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).

2) The Army Bonuses: Bring A Certain Army Leader

Two of the lists incentivize you to bring certain kinds of heroes (though all three do, when you think about it). Azog's Legion allows Azog or Bolg (whoever's the Army Leader) to gain Master of Battle - great for free heroic actions when you counter-call against an opponent. Choosing to bring an Azog's Legion list without one of these heroes (assuming you keep your Army Bonus) doesn't make much sense. Similarly, the Dark Powers list allows the Necromancer to cast magic better and help your Nazgul revive more reliably - so taking them in a Dark Powers list makes a lot of sense (and avoiding taking them doesn't make much sense).

The Azog's Hunters list doesn't require that you bring someone, but taking Bolg in the list (since you get 50% bow limit) allows all those archers to damage multi-wound models over time thanks to the proliferation of Morgul Arrows. Whether you're hunting Trolls or heroes, this is a HUGE benefit (and allows you to focus fire on multi-wound models initially but then diverting away once you get a wound on them). While less clear than the other lists, I think there's a strong case for bringing Bolg (unless you're also thinking of taking Azog on the White Warg and are bleeding for points). Not much else to say - let's get into the lists!

3) The Lists: Azog's Hunters

All of the warrior options for Azog's Hunters can be bought in the Dark Powers of Dol Guldur list, so if you choose to field this list, you are doing so a) because you like archery, or b) because you prefer to use Azog/Bolg instead of the Necromancer of Dol Guldur to lead your Hunter Orcs/Fell Wargs (since you can get Azog/Bolg in the Azog's Legion list). As such, our first team relies on archery to survive.

List #1: Ambush In Lake-town
Bolg with Orc bow

Narzug

Fimbul (who starts with an Orc bow) with Fell Warg

11 Hunter Orcs with Orc bows

11 Hunter Orcs

5 Hunter Orcs on Fell Wargs with Orc bows

6 Fell Wargs

This list sports 19 Orc bows (including all three heroes) that hit on a 4+ (except Narzug who hits on a 3+) and all of these blokes have the Morgul Arrows bonus thanks to Bolg being in our list. As mentioned above, you can shoot at multi-wound models when they're far away, then change to shooting at more mundane single-wound models as they get closer. I'm not sure how much damage the Morgul Arrows bonus does over time (since it's roughly the same as getting un-Paralyzed), but we might as well include it here. We've also included 12 Warg models (Fimbul, 5 Hunter Orcs mounted, 6 "nekked" Fell Wargs), giving this army incredible flexibility (some of which can even shoot). With a grand total of 36 models, this list has a decent number of models considering the number of cavalry models it's fielding and over half of them can shoot. That's not bad at all. The next list ups the model count by a little bit and focuses on melee damage vs. shooting.

List #2: Allies In The Misty Mountains
Bolg with Fell Warg and Orc bow

5 Hunter Orcs with Orc bows

3 Hunter Orc with two-handed pick

6 Fell Wargs

CONVENIENT ALLY: Moria

Durburz

Druzhag

8 Moria Goblin Warriors with shields

8 Moria Goblin Warriors with spears

4 Fell Wargs

4 Wild Wargs

While we could have gotten more models by allying in Goblin-Town (more on them next time), Moria gives us access to a very unique hero: Druzhag. With 8 Warg models in the Moria contingent and 6 more Warg models in the Azog's Hunters contingent, you've got 14 glass cannon models that you can target with Enrage Beast, easily upgrading one of these blokes to F5 S6 A3 C4 each turn. WOW! If you REALLY want to up your game, you can technically cast this on Bolg's mount too, but since Bolg would really only benefit from the Strength boost, I don't think you need to. Still, without fielding a Cave Troll, we've succeeded in getting something pretty darn close to one for 7-8 points (for roughly 5 turns if you don't cast Fury). For the Azog's Hunters contingent, we've still included some archers (for sitting on objectives), though you could just as easily remove the Orc bows to take an extra Goblin OR swap the Orc bows for two-handed picks, making your army more lethal on the to-wound stroke. All told, this is a very different kind of list, but it has some amazing potential (and with 41 models, losing a few of your Wargs to exhaustion isn't a bad thing).

4) The Lists: Azog's Legion

As a general rule, I try to never leave home without archery: in the early days of collecting armies in the hobby, the main-stay of my Isengard army was Uruk-Hai Warriors with either shields or pikes. The problem with this was that many of the armies I faced (Rohan, Harad, and most notably Wood Elves from Lothlorien) took a lot of archery and there's no reason for a smaller band of shooting guys to go running up against a larger band of Uruk-Hai. So, they got shot a lot. And they died a lot. And they lost a lot. So, I've been an archery-guy through-and-through ever since (and it shows in my latest Isengard builds).

Archery is a fickle mistress and the thing about taking Azog's Legion is that besides the Catapult Trolls that you have access to, you can't shoot. At all. So, the trick is not to dwell on the fact that you can't shoot, but to just get-on with it and fight stuff. So, our first army is going to suffer in the shooting department, but hopefully the guys in it last long enough to do some good.

List #1: Forth All Legions
Azog with heavy armor

1 Gundabad Orc Captain with shield

10 Gundabad Orc Warriors with shields

10 Gundabad Orc Warriors with shields and spears
4 Gundabad Berserkers
1 Gundabad Troll with Scythe Gauntlets

I'll admit, I'd prefer to mount Azog, but at 600 points, I just don't have the room. Azog does have heavy armor, which is a reasonable deterrent against archery, but the main-stay of this force are Gundabad Orcs with shields (and optionally spears) - basically, we're running higher-Courage Morannon Orcs (or lower-Fight Uruk-Hai Warriors, depending on how you look at it) - solid, reliable troops who cannot shoot. They're supported by 4 Gundabad Berserkers (multi-Attack models with the off-chance of saving their skins when they take a wound) and 1 Gundabad Troll. I've opted for the Scythe Gauntlets since they make your Wounding rolls more reliable (instead of dealing more wounds to a particular model with the club). I'll admit the Club is tempting not for the D3 Wounds (which, as I've said in a previous post on Magic, might end up doing just 1 Wound), but for the opportunity of knocking prone whoever you're fighting on a 3+ (basically you get a free Bash with a club in addition to wounding people...not bad) - but if you already wound many models (D1-D5) on 3s, why wouldn't you want to wound them on 2s with the Scythe Gauntlets (or wound D6-D7 models on 3s OR D8-D9 models on 4s)?

Our second list is for the people who prefer to have some kind of shooting list...

List #2: United Forces
Azog with heavy armor
7 Gundabad Orcs with shields
7 Gundabad Orcs with shields and spears

HISTORICAL ALLY: Azog's Hunters

Bolg with Orc bow
7 Hunter Orcs with Orc bows
3 Hunter Orcs with two-handed picks
4 Fell Wargs

This list takes all the good stuff from our first Azog's Hunters list and joins it with the backbone of the previous army - heavily-armored anvil models supporting shooty-multi-Attack light troops. Besides the obvious cool-factor of running both Azog and Bolg (hence the lack of Gundabad Trolls in this list), we've got 8 Orc bows with Morgul Arrows in this list and 4 Fell Wargs for objective control and racing-around-battle-lines-to-trap-people-they-couldn't-see-when-they-started-moving. The use of this list is straight-forward, though with only two warbands, you'll be placed on the map early, giving your opponent a good idea of where to find you if he runs 3+ warbands himself (and maybe that's okay).

5) The Lists: Dark Powers of Dol Guldur

In this our last list, we're covering the Necromancer of Dol Guldur and his ilk. The first list is a given - play to your Army bonus and include the Necromancer and at least one of the Nazgul of Dol Guldur and enough guys to keep them alive.

List #1: The Dark Lord Rises
The Necromancer of Dol Guldur
The Witch King
10 Hunter Orcs with Orc bows
1 Hunter Orc with two-handed pick
8 Gundabad Orcs with shields
7 Gundabad Orcs with shields and spears
3 Fell Wargs

HISTORICAL ALLY: Thrain the Broken

I could have taken another Gundabad Orc with shield and spear, but I've opted for Thrain the Broken - he's a wild-card but when he passes his Courage test on a double (which will be on 3s, 4s, 5s, or 6s, so 11% of the time), he has the equivalent of Enrage Beast on him, turning him into a F6 S4 A3 C6 monstrocity (basically, Celeborn) - for 10 points! While our team only has a token number of fast models (3 Fell Wargs), we've got a nice anvil unit with 15 Gundabad Orcs, a good shooting contingent with 10 Hunter Orcs (albeit with 5+ shoot values and no Morgul Arrows) and two killer heroes. The Witch King has 3M instead of 2M (though you might be better off going with a Slayer of Men with a no-penalty 2H or Khamul the Easterling with 3A), giving you more prolonged access to Heroic Strike if you need it and can be resurrected on a 2+ so long as the Necromancer is on the board. 

The Necromancer did get better with the addition of Curse to his profile (since you can remove all of a target's Fate points before wounding them with Drain Soul), but was already a very powerful hero - F7/S6, Instill Fear on a 4+, Transfix on a 2+, Will points as Fate points. Sure, he's only got 1 Attack, but with S6 (and access to Heroic Strength), you can be sure to have a decent shot at wounding whoever you fight (and if he doesn't have any Fate points...). Our next list drops the army bonus and instead focuses on power models.

List #2: Four Serious Smashers
The Keeper of the Dungeons
5 Gundabad Orcs with shields
5 Gundabad Orcs with shields and spears
2 Mirkwood Spiders

CONVENIENT ALLY: The Trolls

Bill the Troll
Bert the Troll
Tom the Troll

The Keeper of the Dungeons is a glass-cannon model - no Fate, only 2 Wounds with Defense 5. On offense, though, he's VERY strong (getting better as he kills stuff - causes Terror and rerolls all failed To Wound rolls after smashing through 5 models). Use him to take on grunts while you leave heroes to Bill the Troll - his Mince 'Em Fine BPA has Bill and one other model take their Strength stats (starting at S7, you're likely to be ahead by 3 against most heroes) and then each adds D6 and Bill does WOUNDS equal to the difference if his number is higher. You're doing the following amount of damage:

This means that 1/6 times you use this ability, you'll do no wounds, but on average, you'll do 3.1 Wounds, which is basically like wounding with all three of your Attack dice (and almost half the time, you'll do more than 3 Wounds - utterly brutal). The other Trolls are good too - Tom is good at fighting mobs models with his Squash 'Em To Jelly BPA and can even fight high-Fight Value heroes since he can sneeze on any hero who's trying to tackle him (so long as he has Will). Bert is a bit more niche, but is still a Mordor Troll with Might/Will/Fate, so he's worth taking (though we didn't get him his campfire...maybe we should have done that).

Augmenting all of this (and perhaps the best of the bunch) are Mirkwood Spiders, who (like the Trolls if they choose to use the Keep 'Em For Later BPA) can Paralyze their targets so long as they hit them with a shooting attack - hitting on a 5+ isn't great, but you only need to make it work in order for your target to be incapable of doing anything until it wakes. All told, you can really soften up an enemy line for your small anvil unit with a joint attack from the Trolls and spiders.

Well, we're starting through the Armies of the Hobbit - next up, we tackle the rest of the Armies of Evil. We're preparing for our GT in May (expect to see a post on that soon), but until next time, happy hobbying!