Workbench Update: Kingdom of Moria

Good morning gamers,

So, the Dwarves were one of my first armies to collect – and by far have been one of the most fun to use. I’ve played many games on this blog with my Dwarves against all kinds of foes and was the first of our players to bring Dwarves to the attention of the group (where they’ve received much criticism for being “overpowered” ever since). While Dwarves certainly have their weaknesses, conventional charge-the-battle-lines-and-hack-them-down strategies aren’t one of them – Dwarves excel at getting their units locked in combat (especially their heroes) and cleaving enemy units quickly. Banners are great for these guys (and King’s Champion banners are the best way to get them) and since any Dwarf Warrior can carry a banner, keeping banners alive is actually quite easy (be it equipped on a bowman or a warrior with a shield).

Today we’re looking at two critical changes that happened around the time of the new rules release: first, without the rules for volley fire, I don’t need 10 Dwarf Warriors with Dwarf bows anymore to hail down S3 arrows on people 18-36” away (so the two guys I converted are becoming melee guys again, but we’re giving them shields this time), and second, we’re repainting our converted Thorin’s Company rangers because … we bought Thorin’s Company (more on them next week).

Two-hander re-conversion

On the whole, having Dwarf Warriors with (just) two-handed axes isn’t a good value-for-cost. I can see putting two-handed axes on Dwarf Warriors with Dwarf bows, but having Dwarf Warriors with two-handed axes alone doesn’t make sense. Consider:

Unit	Cost	FV	S	D	A	W	C	Rules
Dwarf Warrior with two-handed axe	9	4/4+	3	6	1	1	4
Khazad Guard	11	4/4+	4	7	1	1	4	Bodyguard

For the +2 points you pay for a Khazad Guard, you not only get +1 Strength and +1 Defense, but you also get Bodyguard (which is essentially a free upgrade). While paying 1 extra point on the Dwarf Warrior to give him a Dwarf bow (for a total of 10 points) gives him something else to do besides running up and hitting stuff, I’m not sure that it’s equal to having bodyguard, increased Strength, and increased Defense for +1 point. So, I converted up all of my Dwarf Warriors with two-handed axes into Khazad Guards long ago.

BUUUUUTTTTT…if you play Battle Companies, the Durin's Folk faction requires you to have 2 Dwarf Warriors with two-handed axes in your starting team (while the Moria Expedition faction only requires you to have one). While the Khazad Dum army probably wants to get these two units to promote into Khazad Guards (and a Kingdoms of Moria faction wouldn’t mind upgrading their two-hander guy to an Iron Guard), you need at least two models in order to play Battle Companies without proxies. So…here are two two-handed weapon warriors (just in case):

I own exactly two of them now (despite starting with 8 - five have become Khazad Guards and one became a shield guy). When playing the Moria Expendition Battle Company, you don’t have to worry about having more than one, as you will never be forced into taking a Dwarf Warrior with two-handed axe as one of your reinforcements (you get the choice of Dwarf Warriors with shields or Dwarf Warriors with choice of gear). Khazad-Dum could run into that problem, so I recommend getting the rallying horn as quickly as possible OR recruit when you have 4 Influence (so you can modify the roll to a different Dwarf Warrior). Frankly, the resilience of Dwarf models in the Khazad-Dum list encourages you to recruit with 6 Influence saved so you can get as many Vault Wardens as possible (any roll of 3+ will get you a roll on the special table with an equal shot at a Vault Warden Team, Khazad Guard, or Iron Guard). Even if you get the all-afeared-roll-of-1, you can avoid having to spend your Influence and just get a Dwarf Warrior with a shield (a 2 gives you a Dwarf Warrior with a shield, so you’ll want to have 1 extra Influence on hand to promote a 1 to a 2). Not bad, really.

Your best option with the Durin's Folk Battle Company is to get the Rally Horn as quick as you can because on the roll of a 5 or 6 on the recruitment table, you get a roll on the special table. To our knowledge (it's a house rule if not an actual rule), the Rally Horn helps with both table rolls, so you'd get a 4+ chance at a Vault Warden team if you wanted it, with the other 50% split between Khazad Guards and Iron Guards. This means, however, that each time you recruit with the Rally Horn, you have a 17% chance of getting a Vault Warden Team without spending Influence. If you bring 6 Influence to the table (3 to recruit, +3 to influence the roll - see what I did there?), you can improve that probability dramatically (42% chance). So long as you don't get a 1 on the recruitment roll, you're guaranteed a roll on the advanced table, which is pretty slick.

Thorin’s Co Rangers Repaint/Basing

Long-time followers of the blog will recall that I originally converted up some of my Dwarf Rangers (Kingdom of Moria list) to have the names from Thorin’s Company (modeling them with the equipment they had in the movies). Painting them up was fun (update here), and had them looking great by mid-2013 (post here). Since then, I’ve broken down and gotten the actual models for Thorin’s Company (see my last post for how those ended up). So, with the real models in my possession, I need to do something with my old conversions to make them look more like the rest of the army. Let the re-converting commence!

When I planned to redo these guys, I not only intended to get them back to normal weapons, but also paint them like the other Rangers (bases and models). After sitting down and redoing their weapons, I decided I liked their painting scheme, but decided to redo the bases. With the bases looking more similar, they don't stand out as much.

Dwarf Rangers are great – I love mine to pieces. Sure, they’re only Defense 5, but like Wood Elves, they can all be equipped with shooting weapons (be they bows or throwing axes) and they have a 3+ shoot value. While my beloved armored Dwarves are wonderful, I always find myself taking a “token” amount of the armored blokes and then filling out the rest of the list with rangers – they’re just so much more flexible as units to deal with enemy models.

What’s Next?

I’m keeping my eyes out for a good deal on Iron Guards and a Vault Warden team (talking to Rythbryt to mold me a team). I don’t like how Vault Wardens play – unlike most shieldwall formations, Vault Wardens are very particular about facing (you don’t want those D9 Foe Shields attacking without their support) and keeping those supports in the fight can be really, REALLY hard. I’ve fought Vault Warden teams only once, but having gotten around their flank with Goblins (and a Cave Troll roaring up their front), it wasn’t hard to break the army to pieces. For nearly the same cost, you can run two Khazad Guards, who have roughly the same Defense (though there is not substitute for Defense 9), choice of one-handed or two-handed axe, and Bodyguard.

We’re going to start our series on heroes next – our first post will keep with the theme of Dwarves and compare the different members of Thorin's Company (and which versions are better and why). Our next workbench post (which will come after our series on heroes) takes us to the plains of Rohan, where something magical is brewing. Curious? We’ll see you when you get there – until then, happy hobbying!