1/25/2024 - LVO and 2024
Hello Everyone!
I'm back! (Hopefully). Work has been a bit crazy the last few months, so I haven't been able to focus much on MESBG, but hopefully I have hit the other side and can start chugging along again.
To start, I want to go over my tourney experience at the Las Vegas Open last weekend! LVO was a 5 (originally 6) round, 800 point tourney. We used the veto system and the scenarios were put together in randomized pools. Players were allowed to bring both a good and evil army, and swap each round, or just one army. While 48 tickets sold, there were a few drops, but we still ended up with 37 participants. LVO doubled in size from last year, and FLG committed to upping the count to 64 tickets next year! We had many tables from all over, with the TO, Patrick, and the folks from Arizona contributing a ton.
My list was a Huscarl heavy Dunland (who'd have thunk), with 4 Crebain. I went for a few less models that usual, but also bumped up to 5 heroes, compared to my normal 4, which turned out to be very useful. Having 18 Huscarls to go along with them made it fairly likely that at any given point I have a spear support and fight 4. Eventually I will write an article going deeper onto how I build my Dunland lists, and how it differs from typical Dunland lists I see, but for now I will just focus on my matches.
I could ramble on about all my games and fantastic opponents, but that would be a long read, so I am just going to give quick summaries of each game and quick notes on what I think I did well or could have done better.
Game ended 2-3 as a minor loss. I pressured his back objective but on the last turn, Gorulf and Thrydan failed a heroic combat to take it fully, and Thrydan took a wound for his trouble, leading to a really tight end. I did get to make a bear-skin cloak with the remains of Grimbeorn, however Beorn, while without fate, skirted unwounded. I lost the left and rear objective sadly due to courage tests, if I had commited a Huscarl a piece to both, It would have been a likely 5-3 win
Game ended 8-0 as a major win. The birds caught Deorwine's warband early, and a few important priority and heroic move wins let my line to just overwhelm the riders, cutting many down on 4s thanks to hatred, including Theoden very early. From there I tried to get the objective, and sucesfully picked it up with Crebain, however the game ended on a roll before I could fly it off the following turn. This was one of those games that could have heavily swung against me if the Cav charged.
Game 3 - Minas Tirith - To The Death
Game ended 6-5 as a minor win. The center rough terrain presented a good spot for me to dig in, so I marched twice up the board as a block with my entire army and just got myself stuck there, making it difficult for my opponent to get a lot of his troops engaged on one side, while I tried to collapse his other, and also kept his Cavalry from engaging effectively. It was a real grindy game that could've gone either way near the end, and ended in my favor after I quartered Minas Tirith.
Game 4 - Azog's Legion + Hunters - Lords of Battle.
Game ended 1-4 as a minor loss. What can I say about this one except fun fun fun. We both had a list that would rip the other to shreds when winning combats. I felt I did a good job keeping Bolg contained (he ended up only getting 6 kills during the game), but the difference maker ended up being the Crebain. Them having 4 wounds ended up being my undoing, resulting in me getting 40 wounds to his 54. Definitely was my favorite match of the weekend.
Game ended a 3-7 minor loss. I played a gamble on this one that ended up not paying off, but I was content to munch some troops since I already knew I had not performed well enough to podium. I ended up spending a couple might to have my entire army box in The Betrayer, and I went to town ripping apart troops, however I could not break away fast enough to get to the middle, and the game ended up immediately ending the first roll we had after my opponent broke, having him control the middle while I had broken him.
So all in all, I ended up going 2-3. I felt generally good about my play, I got to embrace my inner Dunlending and played very aggressively with my models, putting my opponents on a back foot, just a few of the matchups and scenarios lended themselves a bit better to my opponents than me. Being able to swarm with 4 Crebain was very effective, allowing for comboing Heroic Combats to shred opposing models, and having so much fearless and bodyguard let me confidently charge where I needed, and stay on the board if/when I broke, although I sadly did not face any terror spam. A secondary objective of the weekend was getting the most hero kills, I was able to pick up 10, but shy of the winner's 13. What I am more proud of is that even with 5 mid/low tier heroes, I only had 4 die the entire weekend - Frida twice, The Oathmaker once, and the Chief once (to courage - thanks Bolg Harbinger). I'm very happy that I actually finished painting my army - I was painting in the hotel Thursday night. I could still do with some touch-ups, and did not get to wash them, but I was getting compliments - although I think it was just because the models are very well made, not because I painted them well.
2024:
2024 is going to be a big year. I am currently working on overhauling my room to be more conducive towards hobbying and crafting, and less a dump stuff everywhere box. I do plan on finishing my series going over all the Isengard models and armies, and want to spend a lot of focus on painting and design, hopefully even using the 3d printer I have had sitting for 2 years.
Another big project I'm working on is getting Southern California organized to have more consistent events and even a league, building up to a 32 person event in September. Being the most populous area in all of the US, I definitely know that we have the numbers to have people playing every weekend if they wanted to, and I plan to get everyone connected to be able to do that.
For events, I plan on being at Adepticon for it's 750 2 day event in March, bringing the might of Assault Upon Helms Deep (yes I am stooping that low), and hopefully I am able to grab a ticket to Nova this year as well, and no one will be able to stop me from grabbing a ticket for Clash on the Coast 3, since I missed last year.
Thanks everyone for reading, and I'll see you next time!
-Scott
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