The Bare Necessities, Part XVII: The Dead of Dunharrow

Good morning gamers,

At this point, we’ve seen many different factions analyzed for how you can build the list to best maximize the different ways you can score points in MESBG matched play games. Today, we look at a faction I’ve just started to use (but have played against a lot): the Dead of Dunharrow. 

As I mentioned at the close of our last post, the Dead of Dunharrow have a lot of people looking at them now – not only are they one of a handful of Forces of Good armies that can have army-wide Terror, but with the King of the Dead getting Harbinger of Evil so long as you keep the army bonus (or run the Legendary Legion) and with Heralds of the Dead giving out Resistant to Magic to a group of people nearby, a Dead of Dunharrow army can be really, REALLY hard to take down by a mass-spam of warriors approach (true to the movies). That said, there are several different ways that Dunharrow can be played – and today, we’ll be looking at one of them in particular (though we’ll address the other two at the end).

Dunharrow: Pure Force or Legendary Legion or Allies?

There are three different ways you can run a Dunharrow list (thanks in large part to Gondor at War): you can run them a) as a pure “vanilla” Dead of Dunharrow list, b) with the “Return of the King” Legendary Legion, or c) as an allied force of the Dead of Dunharrow and some faction that includes Aragorn (historical allies that fit this bill would be the Rangers or Minas Tirith - and you want historical alliances to keep your army bonus). Let’s look at each and see what they give us:

• A pure Dunharrow list has four kinds of models you can include: the King of the Dead, Heralds of the Dead (you want 1-2 of these), Riders of the Dead (you want a few of these), and Warriors of the Dead (you want as many of these as you can after getting the other models). This list will be limited on Might (just 1 Might on the King of the Dead), but the Heralds can provide Will to the King of the Dead that can be used to call Heroic Actions (Move/March, Shoot, Combat/Strike). The King of the Dead and Heralds of the Dead are inextricably tied together, but are very, VERY powerful as a team.
• The Return of the King Legendary Legion adds Aragorn - Strider, Legolas, and Gimli to the Dunharrow list and gives Aragorn some nice buffs (Anduril for free, 6” banner for friendly Spirit models). In addition, the three Hunters can also lead warriors like normal heroes, but you’ll be fielding far fewer numbers than the vanilla Dunharrow list we viewed above because of the expense of these heroes (Aragorn is required, Legolas is often preferred, Gimli receives the short straw most of the time).
• An alliance with the Rangers/Minas Tirith and Dunharrow (taking Aragorn - Strider with the Rangers or King Aragorn - Elessar with Minas Tirith) might be able to address the numbers problem, but they’ll bring an important benefit to your army: they can bring cheaper heroes that have Might points. The Rangers are a nice thematic choice, but with Rangers of the North/Dunedain costing more than Warriors of the Dead, you’re still looking at suffering a lot in the numbers department (though you’ll be gaining warriors) – see my write-up on them back when the new rules came out for more info. With Minas Tirith, you’ll have access to warriors that are half the cost of the Warriors of the Dead, so you can boost your numbers more than the Legendary Legion can (despite having a more expensive Aragorn option).

In today’s post, we’re looking at which force allows you to maximize on scoring potential and give you the most options for dealing with enemy problems. Prepare to disagree with me (or at least, I’ll be disagreeing with the thoughts presented by my fellow admins in Centaur’s write-up on the Dead of Dunharrow)!

The Bare Necessities, Part XVI: The Fellowship and Thorin’s Company

Good morning gamers,

In our sixteenth post in our series on list building, we’re departing from the “conventional” armies I’ve collected and are now turning to the “unconventional” armies I’ve collected – namely, hero armies instead of hero-and-warrior armies. If you’ve seen the movies (Lord of the Rings or the Hobbit), there are two groups of heroes that you’ve followed for over 9 hours and come to love: the Fellowship of the Ring and Thorin’s Company. Today, our discussion will cover both of these armies.

The Fellowship and Thorin’s Company: Who Do You Leave At Home?

If you ever play a points match game with either the Fellowship or Thorin’s Company at less than 800 points, the main question you ask is this:

So who am I going to leave at home today? 

A pure Fellowship army benefits greatly from having Frodo in it (don’t give up VPs for being Broken so long as he’s alive AND all of your models are Fearless), while Thorin’s Company (or their Erebor Reclaimed verisons, which we won’t talk about in this post) benefits a lot from having Thorin around (rerolling 1s to Wound is nice – keeps you from having to Feint). Other choices appear to be givens – you probably want to include Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli in a Fellowship army, while Dwalin and Gloin are auto-includes in a TC army.

But then you have the hard questions. For the Fellowship, this includes:

• How important is it to get the free Heroic Combats from Sam (since we’ll have Frodo in the list)? 
• If we can’t afford both Gandalf and Boromir, which do we take (or does Boromir take Gimli’s spot)? 
• How important is it to include Bill vs. Anduril (if the points limit doesn’t let me take both)? 
• Are Merry and Pippin even worth taking (cheap objective holders/screeners for Boromir)?
• Now that Arwen is available to us (if we run Aragorn), should we include her?

For Thorin’s Company, these questions become even more difficult (as if that were possible):

• Do I need Kili and Fili so I have some good shooting on my team? 
• Is Ori worth taking? 
• If I only have enough points for one mid-level killing hero, do I take Nori or Dori? 
• When do I include Bilbo? 
• How important is the banner reroll and healing that Oin provides? 
• Does Thorin need Orcrist and/or the Oakenshield? 
• Is Bombur worth taking if I’m not running Gandalf or Balin? 
• Is it better to have 2 Might coming from Bifur or Bofur or 1 Might from Oin if I can only take one of those heroes? 
• How useful is the priority reroll from Balin? 
• What Dwarf have I forgotten? 
• How the heck am I supposed to bring Gandalf with all these other models crowding me out? 
• Are ponies any good?

There are other discussions we could have had as well for each of these lists, but I think the point is made: the debate is often not in which models you bring, but in which models stay behind. Both lists have incredible modularity (and as far as spending money to start playing the game, you can get both armies for relatively low expense). So, assuming you have a full Fellowship and Thorin’s Company in front of you, which models should you bring to have an army most adept at scoring victory points? Here are some thoughts for 700-point lists (prepare to disagree with me):

TMAT Talks, Episode 4: Top-10 Supports (Good & Evil)

It's our most controversial episode of TMAT Talks yet! In Episode 4, Tiberius and Rythbryt join Centaur to talk about their top-10 "support" models for both good and evil. What's more valuable: a ringwraith or a shade? What about a Fearless or Fight Value buff? What does "support" even mean? And why are there so many hobbits on this list?

We don't reach 100% consensus on any of those questions, but that only contributes to the fun! Plus more army lists in our "Pocket Full of..." segment to fire up your creative juices.

Don't forget to let us know what you think in the comments! Who's in your top-10, and why?

The Bare Necessities, Part XV: Rohan

Good morning gamers,

We’ve come to the fifteenth post in our series on List Building – view our summary of all we’ve covered here. In Volume I, we looked at the five basic elements of list building, and in Volume II, we did walk-throughs of various factions that can easily accommodate these List Building elements. Our most recent posts on Numenor, Moria, and Khazad-Dum/Moria have looked at factions that struggle with at least one of the elements of list building and today’s post takes us to the plains of Rohan. If you haven't read Rythbryt's review of the Rohan faction, please check that out (it'll be very informative)!

Rohan: Vanilla Rohan or One of Those Legendary Legions?

When the Armies of the Lord of the Rings book was released, the all-cavalry Rohan armies came out in force (with a new Theoden model provided in a new core set and TONS of Riders of Rohan and Warriors of Rohan available on the second-hand market). Theoden's profile upgrade (and relatively stable cost) moved from being a never-include-in-competitive-armies to a must-include-in-all-competitive-armies.

Then Gondor at War was released – and the fight at the Pelennor fields got even larger, with new profiles released for Mordor, Minas Tirith, and Rohan (and some amazing heroes were released with this supplement, indeed). In addition to new profiles, Rohan got a new Legendary Legion, which further encouraged an all-mounted crew – but also provided an incentive to running a large number of heroes (instead of trying to get as many warriors as possible while still keeping everyone mounted).

With the Winter 2019 release of War in Rohan, we received five new Legendary Legions to use with Rohan – one that focuses on Theodred at the Fords of Isen, one that includes Galadhrim and the Three Hunters with the Rohan forces at Helm’s Deep, one that includes Gandalf the White and Eomer’s riders, a list that unites the mounted units of Rohan with the Wildmen of Druadan, and a list that takes us back in time to the reign of Helm Hammerhand. That gives us a total of six different ways you can run Rohan (besides the "vanilla" Rohan army, which is the only one that can take allies and is "unrestricted" in the warrior/hero options it has). So the question becomes, which one is the best to run when trying to maximize point potential?

The Bare Necessities, Part XIV: The Kingdom of Moria

Good morning gamers,

In our series on list-building, we’ve covered eight armies so far that showcase ways you can optimize your list to do well in five potential scoring areas: a) having fast models, b) having at least one banner, c) having “enough numbers,” d) having ways of neutralizing enemy heroes, and e) having ways to augment your own heroes. We’ve looked at different army builds that you can do for Minas Tirith, Rivendell, Lothlorien, and Numenor from the Forces of Good, as well as Isengard, Mordor, Angmar, and Moria from the Forces of Evil.

But before we begin discussing one of my favorite factions in the game, I feel a need to make note of a recent acquisition...

Four hobbits, ready for an adventure!

I'm calling him Samwise - more of a Hobbit than a Dwarf, but the lil' tyke decided to surprise us a week early. Looks like we're going to keep him. :)

Anyway, today we turn to my beloved bearded fellows, the Dwarves of Khazad-Dum/Moria, and see how you can take this army (which has no cavalry options to speak of – and only has access to cavalry through a Yellow alliance, which causes you to lose a REALLY big army bonus) and tailor it to play better in these five areas. One of the best decisions I’ve made on this blog in a long time, I think, was waiting to cover this army until I ironed out all my thoughts on it, so here’s to three months of mulling over Dwarves!