Battle on the Plains of Lisburn Report

Last weekend I attended the Battle on the Plains of Lisburn tournament run by Michael Bradford. This was an 800 point event with the restriction that all armies had to have a minimum of 15 models. I've already posted up all 12 army lists and the 3 armies that made the podium positions, so here's my own personal event report.

Before the Tournament

As I said in a previous post I am going to focus my attention on Gondor for the time being so I looked through my Gondor collection to get some inspiration.

I recently got a box of Dol Amroth knights as a Christmas present and I wanted to try them out so that's where I started with list writing. After initially trying to work out a list with Boromir and Imrahil to maximize the effectiveness of these knights but struggling to make the points work I remembered about a list mentioned on the Green Dragon Podcast that I really liked the idea of (and had tried a practice game with a few months ago). This list was a 600 point Shadow in the East themed army and so I decided to use this as a basis and could add the knights to it to bring it up to 800 points. I also wanted to use my female Ranger with horse model that I painted last year as she means a lot to me and this would be the first event I could use her in since she was finished. After a bit of playing around with the points I eventually came up with this army list:

Warband 1
Faramir, bow (Leader)
4 Rangers, spear
4 Warriors, spear, shield
1 Warrior, spear, shield, banner
2 Warriors, shield
Warband 2
Cirion
5 Warriors, spear, shield
5 Warriors, shield
Warband 3
Damrod
3 Rangers, spears
Warband 4
Ranger of the North, horse
Warband 5
Capt Dol Amroth, horse, lance
5 Knights of Dol Amroth, horse, lance
4 Men at Arms
Warband 6
Murin and Drar

What I really like about this list is the sheer number of heroes I can get into it, there's 7 heroes with a combined total of 16 might points. Despite the number of heroes, it still gets decent numbers with the final list totalling 40 models. The list also has a reasonable ranged threat if required with 10 regular bows (3 with might behind them) and a dwarf bow that gets 2 shots, so should be able to hold it's own in a shooting fight. The cavalry should be able to help increase my killing power thanks to the knock downs and lances, as well as giving me some mobility for objective based missions. Finally, having several small warbands could potentially provide an advantage during deployment as I will be able to see my opponent's deployment before having to commit my bigger warbands.

As a consequence of the high hero and model count the list does lack the sort of big hero that would be common at this points level, but does have 3 heroes able to Heroic Strike so it should be able to at least threaten those heroes. Even so Contest of Champions or A Clash by Moonlight are scenarios that worry me as Faramir on foot will likely struggle to get enough kills to challenge here and I lack some of the killing power to take down other heroes. It's also lacking any magical support and most of my heroes only have 1 will point, so enemy magic may be a problem.

Overall, I wasn't too confident going in to the tournament, especially after seeing the other players army lists. Recently, I haven't had much chance to practice recently and some of the models I'd never used before the event (the last 2 Dol Amroth knights were still on the sprue 9 hours before the start time). Therefore,y main hope was just to enjoy playing in a tournament again and maybe pick up a win somewhere along the way.

Game Day

All the army lists for my opponent's are available here:

https://edgeofthewildsbg.blogspot.com/2020/01/battle-on-plains-of-lisburn-army-lists.html?m=1

Game 1 saw my paired up against Jim Latimer and his wonderfully converted Harondor army in Capture and Control. 

Jim set up the bulk of his army near the central objective, with a small force of Axemen on his left flank and his archers and camelry on his right behind a river. I mirrored his deployment with the heavy infantry in the centre, Damrod with his Rangers and Murin and Drar opposite his Axemen and my cavalry facing his archers. Nervous of an early charge by El Aurance (Imrahil) Faramir took cover in a patch of woodland near the centre.

Turn 1 saw a multitude of charges, the infantry lines clashed in the centre and traded kills, my knights charged (and killed most of) Jim's archers, El Aurance took out 3 of my Warriors of Minas Tirith and Murin with Ranger support took out most of the Axemen and Heroic Combated into Petros the Portly (Forlong) killing his horse.

Over the next few turns Jim's cavalry clashed with mine, holding each other in place while my infantry gained the upper hand in the centre following the death of El Aurance's horse, thanks mainly to Faramir and Murin leading a flanking attack on my right flank which broke the enemy. Meanwhile I was able move to capture all 5 objectives. Unfortunately, in one of the last acts of the game Petros was able to use Heroic Strength to slay Faramir after achieving an impressive S8.

Final score:
11-1 Victory

That flying start propelled me to the top tables for Game 2 where I was facing Micheal Bunting and his Elven red alliance in Contest of Champions. Possibly one of the worst matchups I could have got, Contest of Champions against a big Elven hero and warriors that match or better Faramir's fight value. I wasn't too optimistic going into this game.

This scenario had a slight variation from the standard version in that it would use Maelstrom deployment which left the 2 armies on opposite sides of the board. I advanced cautiously exchanging some ineffectual bow fire (although the Dol Amroth captain lost a wound and fate to it) and moving Faramir, Murin and Drar towards my left flank while the bulk of my infantry and my cavalry advanced towards the elves who had dug in alongside a ruined house. The plan was to hold the elves in place with my high defence infantry and use my heroes on the left to chip away at the flank, hopefully getting Faramir a few kills in the process.

Eventually the armies clashed with Elrond and Gil Galad charging in 1st. Elrond unhorsed all my knights with Wrath of Bruinen then Heroic Combated off one of the now prone knights into the wounded Captain. Fortunately, he survived the charge and preceded to hold Elrond in place for the next 4 turns, effectively keeping in the contest until he eventually went down near the end. The rest of my infantry line slowly crumbled due to higher fight of the elves and Galadriel causing my supporting models to run away with Instill Fear. When Faramir finally had an opportunity to get engaged against some isolated elves he failed on his Strike/Combat combo with Murin after only rolling a 1 for the strike against a King's Guard and losing the roll off after both sides rolled 6s in the dual. His next attempt also failed after Murin was counter charged and Faramir failed on the wound roll. The final Leader kill tally was Elrond 4, Faramir 0, which confirmed my earlier concerns.

Final score:
0-7 Defeat

For the final game of the tournament I was opposing Stephen Devlin and a beautifully painted Serpent Horde army in To The Death.

Stephen's army had a lot of bows.

Bows with poisoned arrows.

Bows with poisoned arrows that have been buffed by the Betrayer.

This was going to hurt.

After both armies had deployed we both had infantry holding the centre with the cavalry on opposite sides. The first few turns involved me moving up to field as quickly as possible while Stephen tried to shoot me to death. Luckily, after killing 3 warriors in turn 1, Stephen's dice turned on him and only minimal causalities were inflicted. My return fire from Damrod, Drar and the Rangers proved effective, leaving both sides with similar loses when combat was joined.

My knights charged into a flank first hoping to inflict some kills but were stymied by Watchers of Karna and Abrakan Merchant Guard before the Serpent Riders were able to counter them. In the centre Faramir, Cirion and Murin targeted the end of his infantry line, aiming to get some Heroic Combats off and collapse his flank. Unfortunately, Suladan called a Heroic Combat off one of my knights and I lost the roll off. Faramir was subsequently charged by Suladan, and killed in one fight. In revenge Murin, with double pike support charged into Suladan, Struck up higher than him and inflicted 4 wounds off 4 dice to slay the Serpent Lord. The rest of the fighting was fairly even but I was able to protect my banner long enough for us to run out time before either force was broken.

Final score:
5-3 Victory

Overall results
2W 1L
+5 VP difference
4th Place

Post Tournament Reflection

Overall, I certainly exceeded my expectations of how well I thought I would do. Coming into the event with a primarily themed army and minimal game time I expected to struggle, so to get 2 wins and narrowly miss out on the podium was fantastic.

The army overall worked well, especially the solid infantry foundation and the trio of combat heroes of Faramir, Cirion and Murin. The large number of heroes and hence the huge store of might was certainly an advantage, allowing me to draw out the opponent's might and still know I'd have reserves. The cavalry element has potential, I think, but as a predominantly infantry player I'd need to get some more practice using cavalry in order to get the best out of them. The main weakness of the army was in the Leader. Faramir was too fragile as the Leader at D5 and 2 wounds and that saw me concede the Leader VPs in 2 of the 3 games, so looking ahead I'd need to find a way to protect those points.

Finally, and most importantly, I had a great time back in the tournament scene after a long break. Thank you to all of my opponents and a special thanks to Michael Bradford for organising the event.