Armies of Middle Earth SBG: Chart and Table Reference Guide (Updated 13 June 2019)

As one of TMAT's resident chart/table-guys, I figured it might be helpful to have a brief description of how to read the various charts and tables that I use. Below is a reference guide with some sample charts (and tables) that I've used in our series on the Armies of Middle Earth, what they're meant to convey, and how to read them.

I'll try to keep this updated as we progress, so all this information is accessible in one place. If you have any questions about any of these, or if there are charts or tables you'd like to see, please let us know in the comments!

Basic Combat Table (Armies of Middle Earth)

Iron Hills Shield / Spear (F4, S4, D7)
	Orc         Sh/Sp          (F3, S3, D5)	Morannon        Sh/Sp        (F3, S4, D6)	Corsair           Sh/Sp       (F4, S3, D4)	Uruk-Hai         Sh/Sp      (F4, S4, D6)	Men           Sh/Sp         (F3, S3, D6)	Dwarf         Sh/Sp        (F4, S3, D7)	Iron Hills        Sh/Sp          (F4, S4, D8)	High-Elf         Sh/Sp          (F5, S3, D6)
Duel Win %	61.03%	61.03%	50.00%	50.00%	61.03%	50.00%	50.00%	38.97%
Kill %	33.91%	33.91%	37.50%	27.78%	33.91%	15.28%	15.28%	21.65%
Death %	11.91%	11.91%	15.28%	15.28%	11.91%	15.28%	15.28%	18.65%
Kill Ratio	2.85	2.85	2.45	1.82	2.85	1.00	1.00	1.16

I use these charts for measuring how a basic infantry unit (sometimes singular models, other times in groups) are likely to fair in combat against other common enemies. The top row (white) gives us the name of the chart, which is almost always the specific model profile(s) we're looking at (in this case, an Iron Hills warrior with Shield, and an Iron Hills Warrior with Spear). The parentheses give the pertinent combat stats (here it's Fight 4, Strengh 4, and Defense 7; Attacks may also be listed, if a model happens to have more than one). If there are multiple models but just one parenthetical, it means that in this test, both models were given the same stats; two parentheticals means the participants have different stats.

Below that is a second row (dark grey and light grey), which lists the model(s) we're testing our selected model(s) against. For simplicity's sake, I've chosen the following eight categories--four (primiarly) evil, and four (almost exclusively) good:

• "Orc Sp/Sh": This is two ranks of generic orcs, where at least one rank has Shield ("Sh") and at least one rank has Spears ("Sp"). Note that this doesn't preclude both ranks from having both Shields and Spears. Standard orcs are Fight 3, Strength 3, and Defense 5 (with shields), which is noted in their caption. Note as well that while this profile is captioned "orcs," it could fit any number of other profiles. For example, this would also be the odds of wounding Rohan infantry with shields--not Helmingas--backed up by Fight 3, Strength 3 spearmen (like warriors of Minas Tirith). Because they're in a spear/shield formation, only the model in the front rank is eligible to be wounded (and thus the defense of the spearman is irrelevant, while his Fight and Strength values are relevant).
• "Morannon Sp/Sh": Morannon orcs with at least one rank of spears and one rank of shields; the key difference is that the front rank is now D6, and both ranks are Strength 4.
• "Corsair Sh/Sp": Corsairs with shields and spears. These are Fight 4, Strength 3, and Defense 4.
• "Uruk-Hai Sp/Sh": Uruk-Hai warriors with shields and spears (technically pikes). They are Fight 4, Strength 4, and Defense 6.
• "Men Sh/Sp": Standard Fight 3 men with shields and spears. They are Strength 3 and Defense 6. This covers basic Warriors of Minas Tirith (not in SHieldwall), Osgiliath Veterans (if not within 6" of Boromir or Faramir), Easterlings (without the Black Dragon upgrade), etc.
• "Dwarf Sh/Sp": These are traditional dwarves with shields, backed up by spears (which is not traditional). They are Fight 4, Strength 3, and Defense 7. Note that in addition to Army of Thror, a Minas Tirith battle line (either with WOMTs in Shieldwall backed up by Rangers/Citadel Guard, or Fountain Court guard backed up by WOMTs), could also have these stats.
• "Iron Hills Sh/Sp": These are Iron Hills Dwarves, with spears and in Shieldwall. At Fight 4, Strength 4, and Defense 8, they represent the most balanced of all shield-spear combos, with very good offensive and defensive capabilities. To date, they're the only faction that can get this particular combination of Fight, Strength, and Defense.
• "High Elf Sh/Sp": These are High Elves with Fight 5, Strength 3, and Defense 6. Galahdrim and Mirkwood elves can get these stats as well (though if we're settling for those stats on Mirkwood Palace Guard, we're probably not optimizing them).

Below these identifying rows are four categories of stats:

• "Duel Win %": This is our model's (in this case, the Iron Hills Dwarves') chance to win the duel; their opponent's chance is found by subtracting this percentage from 100%--a 50% chance means there's an even fight. This is impacted by lots of factors, including the combined number of attacks on each side, their relative fight value, and the presence or absence of banners / two-handed weapons / elven blades / whether one side is shielding / etc. For more on the math behind those choices, you can check out our multi-part discussion of Heroic Strike.
• "Kill %": This is our model's chance of dealing at least one wound to the opponent at the start of the fight (which means before any duel or wounding dice are rolled). In other words, it's an assessment of risk: if I go through with this combat, what are my odds that I'll kill what I'm attacking. This means that our "Kill %" chance will never be higher than our "Duel Win %" chance, because we can't wound a model (in a fight at least) if we don't win the duel.
• "Die %": This is our opponent's chance to kill our model(s). Needless to say, this won't be any higher than our opponent's duel chance--and preferably, we'd like to keep this as low as possible.
• "Kill Ratio": This is a metric I've created, which divides our chance of killing our opponent (Kill %) by our opponent's chance of killing us (Die %). This gives us a short-cut measure for how much more likely we are (or aren't) to kill a given opponent. For regular orcs, for example, our Iron Hills warriors are almost three times likely (2.85:1) to kill an orc as they are to suffer a wound (33.91% to 11.91%). If these combats replicate themselves across the battle field, and in subsequent rounds, it should favor the dwarves over the orcs.

All of these stats are compiled using Jeremy Hunthor's excellent combat and shooting calculator, which he has discussed on several occasions on the Green Dragon Podcast (which you really should check out, if you haven't already).

Basic Shooting Table (Armies of Middle Earth)

	Iron Hills Dwarves vs. Ranged Attacks
	vs. 10 Bows (4+, S2)			vs. 10 Elf Bows (3+, S3)			vs. 10 Crossbows (4+, S4)
	Wound %	Wounds / Round	Wounds / x3 Rounds	Wound %	Wounds / Round	Wounds / x3 Rounds	Wound %	Wounds / Round	Wounds / x3 Rounds
Basic Infantry (D5)	8.33%	0.83	2.50	22.22%	2.22	6.67	16.67%	1.67	5.00
Armored Infantry (D6)	8.33%	0.83	2.50	11.11%	1.11	3.33	16.67%	1.67	5.00
Iron Hills Infantry (D7)	4.17%	0.42	1.25	11.11%	1.11	3.33	8.33%	0.83	2.50
Iron Hills Shieldwall (D8)	2.78%	0.28	0.83	5.56%	0.56	1.67	8.33%	0.83	2.50

I use these charts for measuring how combat models (sometimes singular models, other times in groups or formations) are likely to hold up against common enemy shooting attacks. The top row (white) gives us the name of the chart, which is almost always the specific model profile(s) we're looking at (in this case, Iron Hills dwarves). 

The next row gives the type of standard shooting attacks we're measuring against; in this particular chart, I've gone with the most common (in Green, ten ("10") standard Strength 2 bows ("S2"), shot by a model with a 4+ shoot value ("4+"); in Yellow, ten ("10") Strength 3 Elf Bows ("S3") with a 3+ shoot value ("3+"); in red, ten ("10") Strength 4 Crossbows ("S4") with a 4+ shoot value ("4+")).

The next row designates three columns of results:

• "Wound %": This is the overall chance that each ranged attacker will wound one of the specified models (designated in the far-left column--more on them below) before any dice are rolled. A 100% would designate an auto-wound (which no model gets); the higher this number, the more damage potential the shot has.
• "Wounds / Round": This is how many wounds we should expect to suffer in a single round, on average, if we sustain the number of shots at the Strength and Shoot Value specified in the green, yellow, or red boxes. For this example, I've used 10 shoots, so our Wounds/Round is the Wound % * 10.
• "Wounds / xX Rounds": This is our Wounds/Round figure, multiplied by a number of rounds specified by the chart (in this case, three rounds). I've chosen three rounds in this particular example because it would take Iron Hills Dwarves about three turns (give or take) to close the distance with ten archers (assuming the archers have 24" range and the dwarves Heroic March for 5"+3" of movement each turn). You can set this number to any number you like in Jeremy Hunthor's calculator (which I'd encourage you to play around with), but I generally like to set this number so it corresponds to the minimum number of turns we'll have to weather enemy fire (to get a sense of how damaging things are likely to be if I March, to see if it's worth it). 

The remaining four rows list how the archer fire specified (in the green, yellow, and red boxes) is likely to damage certain infantry targets. Since ranged fire doesn't take into account the target's Fight Value, Strength, or Attacks, the only thing we care about on the defensive side of things is the target's defense value (which will usually be "D5," "D6," or "D7," because those are usually the defense values we want to put in our front rank--but there are exceptions, obviously). In the example above, while we're primarily interested in how Iron Hills dwarves hold up--both base (D7) and in Shieldwall(D8)--I've also included D5 and D6 infantry, to provide a way to measure how much more effective D7 (and D8 Shieldwall) are (or are not) against the different types of bows and shoot value we face.

All of these stats are compiled using Jeremy Hunthor's excellent combat and shooting calculator, which he has discussed on several occasions on the Green Dragon Podcast (which you really should check out, if you haven't already).

Finally, a word on these stats: the Wounds/Round and Wounds/x3 Rounds figures on these shoot charts are averages, which means they're measures of center, which means that results will vary (and of the variations, half are likely to be higher than the average, and half lower). The average may also be a fractional wound (i.e., 2.22 wounds), which doesn't happen in the Middle Earth SBG (no fractional wounds here, just fractional break points). If you would like a better idea of the range of possible outcomes, take a look at the bottom half of the calculator, which gives the probability of each result occurring. So if you were to input our 10 crossbows vs. D6 example, we're looking at an average of 1.67 wounds a turn, or 5.0 wounds over three turns. If you look at the bottom-half of the calculator, it will give us a 57.57% chance of getting at least 5 wounds over three turns; a 38.36% chance of getting at least 6 wounds; and a 22.35% chance of getting at least 7 wounds. Similarly, we would have a 76% chance of getting at least 4 wounds; an 89.72% chance of getting at least 3 wounds, and a 97% chance of getting at least 2 wounds over those three rounds. So while getting 5 or more wounds is certainly more likely than not, it's by no means a guarantee.

Two-Rank Shooting Engagement Table (Armies of Middle Earth)

		Iron Hills Dwarves (Front Rank D8, x6 Crossbows)                vs. EVIL Ranged Attacks (~80 points)
		vs. 20 Orc Trackers (3+, S2, D3) + Morannons (D6)		vs. 9 Uruk-Hai Scouts (4+, S3, D4) + Uruk-Hai Warriors (D6)		vs. 8 Corsair Arbelests (4+, S4, D6*)
		Iron Hills	Orc Trackers	Iron Hills	Uruk-Hai	Iron Hills	Corsairs
Targeting Front Rank	Wound %	16.67%	2.78%	16.67%	4.17%	16.67%	8.33%
	Wounds / Round	1.00	0.56	1.00	0.38	1.00	0.67
	Wounds / x3 Rounds	3.00	1.67	3.00	1.13	3.00	2.00
Targeting Back Rank (4+ ITW)	Wound %	20.83%	5.56%	20.83%	6.25%	16.67%	12.50%
	Wounds / Round	1.25	1.11	1.25	0.58	1.00	1.00
	Wounds / x3 Rounds	3.75	3.33	3.75	1.75	3.00	3.00

This tracks identical information to the Basic Shooting Chart discussed above ("Wound %," "Wounds/Round," and "Wounds/x3 Rounds"), but is expanded to show how two factions are likely to fare if they get into a shoot-out with each other (both sides have bows, instead of just one). The top row gives information about the combatants in the table, with the first profile given being the one we're primarily interest in (in this case, Iron Hills Dwarves). The parenthetical gives us relevant profile and combat stats (in this case, the Iron Hills have a Defense 8 front rank and have six crossbows; they'll be pitted in a shoot-out against various evil ranged attacks, each of which costs approximately 80 points). 

The second row (Red, Grey, Purple) gives us the number, shoot value, shooting weapon strength, and defense value of the opposing archers (i.e., 20 Orc Trackers with a 3+ shoot, S2 bows, and Defense 3) as well as the defense value of any front-rank (i.e., Defense 6 Morannon orcs in front of our Orc Trackers). 

The third row gives the columns of information for each force's ranged attacks (i.e., the Iron Hills' Wound %, Wounds/Round, and Wounds/x3 Rounds, compared to the Orc Trackers' Wound %, Wounds/Round, and Wounds/x3 Rounds). The first three rows calculate those stats assuming that the Iron Hills/Orc Trackers target their opponent's front rank (i.e., the Dwarves target the D6 Morannons, and the Trackers target the D8 dwarves). The second row calculates the states assuming that the Iron Hills/Orc Trackers attempt to target their opponent's second rank, and distributes the results based on a 50% chance to pass a 4+ in the way (i.e., 3 dwarves hit the trackers, and three dwarves hit the Morannons). If these stats are modified by Might, Heroic Accuracy, etc., it will be noted in the table's name.

All of these stats are compiled using Jeremy Hunthor's excellent combat and shooting calculator, which he has discussed on several occasions on the Green Dragon Podcast (which you really should check out, if you haven't already). As with the Basic Shooting Table above, bear in mind these stats are only averages (measures of center); actual results will vary. For more information on how to see likely distributions, see our discussion of the Basic Shooting Table above.