Here's my warband
- Durbûrz
- 2 Goblin Captains
- 4 Goblin Prowlers
- 17 Goblins [of various loadouts]
- 3 Cave Trolls [2 with hammers, 1 with spear]
Drew Mcclelland was next with his 'army of the dead' legendary legion. Now I'll admit I thought these were Ringwraiths when I saw them, they're dead right? Aragorn was leading them, he had a mounted Rider with 6 warriors. Then there was another warband of 8 with the King of the Dead. The mission was Fog of War which had three objectives: pick an opposing character, not leader, and try to kill it [I chose King of the Dead]. Pick one of your characters, not leader, and try to keep it alive [my Goblin Captain with a machete]. And, choose a piece of terrain in your opponents half [I chose the first walkway on the left middle] and have more of your models in/on it at the end of the game. Now the walkways posed an issue. We debated having them not needing climb or jumps to speed things up, but with my bonus to climb/jump Drew didn't want me to lose the benefit. So, outside of the ramps the Goblins would need to climb to get on the walkways,
Drew heroic marched up the board and I just froze! I mean I started to realise what I was facing after lobbing rocks at them. These are all Defence 8! And they are wounding me on my Courage 2, rather than my Defence [ranging from 4 to 6]. Not to mention they all cause Terror, it turns out Aragorn was probably the easiest! Anyway, the Rider gets onto the piece of terrain I was going for, so I manage to get a Troll and some Goblins on there too.
Bit of a time jump here. Looks like I lost two of my Trolls. I'm not sure if it was this game or the previous one but of the two rounds of duels they were in they scored 1,2,3, on 3D6 each round - hence why they were cut down. At this stage I was just falling apart. I had a slim chance with holding the piece of terrain I'd picked but there was just nothing I could do and Drew had captured his nominated terrain just out of shot on the right.
With my last troll I once again scored 1,2,3! and was unable to take down the Rider, which meant I could only outnumber him on the terrain piece rather than hold it completely
I then managed to butcher a ghost with goblins! I'd got 5s and 6s to beat the terror test, got two 6's to wound and then needed one 4 to kill! That's how tough these ghosts were. I immediately recalled when we were playing Battle Companies, controlling different areas of Middle Earth gave you bonuses, one of which was a warrior of the dead joined your warband for free! Whoever had that was a nightmare and that was just one of them, not 15 and Aragorn!
So, as the dust settled I'd lost my last game, I scored 1 VP for having more on my terrain target but Drew managed to get 12, for the life of me I don't know how he'd done so badly to face me in the final game. His army was rock solid so I can't understand how he lost the kill points mission. Regardless, this was such a fun game, the highlight of the event for me.
Which leads me to my final thoughts. The midweek event is really cool and much less tiring but the quick pace and short games mean you don’t actually get to spend much time with the person you’re gaming with. Drew and I got on really well, we were laughing and giggling all the time but I was constantly aware of the 90 minutes running out and having to interrupt the giddiness to get on with the game.
I’m not sure what the answer is but whatever fear I had about the competitive element soon evaporated thanks to my rotten tactics. I was thankfully unbothered about the results, which meant the reward was in the interactions with the person I was gaming with. I mean this has been my observation for years, but my last tournament was January 2019, which was 40k and slightly more competitive. To be playing my least competitive game, in clearly the least competitive fashion means the shared experience is paramount. My slight disappointment is that everything was over too quickly with the clock-watching and eurrgh, actually playing the game, interrupting the banter we had.
Perhaps the answer is a tournament with fewer and longer games, with no prizes! Just a casual game, with snacks and copious beverages – essentially my Thursday night gaming sessions ha, ha!