TMAT Talks, Episode 2: Top-10 (Good) Spell-casters

Photo Credit: Pardon My Elvish

Back and louder than ever! In the second episode of TMAT Talks, Centaur, Tiberius, and Rythbryt give their top-10 spell-casters for the forces of good in Games Workshop's Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game (and had such a good time of it that we ran out of time to discuss evil's spell casters, who will have to settle for their own video later).

This episode also features the debut of a new segment: "A Pocket Full of..." where we offer you mini-lists based around some of our favorite casters that you can incorporate into other armies for some added pop. Plus, it even incorporates the then-most-recent FAQ changes because we care about you (though not the actual-most-recent FAQ changes, not because we don't care but because we're not Time Lords).

Like what you hear? Disagree with our thoughts? Let us know in the comments section!

TMAT Talks, Episode 2: now available on YouTube

Guest Post: Army Tiers in MESBG (with MinutemanKirk!)

Hey Reader!

The following is a guest post from MinutemanKirk, one of the regulars on the blog, who wrote a very interesting post on tiers of armies in the Lord of the Rings side of the MESBG house (so there are no rankings of armies from The Hobbit in this list). We found it very insightful, and wanted to share it with you all here.

If you have questions about it, you can comment below (as I'm sure Minuteman Kirk will be following along), or he mentioned to me that you can reach out to him directly for more thoughts. Feel free to reach out to us on our Facebook page and we'll connect you with him.

And now, with no further ado, a ranking system for the Armies of the Lord of the Rings, courtesy of MinutemanKirk!

Editor's Note: MinutemanKirk wrote this piece prior to the recent FAQ/Errata changes on alliances, and subsequent FAQ/Errata changes-to-the-changes on alliances. If anything, this discussion is more timely given the current community discussion on alliances and the role of players vs. game developers when it comes to setting army lists.

The Bare Necessities, Part VIII: Rivendell

Good morning gamers,

So far, we’ve looked at ways you can build an army for Minas Tirith or Isengard that maximizes on the victory points you can score in a game. Today, we turn our attention to Rivendell and see a particular kind of list that gives you good access to fast units, decent numbers, a banner, ways to protect your heroes, and ways to neutralize enemy heroes. While we'll cover just about everything in Rivendell here, you can get a compact summary in Rythbryt's review of Rivendell.

Rivendell: How Many Heroes (and Which Ones)?

While Minas Tirith and Isengard have a great selection of both heroes and warriors, Rivendell does not. While its hero selection is one of the best selections in the game (only beaten as a group, in my opinion, by Erebor Reclaimed – though there are several Rivendell hero choices that are better than what you’ll find in Erebor Reclaimed), Rivendell only has two warrior choices (three if you take Gildor Inglorion). With no Legendary Legions to use (though I’m hoping for a Last Alliance Legion at some point – I predict it will follow a similar army construction rule as the Ugluk’s Scouts LL), Rivendell is what it is, though it does have a good elite infantry profile and one of the best cavalry profiles in the game.

The main question then becomes which heroes do you include?

• The three Lords of the West (Gil-Galad, Elrond, and Glorfindel) are very tough heroes to take down - I played all three recently against my good mate Red Jacket - only managed to gronk Gil-Galad with the Balrog while Elrond and Glorfindel wrecked havoc on me everywhere else;
• The Twins and Erestor are great combat heroes for their cost and easily afforded in small point games if you need lots of power;
• Arwen, Gildor, Cirdan, and High Elf Stormcallers are good casters for being under 100 points;
• Lindir can provide additional auric buffs and make Elrond more effective as a caster; and
• High Elf Captains are the only heroes who can call Heroic March twice (Gildor can call it once).

So who do you take? Here’s my take (see what I did there?):

Tiberius's Battle Company Log #3

Good morning reader,

In our last two posts, I've been using a Last Alliance battle company against some of my mates here at TMAT. I recently got together with some of my other TMAT buddies and got 3 games in with a new battle company: Isengard!

Isengard plays differently than the Last Alliance in one key respect: while getting a Rally Horn is really good for the Last Alliance because it gets you Elves on a 4+, you don't have an upgrade tree (so what you see is what you get). For Isengard, while their 3-5 troops are fine (Uruk-Hai Scout with whatever you like, Uruk-Hai Warrior with shield, Uruk-Hai Warrior with whatever you like), their special upgrade tree on a 6 is where the real power in Battle Companies arises: two different warrior choices, both of which have 2 Attacks base (and the ability to shrug off Wounds on the roll of a 6). Getting the Rally Horn is important, but you also want to recruit when you have 6 Influence, so you can boost that roll by 3 if you need to in order to get to the special chart.

Uruks also have access to Uruk-Hai Grog - an expensive but powerful item that costs 4 Influence to acquire, but gives you a battlefield-wide banner bonus for the entire game - which is KILLER if you have 2 Attack Ferals/Berserkers running around, protected by Uruk-Hai bows or crossbows. While difficult to buy in the early part of a campaign, if you can keep your Battle Company rating artificially low, you could buy this after every game and use it in the next game so you always have a banner working for you. Pretty slick...

Initial Battle Company: 7 models, Battle Company Rating of 106.

Erratas Continue?

Good morning readers,

If you haven't seen it already, there are some new changes that have crept into the errata files - mostly related to Elven heroes (and some of the Designer commentaries are missing). Check them out here: https://www.warhammer-community.com/faqs/#middle-earth-strategy-battle-game. Some of the changes that you'll see:

• Armies of the Lord of the Rings
• Arwen is a Minor Hero (not a Hero of Fortitude)
• Cirdan is a Minor Hero (not a Hero of Fortitude)
• Arwen can be included in a Fellowship army if you also include Aragorn
• Haldir is a Hero of Valor
• If you want the Easterling bonus, you need at least 25% of your army to be Easterlings
• Armies of the Hobbit
• Alfrid requires you to take the Master or Bard in your army
• Arwen is a Minor Hero (not a Hero of Fortitude)
• Cirdan is a Minor Hero (not a Hero of Fortitude)
• Arwen can be included in a Fellowship army if you also include Aragorn

Additionally, the FAQs now clarify that if you have a historic alliance, each allied contingent only needs to have a Hero of Fortitude. Convenient and Impossible alliances still require a Hero of Valour, but given that all generic captains are Heroes of Fortitude, it should be possible to get back 90-95% of the thematic lists that were "lost" with the first round of FAQs as long as you bring along, say, a Rivendell Captain with Cirdan.

My initial take: the primary heroes that were targeted by the "must have a Hero of Valor" hero have been targeted here - maybe we'll see that disappear? Alternatively, making Haldir a Hero of Valor allows him to ally with the Fellowship for more thematic play (though Gildor received no such bonus). We'll see what comes of it...

Tiberius

Blog Name Change

Good morning readers,

So after nearly 10 years of having a really long URL name, we're changing names (for branding more than anything else). As of this coming Friday, we're going to be going under the new name of:

tmatsbg.blogspot.com

Same content, same series, new name.

We recently passed the 300k views milestone, so thanks for your continued interest in the things we write!

~Tiberius, on behalf of the TMAT team

The Bare Necessities, Part VII: Isengard

Good morning gamers,

In our last post, we looked at how you could build a Minas Tirith army that maximized its victory point potential by including fast units (Knights of Minas Tirith and Gandalf the White), a banner (one on a Warrior of Minas Tirith, though I recommend picking up another if you scale up to 800-points), enough numbers (at least 30 models), ways of neutralizing enemy heroes (predominantly with Gandalf the White), and ways of augmenting/protecting your own heroes (predominantly with Gandalf the White). Today, we turn our attention to Isengard and see a sample list that you can use to maximize your potential for victory points with this army.

Isengard: Seven Versions of the Same Thing?

Like Minas Tirith, Isengard has a lot of hero and warrior choices. Almost all of the named heroes are near-carbon-copies of each other (boasting the same Fight Value, Strength, Defense, Attacks, Wounds, Courage, Might, Will, and Fate) – their only real distinction is in their special rules (where they basically have one each). Beyond these heroes, you have some heroes who are better (Saruman, Lurtz, Thrydan) and some heroes who are worse (Dunlending Chieftains, Orc Captains, Uruk-Hai Shamans, Uruk-Hai Drummers, Snaga, and Grima). As a result, while I’m going to choose certain heroes for this list, I don’t think the heroes you choose (with one exception, maybe two) matter that much – mix and match and see what you like.

For Warriors, you’re in the same quandary: Dunlending Warriors don’t benefit from the Isengard army bonus, but they’re basically the same as Uruk-Hai Scouts (-1FV but a little bit cheaper and with axes in their base profile – see my post on Dunlendings for how they compare), and those same Scouts are basically the same as Uruk-Hai Warriors (-1D but a little bit cheaper). The elite Uruk-Hai troops (Ferals and Berserkers) and Warg Riders aren’t that expensive (12-15 points each) and so you can get a decent horde out of this list if you run a lot of Uruk-Hai Captains (and the named captains are pretty cheap for what they give you – although they only have average Defense/Wounds/Fate). With this in mind, let’s look at the list and see how we can optimize on points.

The Bare Necessities, Part VI: Minas Tirith

Good morning gamers,

In our last five posts, we’ve gone over the five different elements of an army that can get you victory points in a scenario. We discussed the importance of fast models/cavalry, having at least one banner, having enough models (where we proposed the Rule of 30), ways of shutting down enemy heroes (especially army leaders), and ways to protect your own heroes (especially your army leader). Today, we put those principles to the test by examining a 700-point sample army from one of the most versatile lists in the entire MESBG range: Minas Tirith. If you're unfamiliar with your options for Minas Tirith, check out Rythbryt's review here.

Minas Tirith: Core Choices

The biggest problem that faces most Minas Tirith players (especially those just starting out in the hobby) is the sheer number of choices available in the Minas Tirith list. With three epic heroes (Aragorn, Gandalf, Boromir), a wide variety of lesser-Captain heroes (Faramir, Madril, Cirion, Iorlas, Hurin, Ingold, Knights of the White Tower, Captains of Minas Tirith, Kings of Men if you don’t take any named hereos), and a few cheap-but-basically-glorified-Warrior heroes (Denethor, Damrod, Beregond, Pippin), the choices arrayed for you on just the hero front is astounding (and while you might want to get a good chunk of these heroes for what they provide, getting too many of them will eat through your points limit quite quickly).

Then you get to the warriors: with multiple choices for heavily-armored infantry (Warriors of Minas Tirith, Citadel Guard, Guards of the Fountain Court, Osgiliath Veterans), bow-armed models (Warriors of Minas Tirith, Citadel Guard, Osgiliath Veterans, Rangers of Gondor), cavalry models (Knights of Minas Tirith, mounted Citadel Guard), and siege engines (Bolt Throwers, Trebuchets), getting a good mix of models can be really, REALLY hard. Often times, there’s a trade between a) how high you want a models’ stats to be, b) how many models you want in your army, and c) the money spent acquiring the models that you want. With all of this frustration in mind, the list I’ve chosen today isn’t that expensive to acquire and gives you plenty of room to expand and modify. Know that I’ll be talking about alterations you can make to the list to accommodate different playing styles at the end of the post, but this is the list that’s not only well-tailored to the guidelines we’ve identified in the last few posts, but also fits my personal preference for playing Minas Tirith. With that, let’s look at the list!

Introducing... TMAT Talks, Episode 1: Top-10 Monsters

Photo Credit: Charliebitsme

Ever wondered how a TMAT write-up would sound if read in the author's own voice? No? Well great news--you get to find out anyway!

In true Benjamin-Button fashion, we wrote before we learned to talk, but now we're talking and we're very excited about it. It's TMAT Talks: all TMAT, all the time (as long as you're playing it).

In our inaugural episode, Centaur, Tiberius, and Rythbryt take a look at the top-10(ish) Monster models for good and evil, breaking down what makes some of them great, why others suck, and where they rank against each other, filled with plenty of our own user-biases along the way. Are eagles better than ents? Is Shelob even viable? And who ya got: Beorn or Gwaihir? Sauron or Smaug? (Spoiler Alert: One of us would take neither... twice...)

So grab some paint brushes, dust off that monstrous mumak model that's been sitting in your to-do pile for years, and join us for TMAT Talks.

Now available on Soundcloud!

And also available on YouTube!

Armies of Middle-Earth: Updated Errata and Rules Summaries (February 2020)

Photo Credit: Now for Wrath, Now for Ruin

We interrupt our regularly-scheduled lull in programming for a quick discussion of the new Errata and Designer Commentaries that dropped earlier today. While most models remain unchanged, there were several clarifications (and, in some cases, changes) that seemed worth highlighting, including some that may impact the Rivendell faction we spotlighted yesterday.

You can access the official list of changes by clicking the link above, or by checking out our all-in-one-place summary at the end of this post if you don't feel like piecing together the various pdfs on Warhammer Community. But we might as well start with the obvious one: 

• The End of Shades (as allies)!!!!!(?) Ah, the dreaded shade. -1 duel penalties are always rough, but most of the time you have a choice whether you can suffer one (you take an Unarmed hero in your list, or choose to use a two-handed weapon) or have some way to challenge it (in theory, you can always save your Will to resist a Shatter). But not the Shade (beyond staying more than 6" away from him at all times which... you can't always choose to do). That's a great feature in a niche list like Angmar, which has tons of crazy buffs but also pretty non-descript troop options to deal with (Strength 3, Fight 3, Defense 5 orcs, spectres, and warg riders, with the occasional Fight 6 Might-less Cave Troll), and only a couple combat-oriented heroes (the Witch-King, Burdur, and Gulavhar... everyone else is pretty meh when it comes to fighting, so long as a Barrow Wight hasn't cast Paralyze). It's not great if you're trying to fight Fight 5 Half-Trolls from the South or 100 Goblintown grunts, while taking mandatory -1 penalties to your duel rolls because someone allied in a Shade. The recent changes to Red Alliances were probably adopted with this synergy in mind, but the new errata takes the bull by the horns. Now, the Shade inflicts a -1 penalty to all models within 6" of it, friend or foe, with the exception of friendly Angmar models. So you can still take a Shade in an allied evil list if you like, but it won't help (and will, in fact, hurt) your allied contingent significantly. Will some players still ally-in a Shade? Sure. But I think it probably becomes much less niche, which is a good thing. Especially since...
• Each allied contingent now has to include at least one Hero of Valour. ...

Armies of Middle-Earth SBG: Rivendell in the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game

Photo Credit: Council of Elrond

After tackling the unholy, vile, tortured, and mutilated Uruk-Hai last time, it's time for their holier, purer brethren to enjoy their day in the sun: elves. We begin, of course, with the purest of pure elves from Rivendell (unless you're partial to Galahdrim). Rivendell is both a diverse and monotone list; there are a ton of variations on Rivendell lists, and yet if you've fought one of them, you sort of feel like you've fought them all. And it's almost always a painful experience...

If Rivendell is your jam, I'd highly recommend you listen to the Green Dragon Podcast's Ep. 55: Rivendell, which discusses the ins and outs of the factions in the Armies of the Lord of the Rings rule book, in two hours of glorious goodness. Then, if you still have a fix, you can see what we have to say...

The Bare Necessities, Part V: Making Your Heroes Better (and Keeping Them Alive)

Good morning gamers,

Today is our last post in our series on list building – walking through the different things to consider for your army when thinking about victory points (VPs) that can be scored in a game. As a brief refresher, here’s the list:

• 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.

We’ve already covered fast troops, banners, “the numbers game,” and neutralizing enemy heroes. Today, we wrap up the discussion by talking about different ways you can make your heroes better (and keep them from dying). Most of our discussion today will focus around your Army Leader (and your opponent’s Army Leader), though most of it also applies to other heroes.