Battle Report: THRO 2018, Game 2

Hey Reader,

Happy Friday! Sorry for the delay: between a busy Thanksgiving weekend and preparations for the recently announced Brawler Bash tournament, I am running behind on battle reports. But here we are with Game 2 from this year's THRO Tournament!

This match is against my good friend Zorro (yet again - I'm sure we've faced at virtually every tournament so far, and I enjoy facing him), sporting an Isengard Uruk-Hai force. There were two uruk forces at this tournament, and the higher Fight Value of Uruk-Hai was something that concerned me going into the tournament. But with his entire force wounding me on 6s and my whole force wounding him on 4s, I figured this would be a decent fight, if not a steamroll for my men (as I actually bring banners, so low rolls can be fixed!).

Announcing: Brawler Bash 2019

Good morning gamers!

It is my privilege to announce a new TMAT tournament: Brawler Bash 2019! This tournament, set to take place on Saturday, January 19, 2019 at Patrick Henry College, is a Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game tournament. The tournament will consist of 3 matches, all using variants on the To the Death scenario. This makes learning the rules simple (as the objectives are mostly the same for all three matches), and the ultimate objective for the tournament is simple: bash the other army!

Below is the information regarding how to register for the tournament and what to expect.

Battle Report: THRO 2018, Game 1

Hey Reader!

Welcome back to TMAT! This is the battle report for my first match of the annual THRO tournament, and my first match is against my good friend Kirk, sporting an army of dwarves. There were two dwarf forces at this tournament, and of all the armies I was arrayed against, this was one of the few that I was really afraid of facing, as they are a good counter to my force (passing Courage automatically for over half the force, wounding on 5+ for over half the force, and almost half the force have 2+ attacks).

New Rules - Part V: The Fallen Realms, Part II

Good morning gamers,

Today we’re wrapping up our discussion of the armies of evil by tackling the other side of the Fallen Realms book, where we’ll talk about Isengard (two lists) the Eastern Kingdoms (two lists) - we've already covered Mordor, Angmar/Moria, and the other Fallen Realms armies in case you've missed those. As mentioned in our previous posts, you should also check out Mik's Veni Vidi Vici blog for thoughts from the “experts.”

1) The New Lists: Isengard, the Easterlings, the Variags of Khand, and Sharkey’s Rogues

These four lists haven’t changed too much since the last version (besides being broken out from each other). The Easterlings and the Variags of Khand are virtually unchanged, except that most of the Easterling models got common rules that encourage running them as large blocks of units. Isengard, on the other hand, has seen many changes: they got one of the best army bonuses in the game, their captains have increased slightly in price (offsetting what used to be a free Strength point) and Lurtz finally got improved to be what we always wanted. Saruman also got improvements to make him more like the Saruman the White profile that we’ve loved for the armies of Good since forever (and ultimately making him a very powerful piece on the board now). Perhaps the greatest shift is seeing Sharkey’s Rogues turn into their own list again. While I liked Ruffian archers as a cheap volley team in the Warbands sourcebooks, the army rule provided to Sharkey’s Rogues allows you to run warbands without leaders, which can be a very, VERY powerful thing (but no spoilers yet).

The Hunters Red October 2018 Recap

Hey Reader!

Welcome back to the TMAT blog! Over the next few weeks I'm going to be doing battle reports from the recent THRO tournament, so keep an eye on this space! As a bit of background for the tournament, I want to discuss the army list that I brought, my strategy going into the tournament, and how I felt about the various armies that were going to be present at the tournament.

For information on the format of the tournament itself you can see Tiberius's post on our blog here; the tournament would feature four prelim games, each using a different scenario from a list of five. So our lists had to have a plan for how to deal with each scenario.

New Rules - Part IV: The Fallen Realms, Part I

Good morning gamers,

In our previous posts, we’ve talked about the general rules changes, and then walked through a few thoughts on the Mordor and Angmar/Moria army lists. Wrapping up our discussion of the armies of evil is the old Fallen Realms book, which include the armies from Isengard, Harad/Umbar, and the Eastern Kingdoms (now seven different lists). I’ve decided that trying to tackle seven armies in one go was going to be too overwhelming, so instead, we’re breaking the Fallen Realms up into two different discussions. Today we’ll focus on the Southron armies (Serpent Horde, Far Harad, Corsairs of Umbar), and next time we’ll conclude our discussion of Armies of Evil by tackling Isengard and the East. As mentioned in our previous posts, you should also check out Mik's Veni Vidi Vici blog for thoughts from the “experts” – though at the time of this writing, none of these lists have been reviewed yet.

1) The New Lists: The Serpent Horde, Far Harad, Corsairs of Umbar

Back in the Legions of Middle-Earth days, there were many different Harad lists – three of which were very similar to what we see in the book today. But there were other lists – a generic Umbar list that allowed you to run generic heroes crossing the Serpent Horde and Corsair armies, allowing for great pairings of cheap spears and high-Fight value skirmish troops.

With the new rules, while the lists have been broken out, the Serpent Horde gives you the unique benefit of being able to ally easily with more civs than any other evil faction. With three historical allies (Corsairs of Umbar, Far Harad, Mordor), the Serpent Horde has the greatest possibility for force diversity of any Army of Evil (and rivals most of the Armies of Good).

The draw-back is that while the Serpent Horde can ally with any one of these factions and retain their army bonus, none of these other nations can ally with the others, so getting a three or four faction alliance will result in none of your beloved army rules lasting. Still, if you’re planning on playing any of these civilizations, you don’t HAVE to be mono-focused in your army creation.

As far as Far Harad and the Corsairs are concerned, they’re not much changed and both can basically be run either mono-focused or with the Serpent Horde. As we’ll see in a bit, taking convenient allies with these civs is not a big deal, since their army bonuses are nice but not necessary for the team’s survival.

New Rules - Part III: Angmar and Moria

Good morning gamers,

In our first post, we discussed some of the rules changes that I thought were good/not-so-good with the new rules set. We then looked at Mordor to see a few different lists you can run with their army bonuses (and whether keeping the army bonuses are worth it). Today we're going to look at the armies that used to be included in the Moria and Angmar warbands book (which are conveniently still Moria and Angmar), but both of these army lists have been reviewed already on Mik's Veni Vidi Vici blog, so take a look at that for other takes by great players of the hobby.

Unlike Mordor, Moria and Angmar rely heavily on the old army structures that we found in the Legions of Middle-Earth book. As such, there are some big changes for Moria (less so for Angmar) from the Warbands book (one of which I don't like), but ultimately I think it drifted towards where it always should have been.

1) The New Lists: Moria and Angmar

Back in the Legions days, there were two Moria lists - the "Moria" army list and the "Dwellers Below" army list (which was basically generic Goblin heroes, Wild Warg Chieftains, Moria Goblin Warriors, Wild Wargs, Bat Swarms, and Giant Spiders). Between the two lists, you could ally with basically anyone, but if you wanted Durburz in your army (he was the only named hero back then), you needed to run Moria proper (not the other one). In the new version, they've basically eliminated the second list altogether, distributing the wild beasts of Middle-Earth in the Angmar list (for Wargs) and the Dark Denizens of Mirkwood list (for spiders), though thanks to Druzhag the Beastcaller you can include bats, spiders, and wargs in your army (Ashrak also allows you to get spiders), so if you WANT those creatures, you can still get them.

Not much to say about Angmar - they've remained mostly unchanged from release to release. The one major change that I found is this: back in the Legions era, Spectres were D5. In Warbands, they were D6. Now they're D5 again. Coupled with the fact that spears don't augment the front-line guy like they used to in Legions, Spectres have become a lot less powerful than they used to be. Still, they are Terror-causing warriors who can move low-Courage models with ease wherever they want, so having a few in your army isn't bad (though having a lot is probably a waste).