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.

Because the deployment of units happens at the end of each player's Move Phase, it's generally considered better to deploy second instead of first so you can respond to your opponent's deployments. Additionally, it is sometimes recommended that if you don't want your opponent to pick the deployment point for your warband, you'll want to use a Might point on the warband leader to increase a 3 to a 4 or decrease a 2 to a 1. If you're deploying your first warband, it probably doesn't matter who places their arrival point, but if you're deploying first and you need your warband near another warband, you'll want to spend Might to place the arrival point where you want. If your opponent has already deployed, allowing your opponent to place the arrival point probably means you're in for a scrap on Turn 2 . . . which could be fine, but is likely to be bad.

There are a few heroes who can either modify their rolls or those of others (Madril, Guritz, and Robin Longfellow), some army bonuses that provide roll modifiers (the Iron Hills and the Rangers of Mirkwood LL), and one hero who is treated as always rolling a 6 (Lurtz). If any of these options are available to you, you'll want to review the rules to make sure warbands are brought onto the board in the right order.

When it comes to deployment, there is a common strategy where players will attempt to deploy near a corner so that whether they get a north/south or east/west roll doesn't really matter. This is often employed by armies that have heroes who provide a lot of synergies (like Cirdan or Galadriel) or when there is a potentially vulnerable unit (like a siege weapon or Denethor). By allowing your army to deploy together, you're probably committing to spending Might to modify your rolls, but you'll also have your synergistic models where you need them.

If your warbands are pretty self-contained and don't need to be next to each other, you can basically deploy anywhere you want. More than anything else, the scenario rules will probably determine where your warbands go down. This can also be the strategy for armies with lots of warbands - if you know you have 6+ warbands, then someone is probably showing up everywhere, so spending Might to be where someone else is will probably not be necessary.

The main thing most players who lose priority on the first round will try to do is deploy near any enemy warbands that were deployed in an isolated position. This can allow them to bring a greater mass of their army to bear on a small part of the enemy army. The player who goes second needs to be careful about their deployment rolls, as a 2 or 3 might see one of their warbands deployed in an are teaming with enemy models. In general, it's better to lose priority on the first turn, but you might also start with less Might than your opponent.

Okay, let's talk about the first maelstrom scenario and different options for winning it.

Hold Ground 

This is one of my favorite scenarios - it gives decent points for breaking the enemy and extra VPs for breaking the enemy without being broken yourself (1-3VPs), it gives a few VPs for wounding or killing the enemy army leader (1-2VPs), and the remaining VPs are tied to the actual scenario objective (3VPs if you have more models within 6" of the center of the board, 5VPs if you have double the numbers, and 7VPs if you have triple or more models than your opponent). There's a strong emphasis on breaking the enemy and getting into the center, which means there's likely to be a lot of action.

There's an interesting balance that needs to be struck in this scenario: the fastest way to get to the center of the board will be to deploy as close to the center of a board edge as possible, but deploying near the center requires other warbands to get the same board edge on their rolls, instead of just getting a 4+ and picking a spot near a corner. If it's critically important to your list or play style that all of your warbands deploy close to each other, you need make sure there are speed boosts in your list as well.

There are lots of ways to play this scenario, but they boil down to a single principle: when the game ends, you want to have more bodies in the center than the other guy. Let's see how this can be applied.

Strategy #1: Block and Break

Because this scenario randomly ends after one side breaks, the simplest strategy is to run to the center, form a hedge of troops that will keep any enemy models from being in range, and then breaking while you have 3+ models in the center and your opponent has none. This strategy works well for horde armies that also have good Courage, but also rewards armies for having enough speed augments to get to the center first. If you deploy in the corner, this may not be a great strategy - your units will need to be super fast to pull it off.

This strategy is also high risk, since you don't know how long the game will go on and if you can't also break your opponent's army, he may get a out half as many VPs as you will for keeping the enemy out. Assuming that you can keep the buffer in place and assuming that your army leader is safe, this should still be a win, but it becomes a lot more questionable if your opponent also nicks your army leader or if you get down to 2 friendly models in range. Still, this is a common strategy for Centaur and myself.

Exemplar factions: basically any high-ish model count faction with average-Defense and Heroic March/fast units who don't think they can win a prolonged shieldwall fight, but especially the Army of Dunland LL and Azog's Hunters

Strategy #2: Shoot and Rush

Shooting heavy lists will always struggle with scenarios that require you to go somewhere - they want to be stationary and shooting with all the bows at their normal Shoot Value. If possible, they want to scoot very slowly towards the middle, picking people off as they approach the center. In my experience, this is a great way to lose to the previous strategy - in your desire to kill a lot of guys, you make a slow approach to the scoring radius (just what the other guy wants) and you threaten to break him before you're in scoring range (which is also what he wants).

A better approach for shooting heavy lists is to have some of your archers moving and shooting - always at someone in scoring range if you can - while other models move their full distance towards the center. On the following turn, those models can move at half speed while the models who shot on the previous turn move full. This will make you marginally slower than moving full on two turns and will reduce your archery as well, but it does the best job of playing to the strengths of the list while still trying to get to the center.

Exemplar factions: any faction with higher-than-normal shooting but NOT crossbows, such as the Serpent Horde, the Rangers of Ithilien LL, and the Rangers of Mirkwood LL. Skirmish cavalry lists like Elrond/Rivendell Knight lists and the Riders of Eomer probably apply here as well, but they cross over into another strategy as well.

Strategy #3: Race and Grind

Similar to the first strategy, the plan here is to get to the center quickly, but instead of trying to break in order to end the game before your opponent can get to the center, the plan is to have a tough army that can win a prolonged contest with the enemy. This is often employed by shieldwall or phalanx units who have at least D6 - especially Easterlings, Minas Tirith, Dunharrow, and almost every kind of Dwarf list.

The challenge with this approach is that most shieldwall grinds are slow, so if your opponent got to the center first (which really isn't hard if you've got Dwarves and you left your March options at home), you may not have enough time to get the model advantage. If you plan to do this strategy, you'll want to focus on getting traps where you can and being very mindful of how your units back away or make way when you lose fights.

Exemplar factions: already mentioned were Easterlings, Minas Tirith, Dunharrow, and any non-Dwarf-Ranger-heavy Dwarf list, but also Arnor, D6-heavy Mordor/Isengard lists, and Half-Troll-heavy Far Harad lists. Monster spams might fall under this category too.

Strategy #4: Combats and Cavalry Charges

The final approach is best done by hero-heavy or all-hero lists - you plan to call a stream of Heroic Combats to clear out a bunch of scoring units or get closer to the center of the board. While low model count lists can certainly struggle on this scenario, if they're focused on the victory conditions, it's not hard for 4-5 beater heroes to carve through 20 guys in two rounds. Cavalry-heavy lists can do this too, focusing on bringing the model disparity down before the enemy has enough time to react.

While these Combats or charges can certainly be used to clear out the center of the board, they can also be used to ambush an enemy warband early - smashing an isolated warband or two can have huge implications for later in the game, but you need to be mindful of how many models your opponent has left, as you don't want to get carried away and break the enemy before you have time to get to the center.

Exemplar factions: cavalry lists that brought a lot of heroes, such as the Riders of Theoden LL and most Elrond/Twins/Rivendell Knight lists (especially if they allied in Boromir of Gondor or Aragorn - Strider from the Fellowship for extra Might). Far Harad camel spams and Khandish chariot spams probably count as well.

Conclusion

If you have any strategies for playing Hold Ground (or if you have thoughts on any of these ones), let us know in the comments below! Next time, we'll be reviewing another maelstrom scenario: Command the Battlefield. This scenario is very much the opposite of Hold Ground - the center isn't worth any VPs and the other quadrants of the board are worth more cumulatively than the center is in Hold Ground. Naturally, this is going to cause different deployment and maneuvering strategies to be used. Find out what those strategies are next time - and until then, happy hobbying!