Day 2 of the 2 day tournament today so keep your eyes peeled for all updates! If you haven’t read day 1 yet, please do so by clicking the button below!
Today’s games are 550 points, and again, 4 games! Follow along through the course of the day to see just how I fare.
Today’s offering to the dice gods
As yesterday, we have the same theme and same leader, the mighty Boromir to lead the force to victory. Now at 550 points he is an absolute power house and does take up a far whack of my points. So I also decided to add a cheeky Trebuchet in here as well!
My logic for the siege engine is that I can maybe use it to snipe heroes that can do some serious damage to the army or even de mount things to do the same. Hopefully it can get its destructive fire off before someone comes to take it down.
Boasting 6M on Boromir, 3M on Ingold and 1M on the trebuchet, I feel that 10 might at this point value is pretty nice!
Day 2 begins with the first breakfast
After a crippling set of defeats but coming home with the nicest of wooden spoons and a favourite player award I’m ready to try and take the top spot today and book end the weekend on my own!
But we needed to start my day right, so I nipped to Poppins for a hearty meal to start my day!
Game 1 – To the death! vs Rob and Lake-town survivors.
Side note: Bard appeared in Rob’s list along with all 3 of his children – hence any reference to the children here.
To the death is a great scenario for me – both players need to deploy 24 inches apart which gives me plenty of time to be able to fire the trebuchet at the children (they buff Bard if he is near them). So turn 1 I managed to get Sigrid within range of the splash damage, wounded her and she failed her 2 fate. I also managed to dismount Bard. From there on out, instead of just backing away from Rob’s army I decided to go full on into them. While the trebuchet wouldn’t be able to fire at much, it was a much more fun and engaging game.
The Gordorians managed to prove their worth against the cloth armoured folk of Lake-town – chopping them down valiantly and, before I knew it, Boromir had SLAUGHTERED Bain, made his way using heroic combats into Tilda, and then catapulted himself into Bard.
Between the pair of us we created a rule where if Alfrid got to the trebuchet he could fire himself at any target on the battlefield – regardless of rules because why not? This worked hugely against me this game, as Boromir managed to become the target of Alfrid and he lost a fate point to a flying, dress clad and gold stuffed brazier, terrified man.
After we totted up the VPs it came to a mighty 10 – 0 WIN to me. Yup. A win. Game on for a podium today, no second spoon!
Feel free to check out some Middle-earth videos and awesome content over at SW Miniatures HERE.
Game 2 – Breakthrough vs Tom and Half Trolls.
These things TERRIFY me. Like, they are the same fight value as elves (5), have a strength of 5 and a defence of 6. They are nails to win a fight against, wound and survive. Luckily for me, they are also 23 points a model – which means I was able to out number an army for the first time this weekend.
The missing Breakthrough meant that I had to get to the center of the board, Tom’s objective and defend mine. Well since the half trolls were all clumped up in the middle I decided to send a couple, 2 man clumps to go claim the other objectives – Any trolls that Tom tried to send back to stop them quickly found themselves trebucheted off the table.
Once the trolls hit the lines however it became manic and a panic and Boromir and Ingold were really my only saving graces being strength 4 and wounding the trolls on 5s instead of 6s.
Through a couple of stupid decisions from me, clever ones from Tom and 4 turns of backing into a corner hoping to get as many trebuchet shots off as possible we managed to eek out a 7 – 7 DRAW as Boromir’s final stand wasn’t quote enough when he was surrounded by 3 trolls and a Tribemaster.
A draw and a win? I could still top 3 if I win big over the next 2 games!
Game 3 – Storm the Camp vs Rob and his Breaking of the Fellowship
The stars had aligned. The mission was mine. Each force deploys within 12 inches of a corner and my trebuchet truly had all the time in the world to fire. However. Frodo, in the Legendary Legion has the ability to, on a 3+, cast blinding light meaning the trebuchet can only hit on a 6.
Now when playing this game I could simply stand at the back of the board and just fire the trebuchet until the fellowship died, but that is INCREDIBLY boring and not engaging for my opponent at all and I could force a draw, maybe even squeak a win quite easily. So instead I was cagy in play for only a few turns and tried to throw a few boulders off (nothing to note here) and instead took the fight to the fellowship but alas, Aragorn and Gimli managed to absolutely obliterate everything in their sight and that was the game done.
In what was a strategically intense game but a fun one none the less Frodo managed to tank 2 turns of combat against 7 men (including Boromir and Ingold).
A 10 – 0 LOSS for me, shattering my hopes and dreams of a third place! Ah well, a phenomenal game anyway – onto the next!
Game 4 – Capture and Control vs Felix and his Breaking of the Fellowship
Oh yeah you read that right. This wasn’t a copy and paste error, I ended up playing against the breaking of the fellowship AGAIN. Only this time, it wasn’t Merry that came to play, it was Pippin! And my word, what a champion he was. Pippin, alone (before the sillyness began) managed to kill 3 of my warriors, and ended the game with a kill count of 5 and a wound on my Boromir, but I am getting ahead of myself quite quickly.
The game started with my trebuchet scoring a direct hit on Aragorn, no scatter and through blinding light! Unfortunately he saved it using a fate point. Then throughout the next 4 turns it was just trying to plink off wounds using it, unfortunately I just couldn’t roll to hit anything,
All the while this was happening, Legolas has targeted Boromir and taken 3 Fate, a wound and 2 Might off my leader before I even got a chance to get him into combat. The game was afoot.
After pivoting around the board and catching Legolas off guard it was time for me to strike. I saw an opportunity, won a priority and managed to win a Heroic Move off. I flung Boromir, Ingold and 5 chums into Aragorn, trapping him while staying out of Gimli’s way barely. We both stuck up and Aragorn managed to boast a might fight value of 9, but it was no match for the solid 10 I had with Boromir. Ingold had also Heroic Combated at this point. We won the fight on a natural 6, and managed to sink 8 wounds into the already fate down Aragorn, cleaning him in one turn. My Heroic combat turned to Gimli and I moved the same models into combat with him (I’m still Fight 10) and just floored him too. It was really looking dire until Merry came out (Frodo is dead at this point, but who cares about Frodo-do-do-do).
There ended up being a death pit with Merry vs Boromir and I purposely trapped my Captain so if Merry won the fight he would get 2 wounds. After several attempts only one went through and Boromir quickly dispatched of the Halfling.
A Solid 12 – 1 WIN to myself seals my day with 2 Wins, a Draw and a Loss. Not a bad showing!
Results!
So, the results are in and well. I can say, I finished a mighty 9th out of 30, not bad for not playing solo that much and taking the underdog trebuchet!
But more importantly (to me) and above anything I expected, I managed to take home ANOTHER most sporting award today! I’ve been truly blessed with 8 AWESOME games of the MESBG over the past 2 days and to be honoured and graced to play 8 AWESOME people, and the fact as a collective each day they deemed it appropriate to award me their most sporting vote resulting in back to back awards is beyond a dream!
I want to take a moment here to just thank everyone involved in the tournament. Lian and Sith, my opponents and the MESBG community!
Keep your eyes keen and look out for more Middle-earth content!
