Chris was generous enough to let me try his Host of the Dragon Emperor (which I faced in the last escalation tournament). We made a few different lists and rolled randomly to see what we'd face off against and, lo and behold, the King himself. The King vs the Emperor!
Here is the Dragon Emperor list- quite similar to what Chris ran at the 800 point escalation tournament with just fewer Acolytes.
Pretty standard looking Army of the Dead!
We rolled for scenarios and veto'd two. In the end, we wound up playing Divide and Conquer. Not ideal for the Dragon Emperor's forces being cut in two, but the other options were worse!
The Dragon Emperor and Brorgir deploy in the bottom right. Rutabi and company on the opposite corner in the top left. Aragorn and Legolas deploy in the top right (annoyingly JUST out of frame in this picture), while the King of the Dead is in the bottom left. Really glad I have a drum!
God the Palanquin is SO COOL. I want it, but I can't quite drop the scratch on it right now... plus I already have a HUGE pile of shame to paint!
The King of the Dead.
Rutabi
The next few turns naturally see our forces converging.
I know I want the massive Emperor's Pike block to take and hold the middle. Brorgir channels Fury.
Rutabi's Warband has a chance to swarm the King without getting tied up...
But the Easterlings bounce off the King.
The Emperor's force prepares to hold the center and the fight is on!
Rutabi and company move in to catch up and hopefully go for some traps. Brorgir hits a tremor which kills two models and knocks a few more down!
At this point, I gotta say, this is a GRINDY fight. Strength 3 on my guys vs defense 8... Easterling losses mount early on.
The Dragon Emperor whiffs a Heroic Combat off two warriors of the dead. I really overestimated his killiness vs Def 8. I just got laser focused on NINE DICE TO WOUND! But 6 of those are still Strength 3... ouch.
The Fight in the middle starts gettin' hot and heavy. Traps help me take down a few warriors of the dead and the fight starts balancing out. Aragorn and the King chase down and kill Brorgir. Rutabi accidentally traps herself against Aragorn, but miraculously survives.
The Grind continues... when suddenly the Dragon Emperor traps Aragorn. Aragorn strikes with his free might up but the Dragon Emperor is out of Might... then Aragorn rolls a 5 high with no more might. The Emperor gets the 6 and suddenly those 9 dice look ridiculous. Aragorn dies spectacularly before his eminence, the Dragon.
At this point the game devolves into rapid turns with a heavy cognitive load trying to figure out who is where and who's supporting who. It does LOOK cool, like the ghosts have just disrupted the ranks, but man it's a total mess in there!
We both grind past our breaking points- I sneak a Pikeman to one of the side objectives.
Because the game can now end suddenly, I know it's time to flood the center point with bodies. I dismount the Emperor and his lackeys and swarm the central point.
The grind just doesn't stop. But I have such vast numbers now, it's easier to go for traps and the losses continue mounting for the dead.
FINALLY the game grinds to a close and it's clear the Easterlings control the central objective handily.
The Easterlings score 2 VPs Twice for each of the flanking objectives (a lone pikeman was sent to each). The Dragons score 3 VPs for having more bodies on the central objective. They score 1 VP for breaking the enemy, and 2 VPs for killing their leader.
The Dead score 1 VP for having broken the Host of the Dragon Emperor.
When the dust settles and the grinding gears come to a halt, the final tally is 10 VPs to 1 VP for the Easterlings.
Closing Thoughts: Man, this game was just... not to overuse the word... GRINDY. The cognitive load of figuring out who's supporting where. The slow roll of always needing to roll for Terror. It was just... a grind. BUT it was cool to see and I absolutely LOVE the Easterlings. Really want to add them to my collection- maybe someday!
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