Workbench Update: Moria

Hello gamers,

When I got started in the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game in September 2010 (LOTR SBG back then), I bought the core game: The Mines of Moria. My first tradiditonal army (read, wasn’t composed entirely of heroes) was, therefore, Moria. Within a month of getting the core game, I picked up Durburz on eBay and converted one of my archers into a Moria Goblin Shaman. With 22 Goblin Warriors (lost one and never found it again), 2 Goblin heroes, and 1 Cave Troll, I had a very impressive 25 models in a 300 point force … or so I thought. At 300 points, it’s hard to get anything in your army, but the hardest thing for most armies to get are numbers. As my collection grew (Lothlorien, Khazad-Dum, and Isengard by the end of that year – and many more armies since), Moria has in many ways fallen on the wayside. This is true for a number of reasons:

• They don’t have good magic casters and I love magic casters;
• They don't have good archery and I love archery;
• They don't have any decently priced powerful heroes and I love decently priced powerful heroes;
• Cave trolls and other monsters don't resist magic well and I love magic casters;
• Their basic troops get crushed by high-strength archery and I love archery;
• They get lots of troops UNLESS they get powerful monsters, which means they don’t spam as well as some other civs that can field powerful heroes (and I love powerful heroes).

That’s a lot of reasons (really three reasons used twice each). So, today we try to rectify it by giving these Greenskins some love and helping them look a little better on the table (with the ultimate goal of making me want to run them more). This post will primarily focus on what you can do with Goblin bowmen models and in particular highlight how you can convert them into heroes.

Conversions: Why Bowmen?

At this point, I’ve converted 6 Goblin Warriors with Orc bows into different heroes. This is in part because a) the heroes are out of production, b) I have Goblin bowmen lying around and nothing to do with them, and c) because the Goblin archer poses are actually quite versatile (especially when compared to the shield and spear variants). I wrote an article years ago about why Goblin bowmen are the worst archers in the game, and despite years passing by with new models and new rules, the maxim still holds true: Goblin archers are the worst (and while they’re now tied for cheapest with Hobbit Archers, the Hobbit Archer is WAY better). I do plan to revisit some posts I did on shooting back in the day since shooting underwent some changes, but that will come in a few weeks. Since Goblin archers so bad (and since the shield/spear warriors have good utility elsewhere), the choice for conversions is made even easier – use these guys (btw, I'll omit this on all the conversions below, but I hacked off the quivers - just saying). So without further ado, here we go!

Groblog

As you can see above, I cut slightly into the right arm near the elbow to bring it lower, added a little putty to his head for the Mithril Crown. I gave him a spare Moria Goblin Warrior sword - more on that later.

I did the “Goblin surfer king” conversion a while ago – and frankly the Goblin archer pose isn’t too far from the actual pose. The changes I made recently included re-crowning him, giving him a billowing cloak, and giving him a sword instead of an axe (since we can’t do that weapon swap anymore and the weapon types matter). For more on how I did the original mock-up of this model, see an old post here.

Shamans

I've had both of these shaman conversions for a while, but this one was the second one I did. I cut off the top-half of his bow and gave him a spare Uruk-Hai pike (more on that next time). Like I did with Groblog, did a little arm-twisting at the elbow to get a slightly different pose.

This is my first shaman (and my first attempt at a conversion ever). The staff is made from a bit of the sprue the Goblins came on (shaved that down for a while, still ended up a little too thick - oh well). The original pose was virtually unchanged, removing the two bow bits in favor of the staff. Added to this model is a Space Wolves cape, which Centaur had in his spare bits drawer. I previously used this as a Moria Goblin Shaman, but since the Moria Goblin Shamans are less useful now (since Groblog doesn't make the Fury Save a 5+) and Moria Blackshield Shamans are awesome, we get a new hero profile!

Captains

Two generic captains with spare swords/shields from Moria Goblin Warriors (more on that in a minute) with unchanged arm positions. Pretty easy conversions, but made sure their paint job was sufficiently different from my other sword-and-board-toting-Goblins (though the benefit of using your archer models is that their poses are naturally different).

Goblin armies (like Dwarf armies) NEED to March – it’s an imperative. As such, you need basic captains – and in my case, I wanted three. Two of these captains are basic warrior captains with shields (because having D6 is good). While these guys have 2 Attacks and Strength 4, they have very-below-average-for-being-a-hero Fight and Courage values (Fight 3/Courage 3 . . . really?), so I believe in using their Might points early to make sure your other models (hordes of Goblins, Cave Trolls, or the Balrog) get into a combat as fast as possible. Using a Heroic March near a Dragon with Fly is REALLY good for positioning (especially if he has Breathe Fire, since you can then move 8.5” and shoot at a target within 12”). After two good marches, you can have these guys die if you want (I recommend they tag and shield against a basic captain or something that will wound them on 5s and tie them up for 2-3 turns).

LOTS of re-working here - the right arm was cut at the shoulder (masked a bit by the Space Wolves cape - also courtesy of Centaur) and the left arm was cut deep (but not completely off) at the elbow with a very big bend to where it was pointing. The sword blade came from a Moria Goblin Warrior, with a putty-made handle that I got from a Dwarf Ranger model (more on that in a later post).

If you want to be able to kill things better, you’re better served with a Blackshield captain – though he operates very differently. While he also has March (and you can use him to do that), he also has a two-handed sword (which I could pay 5 extra points to make a two-handed axe to thematically go with my Prowlers – more on that in a bit). His Might points are best served for calling a Heroic March and promoting a die – a time-tested trick by heroes wielding two-handed weapons back when there were only three heroic actions (one of which we never called). A timely Heroic Move is always nice, but with a Strength 4 two-handed weapon that gets +1 To Wound against Dwarves thanks to Ancient Enemies (that’s +2 To Wound – probably wounding on 3s/4s), you can do quite a bit of damage against basic troops (though again, you’re Fight 3 unless you can trap the guy).

Moria Goblin Drummers

I’ve resisted getting these guys for a LONG time. Back in the old days, these guys cost 100 points – and for two D4 warriors beating on a drum (that’s very hard to wound, by the way), it just seemed incredibly risky to spend THAT many points on something that, with a little keen-eyed archery, could be neutralized very quickly. Functionally, we’ve seen the drum here at TMAT do very well for resident Moria expert Tavros, but I always shied away from it. With banners being a good thing nowadays, making a drum makes a lot more sense (not to mention, it’s 25 points cheaper than it used to be). Like the Captains/Shamans discussed above, I was definitely NOT going to pay $40 for the drum/captain/shaman – I was going to take the models I already have and use those.

The poses were unchanged - just hacked off the bows (which became the drumsticks) and the quivers. Pretty great (dynamic) poses!

The drum itself is made from a polystyrene chunk. Thanks to some very careful etching, I got something that looked like skin pulled over the top with a rough exterior on the drum itself. I think it turned out alright. In addition to this, I converted up two Goblin bowmen, taking their bows and turning them into the drumsticks they’d need to beat out the rhythms of war. After hacking off their quivers, the set was done.

Moria Goblin Prowler re-conversions

When I first worked on converting Prowlers, I was using the Warband books – and in that version of the Moria army, Prowlers had the option of taking two-handed axes, shields, and Orc bows. While all of the GW models had two-handed axes, I though that, for 8 points/model, shields were the better bet – you get +1FV over Goblin Warriors, you now have the same Defense as front-line shield-toting Goblins, and you have throwing daggers on a 4+ shoot value – it’s worth the points and they’re just better troops. They did particularly well against Warriors of Rohan, who normally just edge out Fight Value over Goblin Warriors but now tie Prowlers (and if those Warriors of Rohan were Helmingas, their S4 upgrade doesn’t do anything).

With the new rules going back to the old Legions rules more, Prowlers don’t have the option of taking shields anymore, so I needed to detach all the shields and start attaching axes. Here’s what we did:

Wonder where I got all those swords from? Well, let's just say I still have a few in the bits bin if I need them...and lots of shields... The conversion was tricky (putty on the head was easy), but to get the axe hafts and axe heads aligned properly was very, VERY tricky.

There are two basic poses for Goblin Warriors: swords held at waist-level while running and swords held in the air while standing (or leaping if you do the basing right). For both poses, the conversion is simple: put an axe on the model going from one hand to the other since they’re already aligned. Not the most elegant solution, but it works just fine.

And Then This Happened...
To close out our update on Moria, I was stalking eBay one day and made an offer on a model...and won...and then he arrived... and I built him... and he looks like this:

This is a foe beyond any of you . . . RUN!

At long last, I have a Balrog. I'll be talking strategy with him in a future post in our Shooting series, but from a painting perspective, the model is extraordinary and was a joy to paint. There are several painting tutorials on YouTube and I followed the method of painting and dry brushing layers upon layers of lighter colors. After I finished painting him, I looked at the painting tutorial in my Fellowship of the Ring journey book and it turns out that I used the same method recommended there...cool. :) He turned out I think.

The hands were the big decision for me and my son: I liked the whip and he liked the sword. Thankfully, Rythbryt came to the rescue and showed me how to embed magnets into the Balrog's hands and arm so we can easily swap between the two weapons. The whip is heavy, so instead of putting a second magnet on the top of the whip (with a corresponding magnet on the underside of the wing), I'm planning on affixing a loop of fishing line to hang from his wing claw.

I've used him a bit and LOVE him so much!

What’s Next?

Almost all my Goblins - found one in the box, but didn't feel like re-taking the picture (he's just a greenskin after all) . . .

Here’s what the army currently looks like – lots of Goblins, a handful of heroes to use depending on the points size, a Drum, and two big nasties in the Bat Swarm and the Cave Troll. I’ve got 13 additional Goblin Warriors (mostly shields or spears) waiting in the wings to be painted up (ten left, will get to them next year), but after these guys are good to go, I’m done buying Goblin models (except maybe Druzhag, for reasons I detailed out in a previous post…though I’ll probably just convert him up too from a lowly Goblin archer, :-P). Long-time followers of the blog will notice that Durburz is missing from this picture. While some of the great players think he's still quite useful (and I think he is), if you auto-include the Balrog (as I plan on doing at ALL points levels at/above 350 points), Durburz's benefits are a bit redundant. For nearly half of his cost, you can get a Moria Goblin Captain with shield (who has comparable stats but the option of tanking) OR for a bit less, you can get Groblog (who can help your Goblin units gain a higher Fight Value - perfect for early in the game when you're still trying to set up traps). While I didn't see myself using him much, my son loves him, so he swiped him up quickly and added him to his collection (I promised he could borrow any Goblins he wanted whenever he wanted to use Durburz - no need to buy more Greenskins).

While I struggled to enjoy playing Moria for a long time, the Balrog has changed everything - he's really fun to use and also changes the way your opponent plays (which you need to do with an army that has warriors as bad as Moria's). Since Moria was technically the first conventional army I played, it's nice to be excited to use them for a change. A detailed post on the Balrog will be coming soon (maybe even a battle report if I can find an opponent willing to test their metal against a fell demon) - stay tuned!

While we’ve spent the better part of the last two months on our Forces of Evil, we’re going to spend one more workbench session on them as we turn our attention to Isengard and see what’s going on with some new hero acquisitions and some warrior weapon conversions we’ve had to do. Until next time, happy hobbying!