Quick disclaimer: It has been half a year since I last wrote and this is where I am picking the quill up again. Therefore, some names and details about the games have slipped my mind. I will do my absolute best to recall them, but please excuse this, probably meagre, write up about this amazing event. It might not do it justice.

Allright, day two of the nations cup is starting. Everybody gathered up last night and had a few, it was a very good time. I also have been meaning to compliment the meals that the hotel was providing. It’s not easy to cook for ~130 people and still keep it fresh and tasty, but they somehow managed. But that’s enough “inner hobbit” talk about food, let’s see what day two has in store for us.

Game 4 – Destroy the supplies (vs Austria)

Yes, my absolute favourite scenario! At least from last edition, I still haven’t decided yet if some of the new scenario’s are better or not. This scenario has everything. Attack, defence, objective markers, everything to make the game as engaging and interactive as possible. Of course you could sit back and shoot, but then you are fighting close to your own objective markers which could flip the game should the combat go poorly. Or maybe that if your tactic to draw the enemy in and then sneak a small hit squad past the flank to go raid the objectives. This is what makes this scenario so fun in my opinion, the strategic and tactical puzzles that it offers.

I needed to solve this puzzle against Minas Morgul. There were quite a few MM players at this event (despite me still not thinking that this army is that great), and now it was finally my turn to show off against it. On paper, it is a bad match up for the Balrog should the army have at least 2 ringwraiths and, god forbid, a morgul blade on the Witch-King. Luckily, this army had none of that, so I told my team I did not mind the match up and got paired against it.

One small problem though, he did have a banner and I didn’t. He also, first turn, made his banner go prone all the way in the back of the board, right… This meant that I had to play very aggressivly. Which was my plan anyway, but still, it put my opponent in the lead. Stephan (my opponent) disagreed and also opted to play very aggresive, charging his army straight up the board. No complaints from me as my Balrog whipped his Mordor troll right out of his formation and proceeded to pummel it. With one of my opponents biggest threats gone, I spend the rest of the game chasing after the WK on fell beast with my Balrog. It took a long time to finally catch up. My opponent smartly heroic combatted as far away as possible and also got lucky with a few heroic move rol-offs. Eventually, the game of cat and mouse ended with the Balrog killing the WK after one turn of combat. He broke in the same turn, his banner ran away, and I managed to snatch two of the objectives.

A very quick write-up of a very long game. I ended the game with a score of 15-2. Destroying two supplies, having destroyed more supplies than my opponent, breaking him, killing his leader, while suffering only the banner vp’s for not having one in return. A pretty convincing victory and one that actually was represented by the board state after the game. There was not much left of my opponent… My team followed up by winning this round for The Netherlands.

Game 5 – To the Death (vs Italy)

What a match up… My opponent was playing Rangers of Ithilien. Nobody wanted to go up against it in this scenario, so they threw me under the bus to hope and make the best of it. I really tried to do so, but when I saw the board that I would be playing on my hearth sank.

A huge river spanning the width of the entire board. With two almost impossible to traverse hills and a small chokepoint in the middle. You can’t tell me that somebody with any MESBG experience approved of this. Point of feedback, please check your tables and take certain scenario’s into consideration. Most tables seemed very haphazardly assembled and were just not balanced. You can see in future pictures of this game just how unfair the board really was.

I spent the first two turns marching up with my captains to get my Balrog in play. I essentially placed my army in one big ball so I could get as much benefit from the Heroic March as possible. The Balrog missed his whip so he would not charge until the next turn. My opponents shooting did not achieve much, but that didn’t matter for him I think. Because of the board, he only had to hold out and win on banner + Frodo and Sam VP’s.

This is where some controversy came into play. My opponent was playing extremely slow. He said he was suffering from a bit of a headache. At first, I tried to be considerate about it, but when his move phase was twice as long as mine while he had almost no models to move and stood still in a chokepoint and I had to march up ~60 models, I was getting frustrated. It was also very much in his favour to have a slow game since he only had to play for time. Over the course of a few turns I suggested that he should play a bit faster. When this proved to have no result, I eventually told him that I would notify a TO if he kept playing like this. I felt a bit childish, but also very frustrated with his behaviour as it was getting obvious that he was just taking his sweet time on purpose. On top of this, the TO ruled that the hill you see on the left in the picture above would take a full 4 turns to climb… That is really rough considering I can only viably attack through a tiny little avenue.

On the picture above you can see how much of a deal this hill really is. It’s almost impossible to get over, it has a ramp with the only access point being right behind a small chokepoint, cannot be accessed from 2 sides, and the ramp itself is barely 2 models wide. My opponent had hidden Sam + Frodo (worth VP’s due to his army) and his two banners on top of the ramp.

The only reason why this was even a game is because the Balrog really stepped up. He didn’t botch a single combat and rampaged through his army. The goblins also did a fair bit of work and eventually I had my opponent broken. The break was nice for VP’s, but gameplay wise it didn’t change much because Faramir is allowed to call a free Heroic Resolve once his army is broken.

The main force was dealt with and the Balrog could finally try to get close to stuff which are actually worth VP’s. He moved up the ramp is what I would like to say, but my opponent had positioned in such a way that I could only charge one model at the time on the tiny ramp, and potentially combat into the next. So I decided to pull a sneaky, and move around the flank. However, my opponent did not agree that this is something the Balrog could climb without a test. In my opinion, the ramp was slightly above the knee of the Balrog and therefore easily traversable. So we had to call over a TO, which took even more time… As a cherry on top the TO once again ruled in the favour of my opponent and said the Balrog needed a test to climb it. Naturally he rolled a fat 1 and stood still for a turn. Next turn he could muster the courage to traverse the tiny ramp, but it was too late. Even with a heroic combat I would not be able to get to the banners or Frodo + Sam. If my opponent had played at a normal pace we would have had a few extra turns.

We ended the game on a 8-6 victory for the forces of evil. I broke and quartered him, and he kept his banners and Sam + Frodo alive. I can’t say I enjoyed this game, and to be honest it wasn’t due to the scenario, match-up, TO rulings or even the ridiculous board. My opponent wasn’t very sportmanslike throughout the game. Apart from what I wrote above, there were a few very questionable situations during the game. Suddenly shielding against the Balrog instead of spear supporting when not saying so beforehand, calling, in my opinion, pointless heroic moves and then cancelling it and moving it all back without double checking with me. Stuff like that just leaves a bad taste in your mouth after the game.

I hate being too negative and don’t want to make this a trend when writing. However, I think it is important to address these issues even if it is in hindsight. My team did manage to win this round, which meant we had a good chance of reaching third place should we win the next one, very exciting.

Game 6 – Domination (vs Germany)

On to the last game, let’s hope it is a good one! Aaaand it’s against the Rangers of Ithilien again… The scenario is a lot better this time around. Domination gives me a fair shot at winning, it’s one of the best scenario’s in my opinion. My opponent (Anas) also noted that he was quite tired after the whole event and he just wanted to have a fun and relaxed game. So he deployed his entire army in gunline formation against the backside of the board.

To be honest, I wasn’t even mad. In my opinion, this is a game lost in the deployment phase. It was tough losing a lot of models to shooting, but I knew that I had full board control from turn 1. I left a few goblins on the back objective and charged straight ahead with the rest, aiming to take as many rangers with them as possible.

This is the shortest write up I have ever done, but the game was nothing more than shielding him off from the objective and going forward with my army. I did not manage to get the break, I did set fire to Faramir who burned to death the next turn. Afterwards I kept my Balrog around the middle objective just in case. When we went into the last turn I controlled most objectives and had killed his leader, while my opponent had barely moved from where he had deployed. This gave me a 11-6 victory, barely scraping together a Major. He controlled 2 objectives while I had 3, I killed his leader and neither army managed to get the break. However, looking over at the other tables I see that my team did not perform amazing this round, we did lose it.

My opponent was a great guy to play against. He was very caught up in the game, but still managed to joke around and laugh about the weird situations that came up. Anas even complimented me on being a calm and collected opponent, which is a very nice compliment to receive.

Conclusion

I had an amazing time at the event and I felt so honoured to play for The Netherlands. Especially having almost no hobby experience and still taking it up with the veterans. My team managed to place 9th which is decent considering there were about 22 teams playing. Personally I managed to get 4 Major wins, 1 Minor win, and 1 Major loss. A pretty damn impressive score and one that I was not expecting going into this.

The overall vibe of the event was amazing. Even though the stakes were high it, most players were very sportsmanlike and friendly. Apart from one experience, all of my opponents were great and I would love to play against them in the future. Also props to the organisation for making this possible. I look forward to going again next year, if I place well enough again.

Greeting from Poland!