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Friday, February 1, 2019

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!

11 comments:

  1. A couple thoughts:

    - Another consideration for Heroic Challenge is the fact that the target can decline it (essentially stripping you of a Might point and depriving you of the opportunity to win it back). The odds of this go up if (1) the challenger is a clearly superior combatant than the target, (2) the target is an Army Leader and the challenger is not, (3) the target has suffered more wounds/lost more fate than the challenger, (4) the target is already out of might, (5) the target spends might only on self-buffing heroic actions like Channel, Strike, Strength, (6) the challenger is hopelessly surrounded by enemies who are likely to slay him imminently, thereby removing the can’t-buff-troops-anymore penalty, or (7) some combination of/all the above. Ironically, I think the odds of acceptance are more likely to go up if the target is hopelessly surrounded and in imminent peril of being killed, rather than the challenger.

    - I’m still not sure on the Strike meta-game. Because you don’t roll for strike value until the duel starts, everyone has to pair off fights and commit troops without knowing who will have the advantage (barring the odd corner cases like double-strikes by Gil-Galad and Smaug, where we know both of them are going to go up to F10 no matter what they roll). Just thinking about 1 v. 1 fights, if your opponent with lower fight calls a Strike, I’d be curious if you have a better chance of winning the fight (not knowing at this point what his final fight value will be) if you match him by calling your own Strike, as opposed to keeping that point of Might in reserve to improve your duel roll?

    I also have thoughts on Heroic Strength, which I think you rated a little too low (although most players seem to agree it’s very situational). I could be biased from my recent tournament experience, though. ;-)

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    1. There's an aspect to the Strike metagame that I didn't cover here: and that's taking the chance and NOT calling a Strike when your opponent does. Because there's a wide range of variance on a single D6 roll (a F5 person might become F10 while a F6 person might become a F8), just because you call a Strike doesn't mean you'll get the same boost as your opponent. So, when that happens, the question becomes: if he wins the fight, how likely is he to kill me? Someone like Elendil (let's assume he has a shield) who's fighting Lurtz (Elendil with a +2FV advantage) might choose to take the chance that Lurtz will only get up to F7 (33% chance) and even if Lurtz does win, the brute will still only be wounding Elendil on 6s. By saving his Might, Elendil can weather the attack from Lurtz and has a +1M advantage in a later round. It's risky (and you could die), but if Elendil is unwounded, he's unlikely to be killed (Lurtz would need three 6s and Elendil would need to fail the Fate roll with at least 1 Might point).

      I'm curious when Strength is a good thing to call...I should add you as an admin so you can do a full write-up. :)

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  2. I’d be happy to do so ;-)

    I ran into that exact thing this weekend playing the Three Hunters against Ced’s Sauron. At one point I had all three hunters attempt to strike higher than Sauron and came up with three whiffs. For F5 heroes it seems particularly risky to get into a strike-off because you’re essentially spotting the other hero at least a +1 on their strike roll (Elendil a +2 if he strikes up).

    There’s nothing wrong with that (most high fight heroes pay a ton of points for that, especially if you’re F7 or higher), but given the level of risk involved for something that isn’t a guarantee you’ll win the fight (since you still have to roll higher than your opponent), I’m not sure it’s more valuable than spending the might for something that’s a guarantee (like increasing your duel die if it’ll win the fight or increasing a wound die if doing so will wound). Obviously it’d be valuable if you’re likely to die if you lose the fight, though. :-P

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  3. Along with yours I listen to the Green Dragon podcast a lot and they are big fans of Strike. In all honesty, I put it largely in the same bracket as Accuracy. I never like using Might for just a chance of something happening and while Strike is slightly different, it's still reliant on something else happening which in itself is subject to luck, that something else being a draw in the duel. Like Accuracy it doesn't guarantee you a result. Accuracy increases your chance to hit, then you have go through ITW tests and Wound. Strike you have to draw in the duel then have to hit and wound. Too much investment for too little return IMO.

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    1. I generally feel this way too - especially when someone is F5 and there aren't a lot of dice being rolled. The more dice you roll, however, the more likely that natural 6 on the dueling roll is going to be - and when THAT happens, calling Strike is quite useful to make the win more secure. That being said, there's a Fantasy Fellowship game that's coming up where I chose not to Strike against a certain big, scary monster, there were tons of dice in the fight on my side, and I won the duel because I got a 6 and he didn't - and boy was I happy I didn't waste that Might point.

      The best situation for using it, I feel, is when you have a hero who is about to be sacrificed if he doesn't call Strike - if you're up against something with high Strength/special wounding rules, Defense is usually the better heroic action to call (since it requires your opponent to be lucky on his wounding roll instead of oppressive on his dueling roll). If Ugluk isn't your army leader and he gets rammed into by an Aragorn or something, he doesn't have Defense, so Strike is his best way of forcing resources out of Aragorn. He's still unlikely to get that natural 6 (and might not do better than tie Aragorn's Fight Value), but you can threaten to win the duel from him if he doesn't Strike . . . and that has some value in a ditch-effort kind of way.

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    2. After a game yesterday I have had a Eureka moment and a new found appreciation of Heroic Strike! I had Thrydan and Gorulf, both with multiple supports, repeatedly bounce of some F6 Elf Hero, despite rolling 6-8 dice in the duel! Even with multiple 6s a 3A Hero only needs to roll one 6, or even just draw with you, and you just bounce off. Then, pesky Elf get's to do annoying stuff like kill Thrydan's horse! When it eventually clicked that I needed to Strike of course I rolled a 1 and only got to F6, duel was a draw and only THEN did I roll a 6 in the roll off, giving the fight to the Elf again!!! Absolutely infuriating day, not helped by the relentless stream of low rolls I had, literally the entire game. I actually still won but it was an immensely disappointing and somewhat un-fun game.

      I also used the die slowly Heroic Defence for the first time too, only because it's a free call for Gorulf, but even for free I still found it pretty meh. I doubt I'd ever pay to call it and of course, even for free, it stops you calling something more useful, like Strike! Grrrrr.

      As a total aside, Vrasku and the Crossbows saw the table for the last time yesterday. Other than in an 800 point game when you have points a plenty, I find them to always be absolute garbage. 4 crossbows with Vrasku and that's 109 points that did next to nothing! Killed a couple of spears, great return! Definitely better to spend those points on an Uruk Captain and a bunch of warriors that will actually DO something, or even bump up the points for an Isengard troll! Vrasku and his crossbow boys are now back in their box where they will remain FOREVER, on battlement duty guarding the camp! Useless, totally useless!

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  4. I might be missing something here but I don't see any point whatsoever in the rules stipulating that you start with the player who does not have priority when announcing HA. Example: Player A does not have priority but has 3 heroes with Strike. Player B then declares Strike against each one of those heroes in turn and, in turn, each one of those heroes then declares Strike in response because the rules state that "Note, sometimes you might have a situation where, because of one player’s choice of Heroic Action (or choice not to call a Heroic Action), the other wishes to reply with one of their own. This is perfectly acceptable. You can always declare a Heroic Action if you have the Might, and the Hero models to spare – what you cannot do, is go back and change (or cancel) one that has already been declared."

    As such, the ONLY thing that taking it in turns to declare Actions prevents is a player changing or cancelling an action that they have already declared. Provided a player still has heroes available they can still basically declare any action and any time because of the "in response to" clause. So essentially there is no way a player is ever tied to initially deciding NOT to declare a heroic action, even if they said they didn't have any, because they can ALWAYS respond to one or more of your declared HAs, provided they have the heroes left. So the only thing that's important in any way is whether, during the alternating declarations, is if you DO declare any HA (because you can then not go and change it), so in some ways, not having priority will still help as the player need not waste Might declaring actions until the player with priority does, then they go on to declare one of their own anyway.

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    1. Most of the time, it doesn't matter. There are niche cases where it does matter - usually when heroics are free based on what someone else does. Let's say that you have a F5 Gothmog who has been charged by a F5 Shagrat. Both heroes have Strike and are F5/3A models. If Gothmog has priority, Shagrat would need to call the Heroic Strike first, which would trigger Master of Battle (copy the Heroic Action for free) for Gothmog. Shagrat could choose to pass, though - counting on his S5/3F to keep him alive/do more damage. This puts the onus on Gothmog to call the Strike first with actual Might, which Shagrat can then reply with a Strike of his own.

      You often see a similar thing with Master of Battle when Heroic Moves are about to be called - if the guy with Master of Battle doesn't have priority, Master of Battle may not help him that round (unless there's another heroic you can call somewhere else).

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    2. That's a good point, I never thought about the free HA per turn or special rules like Master of Battle. It's not a problem at all to 'comply' with the alternating declarations, I had just read the rules over and over to try and find a consequence of not calling one if you don't have priority but it seems there isn't (accepting the above consequences to which you refer). If you do not declare a HA with a hero, if your opponent declares a heroic which causes your hero to wish to respond with his/her own HA (even if the HA wasn't declared against that hero), you can. Essentially you are never in a situation where you cannot declare a HA because you initially declined to do so, the only major consequence is that if you DID declare a HA you cannot then go back and cancel or change it. I guess that's only fair though as these heroes are not going to stand around thinking "I wish I'd declared that because now I can't". Stops people gaming the order of declarations too.

      It does make me wonder now though how MoB will actually be given Gothmog's opponent is probably better off never declaring the HA first, only ever declaring one in response, if the opposing player thinks of doing that.. That said, if Gothmog's opponent is down to his last hero and does not declare a HA, he will have lost his chance to declare one if Gothmog doesn't, e.g. he didn't declare initially, Gothmog didn't either, there's now no HA that's been declared that he needs to respond to so the chance to declare a HA is now gone. So he has to consider I suppose, in that situation, declare and Strike for instance and risk Gothmog copying it or, wait to see if Gothmog declares Strike first (to which he can then respond), problem is, if Gothmog doesn't he's now outa luck. Interesting article and exchange of messages though, made me think about things beyond face value of any given HA and when it's best to declare or not.

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    3. Sometimes you can force your opponent to call a Heroic Action near Gothmog to trigger Master of Battle - but it starts with list building. I have been playing a little with the Army of Gothmog at 800pts and have been running 2 War Catapults, each of which comes with a F7 Mordor Troll. If a F5-6 Strike hero is fighting one of these Trolls within 6" of Gothmog, he's gonna Strike. And then so will Gothmog for free. Similarly, if you have priority and your Trolls are ready to charge the front ranks of the enemy, he will probably call a Move . . . and likely so will Gothmog.

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  5. Oh that's a god idea. We tend to not use siege engines as we don't play siege games (and dislike using them outside of siege scenarios) but that would work equally well with Gothmog running alongside a Mordor Troll or Troll Chieftain, basically anything that's likely to trigger the enemy to Strike, which, in many case might not be just Gothmog (because of the fear of MoB).

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