500 Under 50 - Corsairs of Umbar

500 (Almost) Under 50 – Corsairs of Umbar

Dan Stu: We’re really getting to the tricky end of our 500 under 50 lists now! Safe to say that any of the remaining armies require a bit of creativity, a bit of hobbying, and perhaps bending the rules slightly in order to meet the criteria.

That being said, we’re still trying to come in as close to budget as possible, and while we’ll need a few conversions, these will be as newcomer-friendly as possible.

This time, it’s the Corsairs of Umbar, which I previously covered in my ‘Noob’s Perspective’ article way back in January of last year. They’re a fantastic army that lend themselves to fast-paced, bloody engagements with tons of casualties on both sides. They also have many tricks up their sleeves, from the ludicrous amounts of throwing weapons to the ‘backstabbers’ special rule which, if used correctly, can be absolutely devastating.

For a cheap entry into this army, there are really two ways you can go, and both have their pros and cons. Let’s dive in!

Option 1: Heroes and Elites

Shopping List:
1 box of ‘Corsairs of Umbar’ (£26)
1 box of ‘the Lords of Umbar’ (£20)
2 boxes of ‘Corsair Arbalesters’ (£16.40)
Total: £62.40

Alright, we’re just over budget, but this isn’t our worst offence to date!

If we want to use everything here (which we do), we have too many bows. 30 warriors gives us a bow limit of 10, and we have 14. We’ll need to convert 4 of the Corsair archers into plain old Corsairs with hand weapons (no shields). Fortunately, there are some archers in the box with outstretched bow arms, and these shouldn’t look too strange with a sword in their hand instead of a bow.

Assuming that you have a few swords lying around in your bits box, it will be straightforward – you can either snip off both parts of the bow and replace it with the blade and pommel of a sword. Or, even easier, if you have a spare hand holding a sword, you can just snip the bow hand off your Corsair and replace it with a sword hand.

To-do list:
Snip the bows or bow hands off 4 Corsairs with Bow. Replace these with swords or sword hands to make 4 Corsairs of Umbar with hand weapons only.

If you have any spare shields or spears in your bits box, you can add shields or spears to 2 of these to fill out the points limit.

Army List:

Dalamyr, Fleetmaster of Umbar
8 x Corsair of Umbar with Shield
8 x Corsair of Umbar with Spear

Hasharin
2x Corsair of Umbar
2 x Corsair of Umbar with Bow
3 x Corsair Arbalester

Hasharin
2x Corsair of Umbar
2 x Corsair of Umbar with Bow
3 x Corsair Arbalester

Totals: 498pts, 33 models, 4 Might, 10 bows

Okay, so this is an unusual Corsairs list. It’s relatively lean and elite by Corsair standards. You’ve got your main body of pirates, but also a high proportion of Arbalesters, as well as three high-impact heroes who will really need to pull their weight to make this list work. This is a bit different to normal Corsair lists, who can solve a lot of their problems by throwing bodies at them!

33 models isn’t very low at 500pts, but it is low by Corsair standards – given how easily they drop, a bad round could see you fighting at a numbers defecit, particularly if they have some nasty shooting. This is not a normal thing for Corsairs! You’ll really have to leverage your Arbalesters to make it work. Remember, while you’re strong at range with your crossbows, your regular line troops will take a lot of casualties in the return fire, so you’ll have to deploy carefully and choose targets well.

Dalamyr and the Hasharins are very good at killing things – they all have 3 attacks with Bane of Kings, so wounding will be no problem. However, their offense is locked behind fight 5, and their defense is woeful. Plus, with 4 might across the whole list, you won’t be Striking much, if at all. These guys can be absolute Hero-seeking missiles, but they can’t take a punch. They’ll have to tread the line between hunting Heroes, and helping out your troops by thinning out the enemy herd.

Certainly not a bad list – but perhaps not a natural fit for the Corsairs’ playstyle. Having said that, if you were looking to expand your Corsairs army to 800pts or higher, you’d absolutely be looking to buy all of these kits (Dalamyr is a must for any large Corsair army) so it’s a fantastic starting point.


Strengths:
* Lethal at range
 *High-offense Heroes
* Sets you up well for expanding your Corsairs
* WYSIWYG-compliant

Weaknesses:
* May struggle with numbers
* Fragile, low-might Heroes
* Requires a little conversion work and some spare bits
* Weak to cavalry and bow fire

Option 2: The Pirate Horde

Shopping list:
2 boxes ‘Corsairs of Umbar’… And that’s it!
Total: £52

The elephant in the room – there are no Heroes on your shopping list. This is because we’re going to convert 2 Bosuns and 2 Captains from the normal Corsair models. Converting troops in to captains is a tried-and-true process, and there are a few ways you could do it - rummaging around in your bits box for a fancy helmet, sword, or some other identifying piece of wargear, or go for the old ‘put him on a big rock’ approach!

However, the tricky part of this is that we need to differentiate the Bosuns from the Captains. Here, I think it’s best to go for colour coding – for example, yellow tunics for Bosuns, and red for Captains. Not very elegant but it will get the job done. And the good thing is that bright colours won’t look out of place on your pirates!

Alternatively, you could always buy the 2 boxes containing and Bosun and Captain each. However, this is an eye-watering £30 on top, and neither model is that spectacular - so I’d say you should only do this if you’re intent on ending up with a large WYSIWYG Corsairs army.

To-do list:

Convert 2 Corsairs of Umbar with bow in to Bosuns. Chop off the bows and replace them with swords as we did in the first list, and paint them a bright colour to distinguish them.
Convert 2 Corsairs of Umbar with shields into Captains. Stick them on a big rock and paint them an easy-to-spot colour. As we have so many Corsair models, you could always use a particular pose for Captains (such as the sumo wrestler pose) to make them easier to spot.

Army list:

Corsair Bosun
4 x Corsair of Umbar with Shield
3 x Corsair of Umbar with Spear
3 x Corsair of Umbar with Bow

Corsair Bosun
3 x Corsair of Umbar with Shield
3 x Corsair of Umbar with Spear
3 x Corsair of Umbar with Bow

Corsair Captain with Shield
3 x Corsair of Umbar with Shield
3 x Corsair of Umbar with Spear
3 x Corsair of Umbar with Bow

Corsair Captain with Shield
3 x Corsair of Umbar with Shield
3 x Corsair of Umbar with Spear
3 x Corsair of Umbar with Bow

Totals: 496pts, 41 models, 6 might, 12 bows

I think as a starting point, this is a far better representation of the Corsair Experience™ - which means a ton of bodies, a ton of fight 4, and a ton of throwing weapons. Quantity has a quality of its own!

With so many bodies, you’ll be outnumbering just about any other army, and while fragile, you’ve got a great fighting line of swords backed up by spears, all at fight 4. Backstabbers will be activating frequently, threatening even high defense targets like trolls. Your throwing weapons will do great work against just about anybody except dwarves and ghosts, and you can even threaten enemy Heroes by shooting into combats. If you kill your own guy, don’t worry – there are 41 more where he came from, and now the rest of your troops have an unobstructed shot.

Your heroes aren’t here to do much more than to provide might and to bring their mates along. The list tops out at Fight 4, so you’ll have an uphill struggle against most heroes. However, you’ve got a decent amount of might to call Heroic Moves, which is important to get your weapons thrown and to tie up Heroes with sacrificial Corsairs.

I’d say this is really one to think about if you’re reasonably confident with conversions, and are fairly sure you will be expanding up to 800pts or beyond. You will absolutely want 2 boxes of Corsairs eventually, so this will give you a great head start on that. Having 2 Bosuns and 2 Captains (even converted ones) will give you a lot of list-building flexibility, too, and the Lords of Umbar box is an obvious expansion point to bring in Dalamyr. Plus, if want to replace your Heroes with WYSIWYG models later on, you can just repaint a few robes and turn them back in to regular Corsairs!

Strengths:
* Loads of troops, good for Backstabbers
* Loads of throwing weapons
* 4 warbands is very solid at 500pts
* Great foundation for large Corsair armies
* Solid line of archers

Weaknesses:
* No big Heroes, no high fight values
* One-dimensional, fragile
* Requires a bit of conversion ability

Not WYSIWYG-compliant – conversions will need to be explained to your opponent (unless you want to drop £30 on 4 models :(

So we didn’t keep it under budget (this may be a running trend from now on...) but I think we did OK on this one! Keep your eyes peeled – we’re coming to the end of our 500 under 50 journey, and it’s only going to get sillier from here…

The Scouring of Che-Shire 5: Steve's Struggle of Strength

 Hello all! It's now time for my write-up in a weekend that started well in terms of results, but then slipped dramatically as the days went on. My goal however for the weekend was to at least meet my previous result at a previous Scouring event of going 2-4 so let's see how I got on! 

For the event I used one of my lockdown army projects - Lothlorien. I've always liked the aesthetic of the woodland elves compared to their Rivendell cousins (and have a display board in the pipeline) but I also just wanted to get them on the table for a weekend and work them out a bit more. Without further ado, my list:

Warband 1 - Lothlorien 249pts

Warband Leader - Galadriel - 130pts (Army Leader)

Galadhrim Knight (w/Elf Bow, Shield) - 21

2x Galadhrim Warrior (w/Shield, Spear) - 22

2x Galadhrim Warrior (w/Shield) [20pts]

Guard of the Galadhrim Court [12pts]

4x Wood Elf Warrior (w/Elf Bow, Wood Elf Spear) [44pts]

Warband 2 - Lothlorien 295pts
Warband Leader - Celeborn (w/Heavy Armour, Elven-made Hand-and-a-half Sword, Shield) - 150

Galadhrim Warrior (w/Banner, Spear) - 35

2x Galadhrim Warrior (w/Shield, Spear) - 22

2x Galadhrim Warrior (w/Shield) - 24

4x Wood Elf Warrior (w/Elf Bow, Wood Elf Spear) - 44

Warband 3 - Lothlorien 156pts

Rumil [85pts]

4x Galadhrim Warrior (w/Shield, Spear) - 44

3x Galadhrim Warrior - 27

31 Models, 3 Warbands, 9 Might, 8 Bows

I had two main reasons for building this list the way I did:

1. I've been hit hard by ranged armies lately (specifically the Assault on Helm's Deep Legendary Legion) so wanted to mitigate that somewhat with Galadriel's Blinding Light spell.

2. I really didn't want to buy multiple boxes of both the Galadhrim Warriors and Wood Elves.

I realise the list isn't the most competitive, but it's the most rounded I can make with the models I have available. I was also quite keen to give the Wood Elves a try as a cheaper method to get bows and spears into the list (admittedly at the cost of defence, but the wood elf spear shielding would be fun to use in a pinch!). Celeborn was intended to be the big beatstick of the army, with a backup of Court Guard to tie up any pesky lower Fight value heroes and Rumil rounding the roster out as an annoying wall.

Game 1  - Assassination Vs Sean Clarke's Riders of Eomer

Sean straight off the bat told me he was a newer player, so we decided to play the game slow and just take our time with it and not rush to meet finish before the clock ran out. I won't rattle on about tactics or go into much depth about this game as at the end of the day Sean was a lovely bloke to play against and was a pleasure to get him more acquainted with deeper parts of the game such as trapping and magic (including him getting off some good Sorcerous Blasts with Gandalf!) I did however manage to get Celeborn (my assassin) to take out his Captain (my target) a long with breaking his force not net me a 10-0 win. A good warm up to start the day, including reminding me of some rules a long the way!

Game 2 - Seize the Prize Vs Joe Pettit's Assault on Helm's Deep

The list that had driven me to go with Lothlorien in the first place...It was nice in some way to see that some preparation of mine had gone to good use. I did lack one thing in my force compared to Joe's however which gave him a crucial advantage - I had no heroes with Heroic March. With that he was able to safely Seize the Prize and pass it through his units to safety. The best part about this game though? With Celeborn scrapping through the pike block, he was caught unawares as the demolition team rolled in and took him out with one blast! This isn't quite as bad as it sounds however as the pike block now had a big hole in the middle of it, allowing some of my units to eventually skirt round and take the prize for Lothlorien and net an 8-1 win, although that score does not really reflect just how close the game came.

Game 3 - Contest of Champions Vs Kalman's Erebor Reclaimed/Thranduil's Halls

Galadriel is my leader, 0-12 loss. She did get to slap Dain in the face however.

Accurate depiction of mine and Kalman's reaction when Galadriel slapped Dain with her Nenya-hand.

Game 4 - Hold Ground Vs Ben Smith's Angmar

Day two, a fresh start (well as fresh as you can start on a hangover from the previous nights post-game festivities) and another army with the March advantage over mine. Also Gulhavar. Needless to say I was pretty nervous coming up against the big guy, but was relying on my army-wide Resistant to Magic to keep the Witch-King and Barrowight from shutting me down too much. Once more I was late to the central objective due to lack of March, but one plus side was that my maelstrom rolls meant my whole force was coming on from where I wanted them to and the initial engagements went well with a lucky arrow wound scored on Gully (who eventually got take down by Rumil). It does seem however that using the new Angmar dice with ands Angmar force does give you supernatural rolling powers (as I'm sure Ben will agree!). The 6's just kept on coming and they didn't stop coming leading to a lot of fights lost and very few orcs dead giving Ben the advantage on the centre objective to close the game out at 0-6. 

Game 5 - Breakthrough Vs Tim Elwess' Minas Tirith

Mine and Tim's first reaction when we saw our table was 'How on earth are we going to play this?'. We were on a Laketown board and ended up houseruling a few parts of the battlefield such as the large amount of ice present (we went for fun rules of if you fall in the water by failing a leap test, your model dies, and if you have to back up from a fight into the water, you die) which led to some fun interactions. Like with the Helm's Deep legion on the day before, I was scared by the double trebuchet that Tim has brought with him - even with Blinding Light from Galadriel. Against the D6 of Minas Tirith I just wasn't scoring the kills that I needed (a common occurrence on day two of me not killing a whole lot) and Pippin turned into an absolute beast all of a sudden, taking out two elves on his own! I played the objectives as closely as I could, but unfortunately due to Gandalf's mobility and the stoicism of Ingold I was caught out in a few places and couldn't secure any objectives purely for myself leading to a 0-5 loss.

Game 6 - Divide & Conquer Vs Mark F's Return of the King LL

The final game of the tournament...safe to say I was pretty exhausted at this point. With both me and Mark on 2-3, we decided we'd just have a laugh with this game to not give ourselves a bigger headache after such a long weekend! Once more, I was hampered by lack of Heroic March, with Aragorn getting the Dead to sprint to a good choke point against the larger bulk of my advancing force. This is essentially where most of the game took place, with many an Immobilise on Aragorn in an effort to take him down. Many fights were won with Celeborn taking the lead but unfortunately not many wounds getting through. In the meantime, Rumil was sprinting with his warband towards the centre, and one archer of mine perched on top of a Hobbit hole to snipe two Warriors of the Dead! That only sound impressive when I tell you I killed a total of four models in this match! The long slog at the bottle neck eventually wore me down and when I did eventually lose fights, I was losing elves quick (especially to Legolas and Gimli). The lack of strength against a high defense enemy was yet again hampering me. Unfortunately, I lost the centre objective and it went downhill from there, leaving me with a 1-8 loss!

Summary

Once again, Scouring proves itself to be a great event, I started off strong, but just couldn't quite keep up the momentum. I've certainly learnt that with an infantry force I absolutely need Heroic March somewhere to give me a bit of mobility for objective grabs. The magic with Galadriel was great fun to use, but it's definitely a case of me being worried that she could be craftily taken out with her low defense and lack of combat capability. There were definitely a fair few tactical errors I made throughout my games which I'm taking heed of, but a large downfall for me was elves just lacking that killing power. Great at winning fights, just not great at finishing them! All in all a great tournament, a lot of fun had and some great opponents who I'm keen to play against once more!

Scouring of Che-Shire 4: Dave, or “Why have 2 legs when you could have 8?”

I recently attended Scouring of Cheshire 2020 at Element Games, hosted by the wonderful Ste from TopTableGaming.

I had 6 great games and all had some lessons I could learn from them, so lets have a look what my games were, how they went and some of my thoughts about them.

First of all, I was running my “Denizens of Moria” army, the list is as follows:

Durburz
5x Goblins with shields
5x Goblins with spears

Ashrak
3x Goblins with shields
3x Goblins with spears
4x Venomback Giant Spiders

Druzhag
4x Goblins with bows
3x Giant Spiders
3x Fell Wargs
1x Bat Swarm

Spider Queen
3x Mirkwood Spiders

Lots of spiders, lots of fast movement and a decent amount of Goblins to help hold some objectives.

Game 1  - Assassination Vs Callum's Return of the King LL

My first game of the tournament was Callum and his Return of The King list, the mission was Assassination. This is typically an army my list will struggle with, the King lowering my already low courage value went about as well as you could expect, courage 1 goblins weren't getting their charges off. I made a pretty huge error early on and split my 2 shamans up and for whatever reason, I didn't cast Fury with either of them until late in the game. I'd chosen to kill his Herald, which he kept pretty tightly defended. A hilarious friendly fire from one of my Mirkwood Spiders meant the Queen got Paralysed and died to Aragorn who'd committed pretty hard down the left side of the board, thankfully an enraged spider and a trap made short work of him in the following turn.

We slogged it out a few more turns but I inevitably broke, the -1 to my courage coming in huge here, most of my remaining models fled the board.

10-2 Loss. Lesson learnt: Don't split up the shamans, cast Fury, don't paralyse the Queen.



Game 2 - Seize the Prize Vs Matt Hill's Shire

Firstly, Matt has some wonderfully painted Hobbits! I like this scenario a lot and against an army who move 4” most of the time, I felt pretty confident. A turn one dig up from a broodling led to a heroic move off from Farmer Maggot and his dogs in the following turn. It went to me and I ran back into my own line, eventually flying the prize off the board with a bat swarm. Not a great deal to say about it really, 12” move vs 4” on this scenario should really only go one way!

9-0 Win. Lesson learnt: Take your time with the prize and don't over commit. Shroud of Shadows comes in clutch in a pickle.




Game 3  - Contest of Champions Vs James Wilson's Minas Tirith

Durburz vs Aragorn, King Elessar. Not going to lie, as soon as the game was pulled I knew I was going to lose. I managed to keep Durburz alive for a while due to some slight model misplacement from James meaning his Aragorn couldn't smash into my line. An enraged and shrouded Venomback ran through his line and got to Aragorn but lost the duel roll. I never got another opening to attack him as my list began to crumble pretty fast. Last game of the day so I know I made a lot of dumb decisions, I should have sent the Queen in sooner but I never felt like I had the chance to.

12-0 Loss. Lesson learnt: Don't slack on decision making, commit harder with the Queen, don't go into a game expecting to lose.



Game 4  - Hold Ground Vs Matthew Allen's Army of Gothmog LL

I'll say right now this was my favourite game of the weekend. We played Hold Ground, the first maelstrom mission of the event. We both got decent deployments from maelstrom, and he marched onto the objective faster than I could get there. My Spiders worked a flank and the Queen even made short work of his Troll in only the second turn. The Queen came in strong again as a hurl from her dismounted Gothmog from his Warg. I played my Shamans right this time, enrage and shroud let me get strong charges right into the middle of the board and I chewed through some Orcs. Alas, as much as I tried I couldn't shift the Orcs. Going into the final turn if the combat went my way, I'd knock enough Orcs off the objective to secure a win, but if it went mostly even or in his favour he'd bag the central objective. It wasn't to be and Matthew's Orcs held the centre. Super close game, loved every minute of it.

3-1 Loss. Lesson learnt: Get on the objective asap, fighting up hill is hard against D6 with goblins.



Game 5 -  Breakthrough Vs Tim Garlick's Dunland

Another fantastic game, Breakthrough was the mission. I'm afraid to say I've forgotten how a lot of the early game played out. I know I kept him in the centre for most of the game by sacrificing goblins into multi charges whilst my spiders flanked around the side to try and make a play for his home objective.

The big swing of the game was when my Queen failed to win a duel against the Oathmaker and lost 2 wounds in the process. Next turn she got absolutely surrounded by bodies, Thrydan included. In a last ditch attempt to keep her alive I used enrage beast on her and she Heroic Struck up to F10, with Thrydan only getting to F9. She rolled a 6 in the duel and put all 4 strikes into Thrydan causing 4 wounds. With no way to survive it, I managed to snag the points for the Leader kill with my own Leader still being alive and unwounded thanks to Heroic Defence.

5-4 Win. Lesson learnt: Enraged Queen is a beast, eat as many control zones as you can, never give up hope even after bad dice.



Game 6  - Divide & Conquer Vs Tom Jennings' Angmar

I don't think I played this one too badly, just not a lot I can do to charge and tie up control zones, especially when the spectres can move me away and make Druzhag run off so I lose his bubble of C4 on my beasts. I held one of the side objectives comfortably but unfortunately I couldn't keep up the fight for the centre objective and the one on the left, the latter being heavily guarded by a cave troll! I feel like I had a much better handle on my list by this point though, a Venomback managed to get into the WK and forced him to spend might to win the duel. Sadly I never got another swing at him!

6-1 Loss. Lesson learnt: Angmar are hard! Use Shroud to tie up and hopefully snipe the Spirit heroes.


All in all, I picked up 2 wins over the weekend and learnt a great deal. Looking forward to putting everything into practice and making some tweaks to the list before Scouring rolls around again in March!

The Scouring of Che-Shire 3: Sean's First Tournament! (A Noob's Perspective!)

Hello!

My name is Sean Milligan and I'm one of the newer members of the Drawn Combat Team. As you have been reading this week, many of the Drawn Combat team attend the excellent The Scouring of Che-Shire event hosted by Ste Crowe in Stockport. This was my first SBG event and I have to admit I was quite nervous, almost paranoid that I missed some Facebook update on the event page, or forgot to pack my army. But the rest of my guys had my back and I had everything I needed! My Riders of Theoden Legendary Legion consisted of:

Theoden with heavy armour, armoured horse and shield

4 Royal Guard with Throwing Spears and horse
2 Royal Guard with horse

Eomer with armoured horse and shield

4 Riders of Rohan
1 Rider of Rohan with Banner
1 Rider of Rohan with Throwing Spear

Gamling with horse and Royal Banner
2 Riders of Rohan

Deorwine with horse

3 Riders of Rohan

Total Models: 21
Total Might: 12

I'm a big Dark Ages fan and new to the game so Rohan was a good choice! Plus we all love the speech at the battle of Pelennor fields!

Game 1 -  Assassination Vs Riders of Theoden LL

Very similar army list except his had more heroes with Elfhelm and Dernhelm replacing Eomer and I had the higher number of Royal Guard. 

As the game was an almost mirror match I at least knew what my opponent's list does! We also played on one of Ste’s excellent boards, which we found ironic given it was the terrain heavy village of Bree and we were both cavalry Armies.

It was very even for most of the game. We worked out who each other's targets and assassins were quickly. His Dernhelm hid behind his Theoden and Gamling outside the city, miles away from his Eomer, while my Eomer protects my Deorwine from his Elfhelm and his Deorwine in the village. Sadly the Theoden and Gamling mirror duel outside the village went badly for me, and I lost both of them in the same turn followed by the rest of my right flank being killed. My army was broken and the game ended on the first roll!
0-5 Loss.

Game 2 - Seize the Prize Vs Minas Tirith, Fellowship, Misty Mountains

Denethor, Fellowship Boromir, Gwahir and another Hero I can’t quite remember.
Who puts the key word Infantry on a giant eagle? I had assumed I would have the speed advantage given he had limited cavalry and I won the first turn of priority, but he heroic marched his eagle onto the objective. Given the terrain was tight I acknowledged the fact he could fly the Eagle off my board edge and managed to keep him tied up in combat for a number of rounds, but was unable to get the number required around to Gwahir to take him down. He broke free and flew to freedom, stopping only to try and let the rest of his army break me, before ending the game. Thankfully, the Rohan heroes use their high mighty values and “Death” ability to kill Boromir and his other hero and was on the way to killing Denethor before he saw the gamble not working and ended the game.

0-9 Loss
I was pretty salty that Gwahir was able to claim the prize, but my opponent (Jonathan Lloyd) was really sound and it ended up being a great game.

Game 3 - Contest of Champions Vs Theodred's Guard

Blue on blue action as I was paired up against Drawn Combat team member Adam Tudor. Last game of the day meant the beers started. He had Theodred, 6 royal guard on horseback and loads of royal guard on foot. Also Grimbold with Warriors, Elfhelm, outriders on foot and all the throwing spears he could muster.

I like Adams' list a lot, so much I'm building it for next year. I wasn't looking forward to the game as he soundly beat me into a pulp the week before during practice, but the scenario let me be able to charge him turn one. I won the roll off (and in fact most of them) and managed to pile into his lines, taking away his throwing spear advantage. Adam made the mistake of trying to get Theodred to kill Theoden, while Theoden picked off 3 warriors to take the lead of 3 kills to 0. With only Theoden, Eomer and Deorwine alive, the game ended with a kill tally of 3-0 to Theoden.

7-2 Win

Game 4 - Hold Ground Vs Return of the King LL
Aragon, King of the Dead, Herald and some Warriors

Fastest game of the Tournament. I lost Gamling 1st round of combat. Tried to bubble up around the objective, hoping the scenario would end with me in the middle. Failed to wound any of his models (I think killed one) and the game ended with Eomer in the middle, being surrounded by ghosts and stabbed to death. I’ll not mention the fact that Theoden feinted and stabbed himself in the foot, which killed him. It just wasn't my game.

0-12 Loss

Game 5 - Breakthrough Vs Mordor
Witch King, Mouth of Sauron, Gorbag, Kardush with a mix of Orcs, 3 wag riders and some black numenoreans.

I set up above the objective line and started peppering his lines with arrows, doing surprisingly well, while in return he spent a lot of Will, black darting heroes from horseback. The time came when he charged in and his still overwhelming numbers on my left, taking 1 objective and I was unable to hold my board side objective, while also failing to take his. Losing Theoden and therefore the +1 to fight caused a lot of roll off in the fights and his ability to reroll to wound due to outnumbering was just too much. I did break him though, thanks to those bows at the start (and he kept eating his own orcs for will points).

2-10 Loss

Game 6
Sadly I couldn't stay for game 6 due to family commitments.

Summary

I ended 1-5, I achieved my lowly goal of winning 1 game (cheers Adam!) which for my first event was really good. Ste runs a tight ship when it comes to timing and keeping us all updated during the day. The boards he has are excellent and really add to the atmosphere of the games you're playing. They’re not just at the top tables, but spread out amongst the ranks so everyone has a chance to play on them.

Will I be using the army again? I don’t think so. It's a fun list, but I feel everyone knows what to do against them and how to handle them. Having loads of heroes is fun and I feel they deal with magic users well by having lots of them, but the low model count really hurts. I enjoy Rohan and I'll be expanding into a couple more of their lists, but I think the new year will bring a new army for me!

Will I be back? Yes! The next event I attend has a lot to live up to, not only from the organisers point of view, but also the welcoming community I met at the event. It was really difficult to pick my best sporting opponent when I left!

Scouring of Che-Shire Top 5 Lists

Today we are interrupting our individual reports from the 700 point Scouring of Che-Shire to have a look at the top 5 lists. This was an 88 person tournament, so a big one! There were 6 rounds, so that really allows the best players to rise to the top. Let's have a look at what they brought.

5th Place: Survivors of Lake Town

Bard the Bowman with armour and horse

Sigrid & Tilda

Alfrid the Councillor

12 Lake-town Militia with bow

Gandalf the Grey

7 Lake-town Militia with shield

7 Lake-town Militia with spear

1 Lake-town Militia with spear and shield

Bilbo Baggins, Master Burglar 

6 Lake-town Militia with shield 

6 Lake-town Militia with spear 

45 models, 9 Might (but actually more), 12 Bows

At this point we have written about this list a LOT so I am not going to repeat myself. Instead you can read about it (or lists very close to it) here, here, here, here and here.

4th Place: Vanquishers of the Necromancer

Saruman

Galdriel, Lady of Light

Elrond

Radagast on Sleigh

4 Models, 12 Might

Well if it isn't the new hotness. There was a little bit of chatter about this new list being "unbeatable", and while I think it is very good it also has some weaknesses (mostly objective play). That being said, considering there are only 4 models it has a surprising number of tools. Sorcerous Blast, Wrath of Bruinen and Raddy's sleigh charging ensure that the enemy models spend more time lying down than standing up, and then high Fight and 3 attacks each (doubling to 6 strikes while the enemy is prone) ensure they have a surprising amount of killing power. They are also pretty hard to kill as they have decent defence and Fate in abundance, then Raddy comes along and heals them up if they do take a knock. From what I have heard it's pretty miserable to play against and in the right hands it can do a lot of work, but at the same time with only 4 models any lapses in judgment or skews in variance are going to punish you much more than with a normal army. The other two Vanquishers lists went 3-3 over the weekend.

3rd Place: Ugluk's Scouts

Ugluk

5 scouts, shield

6 scouts, bow

1 scout, banner

Mauhur

5 scouts, shield

5 scouts, bow

1 scout, banner

Scout captain, shield

Grishnakh

11 orcs, spear, shield

1 orc, spear

Snaga

6 orcs, shield

6 orcs, spear.

52 Models, 13 Might, 11 Bows

Let me say that again: 52 Models, 13 Might. Crikey that is a lot of F4 S4 AND they get +1 to wound in combat if there is an Orc and an Uruk in together. Oh, also all the Uruks move 8", no big deal. This feels like it would be relentless to play against and most importantly it can play objectives incredibly well. I feel like we keep saying that "high quality quantity" is one of the best things to bring in this game and I think this list demonstrates that really well. 




2nd Place: Riders of Theoden

Theoden with Armoured Horse, Heavy Armour, Shield
4 Royal Guard with horse

Deorwine with horse
4 Royal Guard with horse

Dernhelm with horse
4 Royal Guard with horse

Gamling with horse, Banner 
3 Royal guard with horse

Captain with horse
3 Royal Guard with horse

23 Models, 14 Might (+1 each turn)

Now here is a Legendary Legion I had forgotten about. It used to be taking events all over the place but then people learnt how to deal with it and it quietly slipped down the rankings. This just goes to show that in the right hands it can still punch with the big boys. If you can choose just the right time to call "Death!" then this list can still chop the head off the enemy and neuter its big threats in one go. I am pleased to see it come back as it is one of my favourite LLs to date.

1st Place: Mordor and Isengard (Yellow Alliance)

Witch King with horse, Crown of Morgul, Morgul Blade (3/13/2)
10 Orc Trackers
8 Morannon Orcs with spear, shield

Shagrat with heavy armour, shield of Cirith Ungol
6 Morannon Orcs with shield
5 Morannon Orcs with spear, shield
1 Morannon Orc with Banner

Lurtz
4 Berserkers
1 Warg rider
2 Uruk Hai with shield

40 Models, 9 Might, 11 Bows

Honestly, this list is an absolute delight in how mundane it is. I don't mean that to cause any offence, in fact quite the opposite! It goes to show that you don't need to take whatever is 'meta' to do well, you can just bring a decent, mixed arms list, play it excellently and still win a tournament. The list does have a bit of everything: Magic, punching power, fearless troops, shooting, lots of bodies, a decent stack of Might, 3 Striking heroes and Heroic March too. Amazing how he has fit it all in!

One caveat that I feel we must point out is that this list did just so happen to play all 3 Vanquishers lists. As we talked about above, Vanquishers is a good list but can struggle with objectives, and this list beat them at Seize the Prize and Hold Ground, where I think this list definitely has the advantage (though it's by no means easy!). However it also beat them in Contest of Champions which is astounding! The pilot of this list described how he did that and it sounds like he played it absolutely perfectly (Round 1: Heroic Resolve, resisted spells, transfixed and killed Elrond, Heroic Combat into Galadriel and killed her too. Round 2 same thing but killing Radagast and jumping onto Saruman). Simply fantastic play.

We have seen a lot of "Good soup" lists recently and I wonder if this list will kick-start people thinking more about "Evil soup". I know it used to be prevalent but it took a hit with the FAQ. This goes to show you can still make some powerful alliances in Evil and I am looking forward to seeing where the meta goes next. 

The Scouring of Che-Shire 2: Dan Stu's Writeup

Dan Stu: I'm afraid there are no hot, controversial takes about magic on the blog today - just a good old fashioned writeup. I'll leave the sensationalist clickbait to Dan Slob. 

This is the first major tournament to which I’ve taken the Dunland Legion, after a small 1-day event around 6 months ago – and perhaps foolishly, I took the army out only twice in the months between (I have been very preoccupied with my Easterling / Khand alliance). Dunland are a good list, but I’m not particularly confident with them yet, so I went in hoping to go 2-4 – or maybe 3-3 if I get lucky. Really though, I was just happy to finally get this finished army out on to the tabletop after chipping away at them for the last year or so.

Note - apologies, there are not many photos of my actual games - I was very rusty and my overworked brain kept forgetting to take them. I've instead included photos of my army kindly taken by fellow blogger Steve Thorley. The full album can be found here, for anybody interested.

Army of Dunland Legendary Legion

Thrydan Wolfsbane on horse
3 Warriors of Dunland with Shield
3 Huscarls
1 Warrior of Dunland
3 Warriors of Dunland with dagger and bow
1 Warrior of Dunland with banner
1 Crebain
2 Dunlending Horsemen

Gorulf Ironskin
4 Warriors of Dunland with shield
2 Huscarls
2 Dunlending Horsemen

Frida Tallspear
4 Warriors of Dunland with shield
2 Huscarls
1 Dunlending Horseman
1 Crebain

The Wildman Oathmaker
11 Wildmen with axe
1 Dunlending Warrior with banner

46 models, 4 warbands, 12 might, 3 bows


Game 1 - Assassination vs James Wilson’s Minas Tirith

Having seen the pairings a day or two earlier on Longshanks, I was quite apprehensive about this matchup. Minas Tirith have good ranged options and no shortage of F4 and F5 troops, as well as Elessar himself! However, the tradeoff for taking Elessar is the cheap, 1-wound heroes in the form of Mablung and Damrod, both prime targets – making the scenario tricky for him. Gorulf was my assassin and Mablung my target. I assumed (correctly) that the squishy Oathmaker would be the target and held him back.

Thrydan and Gorulf (an absolute wrecking ball pairing) managed to smash through and dispatch Mablung in a few turns – not unexpected. What was unexpected, though, was that my troops massively overperformed (James’ dice dried up pretty badly for a couple of turns) and then the warriors of Gondor were all but gone. I had plenty of troops to keep Aragorn penned in, stopping him from doing Aragorn things, until he was eventually mobbed and cut down.

10-1 win, a good start!

Game 2 – Seize the Prize vs Nick Whit’s Assault on Helm’s Deep

So, if I won my first game through good judgment, good positioning and good luck, game 2 was lost through lack of those things!

Nick’s advantage – 12 crossbow, a ballista, and a narrow corridor to engage in. My advantage – 2 crebain swarms. They managed to peck up the objective on turn 2, but my list took heavy casualties in screening them to safety, and they finally managed to fall back on turn 3 with 1 and 2 wounds remaining. Uruks with pikes are absolutely brutal in a choke point, and my over-extension in the centre corridor saw me taking heavy losses and breaking, while inflicting only a small handful of casualties.

The smart play here, with no real way of breaking or killing the Uruks’ leader, would have been to fall back, play defensively and go for the 3-3 draw. If Nick had the priority on the final turn, I’d be able to swoop in to his half after his movement for a 5-3 win. However, priority went to me instead. In a lapse of judgment, I flew the Crebain in to a spot I thought would be relatively safe in his board half, but Nick managed to get enough bodies in to get the kill and steal the objective for a 6-0 loss.

Not my finest hour, but a good lesson in *ahem* keeping your eyes on the prize. If I’d kept focusing on where the point-scoring opportunities were, this should have been easily winnable. Lesson learned – don’t get greedy!

Game 3 – Contest of Champions vs Queen Jasmine’s Fellowship / Lothlorien / Minas Tirith / White Council Nightmare

At this point of the day, my focus was out of the window, and I didn't know what half these heroes did (nothing nice, I suspected) so I went for a straightforward battle line deployment, with Thrydan and horses ready to pounce. Jasmine’s leader was Boromir, and with his might stores and offensive output, there was no way I was going to be able to rack up kills faster than him. I decided to push the centre, chance a lucky kill, and allow the sides to wrap around, hopefully securing the break.

However, as I probably should have expected, the combined might of Galadriel, Haldir and Boromir was a complete wrecking ball, tearing a transfixed Thrydan to pieces on turn 2, and shattering my line. This left three engagements – the Dunlendings securing the left and right flanks, and elves dominating the middle.

With both sides broken, and currently standing at a 12-1 win to Jasmine, we decided to play out the game. In a ridiculous spike of bad dice, Boromir dies to Gorulf, having rolled a 2-highest on 9 (!) dice in the duel roll, unable to even spend his 3 might to match Gorulf’s 6, and is swiftly beheaded. 11-2 loss to me, and a crazy way to end the day.

Note the untargetable wood elf  sentinel in the tree. If you're thinking they probably stayed there all game shooting and tooting, then you'd be right. 

Intermission – Evening Festivities

Steven puts on a fantastic quiz, and the rest of the night was spend with great company, decent beer and some board games – skip ahead to day 2 if you’re not interested in these!

Startups – a fantastic and very pretty small-box game from Oink Games, this game sees you trying to sucker people in to investing in companies that you will (unbeknown to them) end up holding the controlling share in, earning you hard cash rewards. Very well suited to a bar / pub / drinking setting, it’s a fairly simple card game which can be taught in 5 minutes, with each round lasting about 10.

Looks like this guy is going for a monopoly in Hippo Powertech. Careful though - don't scare away your potential investors!

Kakerlaken Poker – a game of pure bluff, kakerlaken (or cockroach in german) poker sees you trying to fool your friends in to taking one of eight types of bug-themed cards off your hands. You'll find yourselves untangling webs of lies as you and your mates double and triple bluff each other. If you enjoy fooling your friends (or collecting insects) this is a great party game for up to 6 people.

The instructions also list French, German and Italian names for each type of bug, which is an evening's entertainment in itself.

Taxi home, solid 8 hours of sleep, woken up with a cup of tea, lift back to Element Games - lovely stuff. Hangover situation – could be better, could be worse. I’ll take it. On with the show!


Game 4 – Capture and hold vs Peter Wilson’s Lothlorien / Rohan alliance

This was an interesting pairing. The elephant in the room is Dunland’s hatred of Rohan, making my offensive output potentially very scary here. On the other hand, Peter’s back line was almost all elves with good banner support, which gated my offensive output behind my inferior fight value.

Maelstrom deployment here was not too unkind to either of us – with a few might points spent, we were both able to deploy more or less where we wanted to. But crucially, while beelining to the centre and weaving around the busy terrain, I did not form up my battle line quickly enough, and I should have played much more cautiously forming a solid line before reaching cavalry charge range. Theodred and Dernhelm, with their uncontested mobility, saw their chances to slip through the gaps and hit my back lines and my wildmen like heat-seeking missiles. They racked up many kills, and by the time I'd mustered a counter-offensive to put down the threats, their job was already done and I was more or less broken. 

Thankfully, I managed to salvage a decent engagement, and Dunland did their thing, chewing through troops with their terrifying offensive output. I was extremely aggressive with my heroes, trading leader kills. We ground on to a 6-3 win for Peter - a very bloody game, with some poor positioning on my part on which Peter smartly capitalized.

After losing their numerical advantage early on, the Dunlending fought a bitter, bloody battle to the end. 

Game 5 – Breakthrough vs Jay Davidson’s Khazad-Dum

Dwarves did what they do best – deploy in the centre, dig in with their D9 shields, and grind out a prolonged combat with their superior stat lines. Unfortunately, Dunland have the numbers and the offensive output to deal with them...eventually! My battle line engaged in the centre with Gorulf absorbing Durin’s blows with his free Heroic Defense. Thrydan took his cavalry around one side, and the oathmaker led his Wildman blob around the other. The stubbornness of dwarves was on full display as they just refused to die - but gradually they were worn down until being quartered. My might advantage had a huge impact here, giving me the run of the board in the mid to late game, going for the big traps you need to fish for those 6s to wound. 10-0 win to Dunland.

Game 6 – Divide and Conquer vs Glynn Seymour’s Angmar

At this point, Glynn and I commiserated on how fried our brains were – I’d achieved my aim of 2 wins for the weekend, so a nice casual dice chucking game to finish the weekend with suited us both just fine.

Dunland vs Angmar isn’t the worst matchup. I struggle with courage a little, but both wildmen and huscarls have access to fearless in the list. I’m also not overly reliant on one hero to get the job done, and have lots of high-strength troops to fall back on. The Tainted baited Gorulf and his troops out of position, far away from the trolls on the other side of the board. However, the fearless Wildman blob blunted the trolls’ offensive, and Glenn’s truly shambolic dice saw him fail to cast a paralyse with either of his Barrow-Wights for the entire game. One good transfix roll on Thrydan saw me counter with a natural 6. I think Glynn's dice were also ready to go home. 

With superior stats, board-wide banner coverage and access to fearless, my troops simply outclassed the Angmar orcs, breaking them quickly. From there, it was a case of consolidating the centre and side objectives - and despite Burdhur going on a last-minute rampage and contesting the centre, I grabbed a 6-0 win. I feel like had Angmar got some half-decent dice on some magic dice, this game could have gone very differently. 

Wrap-up

Glynn was a lovely final opponent and gave me some truly excellent cake to cap off a truly excellent weekend. I also managed to secure the Best Painted award, which was very exciting, especially considering some of the extremely talented hobbyists that were in attendance.

Thanks for a great tournament, Ste - see you at the next one!

Thanks to all my opponents for some very memorable games, and to Ste Crowe for putting on a fantastic Scouring yet again.

Final score – 3 wins, 3 losses. 39th over all, right in the middle of the pack. Happy with that, and tons of lessons learned - with a bit of practise I think I can take this list to a 4-2.

List thoughts – I like Dunland a lot. My inexperience with the army was pretty evident and I made some big mistakes, but they have the punching power to forgive a lot of those. The tremendous 12 might meant that I was often calling heroic moves long after the opponent had run dry, giving me a lot of late-game board control. I’m happy with the 2 banners for effectively board-wide coverage. I’m also happy with 7 huscarls – they are too expensive to spam, but it gives you enough F4 in the right places.

The Wildmen often struggled to perform – in some games they are amazing, and in others they are just a free pass for your opponent to break you, so there is a skill curve there. When used as line troops, they are guaranteed to crumble in a few turns, so I need to factor that in to how I use them. I also feel that I’m just scratching the surface of Gorulf and Thrydan’s combined offensive output – a combo of Heroic Strike, Heroic Combat and War Cry just puts out insane damage and could easily dispatch a couple of heroes in a turn, or at least kill enough stuff to turn the combat in your favour. 

Changes to the list – I may take a few less Wildmen and a couple more warriors. I’m going to swap the 3 bows for axes & shields, too. Finally, I’m going to think very hard about replacing Frida with a Chieftain, just for access to Heroic March. She’s a gorgeous model but she’s far less consistently useful than any of the other named heroes, having not used her special rules once over the weekend. Having a F5 support is nice... But Heroic March can be the difference between winning and losing a game.

MVP – Gorulf. He’s a monster. Thrydan hits like a truck, but Gorulf hits almost as hard for half the cost, doesn't rely on his horse, and is nigh unkillable when he wants to be - Thrydan only wishes he could tank like the G man. The fact that he’s not your leader means you can really throw him around too, allowing you to make some really high-risk high-reward plays. If he dies - so what, he'll be back next game with a bad temper. But having said that, the only time he died all weekend was from fleeing the battlefield - presumably to go and punch somebody somewhere.

The Scouring of Che-Shire 1: Dan Slob's weekend and the problem with magic.

Hello all, this week several of the team will be writing up their experiences of The Scouring of Che-Shire, a 700 point tournament in Stockport, hosted by the excellent Ste Crowe. The weekend was fantastic and all 6 of the DC team that attended had a brilliant time. I am running out of synonyms for "great" now so here's what I took:

Imrahil with Armoured Horse and Lance (Army Leader)
2 Knights of Dol Amroth with Armoured Horse and Lance
3 Clansmen of Lamedon
3 Axemen of Lossarnach
4 Men at Arms of Dol Amroth

Boromir, Captain of the White Tower with The Banner of Minas Tirith, Horse and Shield
4 Guards of the Fountain Court with Shields
2 Knights of Minas Tirith with Shields
6 Warriors of Minas Tirith with Shields
2 Warriors of Minas Tirith with Spear and Shield

Damrod, Ranger of Ithilien
3 Rangers of Minas Tirith with Spears
1 Ranger of Minas Tirith

Total Points: 700
Total Models: 33
Break Point: 16 left (17 dead)
Total Might: 10
Green Alliance

I basically took this because I have been painting Fiefdoms but not enough to make a whole army. I know what I am doing with Boromir and his flag so he came along too. Damrod and his Rangers are there to be a bit of a throw-away warband, they can sit on an objective or support with spears depending on the scenario. I can't remember exact lists so I will summarise each one that I played against, along with a short description of the game.

Game 1, Assassination: Serpent Horde and Corsairs

This was Suladan, the Betrayer and Dalamyr (the leader) with 50% Bows/Crossbows (around 25 in total). 

I don't have much choice but to run at this list as fast as possible since he will shoot me off the board in no time if left to his own devices! This is exactly what I did. My target was Suladan (I thought he would be the one who was more stuck in) and my assassin was Boromir. Boromir got held up by Dalamyr's Smoke Bombs (boy do I hate Transfix effects, as you will see throughout the rest of the tournament). In the end I couldn't quite make it to Suladan as he was hiding the whole game, and Boromir was killed off by Dalamyr and some spells. It was a close, fun, game that ended in a 5-3 loss.

Game 2, Seize the Prize: Garrison of Dale

This was the new Brand, Bard and a Captain leading an absolute tonne of Knights of Dale. There were also 14 of the scary bows!

We both ran for the prize and I got there first thanks to cavalry. I chose not to dig it up and instead hold his line back until my troops arrived. This worked fairly well though the KoD's fancy spears did make them quite scary. My opponent was super unlucky that he failed to pick up the prize 3 times while the melee was happening and then Imrahil got it on his second try. Boromir and Imrahil did most of the killing and in the end it was a 7-2 win for me.

Game 3, Contest of Champions: Angmar

This was the Witch King, a Barrow Wight, a Captain and 2 Trolls (plus orcs).

The only way I was going to win this was by deleting the Witch King immediately, as otherwise Imrahil would spend the entire game Transfixed/Paralysed. I spent a tonne of resources to allow Imrahil to charge the Witch King turn 1 and took all 3 Fate off him but failed to kill him (this cost me all of Imrahil's Might and Will, as well as a Might from Damrod to call a Move). Having failed to do what I needed Imrahil was then Paralysed and Troll-ed to death. Meanwhile Boromir was also Paralysed and Transfixed the entire game once Imrahil died. My opponent was thoroughly lovely but this was one of the least fun games I have ever played just because I could not do anything at all. Again, nothing to do with my opponent, just playing against Angmar with big heroes is miserable. 6-1 loss. 

Game 4, Hold Ground: Return of the King LL

Aragorn, Legolas, King of the Dead and some ghosts.

This was always going to be difficult for my opponent, just because I both outnumber and out-Fight him. He made a valiant effort to get past the objective and hold me away from it, but in the end my bigger numbers meant I could wrap and trap a lot of ghosts. My opponent did get unlucky a few times with Aragorn in that he called a couple of heroic combats that he either lost or didn't kill everyone in. In the end though I just had more troops near the objective. 5-2 win.

Game 5, Breakthrough: Angmar

This was The Tainted, Burdhur and 2 Barrow Wights (plus another Troll and orcs).

The only reason I won this is because of some key bits of luck. As usual, Boromir and Imrahil spent the entire game Transfixed/Paralysed, but Boromir hung on against Burdhur for long enough that he couldn't smash up the rest of my list. Imrahil also recovered from a Paralyse at exactly the right moment to once again hold up his line. We did this enormous brawl over one of the centre objectives, and in the end I lost it, but I managed to sneak around to hold my own objective, the other centre one and contest his objective. This lead to a very close 3-2 win.

Game 6, Divide and Conquer: Gothmog's Legion

Gothmog, Goroth, the Enforcer, a Troll and a boat load of orcs.

This scenario is one of the reasons I brought Damrod's warband as it mean essentially my entire force is in one corner while his is split. With this in mind I went and smashed up Goroth and the Troll (spending 7 Might to do so!) and then turned around to face the other two thirds of his army. My cavalry were able to circle round the back of his force while Boromir and the foot troops held the line. In the end it was a bit of a massacre and a 12-0 win. 

So that put me on 4-2 and 18th overall (out of 88). I am pretty pleased with that but it did give me some thoughts about the game, in particular to do with Magic. The 3 games I had against lists with no magic were really fun and felt like they could go either way. The 3 games I played against lists with magic were mostly miserable affairs (again, nothing to do with my opponents who were all lovely) where I really felt like I couldn't play the game and just had to sit there while my opponent played. 

There are now a lot of models in the game that have a lot of Will (Ringwraiths) or infinite Will (most of the named Wizards) that they can use to just shut down an opponent completely. When your non-wizard characters have at most 3 Will to defend themselves with it feels like you get 1 or 2 turns to play and then you are at their mercy for the rest of the game. This just isn't fun at all. With the new Vanquishers LL just being released and a lot of talk about how good they are too, I think this is a bigger problem than ever. You either have to take a Wizard as an auto-include (hence the prevalence of Lady of Light being souped into lists) or accept that your heroes could simply not take part in a game. I don't like this at all, and honestly from now on if my list is going to depend on heroes I will just bring LoL or the Witch King with me no matter what. At least that way I will get to play the game, or can respond to magic in kind. 

I am by no means a game designer but there are a couple of ways I can think of to fix this problem:

• Whenever a model is affected by a spell they get a free point of Will to counter it (just like with Galadriel's new Banishment in the LL) and then the Will in their profile can be used for those really important turns.
• Make "control" spells harder to cast e.g. Transfix/Compel. The Witch King one-dicing Transfix every turn with a reroll when you can't counter it is just such a "feels bad" moment. If it was 5+ to cast this would not be anywhere near as reliable. 
• Make casting values higher but use 2D6 to cast them, i.e 1 Will point gets you 2 dice to cast but spells could require an 8+ or 9+ to cast, allowing you to be more granular with casting values.
• Make Magic work the same as Good shooting does, i.e. you need to have direct line of site with no in-the-ways and not into combat.

These ideas have their pros and cons. I still want Magic to be a part of this game and I also want it to be able to be impactful, but I hate that if one person brings Magic and the other doesn't then it often feels like there isn't a game to be had. There are some offenders that are worse than others (looking at you Angmar) and the vast majority of armies don't fall into this category but I think it is something that is worth thinking about. 

Now I know this might come across as a bit salty, and I know I have encountered an extreme here (bringing two big heroes and playing against control magic in 3 out of 6 games). I also know there is counter play in tagging the wizards before they move (though they often hide behind their lines so this is impossible to achieve, hence my fourth suggested "fix"). I also know that in practice the shifts I have suggested are too big to happen mid-edition so aren't going to happen. Nonetheless, my games this weekend left me thinking and it has been the biggest take-home that I have had, and with several reports of how un-fun the new Vanquishers are to play against I do think now is a good time to talk about it. 

Anyway, enough ranting now. Thanks again to Ste for a great weekend, and even though I was sad to not win a sword I think it is probably for the best since I have a two year old running around! Can't wait for the next one in March!