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'I’m trying EVERY MESBG army at competitive events, here’s what I discovered'
- Jakub Krochmal
- 12 minutes ago
- 17 min read
If you've ever played at a major GBHL event, chances are you'll have come across Jakub Krochmal. He's played at 15 events so far in 2025 (according to the Rankings here!) and 21 in 2024. He's come second in the league, won some of the biggest events going, and led Team England to victory in the Nations Cup. This year Jakub has decided to eschew the 'Top Table Meta' though, taking a different army to every GBHL100 he goes to, here he tells the first part of his story... - Harry P - GBHL Marketing Officer.
I have always considered myself a dabbler in a wide variety of army lists and play styles. Indeed, I believe that my track record in GBHL proves that, as I did win, or just do very well in, events with lists ranging from all the different yellow alliances (including winning a GBHL100 with a quadruple yellow alliance and podiuming with a hexuple?… 6-way one, something that I’m pretty sure is a record). I also always loved list building and the game before the game (which tends to be one of mine, and probably not only mine, favourite pastimes when bored at work) that I consider it to be. So, when I learned about how the list building is going to look like this edition, I was slightly upset at the loss of the amazing variety of armies Boromir of Gondor or The Shadow Lord could be allied into. However, when the leaked profiles and army lists started popping up in my notifications, I got an idea and the more I tried to resist it, the more tempting it was becoming…
See, in any game, however balanced it wasn’t, there are lists/characters/colours (nod to chess) that are ever so slightly better than the rest, or perhaps just slightly better, on average, against the things other people play. Competitive players such as myself tend to be quite good at identifying them and, if aiming for the top spots, selecting among maybe a few such army lists, (taking account of the points level, scenarios or even what their biggest rival has bragged they will be bringing). When seeing the new edition’s profiles and armylists I considered it to be the most balanced ever, however even though I have, or can get my hands on, models for a lot of different lists, I had no doubt I’d be jumping between few best ones in most tournaments.
Unless I challenged myself not to… And so I did!
I decided that this season I’ll be competing for the top spots in the GBHL with style – specifically, I can only play each army list exactly once in GBHL100s. And considering the number of GBHL100s I’d go to, that’s a lot of army lists…
In this article, I’m planning to not only go through how the challenge has been going so far (when writing these words I’ve just gone back from a GBHL100 in Chippenham, Guardian’s Call to Rivendell, so you will know how much time it collectively took me to write it and Harry to publish it), but also rate each army list I have played so far in terms of competitiveness and fun. It’s going to be completely subjective and you have all the rights to disagree. You also have every right to be wrong (in a completely unrelated note).
I began the season with INTO THE WEST, a 450 point tournament hosted by Matt King, which is relatively unique, apart from its very low points level, in allowing players to take both good and evil armies (something, by the way, that I would very much like more TOs to allow). Naturally, having all the lists available to me at that point and oblivious about the consequences, I decided to take 2 armies, that is The Eagles and Ugluk’s Scouts. Both performed very well and out of 7 games, I emerged victorious in 6, only losing to Defenders of Helm’s Deep with my Ugluk’s Scouts and defeating a wide variety of lists including Riders of Theoden, Shadows of Angmar, Radagast’s Alliance and Arnor. This allowed me to finish the tournament with solid 3rd place.
THE EAGLES
Probably most discussed and one of the most controversial army lists in the game, so I’m not going to discuss it for very long. This list is obscene against most things at very low points and becomes quite mid at high points, especially when it tries to be in multiple places at the same time while only having one hero. When fun factor is concerned, it is very fun to play, especially for players enjoying sapping the will to live out of their opponents. However, because of how few models you actually have, even a single very bad combat roll can quickly turn the game on its head and things like having a turn without a combat won can definitely happen and would reduce the fun factor considerably, and as this can be out of player’s control it also somewhat jeopardises the list’s competitiveness.
Verdict: Competitiveness 7/10, Fun 8/10
UGLUK’S SCOUTS
One of my genuinely favourite lists last edition, which got a ‘sidegrade’ as the new one came out. Orcs no longer have woodland creature and strikes being weakened hurt this list more than others, but on the other hand the addition of dominant 2 on one of the objective markers and an extra buff Ugluk can give to the Uruks just about compensates for it. It may just be the list that’s competitive at the widest range of points in the game, although to me it really shines at low to medium level. Very fun to play if, like me, you enjoy outmanoeuvring your opponent, but can be frustrating playing into solid heroes or just a solid line of slightly better infantry.
Verdict: Competitiveness 9/10, Fun 6/10
The next tournament in my calendar was GONDOR IN 60 SECONDS held in Middlesbrough. It was a straight up 600 point tournament, with no particular flavour. For this one, I felt like playing something that I fully expected to be FAQed in weeks: the 5 attack Witch King. Specifically, RAW Monstrous Charge stacked with cavalry bonus, so against infantry, The Witch King on Fell Beast had whopping 5 attacks, which I found to be a pretty good idea when supported by a bunch of orcs wounding against courage and some spectres. If you haven’t realised already, I’m talking Minas Morgul.
This tournament went really well and I won all 6 games (although, one very luckily, and in other one, some people still think it was a draw), which unsurprisingly gave me 1st place.
MINAS MORGUL
I have mixed feelings on this one. Orcs wounding on courage are great, however the only heavy hitter in this list is the Witch King and that can hurt – especially as he no longer gets 5 attacks against anyone. To me, it works best at either 600 or something like 700-750, the difference being one warband. If you’re considering taking trolls – the points are too high, pick a different army list.
Verdict: Competitiveness 7/10, Fun 5/10
Next step on my very busy early year tournament schedule was the CITY OF STEEL, hosted by Ali King in Sheffield. That one was 700 points, with a twist that every list got a free 6 inch banner, and there were additional tournament points for capturing enemy banners. This gave me an idea to take something that can’t normally take a banner and would very much benefit from it, while I won’t really miss it for the rest of the season… and so my Mirkwood Rangers finally got assembled and painted (lovely models which practically paint themselves by the way). A banner was supposed to give them a bit of combat reliability that they sorely lack and I hoped to win the games very narrowly, but surely. And, well, it worked to a point. I started off by beating Ugluk’s Scouts at Recon (which I’m still not sure how I managed) and getting extremely narrow victories against Battle of Fornost and Lothlorien, all of them also very different and chess-like experiences. However, I then got to play Men of the West at Hold Ground, and with a combination of losing priority, poor shooting and inability to kill anyone in combat I got completely annihilated. I also got an extremely interesting Draw against Minas Tirith in Domination and ended up going 4-1-1 but with negative VP difference.
RANGERS OF MIRKWOOD
Honestly, don’t. It wasn’t a good list with the initial 6 scenarios (at least without a 6-inch banner, which indeed helped this list immensely compared to others), and with more scenarios that require moving towards the centre of the board it is even worse. It was fun to play in a weird way, but certainly the kind of fun that’s interesting once in a while but would get boring very soon. All of this unless you’re playing on an empty table against armies which have maximum of D5. In this case, fire away.
Verdict: Competitiveness 3/10, Fun 5/10
The next tournament for me was the 7TH CITY GRAND PRIX, which I won last year (with my Khand). This event was 600 points and with a pod system and knock-out stage in day 2. I wanted to play something unusual here, and went for another list which I thought could squeeze narrow wins, and which I didn’t expect anyone to know how to play against: come Rise of the Necromancer with the main actor, 4 wraiths and 5 warg riders. I managed to win all my games day 1 (although they were extremely close, with the first game being a horrible matchup of Rivendell). Day 2 I started from playing Fangorn in To The Death and unfortunately I lost that one (although it was really fun and extremely close until the very end). Following that, I won my remaining games but due to the knock-out system finished 9thdespite 7-1 record.
RISE OF THE NECROMANCER
Now this will probably be a hot take. In terms of competitiveness it’s a decent list, which has its bad matchups (like Lothlorien), but overall can play against most things and is surprisingly good against opponents who don’t know how to play against it (and I’m not going to tell how to beat it in order to retain my competitive advantage). However, in terms of fun to play, it was absolutely phenomenal. This list has an extremely high skill cap but rewards smart play so well, and you have to approach every game with an open mind and formulate the game plan on the spot. I imagine not everyone will share the fun I had, but not getting to play it again this year might be my biggest regrets. Oh, and the best point level is something around 600-650.
Verdict: Competitiveness 6/10, Fun 10/10
It’s a bit of a bonus round, since it wasn’t a GBHL100, but at the beginning of March I found myself with a free day and a nice low point GBHL90 hosted nearby, which was 395 points and called A RANGER CAUGHT OFF HIS GUARD. Obviously, to keep in the theme I took Road to Rivendell in the form of Aragorn, Arwen, 4 hobbits and Bill the Pony (and was one of 2 players who did so, out of about 40 who attended). To my surprise, I actually went 4/1 with the list, only narrowly losing to Minas Morgul in Destroy the Supplies and beating Wolves of Isengard in Recon. This gave me a 3rd place, which I was definitely happy about.
ROAD TO RIVENDELL
This is definitely not a competitive list at any tournament-worthy points level, but with an addition of Gildor and his elves, I think it might actually be playable up to about 500. And, of course, it’s lots of fun.
Verdict: Competitiveness 3/10, Fun 9/10
Time to get back to GBHL100s. A week later, I was going to Preston to play in GATHERING IN GREY HAVENS. This was a 600 point, 7 round tournament (using some of the “old” scenarios, that were not in the rulebook at that point: fun fact was that we ended up only playing one scenario that was not among the 6 included in the new Rules Manual even though there was a 50% chance of playing one in each round). The first prize was also Lego Rivendell set worth about 400 pounds, and having a massive Lego fan at home, the game was on for me. So I pulled out big guns and took Army of the White Hand. This turned out to be a good choice because after winning 6 out of 7 games (only lost a mirror matchup in Hold Ground because the game ended on first turn after break, which by itself I was very unlucky to inflict) I came on top and ended up taking a massive Lego set home.
ARMY OF THE WHITE HAND
Pretty sure that one has also been discussed all over the internet. Obviously it’s a very competitive list, at least starting from 600 points. The combination of very powerful “spells” from an army bonus, good value troops (including Crebain, which are arguably the most undercosted unit in the game) and Grima (who competes with Crebain in that regard) give this list great board control and allow it to do very well in most scenarios, even though it might buckle in combat to a solid opponent. It is definitely fun to play too, even though it might be a little unhealthy kind of fun. If you were a bit sadistic as a child (or are still now, I don’t know who will read this), Grima will definitely be very fun for you.
Verdict: Competitiveness 10/10, Fun 7/10
A week late I turned up, without a ticket, to WARHAMMER WORLD GT, and, as unsuprisingly not everyone showed up, I was admitted. That was a 700 point tournament with Good and Evil requirement (it was 3 games with Good and 3 with Evil). Due to the circumstances of my arrival, I prioritised using lists where I had all the models ready and didn’t need to do any painting. So, I ended up using Arnor and Depths of Moria with the Balrog. My evil list did amazingly (I believe I scored 57 out of 58 points I could score, since I couldn’t take a banner), however Good disappointed, losing to the Depths of Moria with a watcher and, against all odds, to Besiegers of Hornburg. Such a waste of a weekend.
ARNOR
I suppose it’s a decently competitive list, which has good numbers, very solid troops with Malbeth boosting durability even further, fearless bubble and priority winning shenanigans. But oh how boring it is… Also, if something starts going south, this list really has no tools to turn it around, it can just sit and grind. Hated the experience.
Verdict: Competitiveness 6/10, Fun 2/10
DEPTHS OF MORIA
This one though, is its complete opposite. It might lack banners, models with more than 5 inch movement (apart from the Balrog) and quality troops, but the best army bonus in the game makes up for it by far and with the buffs to himself (or monsters in general) and nerfs to Heroic Strike it’s amazing to play. Nevermind the versions with the Watcher or just a goblin horde, which have merits of their own and even won a GBHL100 each. I’ll dock 1 point off competitiveness though for lack of banner and those games when Balrog just can’t ever roll a 6 or The Watcher refuses to enter the board. For the Balrog version alone Fun would probably be closer to 9, but I can’t imagine a goblin horde to be fun, so treat the score as average.
Verdict: Competitiveness 9/10, Fun 7/10
Up next was a very controversial GBHL100, at least in its form from this year (which I really didn’t like, by the way): the GBHL MASTERS. It was 550 points and a 4-round knock-out style tournament. Since there weren’t many viable list at this points level, especially considering I couldn’t play Ugluk’s Scouts or Depths of Moria, I decided to go a completely different route and took Barad-Dur, with Sauron accompanied by a bunch of warg riders and a banner. The tournament itself ended in a disaster though, as I lost To The Death to a 19 model Atop The Wall (fair play to my opponent though) by getting quartered, and then lost Destroy the Supplies to a goblin horde (this was more expected, although I even had a chance to win). I won the last 2 games, but that didn’t change the fact that I finished 13th out of 16.
BARAD DUR
A few weeks ago I would have said that this will probably never win a GBHL100 and I have to stand corrected now. However, it doesn’t change the fact the list just needs the scenarios and opponents to line up well to achieve results. It can definitely be fun to play though, as Sauron is essentially invincible for most cases. Well, unless you play against the Balrog, because there is always a bigger fish…
Verdict: Competitiveness 4/10, Fun 7/10
About a month later I went to my next GBHL100, CITY OF KINGS. That one was 800 points (finally, an actually decent amount), with a twist being the ability to bring a piece of terrain to place on the board. To go with a theme of trying to get some advantage from tournament special rules whenever possible, I went with Reclamation of Osgiliath and a large piece of difficult terrain ruin, which wasn’t difficult at all for me. Oh well, in everyone’s “career” I suppose there are tournaments that you just want to forget about, and this was one of them. After a pretty certain win turned into a draw in round 2, I tilted and ended up going 2-2-2 and finishing really poorly, again. Boromir was trying to carry the day, however, unfortunately, the rest of the list just didn’t deliver. I played like an idiot too.
RECLAMATION OF OSGILIATH
Despite my poor result, I think it’s still a solid list, particularly around 700-750 mark, 800 felt a tiny bit too high. It has a great beatstick in Boromir, solid troops, some shooting and a big advantage in maelstrom scenarios due to Madril. Scenarios promoting being aggressive should also benefit it. Just don’t play as badly as I did. When it comes to fun, I’m definitely biased as a Boromir superfan and seeing him do heroic feats is always fun (rolling 3 high in a heroic combat against 2 goblins, less so). Besides Boromir, there isn’t really many fun parts unfortunately.
Verdict: Competitiveness 7/10, Fun 6/10
A few weeks later, I found myself driving 6 hours to Scotland (with great company though). The tournament we were going to was BATTLE OF CLYDEWATER, hosted in Bathgate. It was 800 points, with a generous 150 minutes per game, and I let myself be convinced to try out Men of the West (with Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli as heroes). It turned out that it was actually quite good and I managed to win all my games against tough opposition, including defeating my arch-rival Dave Farmer, who used Army of the White Hand, in the final round of Domination. After the defeats suffered for previous 2 months, that was definitely a welcome change, and I won a cool Morgul Blade as well (which I’m constantly getting poked with at home).
MEN OF THE WEST
How the tables have turned with that list. From meme tier in the last edition it became… perhaps not top tier (unless there is a lot of time on the round) but certainly more than decent. While the troop choices are rather uninspiring (Rohan archers are top tier in this list though), the heroes are very fun to use, with Aragorn being an absolute beatstick and Legolas vs Gimli contest being exciting every game. It’s also a complete opposite of Arnor, as you always have a lot of options with this list and have the tools to turn the game around.
Verdict: Competitiveness 8/10, Fun 8/10
As if I didn’t have enough of long drives to tournaments, at the beginning of June I went to Newcastle to participate in THE GREAT NORTH RHUN. It was a 700 point event with no flying models allowed and one custom scenario (which was a heavily modified Storm the Camp). Knowing at that point that the new scenarios are going to be released in a week or so, I decided to use a list that I expected would suffer a lot with the change: Defenders of Helm’s Deep. It turned out that it wasn’t going to be my weekend though. After losing a tricky matchup to Battle of Fornost in round 1, I could still hope for the win, but my dreams were shattered when I lost in recon against Buhrdur’s Horde game 3 due to orcs having dice rolls of their lives. I also suffered through the game of Hold Ground against the Balrog completely refusing to end, and it ended up being a very sad 3-3.
DEFENDERS OF HELM’S DEEP
This list definitely had a lot of potential in the world of first 6 scenarios, but I have a lot of doubts about its competitiveness now, as a combination of defensive playstyle and lack of mobility hurts a lot. At the very least, I would consider taking Aragorn when playing it for more mobility, control, and a solid hero for Contest of Champions. Oh, it was also, unsurprisingly, not very fun to play.
Verdict: Competitiveness 5/10, Fun 4/10
A week later I got to play at the smallest GBHL100 I experienced, which had 14 players, and, ironically, was called A REALLY BIG SUMMER DAY OUT. It was 749 points with no particular flavour, and, as the Nations Cup, which was 750 points, was just a week later, it would seem smart to practice with my list. However, that was impossible as I already played it earlier in the year, so I went for shooting heavy Thranduil’s Halls, a list that I also thought would be weaker with the remaining scenarios released. I ended up going 4-2 and only very narrowly losing to 2 players who ended above me, each time on banner points. As you might have guessed, I finished 3rd, which frankly was no achievement in such a small event, but I was still very happy with my form and accuracy of play.
THRANDUIL’S HALLS
This remains a really solid list, although I would build it differently (less shooting focus) with all the scenarios in play. It combines very solid heroes (Thranduil may not be good at killing but +1 to wound and banner make him a bit like this list’s Dragon Emperor) and extremely efficient troops, especially with the glaives. Would still recommend. Fun wise, Legolas and a sentinel definitely provide the potential to have some, and while not exciting, the list is enjoyable to play.
Verdict: Competitiveness 7/10, Fun 6/10
The full version of a new edition finally came out so after over a month’s break from the GBHL I went to Chippenham to play in GUARDIAN’S CALL TO RIVENDELL. It was 7 games at 550 points, which is not really a points level that I like. However, an influx of new lists from Armies of Middle-Earth and Legacies gave me some ideas. Knowing how random and matchup-dependent 550 points can be, I’ve decided to go for Ravagers of the Shire, a new Golfimbul’s armylist included in the Legacies document, that for some reason GW decided to give one of the most overpowered sets of army bonuses. I had plenty of fun and the orcs kept smashing (except for Lords of Battle, which I lost by one wound, after a horrendous beginning of the game and a race to recover for the last 40 minutes or so). Anyway, in the last game I was playing on top table against Jay Acharya, who brought Sauron and troll cheftain, and out of 18 scenarios left, about 15-16 were rather easy wins. That, however, was not meant to happen, and we ended up playing To The Death, which I lost, resulting in finishing somewhere around 5th place. Disappointing.
RAVAGERS OF THE SHIRE
This is a prime example of a list that’s very competitive / broken at low points, at certain points levels (I think 400 and 500 would be ideal) and not competitive at high points. So I’m giving it a rather average score because of that. I really don’t understand how could anyone think that giving an extremely niche force in Legacies this kind of army bonus (+1 to wound against enemy models outnumbered in a fight) is a good idea. In terms of fun, if you like a lot of stuff on the board to die it’s definitely fun, but don’t expect any real hero play.
Verdict: Competitiveness 6/10, Fun 7/10
And so, at the end of July I sat on 15 different armylists played, at 12 GBHL100s and one GBHL90, with 3 GBHL100 wins. That gave me second place in the league, with a rather solid lead, and a glimmer of hope to try to get the 1st place. When this article will be published, the next tournament will already have happened, but this one, and ones that come after, I shall leave for the inevitable part 2 of this article, which hopefully will be published after the end of the season.
Oh, and congratulations if you read through all of this and got here. Well played.
Thanks to Jakub for the epic write up of his first 7 months in the league... The insights are incredible... come back for part 2 in the New Year!
Current GBHL TOP TEN (and other Leaders Eligible for Masters next year)
Eligibility | Name |
First | David Farmer |
Second | Jakub Krochmal |
Third | Connor Morris |
Fourth | John Partridge |
Fifth | Thomas Wagg |
Sixth | Stephen Denbigh |
Seventh | Thomas Seccombe |
Eighth | Miles Sage |
Ninth | Jasmine Tetley |
Tenth | Niall Corrigan |
Southwest Leader | David Farmer |
Southeast Leader | Thomas Seccombe |
Central Leader | Connor Morris |
Northern England Leader | Adam Bird |
Scotland/NI/ROI Leader | Finlay Staniforth |
Best Newcomer | Rob Keen |
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