank on the left, and cavalry on the right.

The chariots swing back around on the flank.

Faramir (the enemy assassin) sadly decided to become a pacifist, and failed to wound a model all game thanks to some truly shocking dice, while my War Priest - his target - sat at the back of my lines.

We were both smiling the whole game, and I hope to play Michael again soon.

10-0 win

Game 5: Capture and Control vs Jace’s Minas Tirith

Another Minas Tirith list! My chariots were desperate for a nice squishy opponent at this point!

We deployed opposite each other and got ready for a big old grind across the centre of the board. Aragorn and Amdur locked horns, and the two infantry blocks started to plink away at each other while the chariots began to wear down the right flank.

Two very defensive armies get ready to grind out a long battle!

However, about half way through the game, my dice went absolute ballistic. I was rolling 6s to wound non-stop, and winning almost all of my roll-offs. I even rolled a 6 on a clutch Fury save, denying Hurin a Heroic Combat! Aragorn went down after losing a heroic strike off (my 2 to his 1), which freed up Amdur to start mopping up in the back lines. By the time the chariots broke through, there was almost nobody left to flank.

The aftermath! Didn't expect that one!

The game ended with 1 Minas Tirith archer left on the board. We both had a good time during this game, but the victory felt a little hollow - my dice were doing the heavy lifting here. 

10-2 win – is the comeback on??

Game 6: Reconnoitre vs Jacky’s Rivendell / Lothlorien alliance

What can I say about Reconnoitre… It’s a weird scenario, which was fine, as Jacky and I were both in a weird and exhausted head space! We agree to play a fun, casual game and throw some dice around. I used my drum to make sure the engagement happened on the far side of the board, and then my drummer performed a solo while my troops fled. My heroes and some troops held up the elves in the middle of the board to secure the win.

One of the scrappier games I've played - both our heads were in bits - but we had a great time!

7-2 win!

I’m always very happy to break even on wins / losses with Easterlings, and I’m glad to continue that streak! I made some big mistakes, particularly on day 1, and will learn a lot from them. The chariots were slightly less decisive in this tournament than the last, but they are still the ‘wild card’ which really brings the army together. I can't go back to plain Easterlings any more, the chariots are too much fun!

My opponents were fantastic - big thanks to all of you.

I had also finished my display board for this tournament, which helped me to take home the Best Painted award, along with some goodies.

A great tournament, and it was ace to see some of the same friendly faces. Looking forward to the next!