MESBG De Kolonisten Turnhout Tournament 21st of July 2019

It's the national holiday, and as Noshi is out on a birthday picnick, I enlisted to play my first ever Lord the Rings tournament ever.

While I played the system since it came out in 2001, organised events where rare back then as the sytem then would have you take along both a Good and an Evil army.

Then I learned about the Flemish Hobbit League last year, and now finally had the chance to join in the fun.

Now, for this first step into the waters, it also happened to be a special event of sorts, in that you didn't have to bring an army.  Instead, you would be assigned one at random, provided by the organisers, and you have to play the event with that force.

The tournament clocked out at 17 participants, with the TO jumping in to fill the 18th spot, so that's a nice turn-out.
I got assigned the forces of Lothlorien, so time to look at what I actually have at my disposal:

Two warbands, the smaller one led by Haldir consisted of 7 Wood Elf Archers, and a large one led by Celeborn and consisting of 4 swordsmen and 11 spearmen.

With this force I am going into battle for 3 rounds, and the scenarios will be Domination, Hold Ground and To the Death respectively.  I was going in with low ambitions, not suffering 3 Major Loss results would be all I aimed for in this event, as first of all it's all new for me, and second of all, I barely played half the armies in the game so far... let alone have a clue of the special rules for armies and characters.  Add to that that when me and Noshi play, we so far only used Might to modify our rolls, so all those actions are fresh as well and I just want to see them in action...

So hop on the bus for a trip to Turnhout armed with rulebooks and dice, and let's see how we fared:

Game 1: Domination vs Jasper with the Serpent Horde

Okay, so opening up for my first ever tournament of MESBG, I'm faced by Jasper, current leader in the Flemish Hobbit League and his horde of Haradrim.  Sulaman, a Hasharin, some Watchers and Merchant Guard, Raiders, and a whole lot of basic warriors.

I opted to place Haldir on a ruin on my right to pour arrow after arrow into his basic troops, putting down quite a nice number before the group was overrun by the Hasharin and watchers.  In the centre, Celeborn and his troops withstood the cavalry charge, putting all the riders out of action in two turns.

The Haradrim force broke and started to take tests, but in the end they could keep on to enough objectives to pull a draw, as the battle ended when he fell to 25%.  I killed to fast it seemed, because if I would have been able to kill one model less, he would probably have run from other objectives.

Still, I was happy, I wouldn't end the tournament with a big 0 behind my name, instead starting off with a 6 - 6 draw against a very nice opponent.

And then it was time for Second Breakfast...

Game 2: To the Death vs Mertijn with Mordor

Crap... Morannon Orcs led by Gothmog and the Mouth of Sauron.  While his force was only nominally bigger then mine, those S4, D6 spearsupported orcs aren't that great a prospect for my Elves.

I decided to go for a more aggressive approach, and commit all in, and that even resulted over the course of battle for a lonely spearmen to cause two wounds on Gothmog.  While it hung in the balance for a long time, my higher Fight saving me a lot but failing to wound, I suddenly lost 5 elves in a single round, causing my band to go to broken.

I failed to kill either one last Orc or even Gothmog when Celeborn flunked his attacks in the last turn (though surviving unscathed) to keep the damage under control, and a 1 - 7 Heavy Loss was my fate.

Game 3: Hold Ground vs Kasper with The Fiefdoms

Facing the Fiefdoms led by Imrahil and his shiny knights, we had random deployment for this game.  The Fiefdoms promptly arrived, while it took a whole 3 for Haldir and even 4 turns for Celeborn to even show up.

But Celeborn did show up in the right place, flanking his Knights and Rangers.  Calling a Heroic Move in the next turn, and winning the roll off against his counter, the elves charged in and made short work of the outnumbered cavalry.

In the centre, Haldir had depleted the infantry a bit, and then went in for combat.  How much the luck failed me in the battle vs the Morannon's, so good the dice fell in this game, as his force broke, ending the game and Haldir and his archers even outnumbered his infantry around the objective.

This gave me a 8 - 0 Heavy Win, and that at the loss of a single Elven spearman.

So right, that all tallies up to 6 tournament points,and a score of 15 VP gained versus 13 lost, almost the perfect average scored tournament.  And as such, I ended 9th, a result I'm very happy with for a first ever.

And here are some more pictures of the day!

All participants also received a small paticipation price, and that consisted of this beautiful FHL dice, which will go with my collection of LOTR dice for sure.

It was a great and fun day, and I got to meet some nice people.  This is a very sweet community for sure, and we also made some arrangements for... ooops, can't tell yet, but watch this place!