Doubles Tournament The Hague 2019

Last weekend it was my first time to participate in a tournament in the Games Workshop The Hague.

I went together with my trusted doubles companion Ronny Kost, whom i've played several doubles tournaments with in the last years. 

It was a three round tournament of 1000 points (500 each) and except the good vs evil no limitation on allies with respect to Tolkien lore. That being said we chose to honour the good old professor and chose double Mordor (okay okay, we also like double fellbeasts).

Ronny fielded Khamul on fellbeast, The Mouth of Sauron (MoS), some Morgul Knights and Black Numenoreans supported by Mordor orcs. And i took my fully beefed up (3/20/3) Witch King of Angmar (WIKI) on fellbeast with the Crown of Morgul with me together with Orgh (Morannon captain) and 24 Morannon orcs with a banner.

Travelling by train is to a tournament is always relaxed.

There where some familliar faces in the crowd of 8 teams but i was pleased we came across some new ones in the first round. Always nice to meet new opponents!

Father and son: Jelle and Pieter.

Jelle and Pieter fielded the dwarven army of Thror in coalition with Minas Tirith.

Thror, (young) Thorin Oakenshield, bearded dwarves, Boromir, knights of Minas Tirith (KoMT) and avenger bolt thrower and warriors of Minas Tirith where thrown at us.

The scenario of the first round was "Domination" (capturing and controlling five objectives).

The set up with both parties controlling their objectives, Mordor controlling the central one.

In the centre Thror clashed with the Morannons, who where supported by Khamul. On the right flank the KoMT rushed to either surround the Mordor main force or to capture objective on the right but they met the WIKI in their path. 

One KoMT sneakely approached said objective via a detour around a building.

On the left Thorin visited the MoS and his jolly black Numenoreans.

After dealing with the opponent's cavalry for a bit, the WIKI let his fellbeast eat the sneaky KoMT.

Khamul wreaked havoc among the lines of Thror and the Morgul Knights stopped the remaining KoMT with a little Morannon orc help.

Thorin and the MoS kept eachother in gridlock during the entire match.

Pieter's Avenger bolt thrower decimated my Morannons and Ronny's black Numenoreans.

After much needed help in the centre Khamul and the WIKI flew to the right flank of our opponents to kill the guardians of the enemy objective and claim it.

The MoS came to aid the badly battered Morannon force and helped secure the central objective.

Khamul and the WIKI did the same with the enemy objective on the right.

In the end Mordor won a 7-2 victory.

It was a nice, easy going, match versus the amazingly sportsmanlike Pieter and Jelle.

Silly guys... Team Mordor.

Through the Great Brittish Hobbit League's (GBHL) secret Santa swap by Sebastiaan Raats i came in the posession of these lovely dice with the Tengwar "6" on the proper side due to the generosity of Jim Ryden from Sweden. Well, Jim... they seem to work fine!

In the second round of the tournament the proverbial defeacation hitted the fan when we met the brothers Sam and Faan, who won the first round with a whopping 19-2 victory and are known for quite some years to be some of the Netherands top players.

Hmm, a walk in the park...

They brought with them a coalition of forces the called "Elrond's folly": an alternative Fellowship consisting Elessar, king of Gondor, Glorfindel, the Elven Twins, Theodred and then some...

With TWENTYONE might (and one free/turn due to Aragorn/Elessar) they had some to burn.

Ouchies.

Did i mention a walk in the park?

Right, the scenario this round was "Hold ground" (securing the central objective with more forces than your opponent).

Ronny and i had some setbacks with deployment. Due to the "Maelstrom of battle" rule of the scenario our warbands where not really deployed as we wanted them to and some came late to the battle.

Our esteemed opponents didn't seem to have that challenge.

Well then.

Our somewhat less streamlined deployment with an entire flank still enjoying some tea i reckon.

With the objective in the central temple (to make it more of a challenge) the match developed in a rather beautiful tactical dance with the two sides maneuvering their armies.

Both sides being cautious.

After five or six turns melee finally started with the heroes of Sam and Faan clashing into our right flank. Elessar/Aragorn was sapped of his will earlier and was kept in a supporting role after black darts on his horse failed killing it.

Faan and Sam.

We moved our big hitters a-symmetrical.

Glorfindel came to aid the flank being eaten by fellbeasts.

Glorfindel was being entertained by Orgh as Khamul flew on and the WIKI was mopping up forces contesting the temple.

On our right flank our army was being destroyed and Boromir was threatening to flank us. The enemy heroes where stopped by all means necesarry.

While most of our army was overrun by heroes the temple was somewhat secured.

Time was of an essence when we actually hold ground against the heroes unslaught and won the match 3-0.

It was a very interesting, tactically challenging match in wich both Ronny's conservative, defensive, play at first followed by my gung-ho style paid off. 

And although it was quite tense we even managed to keep it light hearted with lots of sillyness. Chapeau, opponents!

Our tournament organiser and judge, Julian.

After all this gaming violence it was time to present your armies for the best painted army award (BPA).

I really am photographically challenged so please bear with me as i try to show you the armies with my limited skills. Oh and i forgot some armies too, my apologies...

BPA contestants:

Well then, after the break it was time for the finale. With two solid victories we where competing for winning the tournament.

Our next opponents where Larry and Neill: Larry, a relatively new star in the competitive ME-SBG scene here in the Netherlands who did quite well last year in the league and Neill, a familliar face from the Rotterdam White Scars.

For the third time today we faced some Minas Tirith: Ingold, Knight of the White Tower and Madril, another Avenger bolt thrower and as allies Larry fielded his infamous Iron Hills wi th his dreaded Iron Hills Ballistae (the ultimate bane for fellbeasts) paired with Dain on his boar with goatriders.

The scenario was "Fog of War", an interesting scenario with much chance on deceiting eachother since you have to secretly proclaim objectives (one piece of scenery to claim, one hero to kill and one of your own heroes to keep alive).

We chose a portal to claim, the Knight of the White Tower (KotWT) to kill and the MoS to keep safe.

Larry and Neill.

Compact versus stretched lines.

In the first two turns the much feared happened, both fellbeast got annihilated by dead on shots of the ballistae also killing Khamul. The WIKI managed to wound the KotWT and hid in a ruined building.

On the right flank we steamrolled as fast as we could to the portal objective while trying to mask this by trying to claim the nearby woods.

On the left the MoS was waiting for Dain and his goatriders.

Our opponents waited and kept shooting and only Ingold and Dain moved towards us.

Unexpectedly this round was a wee bit shorter and during the last 30 minutes we played accordingly.

Having scored a kill on the KotWT with the WIKI and almost having secured our scenery objective with the designated hero to be saved (although the ballistae kept on firing) we felt safe enough to start camping while on the left flank the MoS contested some scenery pieces with his black Numenoreans.

This blurry picture (sorry...) depicts Dain and his goatriding friends trying to capture their objective.

In the end it seemed that Larry and Neill succeeded to kill their hero target (Khamul) but failed to secure their scenery objective. We reached all three of our goals and so the score was 9-2 for Mordor.

The finalegame could have beeen more epic if we had have gotten more time but it was a great game with enough room for some giggles.

Time for the award ceremonies!

Winner of the sportsmanship award was Pieter.

BPA was awarded to these four gentlemen who had a tie.

And with three solid victories...

Ronny and i won the tournament!

Together with Ronny i had a blast, three fun games all different in their challenges and difficulties and all in good gentlemanlike atmosphere. What more can you ask for?

I would like to thank Ronny Kost, with who it's a true pleasure to team up with. Also big thanks to our opponents and all players who came to the GW The Hague, Julian Toussaint for organising and judging and the Games Workshop The Hague for having us.