pick the Rider of Rohan ambush that Eomer and his warrior's spring on the
unsuspecting Uruk-hai scouts and Mordor. Orcs. This is one of the battle scenes ...
ARTICLE NINE: BUILDING FOR SUCCESS [ARTICLE 1 OF 6] ADEPTICON 2007 LORD OF THE RINGS TEAM TOURNAMENT BY JOE KRONE & CHRIS RUBRIGHT I know what you’re thinking and it’s not what it looks like. We are not two overly confident players who think we are going to show up at AdeptiCon and sweep all enemies before us. Rather we believe the title of our series of articles covering our experiences before, during and after AdeptiCon fits perfectly because with preparation and proper hobby time we will hopefully create a fun and successful weekend. The organizers of The Lord of the Rings Team Tournament politely asked my teammate and I if we would be willing to write about our preparation and allow you the reader an opportunity to witness the tournament experience from the very beginning. So without further ado allow me to introduce myself. My name is Joe Krone and my teammate is Chris Rubright. We both live in Columbus, OH and we have both been involved with miniature war gaming for around 10 years. Chris and I took an immediate interest in The Lord of the Rings strategy war game and we jumped at the opportunity to not only write this article but participate in the upcoming Team Tournament at AdeptiCon. Our plan is to break down our preparation into six articles which cover everything from building new forces, play testing, theme creation, display board and finally the tournament itself. We hope we entertain you and we would love to answer any questions you have either on the message boards or at AdeptiCon so don’t be bashful. To begin with we should start with our theme and then show you our army lists and how they tie in. We decided to pick the Rider of Rohan ambush that Eomer and his warrior’s spring on the unsuspecting Uruk-hai scouts and Mordor Orcs. This is one of the battle scenes shown in the movie The Two Towers in which the ambush provides a distraction for Merry and Pippin to escape into the Fangorn Forrest. So our theme will be to create an all horse mounted Rohan army representing the ambushers and a mixed contingent of Uruk-hai scouts and Mordor Orcs representing the evil horde. Each force must follow all the rules governed by the Legions of Middle-Earth book and we carefully selected our force to fit within our theme.
:: RIDERS OF ROHAN :: Chris: After a heated competition of rocks, paper, scissors against Joe I decided to pick the Riders of Rohan. I looked through the different army lists for Rohan in the Legions of MiddleEarth book and realized that Théoden’s Host suits my needs perfectly. My strategy for my games is to have two squadrons of Riders of Rohan each lead by a hero and supported by a banner bearer. Eomer and a Captain of Rohan fit well into my theme and they will each lead 7 Riders of Rohan, one of which will be a banner bearer. I purposely left out warriors on foot and Royal Guard because any warriors on foot would be left behind and the main purpose of the Royal Guard is to protect the king. Next, I picked up 5 Outriders because I really like the models and it was probably the Outriders who stealth fully found the evil encampment and reported their position to Eomer. Finally, we are required to bring an objective marker which I will use the prone Merry and Pippin miniatures to represent their frantic escape. Here is my list:
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RIDERS OF ROHAN Eomer Horse Shield Throwing Spear Ranulf, Captain of Rohan Horse Shield Throwing Spear Heavy Armor 5 Outriders Horse (x5) 2 Riders of Rohan Standard Bearer (x2) 12 Riders of Rohan Throwing Spear (x12) TOTAL
:: ISENGARD RAIDERS :: Joe: I was all too happy when Chris picked the Riders of Rohan because I have a lot of fun competing with evil forces. My list is a little trickier because in order to fit my theme I will need to take allies. I choose the Isengard Raiders army list and I will use allies from the Minas Morgul army list. My 18 Uruk-hai scouts will be lead by Ugluk and an Uruk-hai Captain. All but Ugluk, the Uruk-hai Captain and two of my Uruk-hai are armed with hand weapons and shields and the remaining two Uruk-hai will be banner bearers. In order to maintain the theme I decided to represent my banner bearers using the two Uruk-hai miniatures that are carrying Merry and Pippin. The whole purpose of this host was to capture the Hobbits so I thought it was fitting to use them as banner bearers. Grishnakh is to lead the 12 Mordor Orcs carrying shields and 7 Mordor Orcs carrying two-handed . weapons. Lastly, I also have to create an objective marker which will be one of two things yet to be determined. Either I will create a few Uruk-hai feeding on the beheaded Mordor Orc or I will use a campfire as my objective. Here is my list: ISENGARD RAIDERS Ugluk Borag, Uruk-hai Captain Two-handed Weapon Grishnakh 2 Uruk-hai Scouts Standard Bearer (x2) 16 Uruk-hai Scouts Shield (x16) 12 Mordor Orcs Shield (x12) 7 Mordor Orcs Two-handed Weapon (x7) TOTAL
55 50 5 55 16 60 128 60 156 12 35 7 -------499
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Chris and I played our first game using our lists and we both learned a lot about the capabilities of our armies. The evil host won the game but I ended up losing all of my Orcs and almost half of my Uruk-hai in the process. Our next article will talk about our experience playing in the Team Tournament primer which is being held at the Chicago Battle Bunker on December 9. Until then back to painting. Joe and Chris.
