The Bare Necessities, Part IV: Hero Hunting (or shutting down heroes in general)

Good morning gamers,

In our previous three posts, we’ve gone over three of the five important parts to building a list with an eye towards being able to score maximum victory points in a scenario (fast models, banners, and numbers). As a reminder, the five principles we’ll be covering in this series are:

• Fast troops who can claim objectives or exit the opposing board edge;
• At least one banner;
• Ways of delaying/avoiding being broken (often in the form of large numbers);
• Means of killing/inhibiting enemy heroes; and
• Means of keeping your own heroes alive/augmenting their damage.

Today we begin a two-part discussion on heroes: our focus today will be on hindering enemy heroes, while the next post will tackle making our own heroes better. When I first got started playing LOTR SBG, I found that some heroes were really hard to keep from killing things (most of the members of the Fellowship, Elrond, Cave Trolls), but over the past few years (and as the rules changed), there have been several tactics that I've picked up that can be used to reduce the efficiency of enemy heroes. The most straight-forward (and dangerous) of those is the most direct approach: taking enemy heroes head-on.

Approach #1: Head-On (or the “More Teeth” Principle)

There are some lists that bring really powerful heroes (you should ALWAYS bring the Dark Lord Sauron if you’re playing Barad-Dur, bringing Dain in an Iron Hills list is a really good idea, and you are likely to bring Azog or Bolg if you’re playing Azog’s Legion). When this happens, you might find yourself with a really powerful hero that you want to make sure pays for himself by the end of the game. To that end, a common strategy is to direct these heroes towards enemy heroes (not only to make life easier for the rest of your army, but because your hero was born to do this kind of thing). As they say in Jurassic World, “We need more teeth.”

This strategy of sending your strongest piece against your opponent's strongest piece is a very common strategy for new players – give me a powerful piece and let me find the biggest piece on the other side and see if I can crush it. This strategy, while legitimate, does tend to leave one side’s mega heroes dead by the end of the game (which could be good for you or very, VERY bad for you).

This is also a very common strategy when you don’t diversify your list with archery, cavalry, or magic (since your only response to a big threat is to direct something really big at it and hope it works). While Elven heroes are famous for being skilled fighters, there are time when these heroes find themselves in a match-up that will be hard to win (and when that happens, you don’t want to have your beautifully-painted Elven lord turned into a bloody smear – so for goodness sake, diversify your list!).

Note: it’s not wrong to employ this strategy – it works really well sometimes. However, some lists have a hard time making it work because their heroes are “good,” but not on par with a hero/some heroes their opponent brought. Consider the following case study to showcase what I’m saying.

Case Study: Theoden and Eomer vs. Thrydan and Ugluk

To illustrate this approach, let’s assume the following forces are in play:

ROHAN	ISENGARD
Theoden, King of Rohan (Armored Horse, Heavy Armor, Shield)	Ugluk
Eomer, Marshal of the Riddermark (Armored Horse, Shield)	Mauhur
Gamling, Captain of Rohan (Horse, Royal Standard of Rohan)	Thrydan Wolfsbane (Horse)
17 Rohan Royal Guards (Horse)	Dunlending Chieftain (Shield)
4 Rohan Royal Guards (Horse, Throwing Spears)	5 Orc Warriors (Shield, Spear)
1 Rohan Royal Guard (Horse, Throwing Spears, Banner)	5 Uruk-Hai Scouts (Shield)
	3 Uruk-Hai Scouts (Uruk-Hai Bow)
	12 Uruk-Hai Marauders (Shield)
	11 Uruk-Hai Warriors (Pike)
	11 Dunlending Warriors (Shield)

Apart from the gross disproportion of models on each side (25 vs. 51), both sides have chosen to favor melee-heavy armies and only have a smattering of shooting options in their lists. The heroes for both sides have foregone shooting attacks entirely (only Eomer and the Dunlending Chieftain had any choice in the matter), which means that the only way for either side to deal with the nasty heroes of the other side is to take them head-on. So that’s exactly what they do.

Theoden and Thrydan: two heroes who have to rely on the Head-On Approach...

Both sets of heroes are Fight 5 (except for Gamling and the Dunlending Chieftain, who are Fight 4) and two on each side can call Heroic Strike (Theoden and Eomer; Ugluk and Thrydan). This leads to a few ways that the players could look to employ the “More Teeth” principle to take down the opposing force.

If the Rohan player is worried about Mauhur raging through the Rohan Royal Guards (higher Fight, 3 Attacks, wounds the riders on 5s and the horses on 4s), he could send either Eomer or Theoden to kill Mauhur quickly, since their access to Heroic Strike (and Mauhur’s lack of Heroic Strike) might give them a distinct advantage.

The Uruk-Hai Heroes, on the other hand, see the possible regeneration of Might by Gamling to be a late-game nightmare, so they want to use their faster units (Mauhur and his Marauders) to cage in the Royal Guards and get around their flanks. Despite having Heroic Defense, Gamling is pretty easy to beat in combat and bringing down his horse will make the banner much less useful.

Of course, both sides could say “To heck with the enemy heroes” and use their heroes to just carve up enemy warriors. Theoden and Eomer are both very good at killing Uruk-Hai units, since F5 will win ties and their mounts give them bonus attack dice which will be doubled when they knock down their foes. While Rohan Royal Guards are incredible fighters (F5/S4 on the charge when “near” Theoden), their D6 isn’t very strong against the overwhelmingly S4+ Uruks and Dunlendings they’re fighting. With both Thrydan and the Dunlending Chieftain having axes, these two heroes can get up to S6 as well, which could spell certain doom for the Royal Guards (who are wounded on 4s) or the mounts of the Royal Guards (who are wounded on 3s).

While the “more teeth” principle often means using your own strength to overwhelm an opponent’s strength, this often incurs great risk: what if your hero flubs a roll and gets overwhelmed? What if you don’t get priority when it counts and get surrounded? What if your units are just not better than your opponent’s units? When you find yourself asking these kinds of questions, you need to turn to our second principle which is . . .

Approach #2: Asymmetry (or the “Sun Tzu” Principle)

Unlike the Head-On approach that we just discussed, this method look to hinder enemy heroes by striking at their weaknesses. Sun Tzu said that "the way is to avoid what is strong, and strike at what is weak" - and the best way to do this in MESBG is to bring a diversified toolkit to the field so you can exploit weaknesses wherever they appear.

The most common approach to this is to find heroes who have low Defense (Azog from the Azog’s Hunters list is capped at D5, for example) and shoot them to pieces. Most armies can take archery, so this is often an easy element to incorporate into your army (perhaps a handful of archers only vs. maxing out the archers you can bring). It also serves a double-purpose of being easily redirected to clear out enemy warriors if your opponent is running a spam list instead of one anchored around one or more big heroes/monsters.

A less common approach is employing the use of magic. As I discussed in my recent series on magic (specifically in reference to Combat Mages, Auxiliary Mages, and Multi-Purpose Will Mages), most casters are only active for a few rounds (and only half of the armies in the LOTR and Hobbit collections innately have access to magical powers that can target enemy models) so depending on this strategy isn’t a given for the army you’re using (unless you ally someone into your list). Still, if you have access to an unlimited caster, you can cripple enemy heroes very, VERY easily.

Finally, an essential part of the toolkit is to have a beat-stick hero around (one you might be able to use the Head-on approach with) so you can pummel any hero that survives your arrow and magical barrages. While I’m not a big fan of the Head-on approach as a default, it is a handy feature – especially if you can use other means to get an enemy hero to spend Might points or Fate points earlier in the battle. Since many power heroes begin with “3s in all the right places,” getting those reduced before the brawl happens is pretty useful.

To show you what this might look like, let’s look at the two armies we looked at previously and change the lists a little . . .

Case Study: Theoden and Eomer vs. Thrydan and Ugluk

To show how this might work, let’s change the armies in the example a little bit:

ROHAN	ISENGARD
Theoden, King of Rohan (Armored Horse, Heavy Armor, Shield)	Saruman
Eomer, Marshal of the Riddermark (Armored Horse, Throwing Spears, Shield)	Grima Wormtongue
Gamling, Captain of Rohan (Horse, Royal Standard of Rohan)	Lurtz (Shield)
12 Rohan Royal Guards (Horse)	Vrasku
4 Rohan Royal Guards (Horse, Throwing Spears)	1 Uruk-Hai Scout
1 Rohan Royal Guard (Horse, Throwing Spears, Banner)	12 Uruk-Hai Scouts (Shield)
5 Riders of Rohan	9 Uruk-Hai Scouts (Uruk-Hai Bow)
	11 Uruk-Hai Warriors (Pike)
	3 Uruk-Hai Warriors (Crossbow)

While the numbers have changed some (25 vs. 40), the Rohan force has undergone far fewer changes than the Isengard army has. While we could have added more Riders of Rohan, we’ve decided to just add a pocket of bows to this list and give Eomer some throwing spears with the points we saved. The list has 6 sets of throwing spears and 5 bows, which gives almost half of the army the ability to shoot (which isn’t bad). Since the normal Rohan list doesn’t have any magic options, we’ve left that out (though you can get magic historically by allying in Gandalf the White from Minas Tirith or Galadriel/Celeborn/a Galadhrim Stormcaller from Lothlorien).

Eomer with throwing spears is quite adept at fighting asymmetrically - though Saruman definitely does it better.

The Isengard list has changed dramatically: all of the heroes are new, with the inclusion of Saruman (for magic, particularly Sorcerous Blast), Grima (to neutralize Theoden and make Heroic Moves much more expensive once battle is joined), Lurtz (S3 bow hitting on a 3+ and the ability to deploy his warband wherever he likes in Maelstrom fights), and Vrasku (S4 crossbow hitting on a 3+ twice each turn). We’ve also upped the number of ranged weapons the list has from 3 Uruk-Hai bows to 9 Uruk-Hai bows and 3 crossbows (besides Vrasku and Lurtz), giving them far more archery presence in this list than they had before.

With only one Isengard hero having Heroic Strike, it would be tempting to count on Theoden/Eomer to Strike past the F5 of Lurtz/Vrasku/Saruman, but closing on these heroes is going to prove more problematic because the chances that the horse of the Rohirrim are alive by the time the charge occurs is much lower (due in part to the archery of the Uruks and because of the auto-dismount that occurs when you use Sorcerous Blast). In addition, if the Rohan units choose to shoot at the Isengard models instead of engaging head-on, Grima will catch up to the Riders, making late-game Heroic Moves much more expensive to pull off (and impossible once a hero runs out of Might EVEN with the Royal Standard of Rohan nearby).

Add to this the presence of Saruman: while Heroic Strike is basically non-existent in this list, Saruman’s Immobilize/Command spells can keep heroes from calling Heroic Strikes, making them much more vulnerable to attacks from the Isengard units (especially Lurtz). With 18” of range on this and the ability to cast both spells reliably on his free die alone, Saruman poses a real threat to the heroes of Rohan (especially Gamling – and Theoden if Grima is nearby). Eomer has his work cut out for him, but even he is unlikely to weather the barrage of long-range spells from Saruman for long. For more information on how to run Saruman in an Isengard list, read my in-depth review of him here.

When all of the Will of the Rohan heroes is spent, Sorcerous Blast becomes a nightmare – though it can be cast against normal warriors who can be flung into the heroes as well. By knocking the targets prone, the horses they sit astride disappear (leaving their riders vulnerable for a turn and much slower on later turns). While Rohan Royal Guards are a threat when mounted and on the charge, take away their mounts (and claim priority on the right turn with the Palantir), and you’ll see the noble riders of Theoden fall to pieces.

Fighting asymmetrically is hard to do with some factions (like Goblin-town), but most factions can get some kind of shooting/magic/beatstick combo that provide their general with a toolkit of options to take down opposing heroes. When you’re in a pickle and you don’t see any options in your toolkit that can deal with what your opponent has brought, there’s always one last option . . .

Approach #3: Avoidance (or the “Stay Away” Principle)

The Green Dragon podcast refers to this principle when dealing with Shades (who can spend Will to create a 6” radius of -1 penalties to enemy models trying to win duels). From experience, Shades are really nasty to fight, but their 6” movement and 6” bubble mean that their ability to affect the battlefield is predictable and limited. Other heroes, like the Dark Lord Sauron or the Balrog, are limited to 6” movement but have other means of getting extra worth (Chill Soul/Compel or the Fiery Lash for example). In these cases, the radius of their influence grows, but can still be predicted.

The “Stay Away” principle is simple:

Don’t let anyone get inside the radius of the hero you can’t beat.

While a Shade could spell certain doom for your heroes (not to mention warriors), keeping 12” of distance can be done in many scenarios – and even scenarios that require you to claim certain objectives only require you to be on/near the objectives at the end of the game, not at the beginning or middle. As a result, playing keep-away is a useful strategy to deny your opponent the use of an important piece for the first chunk of the game.

Now some heroes are harder to keep away from than others – Saruman’s 18” Command spell is particularly nasty against mounted heroes (as the hero will be moved 5” or more by Saruman and the target can be placed in the path of friendly units who can shoot him or charge into him and slay him), but in general, enemy heroes can be predictable in where they’ll move (and if you can force them to abandon their guards and come at you head-on without support, you may get lucky against them later).

A parallel strategy to this involves “Suicide Bob,” a common tactic that used to be employed in our gaming group against Cave Trolls before the monstrous Brutal Power Attacks were introduced: using a single model to tie down an important model so that it can only kill one model in the round (without calling a Heroic Combat). While I don’t recommend this against units that can call lots of Heroic Combats (like the Balrog - though if you're an Army of Evil, you can shoot at the hero and hope you wound your own model who tied him down "by accident"), using it to limit an enemy hero and deny them their full killing potential is great. This strategy is also best employed when one unit (or a few) charges into an enemy and the rest of your force moves away, as it prevents Heroic Combats from getting extra kills.

The Core Principle: What Do You Actually Have To Do?

All three of these strategies (Head-On, Asymmetry, and Avoidance) rely on a common principle: what do I you actually have to do to win the game? In some missions, your opponent’s power heroes will be focused on clearing objectives. For these situations, avoidance works well – let the hero have the objective and just stay out of reach (and if the hero leaves an objective, float back to it). Some scenarios, however, encourage enemy power heroes (especially army leaders) to kill as many models as they can (dealing as many Wounds as possible, really). When this happens, asymmetric tactics work well (though you can default to avoidance as well).

In other scenarios, your opponent’s power heroes will be focused on killing your models (to break you and clear out your banners). When this happens, avoidance isn’t a bad option, but either the head-on approach or the asymmetric approach works well too – since the strategy of the enemy heroes is the same as the enemy warriors, it doesn’t really matter what you do.

I should mention one last thing: there are some heroes (especially ones with ranged weapons or mounts) that can be very difficult to restrain with these approaches. If you wait to think about this until you’re committed to a list and playing the game, you may not have any of these options available to you (not bringing asymmetric tools or all-mounted troops when fighting Azog on the White Warg won’t give you any options). As a result, think about what your toolkit needs before the game starts (all strategy begins long before a game is actually played).

In our next post, we’ll close out our last element in our series on list building and focus on ways you can augment your own heroes. Restraining the other player’s heroes is important, but being able to augment your own (whether it’s with additional protection or additional damage output) is a worthwhile endeavor. We’ll be covering all sorts of topics in it – until then, happy hobbying!