2024-th Eorlingas! An SBG Diary Part 1

Dan Slob: I started this blog a long time ago now, and in my keenness to be a content producer I burnt myself out a while back. Since then the blog has been wonderfully run by other talented members of the DC team but recently I’ve felt a hobbit shaped hole in my life. This series of articles is to be my grand return to this excellent game and will also hopefully provide motivation to stick with it when other games are giving me the side eye, looking at you Old World. (By the way, the title is supposed to read Twenty Twenty Four-th Eorlingas…. Sorry).

For this journey I’ve decided to stick with one army in particular, to see if I can also actually get better at the game. I've played a lot of shield walls in my time, what with having a large Minas Tirith and Iron Hills army so that style of play just doesn't appeal any more. The most fun I've had with SBG is playing with my Ents, but they are too heart breaking when you roll a 3 high and they get chopped down. I want something that is hero heavy but also viable and doesn't take too much thought. Those are generally two opposite ends of the spectrum but there is one army that threads that needle quite nicely: Riders of Theoden. 

The army is very mobile and can bide its time to an extent. It then has one explosive round which hopefully punches an un-recoverable hole into the enemy lines and mops up the pieces. There is more to it than this and I am looking forward to learning its nuances over the course of the year. The first proper run out of the army will be at the 7th City Middle Earth Grand Prix which is a 600 point event. So what's in the list at 600 points?

• Theoden with Armoured Horse, Heavy Armour, Shield

     - 2 Rohan Royal Guard on Horse

• Eomer with Armoured Horse, Shield, Throwing Spears
• Gamling with Horse, Royal Standard of Rohan
• Deorwine with Horse
• Dernhelm with Throwing Spears
• Captain of Rohan with Horse, Heavy Armour, Shield and Axe

600 Points, 9 models (Dernhelm counts as 2), 0 bows, 17 Might, Broken: 5 dead, Quartered: 2 remaining.

The logic here is take all the heroes until you can't any more and then start adding Captains and Royal Guard. That's not strictly true as Elfhelm has been neglected but I think I prefer a Captain over him for a few reasons. The Captain is cheaper (which allows the extra Royal Guard), has March and is F5 on the charge. It's true he has one fewer point of Might but this list is not wanting for Might.

So far I have played 3 games with the list and it has done well. the first was against Angmar with Gulavhar (not good for a hero heavy list) but my first charge (with Death) killed so many Orcs that the game was over almost before it began. Gully did then start chomping heroes but the damage was done.

Before the big charge

The second game was against almost all mounted Serpent Horde/Far Harad. Also a very bad matchup with Blowpipes and Impact Hits galore. My opponent should have won this but we were just playing at a club night and instead of him kiting me and killing my horses before engaging, we both quickly got bored and just charged each other. This list wants to do that a lot so I ended up smashing his lightly armoured horses for the loss of a Royal Guard and Merry (RIP). 

After. Yikes.

The third game was against local league organiser Ian who was using a big chunk of pirates backed up by Suladan and various Serpent Horde specialists. We played Hold Ground and since Ian had 44 models I knew I was in trouble. Maelstrom had most of my guys come in from my right corner, with the pirate horde opposite and Suladan from the middle of the left side of the board. I had to choose whether to go after the pirates or Suladan and knowing that Ian would be very happy to sit back and crossbow/throwing dagger me to death from behind I went into the pirates. 

Initially choosing to go after the Pirates

I weathered 2 turns of shooting before I hit his lines and lost a couple of fate. The first charge absolutely bounced, doing virtually nothing and losing a Fate and wound off Gamling to boot. However I just have so much Might that the next turn I called a Move, called Death and absolutley ran roughshod over his line. I think I killed 14 pirates with my 8 models which is insane. After that Theoden and Eomer tag-teamed Delgamar (or maybe Delamir, I dno man they all sound the same to me) and Dernhelm murdered the Bosun. Things went downhill for Ian from there.

Before "Death"

After "Death"

Unfortunately for me the game ended the first time it could have and Ian had had 8 dudes from Suladan's warband just sitting on the objective all game so I lost 7-4. I didn't feel too bad about this as I had not really tried to play the objective at all, and honestly I am not sure I could have given Ian's good placing to make me stay away from the centre. With only having 8 models I can't really afford to split them up. An extremely fun game and I only took 3 wounds the entire game which is crazy! (Though I had spent most of my Fate). 

How the game finished

I have one more practice game before the Grand Prix and I still have dismounts to paint (you think you are getting away with painting 8 models, then you remember the dismounts *groan*). I also challenged myself to do the freehand on Gamling's banner.... in under a minute. In reality I was just sketching out the shape of the horse but it turned out so funny I decided to leave it. The horse's name is Beans and I love him.

I'll maybe report back after the practice but probably not. The hive mind of the GBHL have taught me some good tricks for using Dernhelm and I am enjoying her as a piece. I particularly enjoy the trick of infinite Merry Might using the Royal Standard of Rohan, that's a good one. 

For now, thanks for reading and I am looking forward to more SBG in 2024!