Heroic Actions: What's Worth the Cost?

Good morning gamers,

Today we’re talking about Heroic Actions – we got a boat load of them since the LOTR SBG first began and a handful more than we had in the Hobbit SBG. Today we’ll be talking about what they are, which ones are worth calling, which ones are SITUATIONALLY worth calling, and which ones are basically never worth calling.

Heroic Actions that are ALWAYS worth calling

Okay, ALWAYS is a strong word. Obviously you don’t ALWAYS need to call these actions, but they’re incredibly useful (primarily for tactical advantage). They both also happen in the Move phase, which is indicative (since most games are won by what happens in the Priority phase and the Move phase):

• Heroic Move – being able to ensure that your cavalry charge, that important units get tagged so that they can’t charge into vulnerable units/call Stand Fasts/claim objectives is huge (game-changing even). Heroic Moves are, for our gaming group at least, the most common Heroic Action we see and always have been (and I venture always will be). Because priority is a fickle mistress, getting a say on where your units are, what models they’re fighting, whether spearmen are supporting friendly models or desperately fighting for their lives, is huge. As such, always call it if you lose priority and NEED to charge something (you’ll come to regret it if you don’t).
• Heroic March – many armies are slow (Dwarves and Goblins especially) and many missions require getting somewhere. If you don’t have ways of moving your guys quickly, you’ll find yourself behind in the scoring game (and that can really hinder your army, even if you’re not losing as many casualties as your opponent). Heroic Marches are available to most generic heroes and even some named heroes, so getting them in your army is pretty easy. Using them early to get a better position (ideally with a hero that isn’t THAT important) can have huge dividends later (especially if your 5” models move 8” in a turn).

I’m sure other people would include Heroic Strike in this list, but we’ll get to him (and most of the other Heroic Actions) in the next section. Very few Heroic Actions require almost no finesse and judgement, so I’ve only included these two since the decision as to whether or not to use them is pretty obvious once you’ve played a few games. These Heroic Actions also provide strategic (big-picture) advantages, rather than tactical (small-picture) advantages, hence why they’re up here in this category.

Heroic Actions that are SOMETIMES worth calling

These Heroic Actions can render huge dividends to your team if used well. As such, they’re very situational and may require some thinking in order to determine whether or not to use them on a particular turn.

• Heroic Accuracy – I’ll admit, when I saw this heroic action, I thought “When would I ever use that?” Then, about a week later, I fought against a Minas Tirith list sporting lots of Rangers of Gondor and there was a fence between me and them. Madril and Damrod spent their Might points almost exclusively on calling Heroic Accuracies turn of after turn and a fence that I THOUGHT would provide some cover for my own archers ended up doing nothing for me. This is when you use Heroic Accuracy: when there’s something between you and a target that matters (either because they provide some benefit to the team – like a banner or an auric hero – or because they’re easier to wound than more difficult targets). If you’re not playing with terrain, it can be used to hit second-rank spearmen (or third- or fourth-rank auric heroes) and bypass the first line. If you wound everyone on the same, don’t call it – just shoot!
• Heroic Challenge – Heroic Challenge is one of the most powerful heroic actions in the game, predominantly because it can keep you from getting ganged-up on by enemy warriors and because it will give you Might points back if you win (so spend away). The catch is that you have to be able to kill the other guy (and be able to be locked in combat with him for potentially a long time and not die). You also have to be able to issue the challenge in the first place (you can only challenge someone at your tier or a higher tier). As such, using Heroic Challenge with a Hero of Legend is very difficult, while some Heroes of Fortitude (Shagrat and the Keeper of the Dungeons) have more latitude for who they can challenge. Some Heroes of Valor (Aragorn – Strider, Bolg, Glorfindel, Dain in the Erebor Reclaimed list, Lurtz) have a little less latitude, but can still pick other Valor heroes that they have an edge over. The trick to using Challenge is also that, because you can only call one Heroic Action per phase, the person you challenge can call Heroic Strike (assuming they have it, they could have a higher Fight value than you) or Heroic Defense (keeping you from killing them in one round). For this reason, you need to be careful when you call this action (if you even can).
• Heroic Combat – While slashing through someone is fun, slashing through one guy and running into someone else (and slashing through him) is even more fun. As such, Heroic Combats have always been a favorite of mine (I started the hobby with the Mines of Moria set – calling Heroic Combats with Aragorn, Gimli, and Boromir in the same round can really change a board) and I’ve pursued characters who get free Heroic Combats pretty vigorously. The trick to Heroic Combats, though, is that you need to be able to win your first fight AND kill everyone in it. The simplest way to stop this kind of Heroic Action is simply to pile on more Wounds (either with more models or some well-placed multi-wound models) so that the hero literally can’t kill everyone (even if he wins and wounds with every dice). As such, it remains highly situational, but still the most effective way of dealing with a single model who “tagged” you so you wouldn’t go anywhere.
• Heroic Channelling – Not going to talk about this in this post, since we’re going to talk about it in our next post on magic. J Let’s just say, some magical powers should always be channeled, some spells should sometimes be channeled, and some spells should never be channeled.
• Heroic Defense – Only being wounded on natural 6s is great for staying alive – but you run the risk of wasting a Might point if you happen to win the Duel roll. In many ways, this is a comfort heroic action, but most of the time you call it will be when you’re hopelessly outnumbered and you think losing is imminent. Whether you’re Frodo without the One Ring on or Boromir surrounded by Uruk-Hai Berserkers, you may want to be able to call a Heroic Defense to survive one more round (even if you don’t actually lose the fight).
• Heroic Resolve – By and large, I would never call this spell – adding one free die to resist magic (even though it’s cast on a group of people) is just not going to be worth it. Still, if your opponent has spells that are painful (Barrow-Wights, for example), getting a free die might mean the difference between burning their Will points to no effect or having to deal with deadly consequences. Ergo, I see reasons to call this Heroic Action (but not very often).
• Heroic Strike – Yes, we finally get to it. Obviously, you don’t need to call this if you already have a higher Fight value than your opponents and the most common use of this Heroic Action is to get a higher Fight value than someone who normally outclasses you. Keep in mind, however, that +D6 Fight value may only boost your Fight value by 1-2 points, so having a F5 hero trying to out-duel a Balrog and relying on that Heroic Strike to save him is probably not a great idea. The more common situation (a F5 hero trying to fight a F6 hero) can still end poorly, but it’s less likely to flop. Heroic Strikes do tend to escalate pretty quickly (with both players calling Heroic Strikes to see who can get higher than the other), but it’s often worth it. Still, you’ll get the occasional Gil-Galad or Elendil who doesn’t need to up their Fight value, so they won’t call it.

While there are situations when do you or don’t call these heroic actions, they all have a clear utility to them. Each renders some kind of tactical (small-picture) advantage rather than a strategic (big-picture) advantage.

Heroic Actions that are NEVER worth calling

Okay, NEVER is a strong word (recall what we said about ALWAYS above?). Our list is short here because the Heroic Actions we’ve been given in this game are actually pretty good. There are two heroic actions that have so little utility to it, you might as well say they’re never worth calling:

• Heroic Shoot – Yes, you will find situations where calling this is worth it (namely, if both you and your opponent have lots of archery and your opponent has priority). Still, it’s a huge gamble – archery is finicky and especially since the new rules apply a scoot-and-shoot penalty, anyone who moves is even less likely to hit their target. Even if you don’t move, opponents with lots of archery might not do any damage – and opponents with a small amount of archery might deal wounds with almost all of their archers. In the end, there’s simply no telling whether you needed to be worried or not. From your end, if you spend a Might point calling a Heroic Shoot, you need to identify what your objective is – if you don’t kill anything, was it worth it? The primary reason I put this Heroic Action down here is that in eight years of playing, I’ve never found a good time where you NEED to call a Heroic Shoot (only times when I’m afraid of what COULD happen and call one “just to be safe”). Might is a precious commodity and calling one “just because” isn’t good enough for me.
• Heroic Strength – Okay, we can add +D3 Strength. Yippee. Here’s the deal: first, this heroic action only works if you win the Fight, so if you get a poor Duel roll, you waste a Might point (which is bad). Second, there are really only a few situations any character will find himself in and most of them don’t see a lot of benefits from up to +3 Strength (let’s assume that you have a S4 attacker who is calling Heroic Strength):

o   D5-D8 Target – in this scenario, the Attacker’s base wounding requirement is 5s or 6s. If you need 5s to wound, upping your Strength to 6 (the average result) will improve your chances of wounding to 4s – which is the exact same thing as spending a Might point to improve your roll with a Might point. As a result, unless two of your rolls to Wound are passed because you upped your Strength, you might as well have saved it to promote your To Wound roll (ergo, not called the action). If you’re S7, you will get to wound D5 targets on 3s, but this too requires that you get a 3 on one of your dice in order to be worth it (otherwise, you might as well have saved it).

o   D9-D10 Target – in this scenario, we need 6s followed by 4s (or 6s followed by 5s) in order to wound our target. While upping our Strength gives certain benefits (S6 wounds both of these on straight 6s), you only have a 17% chance of succeeding in the To Wound roll, while a S4 model who saves the Might point can use it if needed to Wound on 5s followed by 3s, which is actually a 22% chance – higher than reducing the difficult to a single dice (D10 is wounded on 6s followed by 5s – which becomes 5s followed by 4s, which is still a 17% chance). So…it’s still better to hold onto the Might point.

o   D3-D4 Targets – in this case, you begin by wounding the target on 4s and adding additional Strength enables you to wound the target on 3s (basically no matter what you get). While this might seem useful, recall that you are again only increasing your probability of wounding by 1 – which means more than one dice has to roll a 3 in order for it to be worth it.

Lest you think I’m being uncharitable by picking a S4 character as my example, characters with higher Strength (e.g. Wild Warg Chieftains, Buhrdur) are less likely to need it, since more models fall within the third category and nobody falls in the second category. Almost no models will fall in the first category (except for D7/D8 models, if they’re plentiful in your meta), both of whom you just require +1 to wound – so you again require more than one dice to have the desired 3. I just don’t see when it's worth it to use it.

Edit: my good mate Rythbryt has put up a post after this one explaining some of the benefits of Heroic Strength that does provide some situational benefits for Heroic Strength - you can read it here.

That’s it for Heroic Actions – in our next post, we delve into magic and understand the changes that have been made. If you think I've missed a key scenario that makes a heroic action valuable (or if you have other things you'd like to add), post in comments. Until next time, happy hobbying!