Friday morning came quick since I went to bed around 1:30am Chicago time (11:30pm Phoenix Time) and got up at 6:30am (4:30am Phoenix time) to meet up with Jay & Jeremy for some breakfast. Once I was filled up with a good meal, we all headed to the Lilac room for the Lord of the Rings Singles Championships.
While there waiting for the first match ups, I saw many faces from GitD, Frank B, John H, Jeremy W, Keith H, Kyle T, Tim C as well as a few other folks that I have met since attending Adepticon. I also met up with John Humphries from Plastic Legions and joked that I did not want to play against him again after being beat down the night before.
Well Jamie and his crew post the first round match ups and I get Frank Brown! Now I have know Frank for about three years now and I know he was the 2007, 2008 LotR Circuit Champion and placed second in the circuit last year, but I have never got to play him. I accused him of fixing the match up but was glad I got the chance to play him.
Frank brought a Uruk-hai list that had a few beserkers, a bunch of crossbows and Vrasku and a bunch of Uruk's. Now I knew that this would be a hard fight since I know Uruk Hai have the same Fight value as my Numenorians but I had the weaker strength, so I needed to win fights in order to win this game.
The first mission was called " It is precious to me" which the objective was to capture the enemies objective and still keep control of your own. This scenario had us deploying 12" in and the objective had to be just outside of the deployment zone. You got a Major victory if you controlled both objectives, Minor victory was reached if you only captured your own and the other side did not capture there own and your force was unbroken, Draws were anything not listed above. You got 3 bonus points for having more victory points than your opponent. Victory points were giving for all models removed for wounds, failed courage or other conditions and you got 1 point for every model. If you had more points you got the bonus points.
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Anyway, Frank and I jockeyed for position and when we finally entered combat we saw a lot of tied fights due to the same Fight values. Frank had the hot dice and when he rolled to see who won the fights he got all of them. Needless to say my troops started to die pretty quickly and before long Frank had secured both objectives. The only model still on the table for me was Isildur and he didn't even have a scratch on him. So I got a Major Loss and Frank got the Major Win, he also got the three bonus points.
Frank was great to play against, he is all business when he plays and he knows his stuff. He gave me some pointers on how to play the army better and I learned quite a bit from Frank. I look forward to playing him again.
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Game 2 was against Chad and his Cirith Ungol Orcs in a scenario called "One does not simply walk into Mordor". The scenario was to destroy the others objective which was in the deployment zone 18" from the corner. This scenario was much like Storm the Camp and you got bonus points for having more models in the other persons deployment zone.
As I mentioned, Chad was playing a Cirith Ungol list without Shelob but instead he had Gorbag and an Orc Drummer. He also had a ton of troops (46??) and I knew it would be tough to break through to get to his objective. Having played Cirith Ungol lists in the past, I knew just what his army could do, so I was not terribly worried about the game unless my dice went south.
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Chad won the deployment and also the priority and started the march across the board. There was two pieces of terrain in the middle of the board that forced him to funnel his troops through which I gladly waited for and shield walled up waiting for him. I had Isildur in the front leading my men and Chad kept moving closer to the fight. Once he got into 6" of me I won the priority and charged Isildur into Gorbag and then called a Heroic Fight, needless to say the Orc leader fell and Isildur started rampaging through his line and Chad could not stop him. I had sent a few troops around the left flank to race for his objective but time was called before I could get there. We both settled for a Draw since neither of us got to the others objective and no one was in the others deployment zone.
Chad was great to play against, and my only two critiques was that he was too predictable with the game. I knew exactly what he was going to do, perhaps that comes from me knowing what his army could do, but it felt like he was focused in on one plan and was going to stick to it regardless if he lost everything. And the other was that it was Orcs without any punch, he should have brought Shelob instead of Gorbag. The big spider would have given me something to worry about.
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So after two tough games I was 1 Loss and 1 Draw and I was not liking the next scenario which was "We will camp here for the night" a modified Clash of Piquets with a funky reinforcement rule. So as I walked up to check the sheet, I saw an army that I did not want to see again, yeah you got it, John's Grey Company! I heard John laugh as I turned around and he had a grin ear to ear as he waited for me to get to the table.
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So Game three was against the Grey Company and my good friend John Humphries. Well at least it would be a fun game against someone I know and it's always better to loose to someone you like!
This scenario was all about killing your enemy and not loosing too many of your own troops. A Major victory was if the enemy force has been broken and three quarters of your force remains. A minor was if the enemy is broken and you have less than three quarters, draws were anything else. You also got 3 bonus points for controlling more table quarters than your opponent. This scenario had you deploying in a zone that was 6" in and up to 12" from your table side. Half of your force was placed off table and at the end of your movement phase you rolled a dice, on a 1 or 2 the models did not come in, 3 to 4 the opposing player places them anywhere in your deployment zone and 5 and 6 you choose where in your zone.
John used the terrain to his advantage and he kept away from Isildur. Basically John shot the crap out of me and broke my force as I closed on him. I did get in a few kills but the damage was done and I could not recover. The good thing was it was nice to look at Johns beautiful army as it kicked the snot out of me! I thought for sure that John had the Best appearance out of what I saw at the event. John is also a blast to play against, we joked, laughed and I cried at the table, it was a blast and John had my vote for favorite opponent. I would gladly play him again and only wish he lived here in Phoenix, he would fit in great with the guys I game with and he is an awesome painter as well.
So now I was 2 Loss' and 1 Draw and when I looked at the next round I was at the very bottom of the ranking for battle points. Last year I went 1 Win, 2 loss's and 1 Draw, so I had to win this next game or I would have a worse record than last year.
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Game 4 was against a Robert Fenning playing a Elven force. This scenario was a battle until you killed everything of your opponents before time was called. Unfortunately I did not get any pictures since my batteries died during this game. The scenario was "Blood has been spilled this night" and you got bonus points for killing the highest point value hero in your opponents army.
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Basically in a nutshell, I sent Isildur into the elves and started tearing things up. Robert tried to stay away and kept shooting my regular guys to bits. Needless to say this was a blood bath game and Robert got me to break point first but with Isildur I was able to Stand Fast and continue to kill things. At one point I had three troops and Isildur left to 10 elves, Jeremy came by and was surprised I was doing so poorly. he came back by 10 minutes later to find me running down the last elf with Isildur to get the Major victory.
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So I ended the tourney W1, 2L &1D, not great but okay. I came in 14th out of 23 players and here are my scores:
Overall - 14th
General (Battle points) - 36
Painting - 23
Sportsmanship - 26
Army (combined painting & Comp) - 35
Composition - 12
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So I was 8th in painting out of 23, I was 8th with Army, I was 4th in Sportsmanship. So I think I did pretty well overall. Jamie runs a great event and for the most part runs smoothly.
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Anyhow, after the LotR event I was signed up to play Legends of the Old West that Jay Ryan was running. Jay had the game set up as a multi-player game were as the posses we trying to kidnap or rescue the prospector in the center. He had a variety of Posses and you could choose to use one of his or bring your own. I brought my Outlaws and was gunning for a fried Merle Dillinger right out of the gate.
The game was a blast with us trying to kidnap/rescue the prospector. At one point Merle busted out the Whiskey and was doing shots of it for some liquid courage and giving folks a +1 to their dice rolls. I played for a few hours than I had to leave to get the prize support set for the WAB events I was running the next two days.
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Needless to say it was another late night and I hit my room sometime around 1:30am again. Next up will be Day three and how I almost over slept!
TK
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