The Scouring of the Shire, Part 2: The Ruffians Arrive

Good morning gamers,

We're back for scenario two of the Scouring of the Shire campaign and today Bill Ferny is back, leading a ragtag band of Ruffians and Lotho Sackville-Baggins against a company of Hobbit Shirriffs and a few Hobbit Militia bounders, led by Holfoot Bracegirdle and Robin Smallburrow. Let's see how this goes!

The Ruffians Arrive

The Ruffians and Hobbits start on opposite sides of the Brandywine Bridge in roughly equal numbers. The game lasts for 12 turns and Evil wins if they can Paralyze Robin and Holfoot and get them off the western board edge. The Hobbits win if they can prevent this from happening and if Holfoot and Robin are still alive. If either Holfoot or Robin should be killed, the game is a draw.

Nemesis: How to Fight Against the Dark Lord Sauron

Good morning gamers,

We're back with a how-to-counter-tough-models post today and since we covered the "big four" heroes of the Last Alliance, it seemed fitting that we'd also cover Sauron in the discussion - especially since he showed up on most of their countering lists. If you make a short list of models that are a) great in combat, b) hard to kill, and c) great at casting magic, Sauron is probably very, VERY high on the list. He's expensive, but he also does it all. So if you see him on the other side of the table, what on Middle-Earth are you supposed to do? Well, let's dig into what makes this guy good - and then we'll look at how to beat him.

What Makes The Dark Lord Sauron So Hated?

Any discussion about Sauron has to begin with his profile - he's got a beastly combat profile with F9, S8, 4 Attacks, and 3 Might with the option to call Heroic Strike (though when you start from F9, there's a real risk against F5-6 heroes that you don't need it). If his offense was great and his defense was poor (like Gulavhar), he probably wouldn't be worth his cost, but with Defense 10 (the only hero in the game with a Defense rating that high), 5 Wounds, and a 2+ mightable save against the final wound he suffers thanks to his modified One Ring rules, wounding Sauron is hard - and killing Sauron is all but impossible. 

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

If you'd like to see a rather hilarious science experiment about how hard it is to kill Sauron, you should check out the Conquest Creations video that Jacob Lucas did earlier in the year - if you don't mind spoilers, Sauron managed to kill 532 Hobbit Militia over 157 turns and died after making 17 One Ring saves . . . no game is going to last that long, of course - and it's very rare that you'll see over 500 Hobbits on the board . . . or that all you'll be facing are Hobbit Militia with axes. :)

He's also got a great spell array - arguably the greatest in the game (I certainly think so). Most of his spells have an 18" range (6" longer than most other casters), and he can cast Drain Courage/Transfix on a 2+, Compel on a 3+, and Chill Soul/Sap Will on a 4+, giving him the ability to neutralize low-Will heroes while they're a long way off to slow their advance, weaken Ringwraiths with either of his 4+ spells from beyond a Fly-able charge range, and he can pluck wounds off army leaders or banner-bearers far before they get into combat with him. Oh, and he casts Instill Fear on a 3+, which can be great for clearing out objectives (especially when paired with his Ancient Evil special rule).

Nemesis: How to Fight Against Isildur

Good morning gamers,

This year in this series, we've looked at Gil-Galad, Elendil, and Elrond as the major heroes from the Last Alliance (well, and Bill Ferny) - today, we're wrapping up the quadrivium of heroes by covering the cheapest and potentially most difficult to deal with of the lot: Isildur. This guy can be crazy good - and he can also let you know (or at least, mine has let me down a time or twelve). Isildur is a bit of an odd choice for this series, since he's the first model that I'm not only covering here in Nemesis (as a model that you can hate fighting on the other side of the table) AND a model we've previously covered in our In Defense Of series (as a model that gets critique for not being good enough by some players). Isildur is a bit of a polarizing piece, either shredding your army and best heroes to bits or underperforming and seeming inferior to his dad (and sometimes multiple captains).

Recently, Evan Iverson has had some international success with Isildur (allied with some friends that aren't Rivendell to help maximize his benefits) and so we're going to look today at what you can do to help fight against Isildur and make him pay if he shows up on the other side of the board. Let's see what all the fuss is about this guy first . . .

What Makes Isildur So Hated?

For starters, Isildur is usually fielded without Elendil so that he has the One Ring. Isildur is the only Ringbearer who follows the rules for the One Ring and has innate F6, which will give him a higher FV than most other models who can engage him (more on this later). Since he's the second model in the hierarchy for getting the Ring (only behind Sauron) and since you have full control over whether you have Elendil (and eventually Anarion) in your list, you are very likely to have the Ring if you take Isildur - and as I've discussed before (several times, actually, to include an article in our Back to Basics series), there are some really powerful things you can do with the One Ring.

Photo Credit: The Armies of the Lord of the Rings

Before he puts the Ring on, Isildur is still a powerhouse hero with F6/S5/3A, access to a horse, and 3-Might-and-Strike. By any hero's reckoning, this is a great offensive profile - and while there are heroes who can have more Might than Isildur, the presence of the Ring often means that he needs to spend his Might less for calling heroic actions and can use it more for passing the two things that actually matter: dueling rolls and Ring tests.

Announcing the TMAT GT 2024!

  Good morning gamers,

Wait, we just had a tournament - what's all this? Well, we had a short window this year for our Grand Tournament, so here's a three week notice post! The tournament will be held at Patrick Henry College on May 4, 2024. Like the event last year, we're going to do four rounds with the veto system, but the way we do pairings will be a little different. Without further ado, here are (in my typical style) the Ten Commandments of the Tournament (Rules):

1) Thou Shalt Understand The Canon

The ruleset from the updated Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game Rules Manual (the Sauron one) will be our baseline. The Armies of the Lord of the Rings supplement will govern the rules for armies from the Lord of the Rings, while the Armies of the Hobbit supplement will govern the rules for armies from the Hobbit. Legendary Legions and profiles from any of the GW supplements may be used, provided that the army building requirements for the Legendary Legion are followed. Any GW errata for these books will take precedent over the printed text of these documents.

2) Thou Shalt Honor Thy Alliance

This tournament follows the alliance "restrictions" provided in the Armies of the Lord of the Rings and Armies of the Hobbit supplements - players are allowed to have "pure" armies or Historical/Convenient/Impossible alliances. Legendary Legions from any of the Games Workshop supplements can be taken as well, but obviously cannot take allies nor be taken as allies.

The Scouring of the Shire, Part 1: Ruffians in Bree

Good morning gamers,

Last year, Centaur and I played through Fantasy Fellowships every other Saturday and it was a lot of fun. I think Quest of the Ringbearer is the best supplement released to date and the scenario options in it certainly contribute to that. Centaur (Hi Reader!) firmly believes that The Scouring of the Shire supplement is better, so when we were probing through scenario campaigns to do this year, the choice was clear: we were doing Scouring.

Centaur has been collecting Hobbits for ages and has recently printed a bunch of Ruffians to support his GW Sharkey's Rogues heroes, so after finding and painting Robin Smallburrow, he was good to provide all the models. With his help getting some 3D printed roads and smial doors (and a mill - all paid for by advertising revenue from this blog by viewers like you . . . thanks, guys), I undertook the terrain side of the house. Now you know who to critique for what.

Our first scenario begins in Bree, which means I get to show off some really old, child-proof terrain today . . .

Ruffians in Bree

The board is a 4'x4' board in two panels - I have an Inn of the Prancing Pony in the middle for Quest of the Ringbearer, so we measured out a 12" radius in all four cardinal directions and marked the edges with black dice (you can see one at the bottom of the image behind the Ruffian models).

The scenario participants are 4 Hobbit Militia and 8 Bree Villagers (Hobbit Militia with +2" of movement, +1 Strength, and -1 Courage) against Bill Ferny (remember him?) and 9 Ruffians (3 bows, 2 whips, 4 vanilla). To win this scenario, the Bree-folk need to kill Bill Ferny (2 Wounds/1 Fate with Defense 3 and only 1 Attack), while the Ruffians need to quarter the Bree-folk AND Bill Ferny needs to kill two models. If the Ruffians quarter the Bree-Folk but Bill Ferny kills 0-1 models, the game is a draw. Let's see if we can make some mischief in Bree . . .