maandag 8 april 2019

Tournament Tafelridder Leiden April 2019

Tournament Tafelridder Leiden April 2019


Last weekend i went to Leiden where my friend Ronny Kost organised a 750 points MESBG tournament for the 2nd time at the Tafelridder (great gaming venue and shop).

After two consecutive tournaments of not reaching the top three and feeling i didn't really got 'my game on' since the new edition (okay, top three in Antwerp in December and won the doubles in The Hague with Ronny, but still...) i thought about a radical change.
Although people have stated that after hurl, magic and Nazgul being nerfed, the Flying circus armylist (all Nazgul on fellbeasts) wasn't that good anymore i chose to play it anyway.
I didn't play Flying circus in a wee bit more than a year now and having a busey work/study and familylife i only managed to practice once, the day before the tournament and i lost that teat run on the Capture & Control scenario vs a Fiefdoms list.

Enough of that and on to the tournament.

As i said i fielded the flying circus consisting of: The Witch King (WiKi) on armoured fellbeast with the crown of Morgul (3-19-3), Khamul, Shadowlord and the Undying.
The first round we played Fog of War (protect a  hero other than your general, capture a terrainpiece on the other side and trying to prevent your opponent from doing the same but both are unknown to eachother).
My opponent was Armand, who brought with him the legendary legion of The Return of the King meaning warriors of he dead and their king of the dead and offcourse Gimli, Legolas and Aragorn. Aragorn who counted as a banner and having Anduril for free. The king of the dead caused -1C due to the Harbinger of Evil special rule.

Armand's set up


And mine


My opponent, Armand


I had chosen the Undying to protect, Legolas to kill and a hill with ruins to the left to claim as my objectives.
Legolas was hiding, as a pointy ears type of fellow, behind the bushes and Armand's army and my flapping force closed in on eachother.
I sapped Gimli and cast a Black dart on him as a diversion.


Soon Legolas was threatened and attacked by some winged wraiths


And dealt with

In the meantime some warriors of the dead where heading to my side to claim a terrainpiece while the King of the dead, Gimli and Aragorn speeded to my forces in a vain attempt to rescue the pointy eared elven prince

I casted some spells on my opponents forces from a distance

Compelled some to come near and charged them with Khamul and the Undying

Several times... Although this meant Aragorn was closing in (i wanted to break his force for extra victory points (VP's))

On the other side of the battlefield the Shadowlord and the WiKi Black darted and compelled some warriors of the dead out of their supposed objective

Aragorn managed to charge the Undying

Who had enough will as fate left to prevent harm done to him

In the end i claimed all my objectives and denied his terrainpiece objective

The only thing i should have done differently is maybe taking the cjance on the Undying but then again it did work out well.
The result was a 12-3 victory for Mordor, Armand had wisely chosen Gimli to protect.

It was a good match and good fun too playing the Flying circus again and i do love it when a plan comes together.
Armand was a new opponent to me and it was a pleasure getting to know him.

My lovely wife made me a bentobox so lunch was good

During the lunchbreak people where given the opportunity to vote for best painted army (BPA).
Here are some of the contending armies:

Lars' Fiefdoms

Dirk's Rivendel army

Some douchebag's flying circus (photo went blurry due to cheesyness i reckon)


Larry's Mordor powerhouse

Stefan's Mirkwood army

Durk's Return of the King legendary legion

Next round was Captured & Control, the scenario i was least confident about and i thought i would be happy acquiring a draw since 5 objectives to claim with 4 models is a challenge versus an opponent who would likely be fielding lots of models more than me.

My opponent would be Durk, who i have played numerous times and was a two times European Team Championship teammate.
He brought with him almost the same army i encountered in round one! (Save for Gimli)
Well then, that doesn't happen everyday...

Plus point was, he didn't have a horde army to hold the objectives on the other hand facing Aragorn again was exciting.
Rending the warriors of the dead worked well last match (striking on S instead of D8, rolling a mere 3) so i intended to carry on doing just that.

Durk

Both our deployments in and/or near the centre

In the centre warriors of the dead closed in on my flying terrors trying to steal one of my objectives and defending the central one while capturing one in his rear

On the left flank the WiKi and the Undying where capturing an objecting while Aragorn and his pale looking friends closed in

My Nazgul moved all over the place to disrupt the plans of my opponent while sapping Aragorn. This with giving up my objectives

Some weird chap

The objective on the left flank got captured again and Aragorn got Black darted to death



And the one on my side also got reclaimed

In an attempt to reach yet another objective the Undying got shot at by Legolas and stormed by warriors of the dead


And, striking on C instead of D6 the Undying's fellbeast was slain

The Undying fought for his unlife and the WiKi defended the left objective


Khamul was fought for his objective

Trying to reach yet another objective the Shadowlord was charged by the King of the dead but survived

In the last turn in a well placed heroic combat Khamul reached the central objective claiming one more and winning the game for sure


  • While being happy with a possible draw my plan to dominate the battlefield ultimately worked out just the way as i imagined it and ended up with a 8-4 victory.

I must say the Dicegods smiled upon mebut hey that's part of the game i reckon.
Durk played well and i don't know how he should have played it otherwise.
As allways it was an exciting game playing him and we even had some shits and giggles.

An impression of the tournament


I didn't complain after two rounds everything looked rather peachy.
Next and last stop was Lords of Battle... When looking at the rulespack this seemed like a giveaway for the Flying circus. Scoring more wounds than your opponent while having 4 models with a total of 16 wounds myself with D6 (D7 on the WiKi's fellbeast) and D8 on the Nazgul was looking like a good prospect.

I faced Stefan, who had beaten me last time at the Golden Balrog Arnhem, with his shooty Mirkwood force lead by Thranduil on elk and supported by Legolas and Tauriel.
Vengeance had to be had for Mordor!

Stefan's set up ended in the most densely overpopulated forest in Middle-Earth
He chose to dismount Thranduil's elk to not having to been seen by the flying ringwraiths... something we debated in the train home.

My flip-flop-flapping army behind a forest

Stefan, master of Mirkwood

I had to score at least one wound so in the first turn, under cover of the Shadow Lord's Pall of Darkness, i killed one woodelf

And flew away after that

This forced the elven army to leave their comfortable wooden stronghold

And my army hiding behind a hill. Stefan was very happy with that

Thranduil and his happy little treefriends where marching towards the hill

Shooting away but without any effect due to having to roll 6 to hit and an in the way roll of 5-6 and when finally hitting having to roll a 6 or 6/4 or 6/5 to wound.

Thranduil and his palace guards hid behind a tree and i threatened to fly onwards

Resulting in him having to break up some of his units 

And me killing off another elf with Black dart

After whitch the Nazgul hid behind the hill again

This game of hide and seek continued for a very long time and in the end i killed 7 elves and Stefan managed to score one wound on the Shadowlord's fellbeast.
For give and take 16 turns we played the Elves had an average of around 20+ shots one wounded..
That's just ludicrous...

This was my view during alot of these turns

In my point of view it was a very effective game winning with 7-0 but it wasn't really fun for the both of us. I had to contraint myself in going gung-ho charging the elves for the epicness and fun of it and for Stefan it was quite frustrating being sniped and shooting that much without effect.

Let's play that fluffy game soon at my home, Stefan!

Okay, time for the award ceremonies then.
First off was the BPA award that went to Lars and his Fiefdom army showed before

And the top three of the tournament with yours truly winning it and Larry as first runner up (Ronny didn't go for the prizes as organiser)

Well, it seems the Flying circus still works. I endured five wounds with one fellbeast killed without any Nazgul falling (a wee bit lucky okay) in three matches.

Had a great day and many thanks to my opponents, everybody who attended, Ronny Kost for organising and judging and Rober from De Tafelridder Leiden for being our host. 

And thank you offcourse for reading my blog!























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