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 List

The Horde of Moria: 700pts

• The Balrog [Army Leader]
• 6 Moria Goblin Warriors with shields
• 6 Moria Goblin Warriors with spears
• 1 Bat Swarm
• Moria Goblin Captain with shield
• Moria Goblin Drum
• 3 Moria Goblin Warriors with Orc bows
• 1 Warg Marauder
• Moria Blackshield Captain
• 3 Moria Goblin Warriors with shields
• 4 Moria Goblin Warriors with spears
• 3 Moria Goblin Warriors with Orc bows

32 models, 6-8 Orc bows hitting on a 5+, 3 D6+ models, 1 mounted model + 1 flyer, 4 Might points

So, if you look at a comparison of all the armies we’ve generated so far, you’re probably seeing a few problems with this list:

Faction	# Models	# Bows	# Banners	# D6+	# Fast	# Might
Minas Tirith	37	13 on 3+	1	23	5	6
Isengard	39	12 on 4+	1	7	8	8
Rivendell	32	13 on 3+	1	17	4	5
Mordor	39	8 on 4+	1 + rule	31	4	7
Lothlorien	35	13+1 on 3+	1	5	4	8
Angmar	51	10 on 5+	2	3	14	5
Numenor	30	10 on 4+, 2 on 3+	1	5	4	8
Moria	32	6-8 on 5+	0 + rule	3	2	4

When you stack it side-by-side with the other lists I’ve written up in this series, this Moria list is at the bottom (or near the bottom) in every category. The only category that it isn’t at the bottom in is model count (where it's tied for second-to-last place behind last week's army from Numenor). So why this build for Moria? Well, the answer is simple:

Moria has innate problems getting good numerical representation in these categories. 

For example:

• Getting lots of bowmen isn’t hard, but Moria's bowmen are not very good (so why do it).
• Moria can’t get banners unless they ally forces in (more on this at the end of the post).
• You can get D6 models with Blackshields, but Blackshields are expensive and will drop your numbers a little (and if you’re spending half of your points on the Balrog, points are a premium).
• Moria has several ways to get fast troops, but they're all expensive (Wild Wargs/Spiders with Druzhag is a very expensive options, Spiders with Ashrak is roughly as expensive as Druzhag with Wild Wargs, or Bat Swarms/Warg Marauders). We’re not going to get 4 fast models in this list (thankfully, we don’t have to).
• If you run the Balrog, you need Heroic March to get him in action (and that means you need generic captains AND you just need to accept that your Might is going to be low if you run the Balrog).

That said, I’m pretty happy with this list because of the way it makes up for its own weaknesses:

• This army doesn’t have a lot of bows, but we do have the Balrog who not only shoots well, but the weapon has high Strength, good range, and is a throwing weapon (so we can March and still shoot with it) – plus if we manage not to kill the guy we shoot at, so long as we hit him, we pull him into base contact with us so we can kill him in melee. Perfection.
• We don’t get banners, but we do have a Drum – which not only affects a large chunk of the battlefield (37” diameter on a 48” board), but is also hard to remove from the game thanks to having lots of Goblins who can pick up the drummer sticks (your Goblin Warriors with Orc bows make great guards for the Drum – able to shoot at people as they approach OR pick up the drumsticks if a drummer gets sniped).
• We don’t have a lot of D6 models, but we could have gotten them with Blackshields (except they would have cut into our army quite a bit). Thankfully, the Balrog makes a mess of enemy ranks and should help even the odds for us against traditional D6 shieldwalls.
• We don’t have a lot of fast troops, but we have a Warg Marauder who is carrying 2 passengers (who can be dropped off by the board edge in Reconnoitre/Storm the Camp) and a Bat Swarm (who, as a flying model, gives us more maneuvering flexibility AND the ability to half Fight Values if we need it). We’ll talk about other remedies you can try later.
• We don’t have a lot of Might, but we get free Heroic Combats at Fight 10 from the Balrog and our army has enough Heroic Marches/Moves to make sure we get the positioning we need from the Balrog (and everyone else) to dominate.

Let’s take a look at each warband and see what it’s doing, shall we?

Warband #1: Shadow and Flame

Shadow and Flame: 445pts of terrifying danger

With the Balrog getting some HUGE revamps in the new rules set, I’m very happy to say that I own one now. If you’ve missed my rants on the Balrog already, I talked about him briefly in a Moria hobbying update as well as in my Goblin Archery Tactica post I did in my shooting series (he also got an honorable mention in my Top 5 Anti-Casters post during my hero series). I spewed lots of great thoughts about him in our first TMAT Talks podcast episode on Monsters (available on both SoundCloud and YouTube). While I think you should read my thoughts on these posts for more on how to use the Balrog, I think everyone will agree that the Balrog is one of those models that will change the way your opponent plays (if not the first time your opponent faces a Balrog, his strategy will change the second time he plays the Balrog . . . and likely every time after that).

Joining the Balrog is a line of cheap chaff Moria Goblins and a Bat Swarm. While the chaff should be able to keep the Balrog from being trapped, the Bat Swarm is the real star of the support staff: not only is this a fast model that can be run off the board in Reconnoitre (or run away with an Heirloom in Heirlooms of Ages Past), since it halves the Fight Value of any enemy models it Engages (rounding down), anyone you charge that is Fight 3 or less will tie you in Fight Value (instead of beating you) AND because you get 2 Attacks on this model, you can charge a solo F3 spearman and have a decent shot at beating him and then killing him. What’s more, if you charge two spearmen on a turn when you have priority, you can resolve the front-rank fights against your Goblins first and give your Goblins +1 Fight Value thanks to your army bonus (since the engaged spearmen will trap the front-rank guys). Pretty sneaky stuff.

While the Bat Swarm is great for getting your army bonus to trigger for your grunts and undoubtedly has great mobility, it’s also very helpful in the same combat as the Balrog (where opponents will not be calling Heroic Strike against you since their Fight Value will be halved after they boost it). Since the Balrog doesn’t have any Might, you want as many dice to go into his fight as possible. Ideally, you’ll have a random Goblin charge into assist against a tough hero, since you can then get the benefits of a banner in that fight while the Drum is playing (which can reroll either a Goblin die OR a Balrog die – though neither has Might so most of the time it won’t really matter which die you reroll).

As far as positioning goes, while you advance up the field, your Bat Swarm should stay directly behind the Balrog so that you get a good in-the-way save against archery. Bat Swarms are great models, but they’re made of glass and need to be protected. Still, having a model that can sweep in and help wherever is needed is useful late in the game – just be mindful of where you’re charging this model (and into whom you charge) – you don’t want to charge anyone who is Fight 4+ on your own.

Warband #2: The Other Cool Stuff

The Other Cool Stuff: 160pts of tactical units

While the Balrog and the Bat Swarm are cool, this little warband is intended to be their dedicated escort and includes “the other cool stuff” (namely a Warg Marauder and a Moria Goblin Drum). As discussed above, the Moria Goblin Drum is the only thing we have that’s close to a banner (you can get a Blackshield drum, though you should only do this if you’re running lots of Blackshields and don’t mind either leaving some of your melee-only Blackshields to puppy-guard a Blackshield Drum or don’t mind having your Blackshield Drum close to the fighting). I avoided getting a Drum for a long time, but in the last few games I’ve played, I’ve come to appreciate the thing (and have been finding new ways to keep it alive).

The Drum is played by 2 drummers, who have 3 Bow-armed Goblin Warrior escorts. While these archers won’t be the most reliable means of deterring enemy models from trying to charge towards the Drum, they can do something against the enemy while staying within the requisite 1” of at least one of the drummers. This, in my mind, makes the Moria Goblin Drum better than the Blackshield Drum. Should one of your drummers get sniped, drop the bow and pick up the sticks – nothing bad lost.

Besides the Drum and its guards is the Warg Marauder. As the only mounted model in our force, the Warg Marauder has a sneaky way of scoring in Reconnoitre: though this model only counts as 1 model for the purposes of determining break point (and archery), you can dismount two of the riders and score with them while leaving the third rider (recommend the shield-carrying guy) to continue riding. Should you need that third model to get off, the final rider can dismount and get off the board too (and your warg can test to see if he stays – if he does, he can run off as model #4). Pretty slick.

Should any of the Goblins get shot off the warg (or should the warg be killed from beneath them), you can always have the Bat Swarm score, as we’ve discussed above. If you keep the Warg Marauder behind the Balrog, however, it’s unlikely that it’ll take much fire during the beginning of the game and you can use the Balrog as a perfect screen to keep enemy units away from the Warg Marauder so he can race ahead and out of reach of enemy units as the game progresses.

In scenarios that are not Reconnoitre, the extra two riders means you can have a 4 Attack model (on the charge) that causes Terror to race into your opponent's flank/rear - which is really nice if the Balrog is charging into the opposite flank after a successful Heroic Combat. From experience, these two models working together can be absolutely lethal!

Finally, I should say that the Moria Goblin Captain is the most important piece in this warband, since he’s the one that’ll make sure the Balrog gets +3” of movement for the first two turns in games where you don’t start on the center-line. While you might not think saving your big hero one turn of movement is a big deal, believe me when I say that it is. The Balrog needs that extra range of potency to influence the decisions of your opponent – and to make sure you get to the most important part of the board quickly. As mentioned above, with 9” of movement and 8” range on your Fiery Lash, this makes sure that the Balrog can reach whatever he needs to reach when he needs to reach it.

Warband #3: The Foxhole

The Foxhole: 95pts, capable of holding up more than 100pts of enemy units

I discussed this formation in my Goblin Archery Tactica post – it’s an old formation but has worked in the past to stall enemy models (even really smashy ones) in choke points. While you don’t have to run it that way if there are no good choke points available, this formation is intended to be flexible in how it deals with enemy models. I could have run Prowlers in it, but I needed the points for other stuff (but know that if you scale this list up to 800 points or more, you probably want Prowlers in it).

The Blackshield Captain could have been replaced by a Moria Goblin Captain with shield and used the 5 extra points to buy an additional warrior, but I thought it more important to have a model that can kill things more easily. While Blackshield Captains aren’t great fighters, they do get +1 To Wound due to only having a two-handed sword in their profile, they get +1 Fight Value if they’re fighting a model who’s trapped (which is “fine”), they get +1 To Wound against Dwarves thanks to Hatred (for a cumulative +2 To Wound), and they have average stats for everything except Fight Value (which becomes average with their army bonus when it’s active).

Scenario Overview

Let’s take a look at each of the available scenarios and see some thoughts/considerations for using this list:

• Domination: This army does Domination quite well – with the Foxhole able to stall (or trap) an enemy formation near one objective, your Warg Marauder and Bat Swarm racing to far-flung, ill-manned objectives, and the Balrog and his support staff advancing on wherever the largest contingent of enemy models is, you can make a real wreck of things pretty quickly. The trick with this scenario is to get the most out of the Balrog’s Heroic Combats – use them to gain extra movement, since you’re unlikely to have both of your captains near you. Your Drum should accompany the Balrog to the center objective from the start and then plop it down at the objective with its archer guards in order to give your forces plenty of rerolls.
• Capture and Control: Similar to Domination, you want to use the Bat Swarm and the Warg Marauder to pester objectives that are hard to reach. Leave the archers from the Foxhole team at the objective nearest to your starting position (and consider sending one to accompany the Drum). The Drum, once again, follows the Balrog to the center and begins the thump-thump needed to get your troops to their best potential. Recall that there’s a battlefield-wide Courage reduction for your opponents (so if your Warg Maruader is about to be charged by a model that is outside of the Balrog’s Ancient Evil bubble, that model will still suffer a -1 penalty to their Courage) as well as a +1 Courage boost to your models (so any Goblins standing on objectives and outside of the Balrog’s Fearless bubble will get +1 Courage).
• Hold Ground: March to the center as fast as possible (deploy the Balrog’s warband first so you can hopefully align one or both of your captains near his dropzone), using the Balrog to draw important units (banners, army leader, other heroes) out of whatever defensive formation your opponent is using. If your opponent arrives before you, don’t engage at first: let the Balrog lash important units towards you (trap whoever he lashes with your Goblins, which is easy if you have some Goblins standing 45mm in front of the Balrog if he’s going to lash a cavalry model – you can leave 30mm in front of the Balrog if you’re lashing an infantry model) and have your opponent decide if coming directly at you is worth the effort. If he delays too long, you’ll just be fighting warriors with the Balrog, which wouldn’t be a bad thing at all. When this happens, be sure to rush all your units into score range as quickly as possible in case the game suddenly ends because the Balrog was too efficient.
• Seize the Prize: Race to the center quickly, use the Balrog to barrel head-long towards it so you can scare your opponent from trying something too quickly. Get the prize to either the Bat Swarm or the Warg Marauder and do what you can to have the Balrog screen for them as they make their way to the opponent’s side of the table. Hopefully terrain is your friend.
• To The Death: This is a killing mission – let the Balrog loose and kill things. The trick to this scenario is that breaking your force isn’t that difficult (your forces is broken after you lose 17 models and most of your models are D3-4), so make sure your Goblins are playing defensively – don’t expose them to enemy archery needlessly, don’t rush them into an enemy formation with the hopes of shielding to hold units back. If you need to, let the Balrog be a little more exposed than he should be so you don’t get wrapped around. Your Bat Swarm and Warg Marauder will need to manage the flanks and try to trap models so that the Goblin Warriors are a bit better at fighting.
• Lords of Battle: This is a Wound-count scenario – and as just discussed, your army isn’t tough. So play carefully with your normal troops and Hurl with the Balrog. Getting models on the ground with Hurl will make life easier the next turn for your Goblins (even if you can’t charge them, they’ll be unable to move as much). With Strength 9 lending an expected 5-6” bonus to the D3” roll for Hurl, you should be able to level a good bit of an enemy battle line (ideally, you’ll be able to lash an enemy warrior from the front line in the Shoot phase with the Balrog, kill him during the Heroic Combat, charge into the flank of the front line, and hurl your only target through both ranks 7-9”).
• Contest of Champions: Use the Balrog to eat the enemy army leader. Once he’s dead, you should win the game quite handily. If the enemy army leader tries to play keep-away, keep all your units close to the Balrog, so he’ll have to come near the Balrog in order to get any kills in. If facing a mounted force that can stay away from your guys, use your whip well and where possible, hurl an opponent so as to dismount some of his comrades. This should make killing things a lot easier.
• Reconnoitre: As discussed already, Reconnoitre will rely on your Warg Marauder and your Bat Swarm. The rest of your troops (excluding the Balrog) should be able to form a Thin Red Line to hold your opponent up (and hopefully break quickly). If you can March your forces forward during the second and third turn (saving 1 Might on each of your Goblin heroes), you can get an impressive 21” of movement over 3 turns from your infantry. Since the Warg Marauder and Bat Swarm would need to stay within 6” of these captains, you might not want to March them at all and just have them race (since both could clear the board edge in 5 turns). Alternatively, you could move less than your normal movement during the first two turns and then surge ahead on the third turn your new 15-17” movement to surprise your opponent.
• Storm the Camp: Get the fast models into the enemy camp and start tearing things up. Make sure the Balrog is advancing as forcefully as possible, but you don’t actually want him in there – you want him wherever your opponent’s force is most dense (best results from Heroic Combats and Hurls if you do). Besides that, leave your Drum and your archers closer to your camp so that you get some defense for the camp AND because most of your Goblins will probably be in the mid-field (so no need to get all the way into the center of the map).
• Heirlooms of Ages Past: I don’t really have any good advice for setup on this one – it’s a maelstrom fight, so do your best to get at least one of your captains to deploy near the Balrog so you can get extra movement through March. The Bat Swarm and the Warg Marauder are great models for charging in and finding the heirloom (dismount one of the Goblins with Orc bows to dig around at the first two stops you make with the Marauder). If you dig it up, keep the Bat Swarm nearby to pick it up should the carrier die.
• Fog of War: Your opponent will have to pick one of your captains to kill and you will have to pick one of your captains to keep alive – so put both behind the Balrog after they’ve each called a March and keep them out of harm’s way. Besides that, pick a piece of terrain that the bats can get to (Warg Marauder can support). You’re probably going to want to pick a terrain piece that’s near the center so the Balrog can clear it. When looking for a hero that you need to kill, pick someone who can’t call Heroic Defense (and preferably isn’t mounted) as you probably want the Balrog to go gunning for that model (but could alternatively use the Bat Swarm and the Marauder if you had to.
• Clash By Moonlight: Your archery isn’t great, but your army has Cave Dweller all over it, so stay away from enemy archery with your Goblins (get the Balrog in quickly, naturally) so you don’t get decimated and keep your opponents 13-18” away from your archers so you can shoot them without being shot in return. Stalk Unseen will really hurt you…

Modifications

There are a few major modifications that I can see most generals considering when looking at this list:

• Add Groblog – While I was going to recommend dropping the Balrog, he does so much for your team – he’s a great deterrent against enemy heroes, he kills a TON of models if he’s not stuck fighting a single hero who is popping Heroic Defense every turn, he provides a 12” Fearless bubble for your Goblin troops, and he’s got a shooting weapon that allows him to get more out of his amazing melee profile. But what he doesn’t do is make your Goblins better at fighting – sure, the army bonus can make you Fight 3, but against most armies, you want to get to Fight 4. That’s only possible with Groblog, who costs a few more points than your Blackshield Captain. The generic captain is the cheapest option we have for Heroic March, but we could drop the Blackshield Captain to get Groblog instead (which would give you +1 Might, but would only allow you to call 2 Heroic Marches each game). There was an army that was brought to Arda Unleashed last year that ran the Balrog, Groblog, and a generic captain at 800 points and made it to the final round, so that’s probably a good recommendation for this adjustment.
• Add a Shaman - While the 12" Fearless-like bubble that the Balrog gives to the Moria Goblins near him is way better than you'll get on a Shaman, taking a Shaman instead of the Moria Blackshield Captain (same points cost, -6 troops in his warband, no other modification required) would give your army one thing that might prove helpful: the off-chance of saving a Wound if you channel Fury. I've played a handful of games recently with the Balrog, and I've never had a problem keeping my important models within the 12" Fearless range, but there are scenarios where some of your critical models won't be in range. In those cases, having another Fearless-like bubble would be great (even if you get few or no saves during the game). While the off-chance of saving Wounds is always a good thing, I'd caution anyone thinking about taking a Channeled-Fury Shaman to not expect too many saves to work - it is a 6+ roll after all. Not sure that Fury is as important here as the 2 Might points with March that the Blackshield Captain gives you, but if you like Shamans, I wouldn't blame you for including one.
• Drop the Drum – I like the Drum a lot and think it’s essential. But it is 75 points in an army that’s really pressed for models (and most of the models it has are not very good). When you consider that the price of the 2 drummers and their drum could by you 15 Moria Goblins with one piece of gear OR get you fewer than 15 models, but get elite models like Prowlers (F3/4+ with throwing daggers and two-handed axes), Blackshields (D6 and C3), or even a Cave Troll (for a second threat), it’s possible that these boosts would help your team out more than the rerolls you get from the Drum (but I’m not sure that’s true).
• Make an Alliance – When I started this series and went through the possible allies that would a) give us a real banner, b) kept us at 4+ fast models, and c) retained access to Heroic March so we can push the Balrog further, there were three armies that came to mind: the Easterlings (recommended in our post on banners), Azog’s Hunters, and Angmar – all three of which are Convenient allies but give us F3/4 models, so who needs the Moria army bonus. Then, in February 2020, the rules for allying armies together required the inclusion of a Hero of Legend/Valor from the allied contingent. With only Amdur/Khamul to ally in the Easterlings, this faction is a no-go if you keep the Balrog (480+ points on just two heroes). Azog’s Hunters isn’t a bad way to go – even though it will require the inclusion of Bolg to make it work (you’ll fall short of the “Rule of 30”, but you can do it). The best option appears to be to use Angmar (Buhrdur makes a lot of sense, though you can also do the Tainted, Dwimmerlaik, or the Witch-King without a Fell Beast and a handful of Might/Will/Fate) and still get a good sized army with an actual banner in it (the list I’ve included has the Witch-King in it - and it has a fairly impressive 35 models):
• The Balrog [Army Leader]
• 6 Moria Goblin Warriors with shields
• 6 Moria Goblin Warriors with spears
• 6 Moria Goblin Warriors with Orc bows
• ALLY: The Witch-King of Angmar on horse with the Crown of Morgul, 3M/12W/1F
• 5 Angmar Orc Warriors with shields
• 4 Angmar Orc Warriors with shields and spears
• 1 Angmar Orc Warrior with shield, spear, and banner
• 5 Wild Wargs (note that you could swap these for 3 Warg Riders with assorted gear if you wanted Terror attached to them)

While this allied contingent provides you with an actual banner, I’m not convinced that you need to add it. Recall that scoring points for banners only occurs in two-out-of-twelve scenarios (three-out-of-eighteen with the Matched Play Guide book) and requires an opponent to have a banner alive on the board at the end of the game. The Fiery Lash on the Balrog is a pretty good way to clear banners out (especially if you have the Balrog advance behind the front lines and bring a bannerman over the battle lines and away from friendly figures OR if you hurl someone down the supporting rank and send everyone to the ground, ready for you to crunch through next turn with the Balrog or any Goblins you have lurking nearby), so I’m not convinced that too many banners will be able to live until the end (if you focus on killing them).

In our next post, we turn our attention to the great nemesis of Moria: the Dwarves of Khazad-Dum. Like Numenor, if you want fast models in this army, you’re going to have to be creative with this lot, but this doesn’t mean that speed missions are an auto-loss for Dwarves. On the contrary, the way we build the army has to be different if we know speed missions are going to be in play, so we can account for that by how we choose to build our team (and included in this post will be lessons I’ve learned the hard way in nearly 10 years of playing Dwarves). I’m greatly looking forward to it – until next time, happy hobbying!