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Day 2
Game 4 - The Artifact vs Chris's Gondor + Gandalf
Well, as part of the post Day 1 obsessive-compulsive discussions of the battle points, it was clear that Chris and I were going to be matched up for Game 4. This would prove to by my second tournament match-up with Chris - we faced on a very one-sided game of Sieze the Prize at the 2008 Las Vegas GT. I jokingly told Chris that this was my chance for revenge and it figures we'd be playing a Sieze the Prize variant. The primary difference in this scenario was that the "Artifact" had to be carried off your opponents deployment edge.
To start our game, the prize was tucked just inside a piece of difficult terrain (trees). I deployed with 4 Raiders up front making no beef that my intent was to race to the prize. The problem was (and for what its worth, I knew this was going to a problem) the 14 Rangers of Gondor lining up their 3+ machine guns. The rest of my army was deployed with my archers and other cavalry to my left and my Mahûd and Haradrim lined up in the center.
After turn 1, the machine guns worked like a charm against me - I lost two raiders outright and the other two had their horses cut down beneath them. Ouch. In the following two turns, I was still able to get one model on the prize and a second one just off the prize. I moved a good portion of my army towards my right side and envisioned a strong wall of Mahûd escorting the prize across Chris's undefended portion of the board.
What I failed to recognize was the trap that Chris laid for me. Gandalf stepped up and threw a 3 dice command spell at one of my Haradrim near the prize. He proceeded to encircle this poor fellow with Etchilion, his other hero, and 4 Guards of the Fountain Court. My Haradrim was Heroic Combat bait and he could slingshot into my other Haradrim with the prize. Dang Wizards. I was so concerned about a sorcerers blast that I'd spaced my models to prevent minimal damage. I never even considered command. Well played Chris.
However, all hope was not lost. I had twelve archers that could volley fire into that group combat and since I'm evil I can target someone within 6" of my own model. I was going for a "knitemare" (inside joke) and trying to plunk my own guy and hope to spoil the ensuing heroic combat. Picking up the 12 dice, I knew I needed 2 "6's" to have a shot at this plan - I rolled only one. Although my counter maneuver didn't work, it was certainly an exciting moment in the game.
After the I predictably lost the Heroic Combat, he was in line to take out my other Haradrim warrior and he was able to dig up the prize on his first try.
Out next turn was the next critical juncture. I decided against calling a Heroic Combat with my Mahûd Tribesmaster. I thought long an hard about calling it. However, I felt like even I called it, I would have been burning a critical might point. I really was confident that even if he had the prize, I could kill him before he could get it off the board. So I let him go and he again showed me the flaw in my reasoning... after winnign the combat the next turn he was able to hand off the light object such that it moved almost 12" away from my pack of warriors. To make matters worse, I was now out of position as I had over-committed my warriors to the right side of the board.
The next few turns saw the prize moving towards my left corner of the board. I used my archery to move back to defend and moved as many of my free warriors towards that position as possible. The combats in the middle of the board were thick and highly congested. Although I was winning fights and killing many of his models, I couldn't make significant headway in getting closer to the prize. To make matters worse, he had some very stubborn WoMT that just wouldn't die even when heavily outnumbered by Mahûd and their spear carrying friends. For at least two turns, Gandalf failed to immobilize the Mahûd Tribesmaster, which meant that I could use the Warrior Pride rule to engage Gandalf with Mahûd Warriors. Throughout the course of the battle, I was able to put a wound on Gandalf after forcing him to burn through all three fate (and those darn re-rolls). Up to that point, it was the first official wound Gandalf had taken all weekend.
While those fights were interesting and important towards the overall numbers, the real game was seeing if Chris could get the prize off the table. I had my archers set up in a "prevent" defense staggered with gaps creating control zones that would have to be avoided. I was moving guys diagonally as fast as possible to try and reinforce the lines. With about 10 minutes to go in the game, Chris was now less than 6" from the edge of a board (as an eagle would fly) but he was facing two deep Haradrim ranks. I finally had caused enough casualties that he was broken. As with my last game, the ultimate outcome hinged on a single die roll. We rolled for Priority and Chris won (Dang!). He was able to use Stand Fast with Ecthilion and keep all his WoMT near the prize on the table. If I had managed to win that priority, I would have tied up Ecthilion and let the WoMT tempt fate as I fully reinforced the battleline. However, once again, the die went against me. Through a very careful set of tying up control zones, he managed to find a sliver of an opening that he could pass the prize carrying model into contact with another model which he handed off and walked the prize off the table. Bah! I thought I'd tied up all the loose ends but I left a bit too much of a gap. It really came down to the difference of about 1/4 of an inch on the table.
Chris earned a Minor Victory (minor for being broken). This was probably one of the most fun games I've ever played. It was quite tense but our personalities kept the game very enjoyable. We were constantly ribbing each other and joking around. We both got serious when we needed too and those last few turns were very tense indeed! However, despite the loss it was a fun game. I think Chris may have played a tactically perfect game. I made a few major mistakes and left some openings. As all great generals do, he capitalized on those mistakes and made me pay for them. Kudos!
After that round, I was in 3rd place in battle points behind Anthony (another minor win) and Chris. Sean was 1 point behind me while Jeremy was right behind him. Since Anthony had already run the gauntlet of generals (playing Jeremy, Chris, myself, and Sean) he would draw someone down the list. Chris and Sean hadn't played so they would be at Table 2 and Jeremy and I and would be at Table 3.
Game 5 - The Last Alliance vs Jeremy's Serpent Horde Cavalry
After three years of tournament play, Jeremy and I finally got a chance to play against each other. I think we were both looking forward to the opportunity. However, we knew that matching up in Game 5 meant that we both knew we still had a shot at Best Overall (especially depending on how Chris and Sean's game would come out).
Our scenario was a To the Death variation with the outcome actually judged by Victory Point differential. The other interesting twist was that if at the end of the game, you had any models left within 12" of your deployment edge, then you could finish no better than a draw.
Jeremy's army was all mounted Haradrim. He had Suladan, a Haradrim Chieftan with a bow, 8 Serpent Riders, and the rest were Haradrim Raiders (mixed with war spears and bow). He deployed his entire army in the center of his deployment zone with the archers to my right and the Raiders and Serpent Riders towards the left. His archers pushed forward towards the right. His non-archers split into two groups, one small and one larger one. The larger group turned towards the left to sweep around a large ruined tower in the center of the battlefield. The smaller group was pulling to support the Raiders with bows.
I deployed in a tight box style formation hoping to be able to defend both a northern and western flank with lines of Mahud warriors. I left a very small contingent on the far right side to protect a flank that was around area of difficult terrain (wooded forest).
During my forward advance, I used a formation consisting of a Haradrim warrior blocking two Mahud warriors. I knew the Haradrim had lower defense but I could afford to lose a few of them in order to get into combat. Jeremy took several shots with multiple in the ways to try and get at some of my stronger models (Half-Troll and a Mahud Raider). I advanced my archers towards the ruined tower in the center. I knew that if I could get there, I'd have a nice archery platform and be protected from the advancing cavalry models. Nothing significant came from our archer attacks.
We continued this general approach for the next few turns with a few causalities on each side. I lost a few Haradrim spearmen and Jeremy lost two Raiders. I made one huge mistake during this phase of the game. At one point, I left my Mahud Tribesmaster exposed to the Haradrim Raider archers. Jeremy had 14 shots without any in-the-way rolls. He scored 5 hits and I was really worried. Luck was with me on this turn as not a single wound was scored (a consistent theme throughout the match). Whew, disaster averted.
As the game proceeded, Jeremy left his archers outside of his charge range, content to let them try and dink and dunk some shots. Around this same time, Suladan and his escort were circling around the ruined fort and eyeing up a charge. I had formed up my lines on both the north and western flanks. I also moved my Haradrim Cavalry towards the southern side of my army in order to prepare for a counter charge. I purposefully left my Mahud line within the Haradrim charging range (although Jeremy only had about 3 Cavalry in full range). Jeremy took my bait and charged in towards the Mahud warriors he could reach. I withstood the charge winning the fights and managing the kill 3 Serpent Riders (and also dismounting another one with my archery).
It was a critical moment in the game and Jeremy decided to go for it on the successive turns to charge into lines. Unfortunately the second turn was much like the first, with the Mahud winning most of the fights. He was able to break through and kill some of my army on the northern flank and Suladan was doing a good job winning his fights and killing his opponents. However, on average, I was killing a lot more than he was able too. Of particular note was the Mahud Raiders who managed to kill an enemy each and every time they charged into combat thanks to their impaler rules. The Half-Troll and Mahud Tribesmaster were hacking their way through Raiders making a lot of kills. The game was starting to draw towards a close and Jeremy's army was close to breaking.
In the late stages of the game, I kept feeding Suladan a single Haradrim warrior while the rest of my army was trying to break him. I was determined to my best to kill him all on the battlefield and not rely on victory points. However, Suladan was a mighty foe indeed. A quick model count showed that Jeremy was within 1 kill of breaking my force. He won the priorty roll and managed to charge into two Haradrim Raiders. I could have counter-charged with my Haradrim Chieftan but since I was so close to breaking, I didn't want to risk the potentially valuable victory points. I managed to kill the rest of his army on that turn but Suladan won his combat and killed both of his foes. I was broken and my Mahud Tribesmaster would have to take that dreaded courage test on the next turn.
On the following turn, I won priorty and picked up a pair of dice. I needed that same 7 again and this time the dice smiled at me rolling an 8. I was able to charge the Tribesmaster into Suladan and then completely surround him with other models. On that last turn, Jeremy failed to roll a six and I won the combat and managed to inflict 11 wounds on the trapped Haradrim King. His army was completely wiped out. However, since I was broken, the scenario rules dictated that the best result I could achieve was a Minor Victory.
This game was very enjoyable for me, especially since my plan worked out almost perfectly. I avoided a near fatal brain cramp with the exposed Tribesmaster, but otherwise things went almost perfectly. One thing I really failed to remark on in this report was how brutal Jeremy's dice were. Even on the combats where I didn't roll a 6 to win, Jeremy couldn't seem to roll higher than 3 with most results being 1. It became a running joke as he would toss each crappy die to one side after it failed him. Although I don't know it to be true, I'm fairly certain he's melted those dice into a heap of plastic. They really did deserve it.
The Post-Game
So that was it, the Gathering in the Desert had come and gone. My final count was 3-2-0 with 2 Major Victories, 1 Minor Victory, and 2 Minor Losses. All in all I was quite happy with my performance. I'd made some crucial mistakes in each of the last three games I played. However, for the first time in a major tournament, I'd managed to avoid the dreaded Major Loss and kept earning points, even in the scenarios where I was losing ground.
When the final results were tallied, I ended up third overall in battle points, second overall in appearance judging, and in the top cluster of sportsmanship scores. All this netted out as a Best Overall award! Now, Anthony still finished with the highest point total buoyed by going a staggering 5-0. However, as I described before since he hadn't painted his army, he wasn't going to be eligible for the Best Overall award.
As I said to start of this, I really think the Gathering of the Desert was probably the most fun gaming weekend I've ever had. Tim and Dean did a great job running the event and I absolutely loved the venue. Being able to spend time with so many of my hobby friends was just the icing on the cake. We had group dinners each night and Jeremy, Tim, and I (along with John and Keith on Saturday) stayed up late just shooting the breeze each night. Thanks to everyone for a great weekend!!
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