Hello readers,
Glenstorm's analysis is sound, but there's one piece I wish to contest: you don't always need to take Eomer (yeah, I know, it's kind of the thesis of the post). I'll only make this exception in two cases and then show what army list I'm looking at building for Rohan - more to come on this army list soon.
The army I'm planning on building (I've got the riders and I'm looking at getting the Royal Guards, the rest I'll borrow from the voluminous piles of Rohan guys owned by our club members) is detailed below, showcasing some never-before-used-in-tournament-and-maybe-ever heroes with some interesting synergy possibilities:
My good buddy and fellow admin Glenstorm made a post the other day which talked about why you should always take Eomer if you field Rohan. Please read his post before continuing - it's not only a great decomposition of the heroes in Rohan, but also a well-written piece from our team's longest-running Rohan player (my first convert to the game's first team he ran). |
Glenstorm's analysis is sound, but there's one piece I wish to contest: you don't always need to take Eomer (yeah, I know, it's kind of the thesis of the post). I'll only make this exception in two cases and then show what army list I'm looking at building for Rohan - more to come on this army list soon.
1) You leave Eomer (any version) at home if you plan on skirmishing for most of the game
2) You leave Eomer (the really expensive version at least) at home if you want to ally in another hero
The army I'm planning on building (I've got the riders and I'm looking at getting the Royal Guards, the rest I'll borrow from the voluminous piles of Rohan guys owned by our club members) is detailed below, showcasing some never-before-used-in-tournament-and-maybe-ever heroes with some interesting synergy possibilities:
The Descent from the North (Warbands, Kingdom of Rohan)
*Eorl the Young - 90 points
*Gamling with Royal Banner of Rohan - 100 points
Theoden with heavy armor - 70 points
4 Riders of Rohan - 52 points
4 Riders of Rohan with throwing spears - 60 points
3 Sons of Eorl - 66 points
5 Rohan Royal Guards - 50 points
5 Warriors of Rohan with shields - 35 points
5 Warriors of Rohan with shields and throwing spears - 45 points
5 Rohan Outriders - 35 points
603 points, 34 units, 13 bows + 6 throwing spears (+4 from riders with bows already counted), 3 heroes, 7* Might
This army is built to skirmish - more than half the army has ranged weapons of some kind and about one-third of the army is mounted. The army relies not only on Eorl the Young getting some Might points for free via his Legendary Hero rule, but regaining Might once he runs out via the Royal Banner of Rohan (RBoR). It's important to note that in order to use the RBoR-Legendary Hero combo, you need to run in warband style - Gamling and Eorl the Young couldn't be in the same army in LOME.
This list gives you mobility and opportunity for surprise. I've thought about upgrading the captain to Erkenbrand and then increasing the Fight value of the Riders of Rohan to Fight 4, but not only would this require dropping at least one rider (or a bunch of throwing weapons), the purpose of the Riders of Rohan isn't to become shock troops who charge the enemy much - that's the job of the Sons of Eorl and Eorl himself. Their job is to harass and skirmish - the whole point of fielding this army in the first place, right?
Theoden is an interesting inclusion: I've debated about whether to keep him in there or replace him with Erkenbrand and upgrade my riders with throwing spears into Redshields (F4 anyone?), but for now, I'm going with the aged king of Rohan. Why? In part because I own the model (though I might use it as a conversion), and in part because he's a bit more resilient than Erkenbrand is, what with 2 Fate points and all. The largest driver, though, is that no one really uses Theoden, because he's not an efficient use of points - if you pay 70 points for him, Eomer gives you 2 Will points for 5 points more, while Theodred gives you the equivalent of 1 Will point more for the same price...not really worth it to have the old man from a competitive perspective.
But I own the model. So for now, the king is here to stay. Thematically, I see Eorl the Young bringing other kings of small fiefdoms down with him from the north. These kings, desirous for peaceable lands of rolling fields, are represented by Theoden. So for now, we'll see where this takes us.
Theoden is an interesting inclusion: I've debated about whether to keep him in there or replace him with Erkenbrand and upgrade my riders with throwing spears into Redshields (F4 anyone?), but for now, I'm going with the aged king of Rohan. Why? In part because I own the model (though I might use it as a conversion), and in part because he's a bit more resilient than Erkenbrand is, what with 2 Fate points and all. The largest driver, though, is that no one really uses Theoden, because he's not an efficient use of points - if you pay 70 points for him, Eomer gives you 2 Will points for 5 points more, while Theodred gives you the equivalent of 1 Will point more for the same price...not really worth it to have the old man from a competitive perspective.
But I own the model. So for now, the king is here to stay. Thematically, I see Eorl the Young bringing other kings of small fiefdoms down with him from the north. These kings, desirous for peaceable lands of rolling fields, are represented by Theoden. So for now, we'll see where this takes us.
Hopefully you saw the game that Glenstorm and I played with a portion of this list. I'm hoping to get some gaming in with Rohan soon, but I'm taking off for Christmas break soon and will be gone for a bit. When I get back, it's back to work on Goblins, as they recently got a kennel of puppies to play with (see this post for a sneak peak).
Until later, Merry Christmas and happy hobbying!
Very good write-up - I look forward to seeing how the heavily mounted force works out! I'm always a bit worried when engaging teams with spear support, but I'll be very interested in seeing how you run the team. It seems pretty solid.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'll be tagging back to your post a bit in my write-up analysis on Rohan's heroes, as you did a fantastic job of helping to analyze the different roles that Rohan heroes perform to augment the strengths and weaknesses of their civ. :)