Revisiting the Rangers of the North: Army Review

Hey Reader!

It's been a while since I've written an article for TMAT, though I'm sure you've enjoyed the content from Tiberius and Rythbryt as I have. In my defense, I've got a very good reason for being out for the past several months:

This Dunedain finally found his princess!
Huge thanks to Rythbryt for his sword.

Now that I've married my forest elf and settled us in our new house (with a mostly working microwave), I'm returning to some of our past army reviews to update them with the changes made with the new Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game release.

In today's post, in line with the ranger-themed wedding pic above, I'm pleased to begin my part of the revamp series with the Rangers of the North, as the changes are pretty substantial compared to what we had under the Warbands rules. You can find the old post on our blog here.

So with no further ado, let's look at one of my favorite armies to date.



I.  Changes in Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game

First and foremost, we need to mention that, just like the pre-Warbands army lists, there is now a distinction between Arnor and The Rangers. So while we discussed Warriors of Arnor and Arvedui in the last post, we will not be addressing them here.

Second, we don't have warrior choices anymore: The Rangers list is purely hero-based, so we get a lot of work out of our minor heroes. So gone are the days of 36 bows in a Rangers force, especially if you are taking Aragorn (let alone Halbarad, let alone Halbarad with a banner). But I think it's well worth it to do this: your archery game is still very strong, and we stand a better chance now in close combat. Speaking of which...

Third, we have two cool new special rules from the army bonus! All characters gain Woodland Creature while on foot (which is awesome, as it allows you to fall back 3" into forest terrain and then turn and shoot, plus you can reinforce your lines and spear support yourself with Dunedain effectively through woodland terrain). Second and more importantly, all Dunedain and Rangers of the North gain +1 Attack while on foot. So for 25-30 pts you get a hero with 2 Attacks at S4 F4, which is a reliable setup for damage. And if you mount a Ranger of the North, you still get 2 Attacks when on the charge (for 4 dice to wound if you win against an infantry model).

You are also historical allies with the Dead of Dunharrow and The Shire, so if you need a solid frontline to protect you, you can ally in Warriors of the Dead. If you need numbers, you can ally in hobbits. So you have lots of options to fill the gaps in your inventory without losing your special rule.

So with this in mind, let's talk about our five characters, starting with the unnamed heroes that form the core of the army.

II.  Heroes - Unnamed

There are two unnamed hero options for The Rangers: Dunedain and Rangers of the North.

Dunedain: Light Support

There are six variants for Dunedain; I use
Rangers of Middle Earth to save money

Dunedain only cost slightly less than a Ranger of the North, and the only difference between them is D4 instead of D5 (armor v. heavy armor). Dunedain can take spears, and Rangers of the North can take spears and horses. So your starting profile looks like this:

M   F/S    S    D   A   W   C   M/W/F
6"   4/3+  4    4    1    1    5     1/ 1/ 1

Dunedain serve as your light support option: they can stand in the second rank, provide spear and bow support, and if you get flanked they have a solid number of attacks with decent strength and Fight Value to hold their own.

More than that, since you have quality F4 for both the front and back rank, you can feint with the front rank (as everyone in your list uses a sword) while still getting the F4 from your spear support.

With a F4/3+ profile, Dunedain also provide reliable archery, and since they don't contribute to your bow limit (nor do the Rangers of the North, who we will discuss next), you can have a 100% bow army with a high Shoot Value.

Rangers of the North: Guardians

There are also six variants for the Rangers; I use the Rangers
of Middle Earth set because it's cheaper and I like the poses

The Rangers of the North are your "frontline," though as we mentioned in our post years ago, you shouldn't fight like a regular army: stay back, engage from range, whittle down their elements until they are ineffective, and then close with these guys at the front. 

Sporting F4 S4 with 2 Attacks, these guys will mess up regular infantry and can hold their own against spear lines (and with Dunedain support, can hold their own against pike lines too). Here's the profile you get:

M   F/S    S    D   A   W   C   M/W/F
6"   4/3+  4    5    1    1    5     1/ 1/ 1

To all of this you can add a horse, giving you a "fast attack" option, a charge bonus (for 2 attacks on the charge, 4 dice to wound if you win), and the ability to harass with your 3+ Shoot Value (4+ after moving). And with the ability to have Aragorn mounted on a horse as well, you could potentially take a fully mounted force to a tournament if you wanted to invest in it.

I personally don't like mounting them as they become archer magnets pretty quickly (as 1 Wound past D5 with 1 Fate is not that reliable in staying alive), but this offers a unique style of play and pretty reliable melee damage.

While both choices are heroes, none of them can lead your force. And for that, we turn to our three named heroes, all of whom offer something unique to your army.

III.  Heroes - Named

We have three named heroes for The Rangers: Arathorn, Aragorn, and Halbarad.

Arathorn: Old Reliable

So, to be honest, Arathorn is far and away the weakest choice for a hero on this list, and, in his defense, he's also the cheapest (as I always recommend running Halbarad with the banner). At 75 pts, Arathorn is not a bad hero: he's got a F5 S4 profile with 3 attacks and 3 Might, so he has a decent chance of winning fights and dealing damage to most rank-and-file troops, and can hold his own against most heroes. He's not that survivable though, sporting only two wounds at D5 with a single Fate Point. His profile is below:

M   F/S    S    D   A   W   C   M/W/F
6"   5/3+  4    5    3    2    5     3/ 2/ 1

He also has both Heroic Accuracy and Heroic Strike, so you can use him to either insure that your ranged hits get past In the Way rolls with relative frequency, or you can increase his Fight Value to F6-10. This also makes it easier to swallow using Feint with his sword, so you can further increase his damage potential.

Arathorn is very much a "glass cannon": great damage potential, but you need to keep him safe or he will die quickly. Which, to be fair, is accurate to what Tolkien wrote about him.

Aragorn: Mighty Hero

Here's the Three Hunters model; there
are TONS of Aragorn models to choose from!

While Arathorn offers a cheap, reliable killing option, no one can match his son, Aragorn. Sporting the killing profile of F6 with 3A at S4 with 3M and a free Might every turn to make sure he wins the fight and gets the wound afterwards, Aragorn without any upgrades is already a killing machine. Add onto this Heroic Strike, and this guy goes from overkill to overpowered. Here's the profile:

M   F/S    S    D   A   W   C   M/W/F

6"   6/3+  4    5    3    3    6     3/3/ 3

Of course, there's no reason to just take a "Vanilla Aragorn" anymore, as the cost of Anduril, Flame of the West (and Aragorn generally) came down with the release of MESBG, so you should be taking this sword every time. With wounding on 4+ regardless of defense and the free Might every turn, you can reliably do 2+ wounds every turn with this guy.

Mount him on a horse, and you have 4A on the charge, 8 dice to wound, all wounding on 4s - that's a reliable 3-4 wounds every turn. Crazy.

But Aragorn isn't just a killer: he's also very defensible. Starting at D5 with 3 Fate and 3 Wounds, you can get him up to D6 by purchasing heavy armor, and with access to Heroic Defense (potentially on a free Might Point), you can make it nigh impossible to wound this guy. And with F6+ (if you use Heroic Strike instead of Heroic Defense) with 3-4 dice to win the duel roll, beating this guy in close combat is insanely hard without magic or some other means of neutralizing him.

So if you are running a Rangers force and you have a game of 200+ points, you should be taking Aragorn. I think he's an auto-include for any and all Ranger forces.

Halbarad: The Backbone

While he is not as good at killing enemies as the other heroes, Halbarad forms the backbone of any ranger force. While perhaps not an auto-include (if you only have 200 pts, it's probably still worth it to take Aragorn solo rather than Halbard + Banner + 3 Rangers), Halbarad is a likely include in virtually every list. At 70-120 pts he is a good mid-range hero, and will hold his own against most foes as regards melee combat and staying power. His profile is below:

M   F/S    S    D   A   W   C   M/W/F
6"   5/3+  4    5    2    2    6     3/ 2/ 1

From an offensive standpoint, he is a good hero for his points: F5 with S4 and the ability to use Heroic Strike, a bow with Heroic Accuracy, and 3 Might to make your wounds happen. The problem that he runs into is that if you're smart you take the Banner of the Evenstar, which is a 6" banner to all friendly models, but it also inflicts the -1 penalty to his duel rolls. So just keep this in mind: you will need to expend Might to get a 6 to win the fight.

Like the other rangers, he is not that resilient: only 2 Wounds at D5 with 1 Fate. But for his cost, and especially within the context of a 6" banner that has Woodland Creature and can contribute to the archery damage total before the enemy closes, he's not a bad choice.

Conclusion

I love the new reskin of the Rangers. It gives you a heroic feeling, as you're running a small band of high-end characters against a whole army, and for those who love the hobby side of miniature collecting there's no reason not to name all of them and paint them up with distinctive features. I think they are more of an advanced army now (new players may not enjoy them very much, and will find it hard to win a match where you need to count models near an objective), but they are a ton of fun to play on the table.

In our next post we will visit a newer army of mine that teams with the Rangers well - the Dead of Dunharrow.

Watching the stars,

Centaur

"Will they follow me?" ~ High King Peter
"To the death." ~ Oreius