Tourney Time: Fords of the Potomac

Off to Ashburn, Virginia for a day of competitive Middle-earth we go!

This past Saturday Huzzah Hobbies played host to this year's edition of Fords of the Potomac, arguably the most popular Middle-earth tournament in the DMV area. Serving as a warm-up to August's Nova Grand Tournament with the same 1000 point limit, Fords is a 3 round affair on some really fantastic boards.

After securing the wooden spoon in the last edition of this tournament in December with 700 points of the Cirith Ungol legendary legion, I decided to stick with the forces of Evil and bring along the Army of Gothmog legendary legion.

The List

With a 1000 point limit, all of the strongest profiles in this legion are affordable to take, and the only real question you face is how many orcs you want. In addition to Gothmog with a shield on his warg, I brought along the 3 major named orc captains; Guritz, Goroth, and Zagdush, as well as a Morannon Orc Captain with two-handed weapon, and an Orc Shaman on Warg. The 6 Heroes bring along 64 orcs, a mix of Morannons and Mordor orcs mostly dictated by what models I had available and painted. Included in this mob is an Orc Drummer and two banners, giving us much needed movement and dice rolls.

As far as strategy goes, when I've played this legion in the past I've leaned towards going wide, using my numbers to form a long two-man line of shield orcs supported by spear orcs, with my heroes spread out and held in reserve. The orc captains tend to really be the key to how this list tends to play. All 3 are good fighters and can crush common warriors, but are fragile if caught out, and losing one or two significantly reduces the amount of threats this list has outside of pure numbers. Goroth and Zagdush in particular have access to Heroic Strike and can do double duty as a serious threat to the opponent's leader. If you can get one of these captains into a big combat, you can easily drain all the might from an opponent's leader or killing threat.

Gothmog of course plays the most important role, with his Hatred (man) bubble and Time of the Orc rule, but I also find him to be the part of the list I have the hardest time getting value out of. The legion special rules and his free Master of Battle ability really incentivize playing him passively, trying to stay within 6" of enemy heroes and ready to pounce with the Time of the Orc. At the same time, being the only mounted model and having base 3 attacks makes it very tempting to try and use him to cut through warriors when your lines start to fail. This tends to be my downfall, as having only 1 fate makes him more fragile than you often realize. Additionally, the D4 warg is a very juicy target for enemy shooting, which often forces Gothmog to fight on foot where he struggles much more to be impactful.

The rest of the models in the list serve pretty straightforward purposes: the lone Captain is there to spend his 2 points of might on Heroic Marches and then reliably wounding warriors with his Strength 5 two-handed weapon. The Orc Drummer is there to move the lines or support the carrier in any objective-carrying scenarios. The mounted Shaman is mostly used for Fury, which is so powerful in overcoming one of the biggest orc weaknesses - absolute dogshit courage. I typically opt towards an early Heroic Channeling with the Shaman for a 2-will Fury. At only a 3+ it hits somewhat reliably, and the 5+ save can be very valuable if the Shaman is able to cover a good portion of the line.

My expectations for the tournament were low - I got the Wooden Spoon last time, after all. I figured if I get lucky and face armies with Man-heavy lists I might be able to steal a win, but otherwise was hoping for some fun and close games.

Game 1

vs Nicholas playing The Return of the King Legendary Legion

Game 1 presented a very thematic matchup between the Army of the Dead and the Three Hunters meeting Gothmog's orc army on the battlefield, and I was hoping for a better result than the movie depicted. Our scenario was Breakthrough, where victory points are given for control of the 4 central objectives, with an emphasis on the objective on the opponent's board half, as well as killing leaders and breaking the opponent.

I deployed my orcs into two main forces, with two in reserve, each poised to challenge for the central objectives. Nicholas had deployed similarly, with the King of the Dead and Gimli on one flank, and Aragorn leading troops on the other flank. Army of the Dead present a difficult challenge to my army, as the abysmal courage of the orcs makes it extremely difficult to charge and overwhelm with the significant numbers advantage I had. Defense 8 also means my Strength 3 Mordor Orcs were only wounding on 6/4+, which can really frustrate my killing potential. I wasn't too worried about dealing with Aragorn or Gimli - feeding them an Orc or two a turn would hopefully buy me enough time to reduce the troop counts and hopefully get numbers to the objectives. I also felt like if I could break a hole in the line large enough for an orc or two to get through, I may be able to use the Drummer to push them onto the back objective and gain some key VPs.

The first notable action of the game definitely wasn't what I was hoping for; as the lines marched towards each other, Nicholas wisely planted Legolas next to some terrain near his back objective, and used the 2+ Deadly Shot to snipe the warg out from under Gothmog before he could get into combat. The clashing of the lines actually started somewhat in my favor, as we managed to kill a few Warriors of the Dead and didn't lose much to the initial cav charge from his 4 Riders of the Dead.

After a few turns of combats the next major flashpoint came when Guritz tried to push around the edge of the line in the center of the board, but lost a Heroic Move-off to the King of the Dead, who charged him and flash-killed him in the ensuing combat. At this point I felt like I needed to try and empower my numbers advantage to focus on breaking through to the objectives, and successfully cast a channeled Fury with my Shaman at the middle of the board. With the Terror neutralized in the center, I threw Gothmog into the fray. It only took a turn or two before the center of the board saw Gothmog and the King of the Dead clash, which went unresolved for multiple combats, with Gothmog winning once and failing to wound, then losing and successfully Fate-ing his wound.

On the right of my line, Aragorn had been chewing through Morannon Orcs one at a time while I tried to kill the 2 Riders of the Dead that were pushing to my back objective and the 4 orcs I had left there. Eventually a path opened up for Goroth to charge into a fight with Aragorn, supported by 3 other orcs. I took the chance, knowing that this was my chance to kill the leader or at least force out some Might & Will. The combat lived up to the moment, as we tied our Heroic Strike at Fight 10, tied the duel roll at 6, and then Goroth succeeded on the roll off to win the combat for evil. With Goroth's two S5 Tw0-handed strikes and the 3 additional S4 attacks from the Morannons (+ Hatred [Man]), we managed to deliver 3 wounds to Aragorn, who went on to fail all 3 of his fate rolls.

The joy of crushing Aragorn and securing some VPs was quickly extinguished as the next turn saw the King of the Dead finally overcome Gothmog, who had already spent his Fate and fell to a single wound from the King of the Dead's Drain Soul ability. With both leaders dead, the board state was still very even. I was unable to breakthrough on the right objective, and a single Rider of the Dead had broken through and was bearing down on my back objective. At the left objective, Zagdush and the Morannon Orc Captain had mostly collapsed the enemy line, and Zagdush even managed to kill Gimli. Nicholas had wisely retreated his remaining troops onto the objective and were holding my orcs out of the range of scoring any points. Once my army broke, my low courage took it's toll and the army melted away, ceding any chance of securing objectives in the process.

The final result was a 6-3 Minor Loss, securing at least one tournament point, and I think a fair result. I was happy to get a leader kill, but was frustrated that I couldn't bring my numbers advantage to bear on the objectives or keep Gothmog alive. In retrospect I would have pushed more aggressively to advance my line to the objectives where I could win just by causing a stalemate.

Game 2

vs. Paul R. playing Thranduil's Halls

Moving into the second round I was hoping to get drawn against one of the few Minas Tirith armies I had seen, both for themey reasons and to get my Hatred(Man) bonus, but instead I ended up with one of the least appealing matchups - elves. Paul was bringing Thranduil with all the accoutrements on his elk, as well as Tauriel and a mounted Legolas, supported by a mix of Mirkwood Rangers, Palace Guards, and Wood Elf Sentinels. The scenario this round was Divide and Conquer, which wasn't the worst outcome for me. Fighting over central objectives would hopefully benefit my numbers advantage as long as I could keep the major threats out of the center, and I was able to split up my movement boosts into both deployment zones.

The game's actions kicked off on a very familiar note, as Legolas again 360-no-scoped the warg out from under Gothmog in the early game. I tried to speed ahead towards the center objective with a Heroic March and using my Orc Drummer, but Thranduil's movement on the Elk and his Mirkwood cavalry intercepted my secondary force. This is where things started going downhill, as Thranduil crashed into my lines with force. I narrowly averted disaster as Paul used Thranduil's Circlet to try and knock prone Zagdush, Guritz, and my Shaman all in one go, but Guritz was able to resists on his 1 Will. He then won a heroic move off to charge into Thranduil, but was handily defeated in combat, being the first of my heroes to fall yet again.

The next turn had two pivotal moments, neither of which went my way. With Thranduil now in the center of the battlefield and completely out of might, I had a golden opportunity to fling Zagdush and a few orcs into him, Strike up, and potentially flash-kill the enemy leader. Unfortunately Zagdush failed his courage test when attempting to charge, and the orcs that did manage to failed to win the fight. On the right flank of the board, where Legolas' warband was churning through orcs, I managed to get an advantageous combat with the Orc Captain against Legolas, but completely whiffed the wound roll. The only bright spot of the turn came far away from the objectives, where a de-warged Gothmog and Goroth were crushing the contingent of Mirkwood Rangers Paul had sent to intercept them.

Having missed my chance to crush Thranduil and Legolas, my last hope was to get superior numbers onto the central objective, which was worth the most points and had only a small contingent of elves remaining. Unfortunately the game went to time as Gothmog & Goroth's forces were still a full move away from getting within scoring range, and I ended up taking a major loss 8-0.

This loss was definitely a more disappointing one - I felt like with at least one more turn I would have flipped the center objective and secured a 5-3 victory, and I also knew I had made two big misplays that likely cost me the game. First, the pathing I took with Gothmog and Goroth's forces around terrain left me too far away from scoring position. Once Gothmog lost his warg I got a little wary of sending him straight into the fray, and opted to try and wipe out Paul's flank that consisted mostly of squishy Mirkwood Rangers. Second, the turn where Zagdush failed to charge Thranduil on a heroic move could have been prevented if I had used the Shaman earlier to cast fury or used the Shaman to call the Heroic Move and forgoe my usual strategy of Channeling for the Fury save. It's impossible to know if Zagdush would have won the combat anyway, but after seeing him delete Gimli in the last game I confident he could secure me at least one wound on the might-less elf leader. To Paul's credit, he did a fantastic job of utilizing his wargear, forming a lot of 2 elf combats where he could two-hand on the front line and increase his killing power without sacrificing his fight advantage.

Game 3

vs. Chris S. playing Angmar

The final game of the day was an orc civil war on a very appropriately themed table, and if I'm honest, a complete nightmare matchup for me. Chris brought a beautiful batch of Angmar orcs, led by the Witch King on Fell Beast, Ghulavar, Buhrdur, a Barrow-wight, and a few Dead Marsh Spectres. I felt pretty dispirited from the start, knowing that my low courage and lack of shooting meant I would have a very hard time initiating combats or threatening his flying models. For this final scenario we were vetoing from pool 4, which ended up playing To The Death. I felt like this scenario gave me my best chance, as you score for points for having banners (I had two) and I hoped my numbers would prevent me from breaking too easily.

The game went about how I expected it to - our hordes slowly marched towards each other in a line, and then once in range, the Angmar magic started to immediately throw my game into disarray. I made a sizable misplay right off the bat, as the Witch-king targeted my Shaman with a Sap Will, which I attempted to resist, and failed. Already down 1 Will, the spell took the rest, turning my shaman into a very expensive Warg Rider, and preventing me from getting my Fury bubble, which was essential to bypassing Terror or the Fell Light courage checks. The game went bad to worse shortly after, as Buhrdur managed to throw a frontline orc through my ranks and de-warg the Shaman.

I used this hurl as a chance to swing for the fences, using a Heroic Move to get Gothmog on the charge into Buhrdur. It was a big risk to throw my leader right into their biggest foot threat, and it nearly paid off as we both struck up and Gothmog clutched a banner re-roll to a 6 to win the fight. He only managed to deal 2 wounds however, so the troll would live to fight another day.

At the same time, I noticed that I had gotten Zagdush into a position where I could Heroic Combat off of a single Angmar Orc directly into the Witch-king and potentially deliver a knockout punch. The first part of the combat went off swimmingly, but Zagdush failed to win the key fight and was instantly crushed by the Fell Beast's S6 attacks. Chris began to take advantage of his huge movement advantage at this point, and swung Ghulavar over into the central line to clear some of my orcs. Gothmog and Buhrdur were still locked in combat, however Gothmog was now transfixed by the Witch-king and ripe for the kill. A contingent of orcs led by my Morannon Captain had begun to swing around a terrain piece to the back of Buhrdur's line, and I saw an opportunity to slingshot off of a lone orc and into the Buhrdur/Gothmog combat with my Captain. Unfortunately Chris saw exactly what I had in mind, and counter-called my heroic combat with Ghulavar. He won the roll off, easily won his fight, and flew the big vampire directly into my Captain, easily deleting the threat in the ensuing combat.

With Gothmog now transfixed and alone, he lost the combat and Buhrdur rended him to death. After that things went from bad to worse, with my line slowly ground down and my remaining heroes Goroth and Guritz doing their best to stay alive for the inevitable break. With the game going to time, Chris dialed in on achieving his final objective of wiping out my banners. He had already pulled one banner out of the line with Fell Light and had a Warg Rider take him down, and now had pushed my other banner back off my main battle line. I had run an orc out to hand the banner off to, but he flew Gulhavar in to finish the job, and heroic combatted the Witch King into the other orc. Killing them both on the final turn meant both my banners were gone and my leader had been killed. Neither of us broke, but I still fell with another major loss.

Post Tournament Coping

Despite the results, I was pretty content the overall result. Two of the three matches felt very close, and with all the matchups being uphill battles, that felt like a bit of a moral victory. I knew when choosing Army of Gothmog that my low courage was one of my biggest weaknesses, and all three of my opponents were able to cause Terror. In the first game I did well overcoming it, less so in the second where I mistimed my Fury, and was completely crushed by it in the final game. The list performed pretty well in the areas I thought it would, and I was pleasantly surprised with how effective Goroth and Zagdush are. I think if I were to run it back, I would definitely drop my numbers to take more Morannons, and re-think the way I use and position Gothmog. And hopefully get a round against an army of men.