New Rules - Part II: Mordor

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).


2) The Army Bonuses: Big Nasty vs. Hordology

The army bonuses for both groups are widely different in terms of benefit: the Barad-Dur bonus makes it so that you're not broken until Sauron takes some wounds (break normally once he suffers 2 wounds, broken automatically if he dies). While wounding Sauron has always been difficult, the removal of the "you must wound him in melee and he doesn't save the wound with the Ring" rule has been taken away and with most siege engines able to kill him with 2 successful wounds (unless it's saved by the Ring), plucking some wounds on him probably isn't THAT hard to do. Still, if your gaming group meta hasn't shifted to siege engines yet, you can probably get some good mileage out of keeping Sauron on the table and preventing you from being broken.

The Mordor bonus is ... interesting. It's kinda "meh" if I'm being honest. The bonus to Courage is nice on occasion, but since most Mordor unit choices are Orcs (Courage 2 normally), boosting to Courage 3 is just not THAT useful. The other end of the army bonus can be quite good: if you outnumber your opponent (easy on the Trolls, there, mister), you get ??? While I think this bonus can be quite useful, I don't think it's all-that-important.

3) The Lists: Barad-Dur

Let's be honest - if you're not taking Sauron, you should take Mordor - your army bonus does nothing for you if you don't have Sauron, your unit/hero choices are more limited, it's just not worth it. So, both of these lists will be taking Sauron. You also only have Smaug as a Convenient Ally choice (and let's face it, if you have Smaug on the table - no matter how big the point limit is - he's NOT the ally ... everyone else is). Therefore, instead of what we're normally going to do in this series, this list will have two lists showcasing monster-heavy and spam-heavy lists (since both work well with the Army Bonus assuming you can keep Sauron healthy).

List #1: Monster Mash
The Dark Lord Sauron - 400
2 Mordor Trolls - 200

Scaling out this list is really, REALLY easy: just keep adding Trolls. :) Why is this list interesting? Well, it's going to be hard for you to be broken with Sauron on the table, but even if he takes wounds, they'd need to clear both of the other Trolls to break you. While siege engines can crush a troll with a single lucky shot, you can spread your guys out to make the scatter rolls all-but-impossible to hit you. Once you're in combat, use your 3+ Attack models to crush things - all the things! Though they don't look as good, Hand-and-a-Half Swords seem to be the best bet with the Trolls (since both Bash and Stun negate your multi-attack profile and Feint won't reduce you below F4 while giving you rerolls on 1s ... when you probably only need 3s).

EDIT: it was pointed out in the comments that with the new Scatter table, you only miss the target on a 1 now (in the old rules, you missed a single target on a 2-5 if there were no models you can hit). If you know siege engines are in your meta, it would probably be worth dropping one of these Trolls for a gob of warriors (I'd take tough-as-nails ones - Black Numenoreans are your only real option in this list) that you can keep within 3" of each of your monstrous characters so you can scatter on these guys. 11 Black Numenoreans will cost you 99 points, which allows you to either get a weapon swap on one of them (take an axe perhaps so he can be S4) OR do a weapon swap on the Troll (while an axe might be overkill, the S8 is tempting - no need for a flail I think, already have options for the other weapon types). I still think the scaling of this army is simple - keep adding Trolls (11 Black Numenoreans can protect 3-4 monstrous models pretty easily, especially if two of your Trolls are within 8" of each other).

List #2: As Many Orcs As You Can
The Dark Lord Sauron - 400
Mordor Orc Captain with shield - 45
11 Orc Warriors with shields - 66
11 Orc Warriors with spears and shields - 77
2 Orc Warriors with two-handed weapons - 12

I'll admit, it's really hard to get THAT many Orcs in your list when you've got 400 points wrapped up in Sauron. Still, we've managed to get 26 models into our list with 2/3 of the list wrapped up in a single figure. I'd say that's pretty good. :) In previous versions (though it MIGHT be worth it now), I'd say that an Orc Shaman might be more useful (if the Heroic Channel of Fury works, you can get a 6+ save to rescue your Orcs from the jaws of death), but in practice I think pushing your units with Heroic March twice during the game will be the most useful. When it comes down to it, while Sauron has remained a devastating magic caster, he's still only got a 6" move. While he can Barge to get some additional movement, you want Heroic Marches to get him towards the enemy as fast as possible.

I'll note that if you want to get more models in the list, you could drop the shields on the Orc Warriors with spears and add (almost) 2 more Orcs to your team. You could also say "to the depths with numbers" and take Black Numenoreans or Warg Riders instead if you wanted elite/fast units. Either way, I wanted to pick a list that maximized numbers and I think I've done it. :)

I'm not convinced that Sauron is worth the points, but breaking this list will be surprisingly difficult despite its small number of models. Having a low model count with the Barad-Dur army bonus can actually be really great in games like To The Death, since you can go down to 25% very easily without being broken. This can force the game to end quickly and so long as you can break your foe, use Chill Soul to snipe any banners they may have, and wound/kill his army leader (optional if he's broken), you can get a crushing victory simply by having Sauron on the table.


4) The Lists: Mordor

Mordor is a very different beast when it comes to both their army bonus and their unit choices. For starters, their army bonus relies on you outnumbering your opponent (which in and of itself seems to incentivize cheaper heroes and cheaper warriors against traditional lists or more elite units and more expensive heroes against armies with more expensive base troops (all-hero, Elf armies, Dead of Dunharrow). If you outnumber your opponent, not only do your units gain Courage 1 (big whoopie, I'm sure), but you also reroll 1s to wound (which is great with two-handed weapons). Though any chance of rerolls is nice, I don't think you NEED this army bonus, so we'll be looking at a list that allies in a Convenient ally, as well as one that relies on keeping the army bonus with TONS of guys.

List #1: The Horde of Cirith Ungol
Shagrat with Shield of Cirith Ungol and heavy armor - 115
Gorbag with shield - 60
Mordor Uruk-Hai Captain with two-handed axe - 60
Mordor Orc Captain with shield - 45
14 Mordor Orcs with shields - 84
14 Mordor Orcs with shields and spears - 98
6 Mordor Orcs with two-handed axes - 36
6 Orc Trackers - 30
8 Mordor Uruk-Hai with two-handed maces - 72

With all warrior models getting +1 Courage, you've got some decent captains leading this force. Shagrat is beastly in combat and has a great base Courage stat (which is good since he doesn't get the +1 Courage from the army special rule), Gorbag has a good anti-spam rule that allows him to avoid being overwhelmed (watch his Courage though), the Mordor Uruk-Hai Captain can get to S6 (aaaaahhhh), and a basic Mordor Orc Captain to bunker for the other chaps.

To supplement these heroes (we have ~48 warriors lots available), we have a ton of Mordor Orcs with standard melee weapon gear, as well as Mordor Uruk-Hai for bashing people with their maces. This "death squad" is great for accompanying the Mordor Uruk-Hai Captain, the Orc Captain, and Gorbag, though Bash is unnecessary if you're fighting alongside Shagrat since his shield knocks people Prone as it is (at which point, it's still a two-handed weapon...). The handful of Orc Trackers provide a token amount of archery - great for defending a camp or sniping models who attempt to escape off your board edge. With 52 models in the force and plenty of damage potential, the weakness of this list is obviously its average defense (D4-5). Like any average defense army, you want to march divided and fight concentrated so that you can bring the power of your numbers to bear on your opponent without having all of your forces in one area ready to be smashed by arrows or big rocks.

List #2: The Forces of the North and South
The Witch-King of Angmar with horse, Crown of Morgul, 3M/13W/3F - 150pts
The Dark Marshal - 120
10 Morannon Orcs with shields - 80
8 Morannon Orcs with shields and spears - 72

Angmar Ally: Shade - 100
6 Angmar Orcs with shields - 36
6 Angmar Orcs with spears and shields - 42

This list only has 33 models in it, but you've got some incredible power coming out of it: the Dark Marshal and the Shade complement each other well: the Dark Marshal gives all of your Orcs within 6" a banner bonus, while the Shade applies a -1 penalty to all enemies within 6" to win the Duel roll - when they're together, they're all but unstoppable. While the Dark Marshal has a really good special bonus, he's no slouch in combat either (just make sure he doesn't fight alone). The Witch King isn't on a Fell Beast (needed the points for the other two heroes), but as a hero from both the Angmar and Mordor army lists, he provides a nice bridge between them. He's a beastly killing machine who's able to cast as well (Instill Fear right before smashing into an enemy line is nice) and can be supported easily by waves of Morannon Orcs at his back. While you've lost both of your army bonuses, I don't think the list needs them that much (though to be sure, Terror on all those Angmar Orcs would be wonderful...).

I'll make one final note on Morannon Orcs: point-for-point, it's probably better to get Black Numenoreans (+1 point to gain Terror and swap F3/S4 on the Orcs for F4/S3 on the Numenoreans...to say nothing of the Courage differences). I've chosen Morannon Orcs not only because they're plentiful these days, but also because of their default weapon types. While swords are great, Morannon Orcs can get swords OR axes OR maces. While swords give you the reroll 1s ability that your army rule would have given you, the axes allow the Orcs to be S5 and the maces allow you to knock someone Prone (so your spearman or a hero in the same fight can carve into him better) - with S4, knocking over warrior units is pretty easy (more likely to pass than not).

In this series, I'm going to focus on just providing two lists per faction, but I've decided to include a bonus list today because 1) we're only focusing on one general army, and 2) there's one final use case for Mordor I want to cover: the monster game. Since the new core set has not only a Ringwraith on a Fell Beast, but also comes with a Mordor Troll, it would be wrong of me to not showcase what you can do with that kind of army:

Bonus List: Instill Terror In All Foes
The Knight of Umbar with Fell Beast - 170
2 Mordor Trolls with Hand-and-a-Half Swords - 200
2 Morgul Knights

Angmar Ally: Buhrdur, Troll Chieftain - 110
1 Cave Troll with Hand-and-a-Half Hammer - 80

This army runs only a handful of units. Why? With only 7 units in the army, your opponent can kill off all of the D6 units if they want (2 Morgul Knight, Cave Troll, and Buhrdur), but killing those units is going to be hard. Because a monster-oriented list is probably not going to have more models in it than other armies, we don't need to keep our army bonus. Ergo, we've decided to run an all-Terror army that will be hard to charge and will deal a massive killing blow when it arrives. Apart from having four Trolls (one of whom is a hero), you've got the Knight of Umbar, who not only avoids losing Will for fighting in the Fight phase if he wins, but also can copy-cat higher Fight values (and Strength/Attack values, though that doesn't come into play much when he's on a Fell Beast - note that this now costs a Will point under the new rules). The Morgul Knights are maneuverable and can keep up with the Knight of Umbar as his personal guard, while the Trolls all follow Buhrdur and smack things. Those worried about facing siege engines might want to swap the Morgul Knights for other units - you can get 3 Black Numenoreans and 2 Angmar Orc Warriors (one with shield, one with shield and spear) for the cost of your 2 Morgul Knights - as scatter targets for your trolls. Of course, by adding more warriors, your opponent doesn't HAVE to kill off any of your Trolls, so consider the trade carefully.

Hopefully this gives you a quick introduction to Mordor - if there are other builds/synergies that you've been thinking about, post them here! Next, we turn to Moria and Angmar (who we've gotten a glimpse of today), so until then, happy hobbying!