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Great tales are often shared of the heroes of legend in the SBG community. Of Ed Ball and his fearsome Fell Beasts, of Jay Clare and his Laketown glories and of Will, Champion of the Great British Hobbit League.
But what about rising stars? The heroes of Fortitude looking to make a name for themselves. The new players seeking glory and a spot in the annals of GBHL history. This is a tale of two of these such gamers.
Each year the league crowns not just a champion and runners up, but also regional winners for the North, Centre and South of the British Isles and best newcomer too.
Ahead of the league finale this weekend (which has a couple of tickets spare after some last minute dropouts) some of these results are sewn up already, Alastair King is guaranteed the Crown of the South; Jay Clare the Central; but the others are still well and truly up for grabs.
A huge number of people are duking it out to be King of the North, with James Gilray, David Alexander, Hamish Gentles and Sean Sproule all slugging it out in Scotland’s final event of the year.
But I’m going to focus on a duel of wits between two “noobs” looking to be crowed Best Newcomer. Every year the league adds dozens of new names to the roster of people competing in the league and collates their results to crown a champion of the New. This year, both Rowan May and Ryan Gregory are in for a shot at the title.
Rowan began his hobby journey in the tail end of 2019, after a friend gifted him some old childhood toys while his wife was away for three months (little did she know she’d return to a fledgling nerd!). He squeezed in practice games and even a trip to Throne of Skulls before his wife returned but says his main memory of the experience is “how fried my brain was after 7.5 hour each day trying to recall as many rules as possible”.
It was only after he’d attended three tournaments as a newcomer before he realised he was actually eligible to win an award.
“I was top of the runnings!” He says, “I’d been the first newcomer to play in three tournaments. So it was then on me to try and improve on my third best score at every event to slowly push the mark up.”
The newcomer rankings work much like the main gbhl ranks, they take into account your best three scores from tournaments. The higher you place in tournaments, the more points you get.
Rowan says it’s become a bit of an all consuming rivalry between Ryan and himself, saying “ it’s going to be a relief when it’s all over, whoever ends up winning it, that’s for sure!”
Rowan had the early lead, but after Ryan won a few matches he put himself with a chance to take the lead, all he needed to do was come second in one of the League’s biggest events, The Scouring of Cheshire…
Ryan, who started playing just as Lockdown hit in 2021, says he played “Poorly” in his first ever event (at 7th City Collectables in Nottingham). “I lost 2 games against Hobbits!” He says.
But from there it was a rapid ascendancy, perhaps helped by regularly playing in the Nottingham area where many titans of the game are based, he managed to place well at various tournaments with his Theoden’s Riders legion.
“It’s all too easy to replicate the famous pelennor charge (obviously screaming “DEATH!” as I do so!) and then lose games on objectives” he says, by way of advice.
“I’m now a lot more aggressive than I was initially, but one area I’ve massively improved on is actually playing the objectives.”
When Ryan took his Rohan to Cheshire he didn’t expect to still be in the running for Best Newcomer, but after 5 games he found himself at the top tables and in with a shot… A win later and he finished on the podium, and at the top of the Neecomer Rankings.
“It was all a bit of a shock, I went from not being a contender to being top within two weeks!”
So ahead of this coming weekend’s finale, all’s to play for.
“It’s been a very tight race with Ryan needing to pull a second place out of the bag at Cheshire and managing it!” Rowan says, but he responded in kind by taking the top tables by storm in Reading this weekend gone.
So how do the two feel about the finale?
“I’m taking two lists I’ve played a lot this year” Rowan says, planning to take a trusty Rohan and Lothlorien alliance with Theodred, Galadriel and Grimbold with Helmingas. His evil army is a Moria Druzhag list with all the nasties:
“ I love using spiders and, coupled with the numbers from Moria, I’m hoping it can overwhelm the enemies!”
Ryan is taking his Riders of Theoden force, with 6 heroes and as many Rohan Royal guard as possible. But he’s less sure on his evil force:
“It’ll be my first time using anything but Rohan. As it’s a good versus evil event, I’m having to bring my Mordor force. Let’s hope the age of men really is over!”
With the gauntlet thrown down ahead of the event in Scotland, a friendly rivalry is building up…”We have played each other twice, once at battle companies which he comfortably one and another at a 700 points matched play a game that I won” says Ryan, “he’s a really nice guy to speak to and play against!”
“Ryan beat me in an absolute bloodbath of a game with many casualties on both sides!” says Rowan, but they dodged each other at their last major competitive tournaments.
A newcomer has never ridden to victory in the GBHL finale, and Ryan needs the win to secure the trophy in the Best Newcomer race. Could he be in with a chance? Will Rowan beat him on the way to glory?
Small chance of success, certainty of “DEATH!”... What are we waiting for?
Check out the next outrider blog post for the results of the league finale, including the Season’s full GBHL results. Or keep checking in on the Results Table here (though the page will be down temporarily on Sunday Evening, while results are added in).
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