Workbench Update: Minas Tirith

Good morning gamers!

So before last Christmas, I bought Faramir and Damrod from my good mate Glenstorm along with 6 Rangers of Gondor (with the intention of double-using all eight of them as Dunedain when playing my Fellowship of the Ring campaign). Over Christmas and a wedding in January, I acquired 48 Warriors of Minas Tirith. About three weeks later, Gandalf the White (foot and mounted from the Two Towers edition) arrived from Australia. With buckets of Warriors of Minas Tirith to paint, we had a proper project on our hands (and LOTS of decisions to make). So, here's what we did:

Armies of the Hobbit, Part V: The "Other" Armies of Good

Good morning gamers,

In our last post, we looked at the armies of the Dwarves from the Hobbit. Today, we turn our attention to the armies of men. While I don't think any of these lists are as impressive (or competitive) as the Dwarf armies we looked at, they do spam more, so if you can advantage of those numbers, you have the opportunity to best lists that are composed of "better" units.

1) The New Lists: Radagast's Alliance, The White Council, and Thranduil's Halls (and a hat-tip To Rivendell and the Misty Mountains)
There are technically five lists in the Armies of the Hobbit dedicated to non-Dwarf/non-Men lists, but two of them are re-prints from the Armies of the Lord of the Rings. This write-up will focus on the three we haven't covered yet - please view our other pages for write-ups on Rivendell and the Misty Mountains. 

I will say this, though, about the Misty Mountains list: if you own the Armies of the Hobbit book, unless you're looking to ally your eagles with Thorin's Company (or the Fellowship if you have the Armies of the Lord of the Rings book), it's better to run Radagast's Alliance - you get the same units (though Gwaihir does drop a heroic tier) with additional hero options and the exact same army bonus. If you're not running allies, there's no real reason to run the Misty Mountains list. As such, we're going to focus on the Radagast's Alliance list (but know that most of what we say about it also applies to the Misty Mountains list).

The Armies of the Hobbit, Part IV: Men

Good morning gamers,

In our last post, we looked at the armies of the Dwarves from the Hobbit. Today, we turn our attention to the armies of men. While I don't think any of these lists are as impressive (or competitive) as the Dwarf armies we looked at, they do spam more, so if you can advantage of those numbers, you have the opportunity to best lists that are composed of "better" units.

1) The New Lists: Garrison of Dale, Army of Lake-town, and Survivors of Lake-town
All three of the lists provided here revolve around spam units - the warrior options are incredibly limited (both in the number of warrior choices available, as well as the equipment provided. Like Numenor, this means that weapon swaps can be useful to provide some flavor to your army (and supplement weaknesses). It also helps to have some kind of power hero in your list to do extra damage (whether that's a hero from the list itself or an allied hero). All told, the relative inexpensiveness of the warriors in these lists allows for many weapon swaps and bringing expensive heroes. Since all of these lists can also get spears/bows, you can get a pretty "normal" army to support said heroes.

Heroic Strength: The Return of the (Numenorean) King (Or, How Heroic Strength helps Elendil... and your hero, too! ... if they actually win the fight)

So far, we’ve looked at Heroic Strength solely in terms of the benefits it can confer if our hero loses the fight. In part 1, we looked at how Heroic Strength can protect heroes who are swarmed by cavalry models or find a Mordor troll up in their grill, by shrugging off knock-downs, offering us cheeky ways to blunt what monsters usually do well, making us too heavy to hurl and harder to rend, and keeping our all-important mount under our hero’s heroic tushy. And in part 2, we examined how, depending on the opponents we’re facing, Heroic Strength may even provide comparable (or better) protection than Heroic Defense.

All of this should give us some confidence that if we expend Might to call Heroic Strength, there are at least some scenarios (which also happen to be particularly dangerous scenarios) where we’re probably going to see at least some return on our investment even if we lose the duel. Now let’s consider how Heroic Strength can help our hero if he wins the fight.

More maths! More charts! To war!

The Armies of the Hobbit, Part III: Dwarves

Good morning gamers,

In our last two posts, we saw the Orc-based armies and the "other" Evil armies. Today, we turn our attention to the Dwarves. I'll say from the start that the bearded fellows are near-and-dear to my heart, not only because I started playing the game with the LOTR Dwarf army options, but also because I converted some Dwarf Rangers when the Hobbit movies came out so I could have Thorin's Company in the game (I've since acquired Thorin's Company, so those Dwarves are going through the renaming/repainting process).

1) The New Lists: Thorin's Company, Army of Thror, The Iron Hills, Erebor Reclaimed
We're tackling four lists today and they all do different things: the lists provide options to run an all-hero list (Thorin's Company), a mixture of power heroes and some basic warriors (Erebor Reclaimed), a handful of named heroes with tough melee infantry and no long-range shooting options (Army of Thror), and an army with a handful of hero choices and a large mix of warrior choices (The Iron Hills). All told, by investing in at least one Dwarf army from the Armies of the Hobbit book, you get access to MANY different playing styles. Ergo, picking one can be difficult (hence this post).

Announcing the TMAT Grand Tournament 2019

Good morning gamers,

With two tournaments under our belts with the new rules, it's time for a Grand Tournament - our first initwo years! The tournament will be held at Patrick Henry College on May 11, 2019. For this year's tournament, we'll be running fairly small armies, allowing for a focus on the new rules and what they do. Without further ado, here are (in my typical style) the Ten Commandments of the Tournament (Rules):

Heroic Strength: The Two Choices (Or, Why would I ever choose Heroic Strength over Heroic Defense?)

If you're just joining us, this is part 2 of a three-part homily on Heroic Strength. (No really, it's a proper homily, complete with alliterative points, inside references, and illustrations.) You can find part 1 here, which discussed the major defensive bonuses that we can give to heroes against cavalry and monster/monstrous mount units by calling Heroic Strength.

Of course, our prior discussion has begged the question: are these defensive benefits from Heroic Strength as good as what you’d get if Elendil spent that same Might point on Heroic Defense? The answer... in many cases... is “probably.”

(More maths incoming... and charts!)

The Armies of the Hobbit, Part II: The Other Evil Armies

Good morning gamers,

This post will wrap up the evil armies from the Hobbit - and the lists we have today don't really synergize at all as far as theme goes. So, we'll be covering spiders and goblins today - things should be interesting

1) The New Lists: Dark Denizens of Mirkwood and Goblin-town (but what about the Trolls and the Dragon man?)

There are four evil lists we haven't covered yet: the Dark Denizens of Mirkwood (predominantly spiders) and Goblin-town (completely filled with goblins). Both of these lists have one thing in common: they're very traditionally hero-and-warrior teams (as opposed to the all-hero lists that are The Trolls and the Desolator of the North). I decided that we're not going to cover army lists for using The Trolls or the Desolator of the North for two reasons: first, because building lists at the 600pt (or higher) level are just not all that interesting, and second, because I've already covered lists that bring The Trolls already both in the last post and in a previous Armies of the Lord of the Rings post. For Smaug, I've chosen not to cover him because not only does he not fit in a 600 point game, but also because you have to be playing a really large game (1000+ points) in order for his exorbitant point cost to not eat all the points you have (very uninteresting).

Instead, we'll be leaving the discussions for the Trolls to the lists that bring them and we'll wrap up today's post by talking about ways to fight against Smaug (should you face him). We'll be assuming a 700-point game and provide two sample lists that showcase the ability to fight Smaug. By brainstorming ways to fight Smaug, we'll get an appreciation for what he can do (which is kind of like evaluating him). With that, let's take a closer look at the two lists we'll actually be reviewing today.

The Armies of the Hobbit, Part I: Orcs!

Good morning gamers,

This post begins our discussion of the Armies of the Hobbit and like we did with the Armies of the Lord of the Rings, we'll be covering the Forces of Evil first (in two parts) and the Forces of Good after that. Unlike the Armies of the Lord of the Rings, we don't have previous sourcebooks to group things (and we don't have the old Legions of Middle-Earth book to guide us either). Ergo, we'll be grouping things by common types (Orcs, other Bad Guys, Dwarves, Men, other Good Guys). It should be fun.

1) The New Lists: Azog's Hunters, Azog's Legion, Dark Powers of Dol Guldur

These three lists are, in many ways, one list broken out in to three parts (if you ignore their army bonuses): many of the warrior choices provided in these lists are shared across the others: both of the Warrior options for the Azog's Hunters list are available in the Dark Powers of Dol Guldur list (hereafter Dark Powers), and the Dark Powers list also has access to the Gundabad Orc Warriors available in the Azog's Legion list. While there are some unique warrior choices across the Azog's Legion and Dark Powers lists, by and large you get the same feel from a warrior-perspective no matter which of these lists you choose.

Where these lists differ is in their heroes - Azog's Hunters have average-defense heroes, all of which can be mounted (and with Expert Rider on many of them, there's good reason to do so). Azog's Legion has barely any hero optons, but most of them are/can be heavily armored. The Dark Powers list provides you with the Necromancer and the Nazgul, along with several other generic hero options and the Keeper of the Dungeons (powerhouse options abound). When looking at the lists, the heroes are what make the greatest difference between them (and should come to the forefront of your decisions about what kind of army to get).