The Bare Necessities, Part XIII: Moria

Good morning gamers,

We’ve talked about Minas Tirith, Isengard, Rivendell, Mordor, Lothlorien, Angmar, and Numenor already in this series on list building and today we turn to my first army of Evil – the one that took me a LONG TIME (and ultimately a Balrog) to enjoy using: Moria. Moria has a surprising number of warrior and hero profiles and their variance is huge (literally “huge” in size of model, points cost, and $$$ to acquire). That said, Moria’s wide selection of heroes (read monsters) and warriors (read monsters) can be really expensive and leave you wondering what you’re actually getting for the purchase of that model. After nearly 10 years of collecting Moria (and occasionally enjoying in game-play), I’ll share some of my thoughts that made me agonize over this list for so long (and even now, I’m not convinced it’s quite right – I think it’s mostly right, but you’ll see what I mean when we get into it).

Moria: Who’s Your Centerpiece?

While Minas Tirith armies need to decide which of the “big 3” to run (King Aragorn, mega-Boromir, or Gandalf the White), Moria armies have a “Big 5” to deal with: do you run...

1. A Balrog (who will eat up half of our points today)?
2. A Cave Drake (or two)?
3. A Watcher in the Water (maybe with a Cave Drake)?
4. A Dragon (with wings and one other upgrade)?
5. Or Durburz (who is not anywhere near as big as the other options, but if you don’t take the Balrog, he makes for a pretty good army leader and can be run with basically any of the other options without much difficulty). 

The beauty about Moria is that while you have lots of options to choose from, you aren’t stove-piped into taking just one of them (a Moria army could easily field Durburz alongside any of the monsters - including the Balrog, Cave Drakes are fairly inexpensive as well). Today, we’ll be looking at my favorite of the Moria monsters (which our dedicated readers already knew was going to happen, right?) and a way you can build your Moria list around this monstrocity. Here’s the list . . .

The Bare Necessities, Part XII: Numenor

Good morning gamers,

We’ve already reviewed how you can build different lists for Minas Tirith, Isengard, Rivendell, Mordor, Lothlorien, and Angmar with scoring victory points in mind. All of these armies (what I've binned in "Volume II" - Volume I included the elements of balanced list building) are armies that easily meet all five requirements - they have access to fast models (all have cavalry options, some have fast-infantry options), they can all get 30+ models with relative ease, they can all take banners, and they have ways of neutralizing enemy heroes while augmenting their own.

In this post, we begin Volume III of our discussion on list building and look at factions that don't automatically pass all five of the criteria we set forth in our original posts. We’ll be looking at the faction of Numenor today to see how you can work around their very limited list of profiles (hopefully to be solved in a supplement someday) and come up with a competitive list that gives you more options.

Numenor: Pure Vs. Last Alliance

You know what the biggest problem with running Numenor is? You only have 1 Warrior profile and 3 Hero profiles (though we’ve been given a hint that an Anarion profile will be released someday . . . maybe before we die?). There are several factions (but not many) that only have a single Warrior profile – Fangorn, the Misty Mountains/Radagast’s Alliance, or the Wildmen of Druadan immediately come to mind. While most of these are monster armies (so their warriors basically have hero stats), the Wildmen of Druadan have a niche ally in Rohan to give them a good selection of warriors to ally in (and that can benefit greatly from spear-carrying infantry) and a great selection of heroes to ally in. Sure, there are some factions that don't get warrior choices at all (and the Desolator of the North only gets a single hero profile), but since Numenor is a "conventional army," it's a shame that they are limited in their choices for models. Or are they?

The good thing about Numenor (if you're running it pure) is that while there aren’t a lot of Numenor profiles, the equipment options given to the generic profiles in this army (Warriors and Captains of Numenor) is quite diverse, so you can build an army off of it (plus there are weapon swaps - see my previous post on weapon swaps for more on that). Still, there are some glaring holes in your army - the two largest of which are that your only cavalry options are heroes and no warriors can be higher than Defense 5. That being said, as a Numenor player, I’m very happy that they got some love in the new release (having S4 on your Warriors is nice, though it would have been awesome to see those Captains of Numenor get the boost to S5 - just sayin').

I go back and forth every day between whether Numenor should be played as a pure army or always be used in an allied force with Rivendell. Numenor supplements the “we don’t kill things” problem that Elves tend to face and the High Elves solve the “we don’t get D6” problem that Numenoreans grumble about. Rivendell also solves the "we can't get mounted warriors" problem - though Rivendell Knights are pretty expensive to field in large quantities. So, why not put them together? Whether you choose Gil-Galad or Elrond (or both), you’ll get a great hero to supplement your Numenor force.

Whether you choose Elendil or Isildur (you could do both, though Isildur won’t have the Ring and so is about twice as expensive as a Captain with some-but-not-many benefits), you’ll get a great S5 combat hero to supplement your Elven force (with the ability to two-hand or be D8 - which is amazing). Numenoreans are marginally cheaper than Elves while Elves are marginally better in combat (higher Fight, higher Defense, better bows, lower Strength), so they complement each other well. By choosing to ally them together, however, you get less of both – it’s rare that you’ll run three of the four epic heroes from the Last Alliance in any game below 1000 points. In all likelihood, you’ll only get two out of the four, which means you need to make some hard choices about whether to include Elendil OR Gil-Galad OR Elrond (and you’re probably picking only one or two of these).

Since I’ve already done a post on Rivendell, I was going to focus on a pure Numenor force. However, in the interest of making an army that plays scenarios well, I’ve decided to do an allied list today because of Numenor’s inability to get fast units on its own (outside of spamming captains and mounting Elendil/Isildur). Since one of the scenarios (Reconnoitre) requires you to get models off the board – and that usually means running your fast models off the board – I didn’t think Numenor had a very good chance of doing this on its own, since running your captains off the board isn’t normally a good idea (see my post on Mordor for a counter-example). For those who think Numenor is good without allies, I will provide a pure Numenor list at the end, but I don’t see it being as balanced as an allied list (which is the whole goal of these posts, right?). So, let’s look at the Last Alliance!

TMAT Talks, Episode 3: Top-10 Spell-Casters (Evil)

Photo Credit: Tolkienfacts.blogspot.com

Our discussion of top spell-casters continues with TMAT Talks, Episode 3! Centaur, Tiberius, and Rythbryt give their rankings for evil's magic-users, plus take several rabbit trails into how to mount your Nazgul, whether you should channel Fury, and two spells that are almost as good "in the box" as they are cast (almost). Plus more "Pocket Full of..." army lists to get your creative juices flowing!

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

TMAT Talks, Episode 3: now available on YouTube

Articles Mentioned By Tiberius:

• Sauron,  Smaug, and Dragons with Wings and Wormtongue: TMAT Talks, Episode 1: Top-10 Monsters (February 2020)
• Saruman: Magic in MESBG, Part III: Isengard (April 2019)
• Multi-Purpose Casters (Ringwraiths and the Necromancer): Using / fighting Spell-Casters: Multi-Purpose Will Mages, Revisited (August 2019) 
• Black Dart (Casting/Channeling): Top-5 Ways to Waste Might Points: One Gamer's Opinion (December 2019)
• The Witch-King and Mordor Infantry Choices: The Bare Necessities, Part IX: Mordor (March 2020)
• Barrow-Wights (and other things) in Angmar: The Bare Necessities, Part XI: Angmar (March 2020)
• Druzhag and His Pets as an Ally: A Pocket Full of Power, Revisited (June 2019)

The Bare Necessities, Part XI: Angmar

Good morning gamers,

So far in our series on balanced lists, we’ve talked about how to maximize your potential for scoring victory points in the context of Minas Tirith, Isengard, Rivendell, Mordor, and Lothlorien. Today, we continue our discussion by viewing the ancient kingdom of Angmar. An Angmar list won the most recent Masters tournament in the UK (Kylie from the Green Dragon podcast at its head) and is a great example of how to make a flexible list (you should look up her list in the final game against Jay Clare on STF Wargaming for more info). Other Angmar lists that are well-balanced appear on Mik’s Veni Vidi Vici blog as well (one of those lists looks very similar to the one I wrote up here - so maybe that's a commendation?).

Angmar: How Much Might Do You Want?

Angmar has a very unique problem: depending on how you want to build your army, your Might point tally might be really low (see what I did there – “might” be low? That joke never gets old – blame my Dad card). While you can take Gulavhar, Buhrdur, or a maxed-Might Witch-King (which I think is the only way to run the Witch-King) who can all take 3 Might OR run Golfimbul, Angmar Orc Captains, the Tainted, or Wild Warg Chieftains who each have 2 Might (though the Wild Warg Chieftain’s Might has limited application for heroic actions), many of the “good” hero options (Shades and Barrow-Wights) and some of the “sorta-good” hero options (don’t underestimate the power of the Dwimmerlaik or an Angmar Orc Shaman) have 0-1 Might.

While you might say “Okay, I’ll just run the heroes with lots of Might and I’ll have 8-9 Might points, just like most other armies at my point level,” think again:  taking a reasonably kitted-out Witch-King will cost you at least 150 points, which will added to the 200-point Gulavhar and 110-point Buhrdur brings you over 450-points on just your three big heroes. That’s too much in a 700-point game, I think (even if your Orcs are cheap as chips). While taking all three of these heroes would be fun, it’s tempting to drop one of them to pick up 2-4 Barrow-Wights OR turn one of them into a Shade (and maybe pick up a Barrow-Wight or two on the side). Doing this, however, reduces your Might from 9 to 6.

In my opinion (and this thought is shared by most of the other lists provided around the community), you want a mixture of two units to flesh out your Might points: Angmar Orc Captains (who aren’t great heroes, but give you 2 Might to spend on Heroic Moves/Marches) and Wild Warg Chieftains (who are similar to Cave Trolls in many respects, but trade a Burly two-hander for Might/Will/Fate and speed). I don’t like the Angmar Orc Captain very much, so we’re going to be turning to the Wild Warg Chieftain instead in our list:

The Bare Necessities, Part X: Lothlorien

Good morning gamers,

In this series, we’ve looked at some sample lists that are designed to maximize possible victory points (including fast models, at least one banner, 30+ models, ways of neutralizing enemy heroes, and ways of protecting/buffing your own heroes). Our lists so far has looked at Minas Tirith, Isengard, Rivendell, and Mordor. Today, we view my longest-running army in the SBG game: Lothlorien. While their Galadhrim Warriors appear to be a re-skinning of Rivendell High Elf Warriors (or is it the other way around?), the army runs very differently from what I talked about in my Rivendell post. Also, we're hot on the heels of Rythbryt's review of Lothlorien, so check that out if you haven't already.

Lothlorien: When Do You Take Celeborn?

Rivendell has lots of good heroes in it – varying in point cost, dollar cost, and utility from mega-power-heroes like Gil-Galad and Elrond, mid-level heroes like Erestor and the Twins, and auric-not-great-at-fighting-heroes like Cirdan and Bilbo. Choosing which heroes to include is often dependent on point cost and player preference.

Not so with Lothlorien: Lothlorien has only four named heroes (and only three generic heroes), so your hero choices are more-or-less going to be the same. In my previous corpus on Lothlorien, I’ve consistently said that the first and foremost hero you bring (regardless of point size) is Galadriel. While my statement might be biased since I run Wood Elves (who need Blinding Light to keep them alive on terrain-sparse maps from enemy bow-fire), even players who run heavily-armored Galadhrim Warriors/Knights agree that you need Galadriel. While you can read my previous post on Lothlorien armies that run Galadriel for what she does, let’s just say that there are few combat heroes who can withstand the continued battering of the Lady of the Galadhrim – and she’s not THAT expensive among the other unlimited casters in the game.

The big question for me is this: while you should always take Galadriel and it’s easy to fit in generic heroes or two of the named heroes (Haldir/Rumil), when do you fit in the other expensive hero for Lothlorien: the great Elven lord Celeborn? Celeborn (fully-kitted out) comes in at 150 points, which is not only 20-points more expensive than his wife (who is amazing), but roughly the same cost as Rumil and a reasonably-kitted out Haldir (who recently got bumped up to the same heroic tier as Celeborn...for reasons no one can really understand). Shooting-oriented Lorien armies will definitely favor taking Haldir, while Rumil remains one of the most annoying heroes for big-time heroes to have to fight (since he can force the reroll of a single D6 during a Duel – great for when your opponent only gets one result of a 6 on his dice). Since Celeborn is only a Hero of Valor, he won’t be your army leader if Galadriel is present and he’ll only let you bring an additional 3 models over Rumil (and bring the same number of models as Haldir). 

So when do you bring him?

For me, even at 700 points, I don’t see myself taking Celeborn – he just costs too much. If he could be mounted, he’d definitely be worth taking, but I don’t think he’s one of the first three heroes you take for your army. Don’t get me wrong – Celeborn is great (ready my post on combat mages for more info on that), but I think he’s a good fourth options add for me, I’d start including him in games that are over 800 points (maybe I could squeeze him into an 800-point list, but I’d prefer using him in a 1000 point list and probably not anything smaller).

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

Photo Credit: LOTR Wiki-Fandom

Across the misty mountains, in the golden wood, lies the mysterious realm of an Elf Witch and her mysterious folk. In the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game, Galadriel and her Lorien elves have a different aesthetic and game-play options from their cousins in Rivendell: they can skirmish, they can ride through the woods unimpeded, and they're inherently resistant to magic. They may not have as many big heroes as their high-elf cousins, but underestimate them at your own peril... especially if you are far away. You may not see them coming...

The Bare Necessities, Part IX: Mordor

Good morning gamers,

Today marks the fourth army list that demonstrates how you can build an army with maximum victory points in mind. With Minas Tirith, Isengard, and Rivendell under our belts, we turn our attention to Mordor now and explore the wealth of options you have from the faction with the most profiles in the MESBG game (and many of them are very, VERY good for their cost). There's a lot in the Mordor army list, so make sure you're brushed up on Rythbryt's review of Mordor before continuing.

Mordor: Orcs or Terror?

There are two kinds of Mordor lists that are REALLY scary: the ones that run Gothmog with lots of Orcs (probably with the Army of Gothmog Legendary Legion) and the ones that run Ringwraiths and lots of Terror models (Black Numenoreans in particular, probably backed up by Morannon Orcs since Black Numenoreans can’t get spears). The result is simple: we’ve got two lists that we could be focusing on in order to maximize our points. So how do we choose with one to focus on today?

Well, I don’t own Gothmog and I do own the Nine, so we’ll be looking at the latter. Know that I’ve seen many lists out there that use Gothmog and a host of Morannon Orcs and/or Warg Riders (usually with Mordor Shamans – to include Kardush – Guritz, Gothmog’s Enforcers, Goroth, and Gorbag to lead these groups) in order to get maximum damage from Gothmog’s special rules. What tends to be less straight-forward, however, is how you build an army with Ringwraiths and Terror units at their core.

One final thing I need to add when we talk about the four basic troops options that a Mordor player can take that are “better than Orcs”:

While the price difference between Morannon Orcs (who are not F4), Mordor Uruk-Hai (who are not D6) and Black Numenoreans (who are not S4) is negligible, you could get all three of these great stats (with S5!) on Black Guard of Barad-Dur. For our purposes today, we’re looking for good bodyguards for Ringwaiths – and that means, we’re looking for units that cause Terror. Our list today is based off a list I wrote under the old LOTR SBG rules system that still has some power in it today: