The New Age Is Begun: The Assault on Ravenhill Army List

Good morning gamers,

We're continuing in our Battle of Five Armies month and we're looking at an all-hero list that is super strong at certain points levels: the Assault on Ravenhill. I remember reading the list composition and special rules for this list and being like, "Wow, that's good." There's a lot to like about this list, but it can be a little hard to pilot (at the time of this writing, it has 101 tournament games logged in Tabletop Admiral and has won more than two games against only two lists - the Assault Upon Helm's Deep and Lurtz's Scouts). Let's see what this list has to offer and what you can do if you choose to play with it . . .

Assault on Ravenhill: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

This list contains the people who actually fight on Ravenhill (Thranduil goes up there after the battle, but we don't get him in this list). We have four Dwarves (Thorin, Kili, Fili, and Dwalin), one Hobbit (Burglar Bilbo), and two Elves (Legolas and Tauriel). What makes me really sad (but I get it for this edition) is that you can't get goats on the Dwarves in this list - I know there are converted up models for those guys out there and this would be a controlled list to get them onto the table again. Still, we've got good profiles in front of us - and boy do we have some nice rules coming to help them out . . .

Army List Bonuses

There are five special rules for this list - and if you're playing at/above 650pts, you'll get all five. The rule you'll always have is The Line of Durin, which gives Thorin a 6" banner radius that affects everyone (not just the 3" banner radius that affects your Dwarf units) and he'll count for banner VPs for any scenario. If you bring Kili and Fili, they will gain +1 Attack (3 Attacks each) from this rule as well - that's great! If you take Legolas, there are two rules that are relevant to your army. Legolas in this list gets Orcrist for free (as part of the Orcrist rule), but can toss it to Thorin at the start of a Fight Phase if Thorin is fighting within 6" of Legolas. Additionally, Legolas gets Fight Value 7 and 3 Attacks from the Heroes of Mirkwood rule, which means that everyone except Bilbo will/can be a 3 Attack hero. If you also take Tauriel, she will get to reroll all failed To Wound rolls when making Strikes, which is the third damage bonus rule that Tauriel has gotten in this series (+1 To Wound in the Army of Lake-town, rerolling 1s To Wound in the Rangers of Mirkwood).

So It Begins, Part 8: Ride Out

 Good morning gamers,

For the astute observer, we jumped from Scenario 6 to Scenario 8 - this isn't a typo. Centaur's 3D printer was angry about the humidity in his house and wouldn't print the last bits of the Deep Citadel that we needed for the Fall Back to the Keep scenario, so we're postponing it until the air gets dryer - we'll post it when it's ready, I promise.

We're almost done and today we're back in a scenario that we've played before in Fantasy Fellowships: Ride Out. I'm not going to lie, I have been playing with the Ride Out army list a lot this year and I am feeling pretty confident about how things are going to go. Let's see if I can smash up the Uruk-Hai without mounted Dwarf heroes this time!

Ride Out (War in Rohan, p. 38)

I decided to change up the scenario participants to make the fight more balanced - there are a lot more Uruks than are normally in the scenario:

• Forces of Good: 599pt Ride Out
• Theoden with everything 
• Aragorn on Brego with armor 
• Legolas on horse with armor 
• Gamling with everything 
• 2 Riders of Rohan 
• 2 Rohan Royal Guards on horses with throwing spears 
• Forces of Evil: 594pt The Assault Upon Helm's Deep 
• 1 Uruk-Hai Uber-Captain 
• 3 Uruk-Hai Captains 
• 15 Uruk-Hai Warriors with shields 
• 15 Uruk-Hai Warriors with pikes 
• 1 Uruk-Hai Warrior with banner 

Outnumbered 35-to-8, let's see if we can beat these guys up! The board is a 48"x48" setup, but since Centaur could start near the end of the Causeway, he did:

The New Age Is Begun: the Survivors of Lake-town Army List

Good morning gamers,

We're kicking off the last month of the year for digging through the army lists in the game and we'll be building up to the Battle of Five Armies by the end of the month! We're starting off with the least exciting of the armies we have yet to cover and that's the Survivors of Lake-town. This list differs greatly from the Army of Lake-town that we covered earlier in the year - and while it used to be a more common choice last edition (not as common as the Army of Lake-town, but some people played it), it's fallen from favor in its current iteration. Let's see why - and what there is to like about it still this edition . . .

Survivors of Lake-town: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

Our profiles are the same ones we had last edition: we have Bard and his kids, Alfrid, Hilda-Bianca, Percy, and Lake-town Captains/Militia for the Lake-town contingent and we have Gandalf the Grey and "mega Bilbo" as our side characters. Unlike the Army of Lake-town, we didn't get any of the other people that show up with these guys (no Legolas, Tauriel, or other Mirkwood characters - and definitely no Dwarves). Is this enough to work with? Maybe, but surely we're going to get rules to make our guys awesome, right?

Army List Bonuses

This list has four special rules, besides the requirement to take Bard as your General every game. Two of our rules are Bard-centric (as is fitting): first, he gains Mighty Hero and Fearless via the Heir of Dale rule, which means he'll never run from a fight, he'll be able to charge whatever nasty your opponent has automatically (unless the Crown of Morgul is involved), and he gets a free Might point each turn for calling a Heroic Action, boosting a roll, or just sitting and wasting away (because unlike Aragorn, this fella doesn't have Heroic March). Bard also gets a rule (Saviour of Lake-town) where other friendly Lake-town models within 6" of Bard (not Alfrid) get +1 Fight Value and treat Bard as a banner with a range of 6" - this gives a nice boost to an otherwise untrained rabble of troops, but it isn't going to save the day on its own.

The New Age Is Begun: the Wraiths on Wings Army List

Good morning gamers,

We're approaching Halloween and we're wrapping up "spooky month" with the Wraiths on Wings list. For you bat enthusiasts, this list is . . . well, probably not as good as any of the lists with Bat Swarms in them (and I don't think it's better than the Shadows of Angmar list that has Gulavhar in it - more on that list next year). :) Still, it's one of three lists that can run "the flying circus" (alongside the Army of the Great Eye and technically the Legions of Mordor - I don't know why you would do that, though) and it's the only one that gives special boosts to your Fell Beasts. It's also really hard to use (both on the table and in the list building phase). Let's try to take a positive view of this, though, and see what this list has to offer!

Wraiths on Wings: Changes for 2025

Profile Selection

Our profile selection is just as bad as last time: we have the Witch-King and Ringwraiths. That's it. In a way, it's better because our Ringwraith profile is the top-tier variant, so everyone has 2M/14W/2F - a good profile, I think. The bad news is that we have to take Fell Beasts on everyone (you can - but shouldn't - upgrade those to Armored Fell Beasts if you want to), which means we're super expensive and you can get nearly two Black Rider Ringwraiths for the cost of one Wraiths on Wings Ringwraith. I don't know that this is good or bad, but it's a thing . . . and it's an absolute and unequivocal nightmare for list building.

Army List Bonuses

This list really should have more rules (I feel like a broken record after last week, but hey, I think I'm being fair here?), but the two it has are good and universally useful. The first rule (Full Force Charge) allows the first friendly Monster model that charges to deal a S5 impact hit to each model he charges (hits are dealt to both the mount and rider where that's a thing). If everyone he charged is killed, then he can keep moving per normal, but won't deal any more impact hits that round. This requires thinking a bit about who you want to deal impact hits to and who you want to do the impact hits with, but you won't have many models - it's fine.

The second rule (Strafing Attack) allows a friendly Monster model who ends its move unengaged to pick an unengaged model that they passed over (trace the path you moved along with the width of the path being the width of the Fell Beast base) and deal a S5 hit to that unit (hits are dealt to both the mount and the rider again). If the unit survives, it's knocked Prone. This is a great way of dealing with a mounted enemy hero as there's no counterplay to being knocked over (unless you have Brego), no roll to be made to see if you're knocked Prone (like Gundabad Bats have), and no requirement that you have to deal a wound first. The one drawback of this rule, however, is that you can't end in combat - which can be fine, more on that later.

So It Begins, Part 6: The Causeway

Good morning gamers,

We're doing a scenario today that really should be in Fantasy Fellowships and yet isn't: the Causeway. In Fantasy Fellowships, there's a Helm's Deep scenario with Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli in it, a scenario with Aragorn and Legolas in it, and one with Gandalf in it. This makes the Gimli less valuable in the campaign and this scenario features him and Aragorn . . . so I am 1) very happy we're getting to it, and b) absolutely terrified that the Uruk-Hai are going to tear through my heroes. :-)

The Causeway (War in Rohan, p. 34)

We're using the actual scenario participants in this scenario:

• Forces of Good: The Fellowship 
• Aragorn - Strider with armor
• Gimli, Son of Gloin
• Forces of Evil: Mostly The Assault Upon Helm's Deep 
• 10 Uruk-Hai Warriors with shields
• 10 Uruk-Hai Warriors with pikes

This scenario requires at least 10 Evil models to get through the gate (which has 1 Wound and D8) or to kill both Aragorn and Gimli. If one hero dies but the other lives (and 10 models don't get off the board), then it's a draw. If both heroes survive and fewer than 10 models get off the board, Good wins 

To help Evil out a bit, Uruk-Hai Warrior models get to come back when they die - that means there are gonna be TONS of dice coming for me!