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.

2) The Army Bonuses: Augmenting Your Grunts

Two of the three lists we'll be looking at today have army bonuses that require you to bring a particular hero (the Army of Lake-town extends the range of the Master's Moneybags special rule, while the Survivors of Lake-town extends Bard's Savior of Lake-town special rule - and allows Bard's Stand Fast to affect other Lake-town heroes). While this might lead you to assume that these armies are like the Dwarf lists we viewed last time (determining the heroes you choose), these army bonuses are really about making your weaker models better.

The Moneybags rule allows Lake-town Guard, Lake-town Guard Captains, and Braga if they're within 6" of the Master (12" if you keep your army bonus) to up their Fight Value by 1 (bringing the warriors to F4 and the captains/Braga to F5) AND they all are treated like they're in range of a banner. This is a HUGE rule - a 12" banner is unheard of (though it comes at the cost of a Might point). Yes, this incentivizes taking the Master, but not for the Master's sake - you take him for your warriors' sake. 

Bard's Savior of Lake-town rule works the same way, but affects Bain, Percy, Hilda Bianka, Lake-town Militia Captains and Lake-town Militia within 6" of him (12" if you keep your army bonus) except that it DOESN'T cost Might to trigger. That's even more HUGE (another 12" banner with boosted Fight Value), except that the Fight Value increase isn't felt as much (Militia/Hilda Bianca become F3, Captains/Bain/Percy become F4). Once again, you take Bard not just because he's Bard, but because you want your grunts to be better.

The most straight-forward grunt-improving rule is the Garrison of Dale's rule, which boosts the Shoot Value of your non-Girion models to 3+ - perfect for helping you hit just a little bit more (and hit approximately half your targets when moving). Since these guys carry the equivalent of Elf bows, it's ALMOST like having Elves (for 2pts less per model). Unlike the last two, you don't need Girion to make this happen - it's just static (though you should still take Girion).

With no further ado, let's look at the lists.

3) The Lists: The Garrison of Dale

I'll say this up-front: of all the armies of the men from the Armies of the Hobbit book, I'd be most inclined to get this one. Those who follow this blog know the following about me: I believe that since you can kill models in the Move and Shoot phases, you should include things that will be able to kill things in the Move and Shoot phases. This is why I love throwing weapons and magic so much, as well as why I include close to the maximum number of bows in my army (and every time I haven't, I've regretted it). While Dale can't get throwing weapons or magic, it does shooting very well - and from a purely economic stand-point, you can get 24 Warriors of Dale (some of which can be used as Captains) for LESS money than 12 Lake-town Guard/Militia. Regardless, our first list showcases the powerful archery that you can provide with Dale:

List #1: Defend Our Homes
Girion with Great Bow
3 Captains of Dale with Esgaroth Bows
19 Warriors of Dale with shields
7 Warriors of Dale with shields and spears
14 Warriors of Dale with spears and Esgaroth Bows

If this looks surprisingly like my Numenor list, that should be no surprise. :) We don't really have warrior choices or hero choices for this list, so we've decided to stick as close as we can to the 3/1/2 paradigm, giving one-third of our warriors bows and half of our warriors spears. While Centaur is famous for the maxim "archers are swordsmen" (read: while they can shoot, you want them to participate in fights as well), I actually hold to the belief that "archers are spearmen" - it's a little more expensive, but allows you to shoot while the enemy approaches and then not have to change your battle line when you're engaged.

Our lists includes 17 Esgaroth bows (standing still, you should hit ~12 times, so 2 wounds per turn against D6/D7 models) and 1 Great Bow (which can shoot multiple times with Strength 4). While we could have taken the Windlance, it's a lot of points and would have really undercut our warrior count. As the list is, we have 44 models (pretty high for a 600-point game) and with the purchase of another captain (give him a bow), you've got plenty of room to grow our army. Our next list takes shooting to a whole new level (though I'll admit I was tempted to run Dale with the Army of Thror JUST to pair high Fight/Defense with excellent archery):

List #2: We Win All Shooting Wars
Girion with Great Bow
6 Warriors of Dale with shields
2 Warriors of Dale with shields and spears
4 Warriors of Dale with spears and Esgaroth Bows

CONVENIENT ALLY: Lothlorien

Galadriel
Haldir with Elf bow and Elven cloak
12 Galadhrim Warriors with shields
7 Galadhrim Warriors with Elf bows and spears

At first blush, we've only got 8 Elf bows, 4 Esgaroth bows, and 1 Great bow (a full 5 bows less than our last list). In addition, because we don't get the Garrison of Dale army bonus, our Warriors are hitting on 4s instead of 3s (when standing still). So why is this list better?

First off, we have two heroes who can shoot multiple times - Girion with a 3+ shoot and a Strength 4 bow and Haldir with a 3+ shoot and a Strength 3 bow. The Elves provide the same impressive shoot value as our guys from the last list, but also have improved Fight value and higher Defense, making them far more resilient and no less deadly at range. While the Warriors of Dale have gotten worse, they aren't remarkably worse than they were before (likely to only hit twice instead of three times). Finally, all of our archers can easily be protected by Blinding Light thanks to Galadriel - a real boon when protecting D4 archers from retaliatory archery. Our last list, while bigger, is very vulnerable to enemy archery (especially S3/S4 archery) - that gets solved here.

If this second list fought the first one, you'd see only 3 hits from the Esgaroth bows (and likely only a single shot from the Great Bow since the multi-shot is dependent on hitting your target), which MIGHT translate into 1 wound. When firing back, the 9 Elf bows (Haldir shooting twice) will hit with 6 shots and will wound 2 Warriors of Dale (already better), while Girion is likely to kill another model while your Warriors of Dale get a kill every other round. With 34 models, you're only 10 models behind the last list, which means after five turns of archery you should have them on nearly equal footing. And then they have to beat F5/D6 Elves.

4) The Lists: Army of Lake-town

Let me get this out of the way for starters: despite what I said in our last post about the Army of Lake-town not being a good ally with Thorin's Company (and I still hold to that), the Army of Lake-town is not a bad army to take. Anyone who runs Lake-town just needs to be ready for one critical flaw:

You don't get shields.

Shields are great in the game for two reasons: first, by defending by shielding, you can allow a model on an objective (or a model trying to protect a critical point in the battle line) to perform better on the Dueling roll at the expense of not being able to participate at all (for most models) in the To Wound roll. While I think many players overuse the shielding rule (in most scenarios, you do actually have to kill stuff), this is incredibly useful - especially if you have the lower Fight value and are in a one-on-one combat (where more dice gives you an edge over your opponent). The second benefit is more marginal: it boosts your Defense by 1 (assuming you don't have a piece of equipment that says you don't get the Defense bonus for having a shield). While this CAN make a difference in what's required to wound you, it doesn't always.

For the Army of Lake-town, going from D4 to D5 would (on the whole) be very helpful - most bows are Strength 2, so they'd go from wounding you on 5s to wounding you on 6s. Many armies also have the options for Strength 4 models (heroes, elite warrior options, basic warriors with axes/picks), so having a shield would change your foes from wounding on 4s to wounding on 5s (still no great, but something). But this leads to the first rule of Lake-town:

Your defense doesn't matter if you can just win the fight (and not get shot).

Not getting shot is harder to do, but you can include Gandalf the Grey from the Thorin's Company list if you really care about it. In our lists today, we won't showcase Gandalf as an ally, but we'll focus instead on how to provide the best attempt at winning fights. Take this list for example:

List #1: The Men of Lake-town
Bard the Bowman with armor
The Master of Lake-town
Alfrid, Councilor
Braga, Captain of the Guard
Bain, Son of Bard
Sigrid and Tilda
14 Lake-town Guard with clubs
14 Lake-town Guard with spears
8 Lake-town Guard with bows
7 Lake-town Guard with spears and bows

In our post on weapon swaps, I talked about how Lake-town Guard benefited from swapping for clubs - a bad fight with Stab active will wound you on 5s, so get rid of that sword and get something more useful! Clubs are wonderful if your objective is to win fights - you have an off-chance for spear-supporters to wound your target while the front-liners do their best to Stun their foes. A stunned foe is not going to be very effective in the following round (reduced to Fight 1/Attacks 1), which gives your side the Fight value advantage if you can isolate him. To this end, we want numbers - and numbers we have. With a healthy 50 models in the army, you've got a good shot at wrapping around your foes when they finally arrive.

Your list also includes the Master of Lake-town with Alfrid. The Master (as we've seen at the start of this post) can help your Lake-town Guard and Braga fight better, while Alfrid has the ability to use his Will points to give the Master of Lake-town more Might over time (perfect for activating his Moneybags rule for 5 rounds in a game). The list also includes Bard (the only real power hero), as well as Bain/Sigrid/Tilda, who not only make Bard better, but Bain becomes a decent fighter when near dad (and a pretty good fighter when near dad and one of his sisters). Our second list drops the army bonus and takes a very different approach to winning fights:

List #2: Fear Us
Bard the Bowman with armor
2 Lake-town Guard Captains
12 Lake-town Guard with clubs
12 Lake-town Guard with spears
8 Lake-town Guard with bows
4 Lake-town Guard with spears and bows

CONVENIENT ALLY: The White Council
Radagast the Brown with Sebastian

I'll note that for 15 additional points, we could have kept our army bonus and ran Gandalf - which would be easy if we dropped 2 melee models and most of our spears on our bowmen. Instead, we've chosen to run 36 warriors with 3 heroes from Lake-town and Radagast the Brown. Radagast is an under-valued hero - mostly because you have to ally him in (and he's expensive). Heroes who cost 150+ points are fine in most armies, since they'll give you space for 15-24 warriors in your warband. Radagast costs this list 155 points and allows you to bring...nobody. But Radagast does something most heroes can't do:

Radagast can make the worst warriors cause terror.

Radagast is one of a handful of heroes to have access to Aura of Dismay, which makes all friendly models within 6" of him (12" if channelled) cause Terror. While Terror is best supplemented with a Harbinger of Evil/Ancient Evil rule that reduces people's Courage, Terror on its own can be a game-changer: if you have a long battle line and your opponent can't charge everyone, you can isolate your opponents better, wrap around their battle lines to trap models, or race to objectives. Since Aura of Dismay is the only difficult spell in Radagast's arsenal (all four of his other spells are cast on a 2+ or a 3+), you can throw your free Will point for the turn and 1-2 others to get the spell off. As said in our post on Magical Powers, I don't think you need to channel this, but you could if you wanted (I'd be more inclined to save the Might for other heroic actions, possibly channelling Panic Steed if fighting a lot of tightly-packed cavalry or channelling Terrifying Aura against C2/C3 armies).

Radagast also is assumed to have line of sight to anywhere on the battlefield, which means he can cast his other spells (Renew on Bard/Captains, Immobilize on monsters/power heroes, Panic Steed on cavalry) from the safety of a walled-off area where he'd normally have no visibility at all! Since Aura of Dismay doesn't require those within 6" to be able to see the caster, that spell too will be active while Radagast is safely hidden away.

5) The Lists: The Survivors of Lake-town

The Survivors of Lake-town are, in some ways, a lot like the Army of Lake-town: both have a buff that comes from one model that allows you to have a banner bonus and increased Fight value, both have cheap heroes that you can spam in order to field cheap warriors that you can spam, and both have basic weapon options only. However, the Survivors of Lake-town differ in a few key respects from the kin we just finished talking about: first and foremost, they can get shields. We already talked about this, so I won't go on. Second, almost everyone (not Bard or Gandalf) begins at F3 or less (many become boosted to F3/F4 with Bard's Savior of Lake-town rule), making it a very low Fight Value army. Third and most importantly, your Fight-Value-Banner buff is static on Bard vs. having to pay a Might point for it. Still, against certain lists (F5-S3 armies in particular - like ELVES), the two lists will play very similarly. So let's begin with a list that nearly mirrors one of the Lake-town lists we just viewed.

List #1: The Defense of Dale
Bard the Bowman with armor
Percy
Hilda-Bianca
Bain, Son of Bard
Sigrid and Tilda
15 Lake-town Militia with shields (and you probably want to give them axes)
17 Lake-town Militia with shields and spears
16 Lake-town Militia with bows (and you DEFINITELY want to give them axes)

This is a very traditional spam army - 48 warriors accompanied by 6 heroes. Sigrid and Tilda play an important role here - together they can allow Bain/Bard to become much better fighters (getting Bard to the all-too-elusive Fight 6) and allow for free Heroic Combats (which are great if you're chewing through chaff). Percy and his archers get a slight boost to their shooting thanks to Percy's special rule (which is not as good as the Rivendell army bonus but can be used when moving and shooting), allowing you to get just a bit more out of your otherwise normal archers. You then have all the makings for an anvil with 32 shock troops led by Bard/Hilda/Bain, just be sure to keep everyone within 12" of Bard so your grunts become F3 and have a banner bonus (which is GREAT, but it is something).

The limitations of this team, of course, is that you're average defense. While all of the armies of men in the Armies of the Hobbit are average defense, you're also average Fight (even with Bard's buff). This means that against F4/F5 spear-supported armies, you could have some serious trouble. The trade-off is that while most F4/F5 models won't get too much of a bonus wounding you from special strikes, being able to take axes on all your guys can give you incredibly cheap S4 models (and since your Defense is low, you're probably dead anyway). It's a gamble, but probably worth it.

I know what you're thinking - where in this post is the WINDLANCE?!?!?!?! Hold your horses, here it comes...

List #2: Let Them Come To Us
Bard the Bowman with armor and Windlance
Gandalf the Grey
Percy
8 Lake-town Militia with shields (and you probably want to give them axes)
8 Lake-town Militia with shields and spears
7 Lake-town Militia with bows
2 Lake-town Militia with spears and bows

As with any army that runs siege engines (not to mention wizards), this team is small (only 28 models). However, you get a few things out of it. First and foremost, opponents who shoot will be forced to forego their shooting thanks to Blinding Light. From the safety of the light, Percy and his archers (10 bows + Bard's Great Bow if he chooses to not use the Windlance) can pepper the opponent and get him closer to your starting number. In an age where normal bows can't use volley fire anymore, the Windlance forces opponents who are on the other side of the board (and don't have siege engines of their own) to come at you double-time so they're not torn to pieces waiting for you to come.

The trick to running this team, of course, is staying close to Bard - recall that the Survivors of Lake-town bonus requires everyone to be within 12" of Bard to get the benefits of higher Fight Value/banners - and since we can't get any banners on our warriors, this is a HUGE boost. Since Bard can't move the Windlance on his own, positioning him first and getting the rest of your army around him his huge (and this can make Maelstrom fights particularly difficult). Still, in most games you'll be able to choose where your units go (and in those ones, hang towards the back and shoot away).

With both men and Dwarves covered, we turn our attention to the last armies in the book - the "other" Good armies (to include Elves, wizards, and monsters). It should be good - until then, happy hobbying!