Tiberius's Recap: The 2023 Winter Whirlwind Tournament

Good morning gamers,

Last weekend, I competed with 7 other people at the 2023 Winter Whirlwind tournament - something Centaur threw together last minute to get people who are new to the game or who have disappeared from the game acquainted with it (making "whirlwind" very appropriate). As I talked about last week, I brought a 300-point Theodred's Guard LL list that I thought was capable of playing all the scenarios well:

• Theodred, Heir of Rohan on horse with throwing spears and shield [ARMY LEADER]
• 5 Rohan Royal Guards with throwing spears
• 4 Warriors of Rohan with throwing spears and shields
• 1 Warrior of Rohan with throwing spears, shield, and banner
• 5 Riders of Rohan

When the deadline for army registrations was over, Centaur sent out the list of forces that would be competing - here's what I was looking at (with 5 random rounds):

• Centaur: 14-model Army of Dale LL with Brand, a Captain, and 12 Warriors of Dale
• To avoid having an odd number of players, Centaur dropped and ran the tournament only.
• Alfredo: 13-model Defenders of Helm's Deep LL list with Theoden, Haldir, 7 Warriors of Rohan, and 4 Galadhrim Warriors
• Gorgoroth: 14-model Dead of Dunharrow list with the King of the Dead and 13 Warriors of the Dead
• Red Jacket: 10-model Rohan list with Eorl the Young, 4 Sons, 3 RRGs, 1 Rider of Rohan with banner, and 1 Outrider
• The Black Prince: 12-model Rohan list with Elfhelm, Dernhelm, and 9 Riders of Rohan with throwing spears (his usual fare)
• Ambassador Kellar: 15-model Kingdom of Moria list with Balin, a ballista, 2 Khazad Guard, 3 Iron Guard, and 7 Dwarf Warriors
• Tyler: 15-model Isengard list with Lurtz, a drummer, 4 Berserkers, 9 Uruk-Hai Warriors
• Ethan: 16-model Halls of Thranduil list with Legolas, 8 Mirkwood Elves, 5 Mirkwood Rangers, and 2 Wood Elf Sentinels 

Feeling like I had a shot (and loving the fact that I wasn't running the event and wouldn't have to fight two of these guys), I got locked into Round 1!

Round 1: Divide and Conquer vs. Ambassador Kellar's Kingdom of Moria 

Well, the ballista set up staring at the center of the map and the Dwarves advanced slowly towards the center objective. We were there to challenge them and got locked in quickly (with one Royal Guard and a horse being lost to the ballista - I will take that). Theodred romped through a few Dwarves, but got tagged by a Heroic Combat from Balin as the game was closing in on the last five minutes. One 6 from Balin and a mess of wounding dice later and Theodred fell. 

Balin got tagged on the next turn as I threw models into the center, but one last Heroic Combat from Balin saw the Dwarf lord reach the center to tie the objective. I lost 2-5 (sole control of 1 objective each, I was barely broken and lost my army leader), which could have been a 5-5 draw if I had killed one more model in the center - and a 5-3 victory if Theodred hadn't been killed (Ambassador Kellar almost charged into some grunts instead). The game was super fun and I spent a good deal of time explaining the nuances of the rules set, since my opponent hadn't played the game in close to seven years (kinda glad I had him first)!

Round 2: Fog of War vs. Ethan's Halls of Thranduil 

Well, I knew three things going into this one: 1) Legolas needed to die for me to get points, 2) Legolas had to live for Ethan to get points, and 3) Legolas was going to hide. As such, my goal was to break the Elves without breaking myself, completely control my terrain piece, and keep Theodred healthy. 

As you can kind of see above, the Elves deployed split (Legolas and the Mirkwood Rangers are hiding behind that bridge and a nearby building) and they had terrible archery luck all game - they killed a horse and 1-2 models, but there were a lot of failures too (one of my Riders of Rohan walked away from 6 shots that got past a ruin with his life and his horse). Theodred killed 5 Elves (I think), calling 2 Strikes and 1 Heroic Move to deal solid damage on the charge. Thankfully, there were enough Elves in the shieldwall that I could kill most of them and get the break points. I only just broke him on the last turn and won 9-6, putting me in a four-way tie for third with a minor loss and a minor win as we broke for lunch. Ethan was great as an opponent and learned from me how those Elven cloak things work for his Rangers.

Round 3: Breakthrough vs. Tyler's Isengard 

After lunch, I got to hit the front-runner of the tournament - new player Tyler and his mob of Uruk-Hai. I have to say, this round was a wild ride - Tyler is a smart player and as you can see in the picture above, I relied on a Long Fangs formation to make sure I had running lanes for my cavalry. Unfortunately, I had my cav a little too close to my infantry and didn't get to move first for the first three turns. Yeah, we were on the back foot.

Thankfully, I saw the writing on the wall early and ran three cavalry for the side and rear objectives and when I broke, I was actually winning 8-3 with less than 10 minutes left. Sworn Protector did its thing for one turn, until Theodred got charged by Lurtz, lost a roll-off, and died. Frankly, he'd quit the whole game, losing all but one fight and killing a single model. In what became the final turn of the game, almost all my remaining models fled the field as Tyler's drum allowed his Uruk-Hai to swarm most of the objectives. With sole control of Tyler's rear objective, I got a major loss of 4-11.

It took about 5 minutes for both of us to calm our racing hearts and process that fight - we were both so into it and it was a nail-biting game despite me never getting a charge off. I don't care what the final score was, I was super proud of my boys! With three major victories under his belt, Tyler was all but guaranteed to win the tournament - and I can tell you he deserves every bit of it if he can win another game or two.

Round 4: To the Death vs. Red Jacket's Rohan

 

I knew before I knew the scenario that I would need to do two things to beat Red Jacket: kill his mounts with shooting and deny cavalry bonuses. Naturally, I set up a Long Fangs formation (keeping a little more back than I did last game) . . . and it worked brilliantly. Before Red Jacket charged, I shot 1 Royal Guard's horse with a bow and killed a Son of Eorl with a throwing spear. When the charge came, my cavalry turned off the charge bonuses, Theodred rammed into the flank, Combatted with a few friends into other fights, and Red Jacket found himself on the back foot. 

He acquitted himself well, almost breaking me and getting a few free Might points out of Eorl, but not getting to keep charge bonuses for long because I always had 1-2 cavalry in reserve to counter-charge, which really limited his damage output. In the end, Theodred and Eorl were undamaged, Red Jacket broke but wasn't quartered, and I killed his banner while keeping my own alive. This translated into a 7-0 major win for me. Red Jacket was having a bit of a rough ride with his Eorlingas, and I felt bad about how one-sided the match turned out to be - but as always, Red Jacket is a great opponent, able to agonize over the rough patches for both players.

Round 5: Retrieval vs. Gorgoroth 

I told my son before the tournament that I would love to not have to fight him, so naturally, we fought in the last round. His previous rounds that day had seen him lose to a horde of Uruks who wouldn't stop rolling 6s, lose during a slog across the field to charge a Defenders of Helm's Deep list in To The Death, and two close wins against a throwing spear heavy Rohan list and a desperate objective game against a host of Elves. And now, he had to play against the army he'd played against for the last month. I think we both had the same thought: this is gonna be rough.

So I decided I didn't care if I won by a lot - heck, I didn't care if I won at all. I wanted my son to go out on a high note and we had the most enjoyable game of the tournament, where his dead refused to die to anyone who wasn't Theodred, a lone ghost swept towards my flag, and two riders swept towards his. In the end, we both managed (one turn apart) to get our captured flags off our board edges and we broke each other. if these were the only points being scored, we would have pulled a draw.

So far in the tournament, Theodred had been really off and on: he killed some Dwarves before he died, he killed a good chunk of Elves, he killed one Uruk, and he killed some Rohirrim. However, in this game, he killed 2 Warriors of the Dead each turn for the first three turns thanks to 3 one-on-one Heroic Combats. He then proceeded to headhunt 1 Warrior of the Dead each turn after that until only the King of the Dead and the ghost running the flag towards the board edge were left. Then, despite having a few friendly models hanging around, Theodred went mono-e-mono with the King of the Dead (you know, to make things interesting), won the fight, and killed him. Both of us were broken by the end, but with the death of the army leader, I pulled a last minute 10-8 minor win. My son was a bit disappointed, but he still had a good time.

Tournament Results

With 3 wins and 2 losses, I was tied for 3rd with Ambassador Kellar's Moria list, but since Centaur breaks ties based on who submits their lists first, I got 3rd place! Centaur brought a bunch of prizes and had the lowest ranked player pick one out, working up to the first ranked player (which went to Tyler and his Uruk-Hai - cheers to him on his debut!). My reward was . . .

Yep, more Rohan! Not only do I need a few more of these guys for Fantasy Fellowships coming up, but I need a bunch of archers and throwing spears for the various Men of the West builds I have rolling around in my head. 

The only thing I think I would change about my performance in this tournament was placing my cavalry a little bit further back in the third game to keep them from being charged, but honestly, I have no regrets. This was a really fun tournament, Centaur did a great job, it was fun to meet some new players, they all had fun, and everyone was pretty excited to have another event in the spring! I was also really happy that everyone won at least one game and most of the wins were minor wins (so things were close). That's it for now - and until next time, happy hobbying!