2024 MESBG 750pt Tournament

Who could it be?

Here are some more MESBG pictures from a more recent 750pt MESBG tournament I participated in. I was interested in trying out the Necromancer with my Azog's Hunters force. The hunter orcs are arguably one of the most brutal, and efficient profiles in all of MESBG (at least in my opinion), so I was curious to see what having a spellcaster with them would do (Spoiler alert: The Necromancer was fairly underwhelming). 

There was one limiting factor, which was I only had access to 24 foot hunter orcs. This meant I had to take two mounted hunter orcs to fill out my force, rather than just having 4x foot orcs. If I had no model limits, I would have prefered the 4x foot orcs, but the two mounted orcs were OK. Building and painting more foot hunter orcs is on my (long) to-do list.

Here's the list:

The Dark Powers of Dol Guldur + Azog's Hunters:

The Necromancer [LEADER]

1x Gundabad Orc Warrior w/ Shield, Spear, Banner

2x Mirkwood Spiders

2x Hunter Orcs w/ Fell Wargs, 2-Handed Picks, Orc Bows

6x Gundabad Orc Warrior w/ Shield, Spear

1x Hunter Orc w/ Orc Bow

Fimbul the Hunter w/ Fell Warg

6x Hunter Orcs w/ Orc Bows

2x Hunter Orcs w/ 2-Handed Picks

4x Hunter Orcs

Narzug w/ Fell Warg

6x Hunter Orcs w/ Orc Bows

2x Hunter Orcs w/ 2-Handed Picks

3x Hunter Orcs

38 models @ 750pts, with 9 might, and 17 bows.

Not the most optimised army, but I do love the hunter orc profile.

We played 3 rounds, with scenarios predetermined and available in the player's pack. 

Opponent 1: Rivendell + Númenor Alliance, playing Capture, and Control:

This last alliance army was Elrond, and Isildur, both with maxed warbands. The army also had 2x banners, and 3 Rivendell Knights, clocking in at 35 models. Yikes!

The view from my right side.

The view from my left side.

Setup had me right on the halfway mark, controlling my objective, the two side ones, and contesting the middle one. My opponent deployed one side to hold a gap between two buildings, and his shooting element with some space to get a few volleys off against my orcs.

Turn 1, Elrond immediately rode into my line, popped a 1-die wrath, and proceeded to kill 3 hunter orcs. Ouch! In retaliation, The Necromancer chill-souled Elrond, who failed to resist with 1 will, and lost a fate, and his horse. The right side became a grind between two buildings, with me unable to wrap around my opponent, but his nearby banner dying to a chill soul. The Necromancer hung around here most of the game, chill souling the odd model, transfixing Elrond, and/or fighting Isildur.

The left side had my orcs running up, and copping a couple rounds of fire before engaging with the elven lines. Unfortunately, even when I wrapped the elven line, I was unable to do meaningful damage. This side of my force slowly crumbled over the game to the elves, but did manage to prevent the elven force from helping their comrades, or advancing on the objectives.

It was looking good as I broke my opponent, while holding 3/5 objectives, and contesting the middle, but lady luck is a harsh mistress. The variable game length reared it's ugly head, and the game kept going... and going... Until I also broke, and started to get ground down by courage, and the superior elven, and manish troops. We ended up playing 5-6 turns after the first break, and at turn 4 I officially collapsed, and could no longer prevent my opponent from advancing on the objectives. I ended up with 1 objective to my opponent's 4, with us both broken, and neither leaders wounded. 3-9 Loss.

 

Opponent 2: Host of the Dragon Emperor LL, playing Fog of War:

This game was a reminder on the importance of bows.

Game 2 was against a Host of the Dragon Emperor LL, with the Emperor (duh), Rutabi and Brórgîr. There was also a drummer, with a few Kataphracts, and some Acolytes (in addition to the usual black dragon pike block). Crucially, my opponent chose to forgo including any bows. 

The scenario was Fog of War, so I chose to protect Narzug, who is mostly a might battery. I also chose to kill Rutabi, and get to the ruins pictured top right in the above image. My opponent was trying to kill Fimbul, and protect Rutabi.

My opponent setup his pike block central, to try and defend a gap between two ruins. He also had two small flank elements of some Acolytes, and a Drake on one side, and some Acolytes, and Kataphracts on the other. My army deployed centrally with The Necromancer in the middle, and the two orc captains on the flanks. My plan was pretty standard: crush my opponent's flanks, and then wrap and kill his pike block. This is pretty much how the game went, with my forces crushing the flanking elements (besides one unkillable drake). I then shot my opponent's pike block (bows FTW) until it was forced to leave it's anchored position, and was wrapped and trapped in the open centre of the board.

MVP this game was the Necromancer, who slowly chill souled Rutabi to death, and then proceeded to drain the souls of all The Emperor's palanquin bearers.

The game ended with my opponent wiped, while my force was unbroken. I also had an orc on my objective, but I missed out on the full 12-0 as Narzug had suffered a wound at Rutabi's hand. 10-0 Win.

Opponent 3: Minas Tirith + Fiefdoms Alliance, playing Lords of Battle:

A gorgeous army and display board. The Fiefdoms element is not shown.

My opponent had Imrahil, and Forlong, leading a couple of Knights of Dol Amroth, and a heap of Men at Arms. The Minas Tirith element was made up of Irolas, and Beregond, leading some Gondor tincans, plus some mounted, and unmounted Citadel Guard (pictured above). Also there was an Avenger Bolt Thrower just to round it out. Overall it was a scary looking list that matched me on numbers at 38.

The Bolt Thrower deployed central, on top of a ruin to try and get some good shots. The Minas Tirith element deployed on my left flank, with some archers on a building. The Dol Amroth forces took a more central deployment, but had some ruins between them and the bulk of my army. I deployed right next to the Minas Tirith force, to try and crush them quickly, while minimising the bowfire I took. 

I crushed the Minas Tirith half of my opponent's army pretty quickly (2-3 turns), but struggled to mop up the archers on the roof. I was feeling pretty good at this point as the Dol Amroth forces were barely in the fight on my right side. Imrahil was blunted by The Necromancer's magic, which took his horse early, and allowed Fimbul + some friends to knock him down to one wound. The next turn I rolled 3 dice to try to chill soul Imrahil off the face of the Middle Earth, but failed to get it off. In hindsight, I should have just thrown 5-6 will to make sure the spell went off.

While the Knights, and heroes of Dol Amroth proved to be mediocre warriors, the Men at Arms (with Imrahil's banner effect) were tearing through my hunter orcs. They had slowly been grinding me down with their superior duel dice, and I couldn't easily wrap them to peel off the pike supports. This meant we both broke at around the same time, and my model advantage, started to evaporate. In hindsight, I should have just backed up into an open area, and forced the pike block to come to me with my bows.

On penultimate turn I needed to get the kill on Imrahil, so I spent a whopping 7 will (+1 free) to guarantee the chill soul. This ended up being costly overkill, as The Necromancer died a turn later to a clutch Avenger Bolt shot through a window. After my costly chill soul, I only had 2 will remaining to spend as fate, which I failed, and poofed out of existence! This left the tally at 39-37, with us both broken, and both leaders dead. 6-3 Win.

Overall Thoughts: As always, all of my opponent's were great sports, and a pleasure to play. The MESBG crowd are all friendly, and there's some superb hobbyists amongst them (see pics below).

Much like my experience with Gandalf the White, I feel the Necromancer is quite overcosted for a 200+ spellcaster who can only cast a single spell a turn. He definitely likes a longer game, so he can make efficient use of his huge 25 will store. In a short game, he's just throwing 3-5 will spells, which are scary, but have diminishing returns. I probably should have been more aggressive with him, and tried to used shroud of shadows to assassinate some heroes, but a good opportunity never really arose. In game 2 he did drain the souls of all 6 of The Dragon Emperor's palanquin bearers, which was a funny mental image.

Narzug also felt redundant with The Necromancer. I think if I were to take this list again I'd replace him with a proper(ish) combat hero like Yazneg, or maybe even a Ringwraith out of Dol Guldur. I felt like I was lacking a hero to just punch through my opponent's lines. Maybe a Slayer of Men, or Keeper of the Dungeon could solve this issue?

I finished in the middle of the pack, which was fine with me, especially considering all my games were enjoyable.

Below are some pictures I took of the armies on display on the day: