The Scouring of the Shire, Part 4: The Old Mill

Good morning gamers,

NOTE: Today, the Kickstarter for Jacob Lucas's Kingdom of Tor Ithilas dropped - and the project is already fully funded! Be sure to check it out (it's a bargain price - and if it's at all like his previous work, the terrain is going to be AWESOME for game play) and back it if you can! Also, I don't get anything for advertising for Jacob - his stuff is just awesome. Okay, back to today's planned content . . .

We're back in the Scouring of the Shire supplement (Hey Reader!) and while the Ruffians had a hard go of it last time, this scenario appears to be a lot more promising. The Ruffians are attempting to take over Sandyman's Mill - and with Ted Sandyman joining them (with the keys to the building in hand), they hope to drive off the rabble-rousing Hobbits that stand in their way and get the wheels of industry moving.

The Old Mill

The board is a 2' x 2' board - but we have a slightly different setup than the book has. Originally, the right board edge is supposed to represent the doors of the mill . . . but Centaur 3D-printed a mill from Dark Realms' Hobbit Village line instead and we're going to enter that. I'll probably do a terrain post near the end of the year, but the design of the 1' x 2' panel that the mill sits on marries up with the two Brandywine River tiles from the previous scenario. 

The forces in this scenario appear to favor the Ruffians pretty heavily - I start with Ted and 12 Ruffians (8 vanilla, 4 with whips), while Centaur has . . . 12 Hobbit Militia. Yikes . . . The Ruffians win if they can get into Sandyman's Mill (with Ted opening the door or by dealing 2 wounds to a D7 door that always counts as being trapped) before they are quartered.

The Board Is Set: How to Play Heirlooms of Ages Past

Good morning gamers,

We're wrapping up our discussion of the Pool 1 scenarios (the "maelstrom scenarios") from the Matched Play Guide and today, we're digging into a scenario that a lot of players don't like: Heirlooms of Ages Past. While the scoring for Hold Ground and Command the Battlefield (the other maelstrom scenarios) are all about having more models in a particular part of the board than the other player, this scenario is very much an all-or-nothing proposition: dig up a shiny thing and hold onto it by the time the game ends. While you can certainly have a knuckle-biter of a game in Heirlooms, what usually happens is that one person secures the Heirloom, bunkers around it, and keeps it to win the game. There's a lot to unpack about this scenario - but let's review the principles of the maelstrom scenarios before we get into specifics (if you've already read our articles on Hold Ground and/or Command the Battlefield, you can skip this section).

Pool 1: Maelstrom of Battle

In most scenarios, you have some control over where you can deploy your units - you usually have a deployment area that is 24-48" deep and you can set up your warbands to support each other however you want. The scenarios in Pool 1 don't work this way - with the exception of siege weapons, one very big tower, and one Legendary Legion, no one starts on the board when you roll for priority. During each player's Move Phase, the controlling player will roll for each warband that hasn't entered the board and depending on what the roll is determines whether the warband arrives (the warband doesn't arrive on the roll of a 1), where it arrives (2 or 4 is the north/south board edges, while a 3 or 5 is the east/west board edge - a 6 lets you choose which board edge you want), and who gets to pick the starting deployment point (2-3 is the opposing player, while a 4+ is the controlling player). Based on the roll, one of the players will pick a point for the warband to walk onto the board. Might can be used to modify this roll. Models are not allowed to charge on the turn that they arrive, but units that can move into enemy units without charging (chariots and war beasts) can, in fact, try to run over enemy units.

Is Arnor Just "Lame Minas Tirith"?

Hey Reader!

Recently when I did my post talking about my predictions/hopes for the new Arnor supplement, one of our commenters made an interesting (and I don't think altogether wrong) comment that "As is, it's hard to see it as anything other than 'lame Minas Tirith'."

And to be honest, YantheMan makes a good point: not only should each army feel different from the others (Mordor and Angmar share a lot of profiles, but they feel very different and are run very differently despite overlapping so much), but there should be a reason to field an army like Arnor over and against Minas Tirith (which will likely always be a more fleshed out faction in the game, and rightly so).

But as someone who has run both Minas Tirith and Arnor, I wanted to spend a few minutes just mulling over whether this claim is actually true, whether this is the right comparison we should be making, and then ending with some thoughts on how the game designers could flesh out Arnor in a way that is satisfying and cool and different without having to invest tens of thousands of dollars into new sculpts (because let's be real: it's not going to happen).

The Board Is Set: How to Play Command the Battlefield

Good morning gamers,

Last time, we reviewed my favorite scenario from Pool 1, Hold Ground. Today, we will be viewing another maelstrom scenario - and one that has a very different strategy to it: Command the Battlefield. This scenario can have far more excitement to it than Hold Ground, but because of how the scoring mechanics work, some armies will have a harder time winning this scenario than others. We'll start off by reviewing how maelstrom scenarios work - if you want to skip this refresher, click here to jump to the specific scenario rules.

Pool 1: Maelstrom of Battle

In most scenarios, you have some control over where you can deploy your units - you usually have a deployment area that is 24-48" deep and you can set up your warbands to support each other however you want. The scenarios in Pool 1 don't work this way - with the exception of siege weapons, one very big tower, and one Legendary Legion, no one starts on the board when you roll for priority. During each player's Move Phase, the controlling player will roll for each warband that hasn't entered the board and depending on what the roll is determines whether the warband arrives (the warband doesn't arrive on the roll of a 1), where it arrives (2 or 4 is the north/south board edges, while a 3 or 5 is the east/west board edge - a 6 lets you choose which board edge you want), and who gets to pick the starting deployment point (2-3 is the opposing player, while a 4+ is the controlling player). Based on the roll, one of the players will pick a point for the warband to walk onto the board. Might can be used to modify this roll. Models are not allowed to charge on the turn that they arrive, but units that can move into enemy units without charging (chariots and war beasts) can, in fact, try to run over enemy units.

The Scouring of the Shire, Part 3: Maggot's Farm

Good morning gamers,

We're back for more Scouring of the Shire fun (Hey Reader)! We're playing the Maggot's Farm scenario which has exactly ten models in it - let's see if Maggot's famous dogs can keep the ruffians out! 

Maggot's Farm

The board is a 2' x 4' space with some wooded areas leading to Maggot's Farm. Centaur added some grazing animals to the landscape and one of his spare Ruffian models is our scarecrow (set up where the road to Maggot's land begins). The dogs start the game as sentries and are spread out within 6" of the scarecrow. The Ruffians will come on from the right side of the board on the first turn and Maggot might arrive starting on the turn after the dogs spot the Ruffians. The Ruffians win if four or more of them cross over the left board edge, while the dogs/Maggot win if they can kill four of them. If three get off and the other three die, the game is a draw.

Unlike other Sentry missions, this scenario gives the dogs a 6" detection range instead of a 3" detection range (or being hit but not killed by archery, per the usual) . . . which is huge. Because this happens at night, the dogs also cause Terror in this scenario (which is big) and I only hit on a 6 in this scenario with my shooting attacks (1 whip and 3 bows), which . . . isn't THAT bad considering our 5+ Shoot Value, but is also not great. With the lower Fight Value and only double the dogs' starting model count, we'll see how this goes!

The Board Is Set: How to Play Hold Ground

Good morning gamers,

We're beginning a new series this week that will be looking at the different scenarios in the Matched Play Guide and how you can approach each one. It came as a surprise to me that after writing almost 900 articles for this blog over the years . . . we've never actually covered how to win games (except tangentially in the Bare Necessities series - and even that was incompetent). 

We'll be starting with Pool 1, the maelstrom missions. Our first scenario is my favorite of these scenarios: Hold Ground. I don't know if there's a simpler scenario objective in the entire game - get to the middle and stay in the middle. Let's go over some of the features of Pool 1 and then we'll dive into Hold Ground specifically (if you'd like to skip over this review of how maelstrom works, click here).

Pool 1: Maelstrom of Battle

In most scenarios, you have some control over where you can deploy your units - you usually have a deployment area that is 24-48" deep and you can set up your warbands to support each other however you want. The scenarios in Pool 1 don't work this way - with the exception of siege weapons, one very big tower, and one Legendary Legion, no one starts on the board when you roll for priority. During each player's Move Phase, the controlling player will roll for each warband that hasn't entered the board and depending on what the roll is determines whether the warband arrives (the warband doesn't arrive on the roll of a 1), where it arrives (2 or 4 is the north/south board edges, while a 3 or 5 is the east/west board edge - a 6 lets you choose which board edge you want), and who gets to pick the starting deployment point (2-3 is the opposing player, while a 4+ is the controlling player). Based on the roll, one of the players will pick a point for the warband to walk onto the board. Might can be used to modify this roll. Models are not allowed to charge on the turn that they arrive, but units that can move into enemy units without charging (chariots and war beasts) can, in fact, try to run over enemy units.

Top 5 Predictions (Hopes?) for the Arnor Supplement

Hey Reader!

As you probably know, there's a new supplement coming out for the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game, and it's going to center around Arnor (and likely Angmar, considering the history), so of course we have to do a quick talk on what we anticipate will be in the new supplement! So after a few weeks of pulling together thoughts and ideas, here's my predictions (or probably hopes, to be honest) of what we'd love to see in the new book.

It's worth noting before we begin that I'm the resident Arnor player (and one of the resident Angmar players) in our group, and I've always been a bigger fan of the northern kingdom than the southern kingdom. So I'm pumped that we're getting a new supplement, and want it to be the best one they've ever made (though surpassing Scouring of the Shire is going to be hard).

So with no further ado, our top 5 hopes for the new book!

#5: New Scenarios Tied to Arnor's History

In the Ruin of Arnor supplement from back in the day, there were 6 scenarios, spanning the initial invasion of Arnor through to the death of Arathorn and the rise of Aragorn as chief of the Dunedain. And these scenarios were fine - like many of the old scenarios they are pretty sparse, but good on them for integrating more than just the Angmar and the Arnor models into the mix: you get Dunlendings, Dwarves, and Hobbits as well, all of which is great.

I'd love to see this expanded to include a scenario where the Great Plague is spreading to Arnor, the first incursion of Angmar against Arnor which sacks Amon Sul and causes all of Rhudaur to fall into the hands of Angmar, another scenario with the sacking of Fornost and the driving of Arvedui toward Forochel while his son and most of his people flee west of the Lune, and then the arrival of Earnur from Gondor with reinforcements to aid Arnor and Cirdan of the Grey Havens in pushing deep into Angmar to crush the Witch-King and his minions.

I'd also love to see a scenario showing Aragorn (and possibly also Arathorn) holding the thin line against the forces of evil, showing the desperate plight of those that held to the honorable task of protecting the ancient kingdom of evil things. This would make for a very interesting and exciting set of narrative scenarios that would be awesome for a game day and possibly an intro to the game for new players (which we absolutely love).

Tournament Time: Rythbryt's Army Thoughts (Grand Tournament 2024)

Edited May 6, 2024, with tournament results

Bonus post this week. Must be something special going on... ;)

As faithful readers of the blog know, TMAT's annual GT is coming up this weekend. I generally don't post articles on the armies I'm running (I leave that to Tiberius, who's far more practiced--be sure to check out his article from yesterday, if you missed it). Nor do I generally recap how the tournament went (Centaur's your man... er... horse-man... for that). But I'm making an exception this time, for several reasons:

1. I've been light on generating content recently (and feel somewhat guilty about that);
2. I owe Tiberius at least two podcasts on tournaments that have long since wrapped (and, again, feel somewhat guilty about that);
3. I really liked a number of the lists that I batted around (and felt like sharing them); and
4. Perhaps because I really liked these lists, I actually locked into a list earlier than the final day they were due (actually, almost 2 full weeks before they were due), which meant there was actually time to write a prospective post on it. :-P

Along the way, there were twists and turns and trepidations (well, okay, actually less trepidation than usual). So yeah... if you want some musings about heavy/all-cavalry armies (or their equivalent), with a heavy dose of strategy (and maybe some obsession-bordering-on-neurosis), read on. :)

This may be a spoiler...

Photo Credit: cbr.com

Factual Background (because all of life is a story, right?)

First, a digression that's not really a digression.

About two months ago, TMAT hosted a winter "mixer" tournament designed to be a fun, pseudo-competitive way for the people in our gaming group to play some games (always fun), while also introducing new/newer players to MESBG. Because of that, we had a pretty small tournament by most standards: a 350 point cap (4-model minimum), with 5 games in one day (45 minutes per game). The five scenarios were pre-selected (though not their order), and all opponents were randomized. (For about a 72-hour period, we also thought this was going to morph into a funsies doubles-event, but we did end up having enough players for a full singles event--10 players altogether, which is also a weird number for doubles :-P).

For those of you who are familiar with the Matched Play guide, you know that 45 minutes is... kind of tight for a 350 point game (the guide recommends 1 hour 15 minutes for a game of that size, so this was definitely on the "fast" side). The pool of scenarios for the tournament (Hold Ground, Capture and Control, Destroy the Supplies, Lords of Battle, Divide and Conquer) also offered a mix of "capture objectives" and "kill models outright/around objectives," which posed some... interesting choices given the 45-minute time limit. For objective games, you wanted lots of models (and, in general, I think you want more models than less in MESBG). But more models equals longer phases, which means less rounds (which means less moving, less shooting, less fighting, less botching, etc.). And taking an army composed of slower models (goblins? hobbits?), shooting models (a 6-second shoot phase vs. a 10-minute shoot phase makes a huge difference), or models that last a long time but have trouble wounding standard (D6) shieldwalls (S3/D7 dwarves, for instance) could further complicate things.

So with those issues in mind, as I mulled my options for the tournament (and all told, I think I mulled some 200 different list ideas/variations), I kept finding myself drawn to lists that could move fast, kill very quickly, take a beating... and do all the above without relying on a lot of shooting/time-intensive roll-offs. And ultimately, it worked. I won all five of my games at the GT with a list that consisted of the Dark-Marshal on Fell Beast (F6 wraith who casts normally, on a flying monster, who can also be a 6" banner in a pinch), leading eight Morgul Knights (who I've always loved, and never brought to a tournament before), and four Black Numenoreans on foot (which I have brought to tournaments before, and never disappoint me) for a grand total of 13 models at 350. 

A portend of things to come?

The Road to the TMAT GT 2024 - Tiberius's List

Good morning gamers,

There wasn't a lot of time between the Spring Zephyr tournament and the GT this year, so I streamlined my list testing - a lot. I probably came up with over a dozen 750-pt lists that I wanted to try, but with time of the essence and wanting to get more than one game in before the tournament with my list, I basically focused on two archetypes and just played with those lists. As such, this post is going to be . . . pretty boring if you're looking for list variety. But the lists were fun - and I really enjoyed playing with them. Let's see what I almost took!

Honorable Mention: The Men of the West LL

It's no secret, I'm in the camp of the Men of the West heart and soul. With a player in the UK winning a GBHL90 event (not super competitive but not fluffy either), there were two list builds for the Men of the West that I was keen to try. The one that was least like the lists I've run before (and more like the list that won the event) was one I wanted to have a shot at - and it features the Twins, who I'd need to borrow but have also struggled to kill at previous tournaments:

• Aragorn, King Elessar [ARMY LEADER]
• 1 Warrior of Minas Tirith with shield
• 3 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields and spears 
• 10 Warriors of Minas Tirith with bows
• Eomer, Marshal of the Riddermark with shield
• 15 Warriors of Rohan with shields and spears
• Elladan and Elrohir with heavy armor

750 points, 33 models, 10 bows hitting on a 4+ AND 15 throwing spears hitting on a 4+, 8 D6+ models, no fast models but Heroic March and Mighty Hero, 12+ Might

This list is not as D6-heavy as the GBHL winning list, but it shoots a lot - 10 standard bows and 15 throwing weapons. It's not as many bows as I could have had if I'd left the twins at home (throw in a Captain of Rohan with shield and throwing spears leading a bunch more guys with throwing spears and shields to allow everyone in Aragorn's warband to have bows and you have a nearly all-shooting list with TONS of models, admittedly at D5 with no supporting attacks), but it's still a lot - and we have four hammer heroes in our list (who are pretty good at killing stuff for being infantry). The heroes would all be more devastating if we had taken horses, but we can't do that in the Legion and we can't ally the twins in without bringing one of those really expensive Heroes of Valour/Legend from Rivendell, so we would be getting sub-par heroes if we did an alliance (probably Hurin and upgrading some Rohan models to cavalry).