Good morning gamers,
In our last post, we discussed some of the rules changes that I thought were good/not-so-good with the new rules set. Today we're transitioning from a rules-based discussion to army-based discussions. I'm not going to try to share my all-powerful wisdom on each army - if you want experts discussing the lists, check out Mik's Veni Vidi Vici blog, since he's doing a series with the champions of each army list to talk about the changes and propose lists. It's good stuff (and I'm learning a lot).
What I AM going to talk about is instead how the lists have changed and provide some sample lists (600pts) that either use or don't use the army bonus provided by the new rules. As I've poured over the various army bonuses, I've often asked myself, "So do I really need this?" The answer to some armies (creating some surprise on my part occasionally) is "Sometimes...but not always." With that, the structure of this series is going to be going through the Warbands Supplements by book and highlighting how the armies have changed from there (with references to Legions of Middle-Earth as that's where it all began).
1) The New Lists: Barad-Dur and Mordor
The new army lists reflect the two different eras of Mordor armies - the Second Age army (Barad-Dur) led by the Dark Lord Sauron (*insert reverent awe here*) and the Third Age armies (Mordor) led by various captains of the Dark Lord, not least of which is the Witch-King of Angmar. Splitting the list into different ages solves all kinds of alliance problems that existed in the Warbands books - The Dark Lord Sauron didn't exist at the same time as Shagrat, so there should be a disincentive to bring them both in the same army. The unit choices don't differ greatly in your warrior choices (though you can only get Morannon Orcs and Mordor Uruk-Hai in the Mordor list), but the big difference is the named hero options.
Barad-Dur can only take a handful of named heroes (The Dark Lord Sauron, The Witch-King of Angmar, and Shelob), while there are a TON of named heroes for Mordor (named Nazgul, named Orc/Uruk heroes, ). While there's nothing wrong with generic hero options, Barad-Dur will be limited in the heroic actions it can call if it only has generic heroes. Thanks to Heroic March being primarily limited to generic hero choices, you're not without options, but Heroic Strikes will be hard to come by with the Barad-Dur list. Mordor has far more versatility for heroic actions, profile choices, and special rules, making them (in my mind) the go-to for Mordor armies (unless you REALLY want to play with Sauron - more on that in a bit).
In our last post, we discussed some of the rules changes that I thought were good/not-so-good with the new rules set. Today we're transitioning from a rules-based discussion to army-based discussions. I'm not going to try to share my all-powerful wisdom on each army - if you want experts discussing the lists, check out Mik's Veni Vidi Vici blog, since he's doing a series with the champions of each army list to talk about the changes and propose lists. It's good stuff (and I'm learning a lot).
What I AM going to talk about is instead how the lists have changed and provide some sample lists (600pts) that either use or don't use the army bonus provided by the new rules. As I've poured over the various army bonuses, I've often asked myself, "So do I really need this?" The answer to some armies (creating some surprise on my part occasionally) is "Sometimes...but not always." With that, the structure of this series is going to be going through the Warbands Supplements by book and highlighting how the armies have changed from there (with references to Legions of Middle-Earth as that's where it all began).
1) The New Lists: Barad-Dur and Mordor
The new army lists reflect the two different eras of Mordor armies - the Second Age army (Barad-Dur) led by the Dark Lord Sauron (*insert reverent awe here*) and the Third Age armies (Mordor) led by various captains of the Dark Lord, not least of which is the Witch-King of Angmar. Splitting the list into different ages solves all kinds of alliance problems that existed in the Warbands books - The Dark Lord Sauron didn't exist at the same time as Shagrat, so there should be a disincentive to bring them both in the same army. The unit choices don't differ greatly in your warrior choices (though you can only get Morannon Orcs and Mordor Uruk-Hai in the Mordor list), but the big difference is the named hero options.
Barad-Dur can only take a handful of named heroes (The Dark Lord Sauron, The Witch-King of Angmar, and Shelob), while there are a TON of named heroes for Mordor (named Nazgul, named Orc/Uruk heroes, ). While there's nothing wrong with generic hero options, Barad-Dur will be limited in the heroic actions it can call if it only has generic heroes. Thanks to Heroic March being primarily limited to generic hero choices, you're not without options, but Heroic Strikes will be hard to come by with the Barad-Dur list. Mordor has far more versatility for heroic actions, profile choices, and special rules, making them (in my mind) the go-to for Mordor armies (unless you REALLY want to play with Sauron - more on that in a bit).
