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 List

The King Arrives

• The King of the Dead
• 1 Warrior of the Dead with shield
• 1 Warrior of the Dead with shield and spear
• No hero required
• 4 Warriors of the Dead with shields
• 3 Warriors of the Dead with shields and spears
• 1 Warrior of the Dead with shield, spear, and banner
• Historical Ally: Aragorn, King Elessar on Armored Horse [Army Leader]
• 8 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shields
• 6 Warriors of Minas Tirith with shield, spear, and bow
• 4 Knights of Minas Tirith with shields

30 models, 6 bows hitting on a 4+, 30 D6+ models, 5 cavalry, 4+ Might points

We just barely included everything we needed in this army – 4 disposable fast models, 1 banner, 30 models, ways to neutralize enemy heroes, and ways to augment our own heroes. That said, because Dunharrow is present (and King Aragorn – because this is Dunharrow), our model count is pretty low (as small as our Numenor army, but not as low as the Rohan and Fellowship/Thorin's Company lists we've looked at recently). Still, the warbands we have are pretty powerful. Let’s take a look at them.

Warband #1: The King of the Dead

The King of the Dead: 131 points of terrifying destruction

Technically, we could have put all of the Warriors of the Dead in this warband, but that would limit us to just 2 warbands and we don’t want that (we want to see what’s coming at us in most scenarios – only real danger is in one of the Maelstrom fights). Having the King of the Dead and a few bodyguards in one warband allows us the ability to see more of where our opponent is placing before we place the majority of our force. In maelstrom scenarios (where we have less control over our deployment), we might see the King of the Dead stuck near more foes than we’d like, but he’s surprisingly resilient against spam attacks, as are his guards. Besides, once we know where he is, we can use Might from Aragorn to guarantee he’s placed nearby if we REALLY need to. The King of the Dead’s Harbinger of Evil boost is also good, since it will make charging him and his retinue a little harder for most armies (not to mention reduces enemy Courage if we win fights and get to make Strikes).

Warband #2: The Horde of the Dead

The Horde of the Dead: 149 points

Eight models are hardly a horde, but when they wound against your Courage, you don’t need very many of them in order to cut the enemy down to size. This force isn’t your anvil (that’s the next warband) – instead, it’s your hammer. Warriors of the Dead, when able to strike and not defend themselves by shielding, are incredibly lethal – even against high-Courage troops like Elves or Dwarves. Keep the King of the Dead nearby (though 12” away is hardly “nearby”), and you’ll see these models killing Dwarves (wound on 4s) and other higher-than-normal-Courage models wilt away (C5-6 on 5s - see my Dwarves fighting Centaur’s All Saint’s Day army for more info). We’ve also included a banner here – you really want this warband supporting the King of the Dead whenever you can (he benefits a lot from a banner). As noted above, if you know Maelstrom fights are a possibility, consider running 2 warbands instead of 3 and merge this warband with the King of the Dead's warband.

Warband #3: The King of Gondor

The King of Gondor: 420pts of everything else that you need for a well-rounded army

Leading this army is the King of Gondor himself - Aragorn, King Elessar. Though we could address this at the end, I’ve talked in the various Facebook SBG groups I’m a part of with many players around the world who all say that the Legendary Legion is the way to go. Most cite Aragorn’s free Anduril upgrade and his 6” banner buff as the reason, but I’d like to present a counter-argument for this:

If Aragorn is the reason you’re taking the Return of the King Legendary Legion, you should ally in Minas Tirith instead.

Here are five reasons:

• The Armored Horse – King Aragorn should never be walking; you want him riding into combat not only because it allows him to get into better match-ups, but also because his base is larger than his infantry base and this extends his auric buffs to cover more total area (even though his own base area increases slightly). He also gets the normal boosts for being mounted (extra attack/knock-down vs. infantry), but also gives him an extra Wound (effectively) against enemy attacks (archery especially). With Horselord, you could save wounds made against your mount if you wanted. LL Aragorn has no access to a horse (which is sad, but thematically appropriate). 15 extra points well spent on King Aragorn, if you ask me.
• The Heavy Armor – King Aragorn without his armored horse costs 65 points more than LL Aragorn, but the heavy armor boost from D5 to D7 is not a small one – you will see differences in the To Wound difficulties by all models below Strength 9 (which is basically everyone). King Aragorn is far more survivable against S3 melee damage and S2/S3 archery, while still retaining some resilience against S4 attacks (be they melee or ranged). This is well worth 10 extra points (10/65 points).
• The 6” banner boost – LL Aragorn gives a 6” banner bonus to all friendly spirit models, and that’s great. King Aragorn gives a 6” banner bonus to all friendly models, which means he can banner-up your Minas Tirith men, your Dunharrow Spirits, and himself (since he counts himself as a friendly model) – which means a mounted King Aragorn on the charge against 1+ infantry models will get to roll 3 Attacks normally +1 Attack for being on the charge and get a reroll – 5 dice to win the fight! Then if he wins (which he probably will), he knocks them all over, doubles each of the 4 Attacks he rolls, and wounds on a 4+…sick and crazy, right? LL Aragorn is still good (3 Attacks + a reroll if you bring a banner on a Warrior of the Dead - which will have a redundant banner effect because it's encompassed in Aragorn's banner bonus - and wound on a 4+ without doubling them). By running a banner near LL Aragorn, you're doing it specifically for Aragorn (and maybe Legolas and Gimli) - which is kind of expensive, if you ask me. We could factor in the cost of a banner near Aragorn to adjust for the difference in their costs, but that doesn't seem fair to me, so let's credit him with a +10 point boost to cover himself (20/65 points).
• Archery – King Aragorn allows you to bring archers in your army, while LL Aragorn can only bring Legolas (who most people consider is a must-bring for the LL to work at all). While Legolas is probably the best archer hero for the Forces of Good (and probably the undisputed best archer hero in MESBG), he’s only one model and while he can shoot three times each round, he can’t be everywhere and stop everything. Having a handful of archer models (up to 6 if you’re just bringing Aragorn and bring 16-18 models) gives you better control over the board and makes it far harder for your opponent to shut your archery down. Oh, and 6 archers from Minas Tirith will likely be about half of Legolas's cost. The savings here are good - not sure (again) how to rate it, but we could easily credit this ability to be a 40-50 point value because we can buy 6 Warriors of Minas Tirith/Rangers of Gondor and don't have to buy Legolas (60/65-point increase - I've chosen 6 Warriors of Minas Tirith with spears, shields, and bows, who cost 10 points each, totaling 40 points less than Legolas with no additional gear).
• Cheaper Warriors – King Aragorn provides the cheapest warrior options available for a Dead of Dunharrow army. If you remove the gear options from King Aragorn that put him above the LL Aragorn, you’re looking at a differential of 55 points (215pts when you remove the cost of the heavy armor, compared to 160 points for LL Aragorn). These 55 points are easily made up when you compare the 10-point differential between Riders of the Dead and Knights of Minas Tirith (though there is a Defense drop in play here for both rider and mount) and the 7-point differential between the Warriors of the Dead and the Warriors of Minas Tirith (which Shieldwall makes the Defense drop less but still present). Sure, the Warriors of the Dead/Riders of the Dead have Blades of the Dead, but regaining those 55 points only requires taking 4 Knights of Minas Tirith and 2 Warriors of Minas Tirith instead of 4 Riders of the Dead and 2 Warriors of the Dead. Any other units you take are actually savings you get from taking King Aragorn instead of the Legendary Legion (and did I mention you can take archers with him?). This also ignores the positive benefits from Aragorn's banner bonus affecting himself, having a horse, and being able to bring archers for cheaper.

While I don’t think Strider in the LL is as good as King Aragorn, I do see one big reason most people flock to this Legendary Legion: startup cost. For the same cost as King Aragorn (foot and mounted), you can get the Three Hunters. Instead of having to buy a box of Warriors of Minas Tirith and a box of Knights of Minas Tirith (and possibly a box of Rangers), you can just pick up a handful of Riders of the Dead (or a box of Morgul Knights and do some body swaps). Both lists require the purchase of the King of the Dead (either the old sculpt, or the new set with him and the heralds) and some Warriors of the Dead, so the start-up cost for the LL is cheaper than the allied approach (especially if you follow the recommendation from Drawn Combat and just pick up the King of the Dead & Heralds pack and the Three Hunters pack to supplement your Pelennor Fields box set collection). Still, I think it’s worth it to invest in Minas Tirith as an ally (and you are also part-way to starting a second army for the investment that you make).

Supporting Aragorn in his warband are the pieces that make this army work: we have 14 Shieldwall warriors who can be D6-7 (and operate in several “4s” formations or Schiltron formations). We’ve also tacked on 4 Knights of Minas Tirith (who have Shieldwall if they’re dismounted). We could have gone with Rangers of Gondor and saved some points, but I figured in an army with high Defense, we probably want more heavily-armored guys than those that hit slightly more accurately and have slightly higher Fight Value (though not having F4 will be felt by this army).

It’s entirely possible I haven’t convinced you that this is a better army than the Legendary Legion – and that’s okay. We’ll give the Return of the King Legendary Legion some time in the sun at the end of this post. But in the meantime, let’s look at each scenario and see how this team does.

Scenario Overview

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

• Domination: Both the Minas Tirith warriors and the Warriors of the Dead have good/great Courage (C4 and C6 respectively). Having the ability to split your Minas Tirith company into two Schiltron formations can give you some board control presence, though neither should be too far from Aragorn as you’ll need his help supporting you. The Knights will need to act as Aragorn’s escort, but are capable of racing off to a far-flung objective that’s lightly guarded and slaughtering anyone that’s left behind there. Your Warriors of the Dead should provide cover for the King of the Dead (who benefits greatly from a spear-supporter and being near the banner – though you want the banner supporting in a different fight). If required, you can leave a Warrior of the Dead on an objective that you pass – they don’t often run. The key here is to use the maneuverability of Aragorn to cut down forces that are trying to get to new objectives and shield your own forces from being overwhelmed (his banner radius and movement distance is quite large and will be a huge help).
• Capture and Control: Similar to Domination, you have Knights to ride and take objectives that are far-flung, but you want to rely on getting your Minas Tirith troops to the center, where their arrows can harass other objectives and they’re sure to draw attention. Use Aragorn and the King of the Dead to threaten enemy heroes/monsters and keep them away from your objectives. Leaving a Warrior of the Dead behind at one or two objectives might work fine if you keep your other Warriors of the Dead near your Minas Tirith shieldwall.
• Hold Ground: Maelstrom is going to be a danger in this list, but where possible, deploy Aragorn’s warband near the King of the Dead. Even if you don’t deploy near the King of the Dead, if the King of the Dead isn’t in any trouble, you can race ahead to the center of the board without him and let him arrive later to crash into the flank of the enemy. The Horde of the Dead is the warband that is most in danger of deploying away from the rest of the group – if it does (and is surrounded), don’t underestimate the power of shielding with a banner (then get Aragorn over there to help out)! Worst case scenario, this warband gets destroyed but ties up the enemy for so long that you can get your other warbands to the center and ready for the enemy’s assault.
• Seize the Prize: You’ve got Aragorn and some knights – use them to race towards the center of the map as quickly as possible. Someone will have to dismount to pick up the prize, so you probably want to have a Knight do that – though you could also just use Aragorn and the Knights to create a hedge of protection around the prize, keeping any enemy models from getting to it. As your force arrives later, someone else can dig up the Prize and hand it to a mounted model (a Knight probably – though you could use Aragorn as your runner instead) to get it off the enemy board edge. Your goal will be to catch the enemy’s army and hold them – something a shieldwall and Warriors of the Dead can do very well.
• To The Death: This is your scenario – you have a banner that is hard to kill and you have heroes (and warriors) who can kill lots of things. You can make your opponent come to you, as you can weather most archery (though make sure you keep Aragorn and your cavalry behind your ranks – those horses are the easiest thing to wound in your army). Keep your shieldwall together, find a place to stand and shoot (so your archers are at their highest efficiency), and keep your Dunharrow troops nearby. If you get in a shoot-out with the enemy, your high Defense should keep you alive, but use terrain all the same to make your opponent come to you. If you can keep your banner alive (and Aragorn unwounded), you have a good chance of winning the game (or at least pulling a draw).
• Lords of Battle: Aragorn needs to be cut loose on this one, though protecting him will be key. The King of the Dead is a sneaky hero in this scenario too, as Drain Soul can rack up some pretty nasty kills if left unchecked. Your Warriors of the Dead are no slouches either, assuming you can keep the enemy from overwhelming them/forcing them to shield. Get kills quickly with Aragorn (Heroic Combats from warrior models into more warrior models is the key), fighting enemy heroes only if you have to.
• Contest of Champions: You’ve got Aragorn in the center of the map – exactly where he wants to be. Start everyone as close to the center line as you can (except your cavalry – keep them out of enemy charge distance so they can get a good flank attack without being charged) and get locked into combat quickly. There are few enemy models that can topple King Aragorn in a contest – and you want to slay the enemy army leader as quickly as possible.
• Reconnoitre: You brought 4 Knights for this mission – get them across the board as quickly as is safely possible (Marching with Aragorn if you have to). The remainder of your army (25 models without Aragorn) can almost make a Thin Red Line across the entire board, so find places where terrain will help you. As I’ve recommended in the past, having your army spread thin is fine in this scenario, as you want to get quartered shortly after your Knights get off the board edge. Don’t be hasty, though, as losing some of your cavalry could hurt you in the long-run if your opponent can get models off the board too.
• Storm the Camp: Once again, the goal is to get Aragorn and the Knights across the board into the enemy camp. You can be sure that most armies will have archers in/near their camp, so getting your horses there might be difficult. You can begin by having Aragorn and the Knights perform a flank attack against an enemy position (or take a small squad of troops head-on) and then Heroic Combat off of the last fight to get closer to the camp (hopefully you can surprise your opponent with this, since he thought you were in combat before and now are racing towards his objective).
• Heirlooms of Ages Past: As with Seize the Prize, the goal is to find the heirloom as quickly as possible. You should probably get this with a Warrior of the Dead if possible (as their high Defense is great), since you probably want Aragorn and the King of the Dead killing stuff.
• Fog of War: Choose a hero that the King of the Dead can kill with Drain Soul (0-1 Fate is good). Aragorn is your army leader, so you’ll have to keep the King of the Dead alive, which shouldn’t be too hard if you keep him in the center of a battle line with lots of help. Aragorn won’t pass up any points in this scenario for being wounded, so get him locked in combat in the center of our group. Your Knights can pick a far-flung piece of terrain to protect – and you can use them to race around from terrain piece to terrain piece to keep your opponent guessing (just time it right so they land on the right objective at the end of the game).
• Clash By Moonlight: You don’t like this scenario - your shooting isn’t great in this army (though +1 To Wound is welcome) and S3/4 bows will do murder to your ranks, so use March to get locked into combat fast. After that, do as much killing as you can with Aragorn and the King of the Dead to make the game end as fast as possible.

Modifications

While I really like the list provided above (and my son's been playing with a list like this to deadly effect), I get that the play style of others probably means other units deserve a mention – here a few changes I expect people would like to make:

• Take the Legendary Legion – Yes, I know at least a few of you want to see the Legendary Legion get used. I’ve come to agree with people that while you have to take Aragorn and the King of the Dead, Legolas is the next most important piece to add. Gimli, while great, is probably not as good as a Herald of the Dead (despite having nearly the same cost) because the Herald will make the King of the Dead more threatening (with 3 free heroic actions to call – most notably Strike, since Aragorn can call March for free at the start of the game). A Return of the King Legendary Legion that was designed for balance would probably look something like the list below (taking 4 Riders of the Dead and 1 banner eats a LOT of points, by the way). It’s worth noting that leaving the Herald of the Dead at home would give us +4 models if we used his 75 points to get 5 more Warriors of the Dead with shields, but even then, we’d be at 21 models. We could also drop 2 Riders of the dead to get 3 Warriors of the Dead, but I’m inclined to think that the mobility from the spectral steeds is more important than +1 model:
• Aragorn - Strider [Army Leader]
• 2 Warriors of the Dead with shields and spears
• 1 Rider of the Dead
• The King of the Dead
• 2 Warriors of the Dead with shields and spears
• 1 Warrior of the Dead with shield, spear, and banner
• 1 Rider of the Dead
• Herald of the Dead
• 2 Warriors of the Dead with shields and spears
• 1 Rider of the Dead
• Legolas Greenleaf
• 2 Warriors of the Dead with shields and spears
• 1 Rider of the Dead
• Go Vanilla Spam – While the LL is fun and the allied contingent is powerful, there’s still a place, I think, for a "spam" Dunharrow army. Having 2 Heralds of the Dead give the King of the Dead access to Strike/March/Move 6-7 times (depending on whether he spends his own Might point to call it). The limitation to this list, of course, is that you don’t have Might outside of the King of the Dead (the Heralds of the Dead can allow him to call Heroic Actions with their Will, but it’s still the King of the Dead calling it), so you need to plan ahead. A “spam list” that follows our methodology for this series would probably look something like this (getting the requisite 4 cavalry, 1 banner, and 30+ models – though you will only get 1 Herald with this build, so a max of 4 Heroic actions from the King of the Dead for the entire game):
• The King of the Dead [Army Leader]
• 4 Warriors of the Dead with shields
• 4 Warriors of the Dead with shields and spears
• 1 Warrior of the Dead with shield, spear, and banner
• 2 Riders of the Dead
• Herald of the Dead with shield
• 4 Warriors of the Dead with shields
• 5 Warriors of the Dead with shields and spears
• 1 Rider of the Dead
• No hero required
• 4 Warriors of the Dead with shields
• 4 Warriors of the Dead with shields and spears
• 1 Rider of the Dead
• Use More Minas Tirith Guys – Minas Tirith has access to a lot of good heroes, and many of their captains are really good bargains (usually in the 55-80pt realm, provide at least 12 warrior slots, and often provide tactical bonuses that can augment your shieldwall models). If you were scaling up your army to 800+ points, my recommendation would be to add Madril (though Iorlas, Ingold, or Hurin are also great options), who not only gives you an additional 12 warrior slots and another bow-armed model (which you’re sorely lacking), but also gives you some additional reliability in Maelstrom scenarios. With you wanting optimal deployment for the King of the Dead and the horde warband (which you could just add to his warband at this point), Madril is your man.

In our next post, we start our fourth segment of the series – armies I haven’t really started collecting yet, but am planning on investing in next. The thoughts for these six armies are still very much in the making, so I welcome any thoughts you have on making them better. We’ll begin with an army that involves a hero I used to run all the time with Lothlorien during the warband era: the Halls of Thranduil. These Elves are very different from their Rivendell and Lothlorien cousins, so expect some surprises. Until then, happy hobbying!