Alright, I will admit it! I have been slower than an Entmoot with this last blog post! After the last few tournaments and with the news articles and leaks of the impending and now released new edition of MESBG I have felt that I was in a bit of limbo. I will not comment too much on my thoughts on the new edition as I do not want to be too HASTY to judge. I will say I am excited to try out the new rules and new profiles, however I am quite bummed about the list building so far. I was a big fan of the Battle for Middle Earth computer games and losing the ability to run pure faction based armies has been tough for me. I feel like we had the best of both worlds in the old edition with legendary legions and whole faction lists. I know there are still new books to come out so there is always still hope! In this post I will recap my last few tournaments and give you all a peak of what plans I have for the new edition.

Before we get into the recaps, I will start off by prefacing that these recaps will try to be short and sweet as my lists are not really a thing in the new edition, however this post does span three tournaments! I took slight variations of The Dead of Dunharrow allied with Minas Tirith lists. I am not going to go too much into the list aspect as my last post talked about the different synergies I try to achieve with these lists. Also, they are now irrelevant in the new edition as you can no longer take King Elessar with the King of the Dead which makes sense and is now more thematic.

Alabama Escalation Tournament

I had the pleasure of crashing the North Alabama Rangers Escalation Tournament at Balin’s Tomb near Huntsville, AL in November. This was a very fun day of gaming as every single one of my three games went down to the last turn!

My first game was against Spencer’s Men of the West list. It was an Aragorn vs Aragorn Contest of Champions duel. The first few turns the Aragorns fought head to head tying each other up for multiple turns while not doing much damage as we both called heroic defenses. We went back and forth, and the game ended due to time. I was able to pull off the minor victory with my Aragorn getting one more kill than his on the final turn. One of my favorite interactions of this game was Legolas burning all of his might just to get one of my dead D8 warriors off the board.

My second game was against Cody’s Host of the Dragon Emperor. It was only my second time playing this list and boy did I learn a thing or two. We played Divide and Conquer. I spent the first few turns using Aragorn’s free points of might to March towards the center objective to get into good position. Aragorn was a beast in this game getting heroic combat after heroic combat off and single handedly broke my opponent. Hurin tried to hold my right flank but ultimately got eaten by Runish Drakes, which I actually had the pleasure to print for Cody. Always fun getting killed by my own prints! I fed the Dragon Emperor only a few troops at a time to slow him down, however I made the mistake of the century when I decided not to charge the Dragon Emperor on the last turn as I had the middle objective secured. To my dismay Cody dismounted from the palanquin and one model turned into seven and took the middle objective away from me! This was a fantastic move on his part. This resulted in a minor loss for me. It was a great game my favorite interaction of this one was Cody was able to get two tremors off and due to my high defense not a single one of my models died. For all things Cody make sure to check out his Youtube channel cbclark - YouTube.

Dragon Emperor dismounting last turn and taking over the middle objective. I shouldn’t have let him count the unpainted models ;)

My last game was against Chris’s Depths of Moria list in a game of Breakthrough. My goal was to get Hurin to breakthrough early and pressure the Balrog to make a decision on defending the objective on his side of the board or pressing forward. Unfortunately, Hurin on my right flank had a tough time getting heroic combats to go off, ran out of might and got stuck near the right objective for most of the game. Over the course of the first two turns I killed many goblins, however in order to break a Depths of Moria list you must be wounding the Balrog, which I certainly was not. On the last turn my army was broken which resulted in another minor loss. The coolest interaction of this one was Aragorn being set ablaze, running away dismounting, crawling to put out the fire and then returning to the fight. This put me at 1-2 for the day, however Vanderbilt did beat Auburn while I was down there so I will take that as a win ;) It is always a fun time hanging with the Alabama group and can’t wait to do it again. Thanks for the invite and a special shout out to John for hosting us!

The lines clash in game 3 - always fun to play against a beautifully painted army on a beautifully painted board.

Goblin Gobble

November was a busy month for me as the weekend after the Alabama tournament I headed to Atlanta for the Goblin Gobble! This was a two-day 100 point SMEGL tournament and was ran to perfection by Alex and Nick. There has already been some really good content coming out of this tournament so this section is going to be a very quick recap. Two of my games from this tournament were already featured on the SMEGL Podcast (Episode 5 - Goblin Gobble Recap - What's Taters?? - A SMEGL Podcast | Podcast on Spotify) and Friend and Ally’s Youtube channel (Goblin Gobble 2024 | Tournament Recap) Please check them out!

I unfortunately did not have a very strong showing in this tournament as I swapped out Hurin for Anborn since he was announced going to legacy. This allowed me to boost my numbers, however in hindsight having another hard hitting hero was probably the right way to go.

Game 1 - This was my favorite game of the tournament. My opponent Will was playing Goblin-town and it was maneuvering scenarios. I thought oh Sh** here we go! We played Divide and Conquer, I marched my army to the middle objective to get into position as I felt it was the only way to be competitive this game. I got too overzealous with Aragorn and he got knocked off his horse after the Goblin King chucked a goblin at him turn 2. I made a four inch perimeter around the middle objective and held my ground as best I could. I had a contingent of three Warriors of Minas Tirith that held out on the right objective until the last turn. I held the center objective and Goblin-town held the right and left objective at the end of the game which resulted in a DRAW. I was very happy with this result being so heavily outnumbered!

Held the center objective against 100+ Goblins

Game 2 - I played against Evan’s dwarves in Breakthrough. I was rolling very hot this game and managed to breakthrough early on with Aragorn tearing through his high defense warriors with Anduril. Evan did a great job holding out as the game did go to time however, I was able to take the major victory.

Game 3 - I played David’s beautifully painted Serpent Horde and Far Harad army. We played destroy the supplies. It was a very good game where I ended up making him sweat a bit however, my tactical blunders ultimately cost me the game. Make sure to check out that link above for David’s take on the battle in the SMEGL podcast.

Game 4 - I played Ezra’s Fiefdoms list in Lord’s of Battle. He showed no mercy tabling me and taking the major win. What a power gamer! :)

Game 5 - I played against Ian’s Isengard force in Hold Ground. Ian was able to get to the center of the board faster than me while making good use of Grima. Aragorn spent his three will points early on and was immobilized for most of the game by Saruman. The King of the Dead was able to push towards the center but in the end Isengard more than doubled me in the center and Ian took the Major win. Once again please check out his and Ben’s Friend and Ally Youtube channel linked above for a more in depth report!

This resulted in being 1-1-3 for the tournament, not my best showing again, but a very fun time with a great group of people as always!

March on Music City

This was the last and final two-day 100 point SMEGL tournament of the year and was also ran wonderfully by Kevin and John. These were the last games of the old edition for me and my full intent was to just go out having fun, it just so happened to be one of my best tournaments of the year!

Game 1 - I played against Tyler from Colorado. He was playing Serpent Horde and we played Fog of War. It was a very close game and came down to the last turn. It actually came down to the last combat, I needed to kill his taskmaster to secure the win, but I rolled a 3 high with Hurin and could not get the job done, which resulted in a minor loss for me. Thanks for coming out to Nashville Tyler, great game!

Game 2 - I played against Andrew’s Halls of Thranduil. We played Hold Ground and I managed to take care of Thranduil early on with Aragorn. I then marched to the center of the board to take the major victory.

Game 3 - I played against Sam’s Bears in Storm the Camp. We jockeyed for charging position of the course of the first several turns. I then got too aggressive with Aragorn and got him eaten by a bear. Hurin was able to sneak around to the back and secure is camp for a turn or two, however I was not able to hold it and when the bears get to killing the game sure ends fast. I took the minor loss and happy with that result for playing against DA BEARS! It was a very good game with a great opponent. I hope to play you again soon Sam!

Game 4 - I played against Brent’s White Council. We played capture and control. I got off to a very good start killing Glorfindel very early on. The funny part about that was I had Aragorn and the King of the Dead on him, I struck up with both only to have Glorfindel still holding the higher fight value. Fortunately for me Glorfindel’s duel roll was horrendous even with Lord of the West and I was able to win the fight and take him out of the game early. At that point I thought I had killed his leader, however Saruman was really his leader. I broke him quickly and I thought I was in the drivers seat, had we rolled a 2 to see if the game had ended the first time Brent actually would have won! Again, luckily for me we played many more turns not rolling a two to end the game and I ultimately ended up tabling him taking a major win. Thanks for being such a good sport about it Brent!

Game 5 - In my last game of the old edition I played against Nick’s Host of the Witch-King in To the Death! This was an absolute terror fest as we both had harbinger of evil and front lines of terror. He probably could have kitted me and black darted me to death with all the will he had, but we got right into combat and I managed to take out the Dwimmerlaik fairly early, however I used many of my resources to do so. We did eventually get Aragorn and the Witchking into combat and Aragorn was slain. Hurin then became my leader for the purpose of victory points with his special rule and I pulled him back. I was able to break the orc horde which then had a tough time sticking around with a courage of 1. It was a very fun game and definitely could have gone the other way. I was able to take the major victory and sent the old edition out on a high note.

Finally, I was able to win games on day two of a tournament as I had struggled with that previously. This put my record to 3-2 for the tournament with 3 major wins and 2 minor losses. This put me in 7th out of 27 and ultimately landed me in 18th for the year in the SMEGL Standings. I am very happy of what I accomplished in my first full year of competitive play and look forward to what next year hold. I of course cannot continue to play this army going forward, however I intend to work on a Defenders of the Pelennor list to see if I can try to replicate some of the synergies that I loved about my old lists. I now realize this post has gotten even longer than an Entmoot! So with that I wish you all a Happy New Year and look forward to continue printing for this great community in the New Year!

Chapter 4 Don’t Be Hasty

Chapter 3 Things are now in motion that cannot be undone