Shire Melee Tactica

Hey Reader!

In our last post we talked about how to use Shire archery effectively, and in this post we wanted to address arguably the most important thing you can do when playing Shire: building a cohesive, holistic approach to melee fighting. This will determine what you do in your Move Phases, how you position and array your troops, how you determine the composition of your warbands, which heroes you take, when and how to engage the enemy - basically everything except shot selection at range (hence the last post), as your plan for melee fighting will dictate a lot of how you play the game.

And in preparation for taking Shire to a tournament next year, I feel like now is as good a time as any to discuss it, as I'll likely be playing with them in some of our battle reports in the future, :) So with no further ado, let's look at how to beat your opponent in melee combat with a Waistcoat Brigade.

I.  Know Thyself, Know Thy Enemy

In our last post we laid out a number of the difficulties with playing Shire: 4" move (the shortest move distance in the game), D3 (so wounded on 4s or better by most things), F3 or less (so you will likely not win ties unless you are against another spam army), and S2 (both for your bows and most of your warriors, so 6s or worse to wound against most models). And I'll be honest, that's a lot of disadvantages, :P

Unfortunately it gets worse: because you're a militia of untrained troops, you only have one spear (Farmer Cotton when using his pitchfork as a spear), so you cannot fight in ranks like goblins can, and this problem is compounded against troops with equal or higher Fight Value than you as they have more dice to win the fight. And yes, banners cover a multitude of sins, but if your opponent also has a banner you're in trouble.

So know your list: you are not a rank-and-file force, and that's okay. It means you'll play differently than you do with other civs, and that's not a bad thing. It also presents a challenge to your opponent: they are used to facing rank-in-file forces.

Rank-and-file armies have short battle lines: their lines are 2-3 ranks deep, but they are short and thus easier to wrap the more ranks you add. Shire doesn't have this issue: you can build really long battle lines to hold down opponents and keep them from getting around you, and as we saw in the last post you can pretty easily wrap your opponent purely because your 30 models will go wider than their 30 models.

Shire also has Resistant to Magic on every model save the dogs, which also means you have a better chance of resisting area spells like Nature's Wrath or Wrath of Bruinen, and always have a chance to resist spells like Sorcerous Blast which Tiberius talked about recently. Add to this that you always get a chance to roll against an incoming magic attack (so there's no "burning through your opponent's Will store to make resisting impossible" strategy against you), and you have a very asymmetric way to play against magic users. Add onto this a generally high Courage value, and even if the spellcaster causes Terror you have a good chance of shutting their magic down by charging them in the Move Phase. So if you have a lot of guys in your area who use magic, this is a really useful ability.

If you maintain the army bonus, you also get Woodland Creature on all your hobbits as well (so dogs and ponies are unaffected), allowing you to pass through woodland terrain more quickly. You won't always have woodland terrain, but if a map does have forests that will play into your deployment.

But perhaps the most important thing to remember is that we are fortunate with our weapon choices. Our fighting heroes (Sam, Merry, and Pippin) have daggers as do a lot of our warriors, giving us the ability to reroll 1s to wound if you're okay with Feinting/Stabbing (allowing us a second chance at getting that 5 or 6 we need to wound). We get cudgels for two-handed weapon options (and at 5pts/model that's one of the cheapest two-handed weapon warriors in the game) and we have both cudgels and hammers for bashing people to knock them to the ground (doubling our wounding dice if we succeed, which granted is not that easy but at least the option is there). We also get axes on our militia as well as a two-handed scythe for Maggot, giving us access to Piercing Strike for when you need more Strength (more on when to use this below), which covers over our weaknesses.

There are really no bad weapon choices in this list: for what the list needs (killing power and extra chances at getting 5s and 6s), this is basically the ideal set of weapons for our army.

More than that, we also have good courage values on the whole army. The base hobbit is Courage 3, but if you include Merry (which you should basically always do, and for the legendary legion you have to) he has a horn that increases everyone's courage to Courage 4. More than that, though, this is not a war horn, which means you can take a war horn on a hobbit archer (for 30 pts, granted, which is a lot for Shire) to bring all of your hobbits up to Courage 5. For most of your heroes, you're now sporting Courage 6 or in some cases Courage 7 (and in the case of Frodo, Samwise, Bilbo, and Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, a whopping Courage 8). So to say you have "good courage values" on your army is almost a joke: you're in the realm of elvish courage, so you avoid one of the usual ways to stop "spam armies," which is Terror.

And finally we need to remember that Shire has three ways to play: you can use the legendary legion from the Scouring of the Shire book which gives you traps, requires that you take Merry and Pippin, and precludes some options for heroes (no Gandalf, no Dunedain, no Bullroarer). You can also use what I call the standard Shire list which gives you access to all of the heroes including Bullroarer but still precludes Gandalf and the Dunedain, or you can use the atypical Shire list which gives you access to everyone except the heroes of the Shire (Frodo, Merry, Pippin, and Sam). Now realistically this also precludes you taking Rosie (as there's not a lot of reason to take Rosie if you don't take Sam), but technically she's still in the mix if you'd like to take her. So keep in mind that there are various ways to "play a Shire army," which brings us to the next section.

II.  List Building

First, there's a temptation to take too many heroes because they do cool things, the models from Forgeworld are beautiful, and frankly it's cheaper than buying 80+ hobbits (in my case, 100+ hobbits). I want to discourage you against that. You don't get enough Might or attacks on the table to justify losing a host of warriors, so I'll recommend that you pick a maximum of 1.5 heroes per 100 points you are playing at.

There are also some auto-include heroes depending on the type of Shire army you field. If you are running the legendary legion or a standard Shire list, Merry and Pippin are definitely among the list of auto-includes: not only are you required to take them in the legendary legion, you also really want them: Merry gives you access to up to 15 S3 militia (S4 when using Piercing Strike with an axe which comes standard in their cost) and also provides a benefit from his horn (which, as we noted above, is not a War Horn). If you give him a shield (which is a must in my book), he's also a reliable 2 attacks if you want to kill things or 4 attacks if you just need to hold someone down. Pippin provides you with F3 archers (making them serviceable against most infantry and advantageous against spam armies) and gets to reroll to wound rolls against heroes and monsters, so he serves as a power character killer if you need one. And since both of these guys have Heroic Strike they are among the few options you have for getting someone in your army above F3.

Similarly Frodo of the Nine Fingers is a useful 6" banner, and while yes, he can't strike wounds and he's unarmed, his F3 is nothing to sneeze at, not to mention his Mithril Coat giving you a D6 person that can tie up killy heroes (in addition to having Heroic Defense). Sam is also great to take if you are taking Frodo, but I don't think Sam is an auto-include character: he's good (especially when near Rosie as she brings out his warrior side to impress her), but not an absolute must-have.

I think it's wise to always take Holfoot Bracegirdle. Not only is he another hero with Heroic March, but he allows shirriffs to avoid their two-handing penalty when within 3" of him, so you can get some reliable killing power off of his boys without suffering the duel penalty. Similarly I think Farmer Maggot is an auto-include: not only does he have a two-handed Scythe (for two-handing at S3), but he comes with three 8" move F3 S3 dogs, which is huge for wrapping around people, charging casters, and generally making a mess of the enemy lines. And since they get to use his Courage as long as Maggot is alive, they go from C2 to C5 (maybe 6 or 7 if you have Merry and/or a War Horn), allowing them to reliably charge Terror models.

Beyond that, the rest of the heroes you can include based on what you need, but we won't go in-depth into them here because we did a post on Shire heroes, and I don't want to bore you. The two I'll note here, though, are Gandalf and Bullroarer as they are central to an atypical Shire list. If you're going to play an atypical Shire list it should be because of these two guys. Bullroarer gives you access to a S3 dude with 2 attacks and 2 Might on a horse, so if you charge infantry models you're getting 3 attacks (6 dice to wound if you win) from 10" away, which doesn't sound like much, but for as cheap as he is this is incredible. It also increases your killing power from your other hobbits as he knocks guys over.

Gandalf is incredible because 1) magic casters cover a multitude of sins, 2) Blinding Light covers even more sins, and 3) he can take the cart which gives you a free ranged attack each turn within 6" (even if the cart is engaged in combat - literally every turn that you have a spearman or banner within 6" you can shoot a firework at them). And while it doesn't add as much speed to Gandalf as a horse (which you can also get if you want), it does provide a handy In the Way against any shot that comes his way as it does count as a mount. So just finding more ways to keep the bearer of Narya alive. 

So from this list, choose a number of heroes proportionate to the points limit (1.5 per 100) to fill your ranks. This means that at 500 pts you would want 6-7 heroes, starting with Merry, Pippin, Frodo, Holfoot, and Maggot (which will only run you about 250 pts, by the way, so room for about 50-55 troops to go with them if you'd like), or switching out the first three for Gandalf, Bullroarer, and another person of your choice if you're running an atypical list, with the chance of adding 1-2 more (personally I'd favor Farmer Cotton or Baldo Tulpenny because I think they bring the most to the table).

As your points go up add more heroes, and use these add-ons to flesh out the list. Are you thinking there will be deployment scenarios where you need to roll to see which side you're on? Robin Smallburrow may be your man (and for only 20pts, the dude is cheap). Need a chance to bribe people or buff your hobbits? Don't forget Lotho (though we hate his guts, he does has his uses). Want to add a warrior killer with access to free Heroic Combats? Sam with Rosie and Frodo nearby is your best bet. Shire heroes offer a lot of flexibility for very low point cost (lots of money cost, but hey, whatcha gonna do), so take some time to think through what your biggest needs are and fill those first.

The other thing to keep in mind is that you should shoot for a 33% archer corps, but it isn't as necessary as people may think. Yes, more shots at range may plink off more guys, but your opponent is going to close (as we noted in our last post), so keep in mind that you'll need a good corps of men to meet them when they arrive. Inasmuch as you can get F3 archers (Pippin and Paladin) you should, but F2 guys with daggers are less effective than F1 guys with axes or hammers, so don't be afraid to take hobbit militia, save a point, and use that to get more men.

Similarly, I do recommend a 1:1 ratio of militia to shirriffs if you can (I know this is complicated by the fact that the 12-warrior set doesn't come with shirriffs, but hear me out). The militia, at F1, won't be winning fights on their own unless your opponent rolls low, but when you combine the F3 two-handing dice from a shirriff with the F1 unreduced dice from a militia, you'd be surprised how quickly people fall. And they fall even faster if you Piercing Strike with an axe militia on top of that. So try to keep, as much as you can, a 1:1 ratio to insure chances to wound against opponents.

So with this in mind, let's talk about deployment and positioning as a way to maximize your list's effectiveness, because you're going to need it.  

III.  Deployment and Positioning

We will get the two obvious points out first: if there are barriers that you can defend, thereby forcing your opponent to roll to see if they hit you or hit the barrier, you should take this position. Similarly, if your opponent is defending a barrier don't engage unless you can get someone over the barrier to attack them on their side (as that removes the roll to see if you hit the barrier for all models, per the Rules Manual).

With that said, we reiterate what we said in our last post about using terrain for cover. We are thankfully playing a game where taking cover actually does something, and in this case it serves most of them as a "free Fate Point" to avoid an attack, and we'll need all of those we can get. Don't cross open territory if you don't have to, and the fact that we don't fight in ranks makes this a lot easier. Deny your opponents firing lanes where possible, and use your 4" movement to your advantage (never thought you'd hear me say that, huh?): small moves to get where you need to go, taking advantage of terrain to aid you in making those jumps.

On the topic of not fighting in ranks, you should also fight in a stagger formation, with shirriffs up front and your hobbit militia and melee heroes .75" back (more or less - no need to be overly detailed about this) between your shirriffs, like this:

Merry's Battlin' Brandybucks, who are S3 or S4 when they
Piercing Strike, are behind the shirriffs

What this does is it forces your opponent to charge your F3 troops while making it hard to charge the heroes and axe-wielding troops, allowing you to decide where you want your potential Piercing Strikes to go. For cavalry it also makes it impossible for them to charge them, so you get a choice of whether you want Merry fighting a hero or not. It's a small change, but it really works.

And realize also when it comes to positioning that you're downhanded on mobility, so some scenarios will just be harder than others. Scenarios like Reconnoiter and Storm the Camp will be a bear because you only move 4", your Move Phases will take a bit of time because of the number of models you're using, and a 4' x 4' board means traveling a long way for hobbits. Scenarios that reward you for reaching a point first (like Heirlooms of Ages Past and Hold Ground) will also be tough, as your opponent will likely reach it first short of them having a side of the board with a lot more difficult terrain (or your side having all forest difficult terrain).

The big thing to remember in these circumstances is that it's okay. The lists have ways to deal with this: nothing in the rules say that dogs can't dig up heirlooms (they still count as infantry, and with 8" move and a cavalryman having to dismount to pick up the heirloom, the only thing faster than you is an unridden warg). The legendary legion allows you to hold a unit (like Maggot, his dogs, and 9 other dudes) in reserve until a future turn to place, so you can deploy near an heirloom, objective, etc. to surprise your opponent. There are a lot of options to mitigate the issue, all it takes is a bit of planning and forethought.

And on this point, it's worth noting that if you take the legendary legion Maggot's unit should almost always be the hidden unit. It gets your power killers (hehe, man this army hurts for high-Strength) into the fight where they are needed, they don't get shot up as much by archery as they don't need to cross the field, and it gives you an almost guarantee at winning matches that require you to get your forces to a given location as you can drop 13 dudes near a guy's camp, easily get 3 dogs off the board for Reconnoiter, or put a firm detachment of archers at a safe place to pound an enemy position.

So give it forethought: you can pull off some pretty crazy maneuvers because Shire plays differently from other civs. So use their weaknesses to your advantage.

IV.  When to Engage the Melee

So we've discussed who to bring, what you do well, and why your weapon choices are good. So the final question that remains is, "When do I commit to the melee?" Naturally sometimes this will be determined for you - if you're playing a Hold Ground scenario or Domination scenario the answer will be, "whenever you or the opponent choose to fight over the locations on the battlefield that score points." But there's more to it than that, and that's where the tactics come in.

For starters, thank Eru Iluvatar if you get Ill Met by Moonlight, as you have a ton of ranged attacks getting +1 to wound, dropping to 12" range really isn't that bad for you (as you hardly lose any range), and you were probably getting wounded by their archery anyway, so who cares if they get +1 to wound against you, :P Sure, Harad is dangerous in this fight, but so are you, and arguably you're more dangerous as you wound just as well as they do with easily 2-3 times as many ranged attacks.

For more standard fights, though, the short answer is, "When you outnumber them by 6+ models, engage in melee." You need to wrap as Shire (even if you're using Dunedain) as it forces your opponent to shield more and gives you more chances to wound. This preserves your numerical advantage (as most guys who shield can't wound you) while also slowly chipping away at your opponent's elements.

A lot of these fights sport 2 hobbits against 1 uruk.
The Feral Uruk-Hai at the bottom isn't even engaged.

You should also engage when properly supported. The most basic part of this is when you have banner support (from Frodo, Will Whilfoot, and/or Bill the Pony if you ally in Barliman Butterbur from the Wanderers in the Wild list, which is a DIRT CHEAP WAY to get both a banner for 10pts plus a heal bot who also has decent Fight Value and Strength. You can't do this with the legendary legion though, FYI) as it gives you the equivalent of a spear support to win the fight. But it also means having the right mix of units: you want militia and shirriffs working in unison, with archers able to batter reinforcements, potentially pluck off spearmen, and other elements in place to join the attack once the fighting closes in earnest. 

Remember that you don't ever need to be everywhere on the map - Domination and Capture and Control have the most locations (5 or so), and you typically don't need to be at all of them, so keep your forces together as much as possible. This also means pair your heroes: Maggot and Holfoot work well with each other as a "hammer unit," while Merry and Frodo work really well together as an "anvil unit," absorbing attacks and still pulling out victories.

So think of your army as 3-4 groups consisting of multiple warbands, and then deploy them and use them in those groups. This means you may have some groups that could charge on a given turn but instead use their full movement to get fully behind an enemy formation, forcing the spear support to break off next turn to protect the banner, spellcaster, etc.

V.  In for a Penny

Perhaps the most important thing you need to remember is that once you've committed to the melee it's hard to extricate yourself unless you obliterate the enemy force. Since you only move 4" (the slowest in the game), unless you use the Bash special attack with your shirriffs/militia with hammers, knock every opponent down, and then run, you won't be escaping anyone regardless of whether you get priority unless you are in a wooded area against non-elves and non-Rangers.

What's more, since only three of your heroes (Holfoot Bracegirdle, Merry, and Pippin) have Heroic March, getting from one part of the battlefield to another is hard, so even if you do get out of the melee, getting to another fight to reinforce is hard.

This is why timing and planning the turn for your melee engagement is so key: once you're in, you're in for the long haul. So commit: don't hang back, don't play conservative, and overwhelm them with numbers and heroic support.

Your heroes are actually decently equipped to kill while being very cheap. While Sam is near Frodo he can call a Heroic Combat for free each turn if Frodo is engaged (and he can do this with 2 Attacks if he is near Rosie, and with +1 Fight Value if he's near Lotho). Pippin can reroll failed to wound rolls against heroes and monsters. Merry gets four dice to shield (as you should always take the shield) and can serve as a "bunker" for you while also giving you access to S4 militia if you Piercing Strike with their axes (all for only 5pts each). Frodo is a 6" banner, and you can additional banners through Will Whilfoot and Bill the Pony.

Holfoot provides no penalty for two-handing to shirriffs within 3" of him, so you can wound D6 frontline troops on 5s with his squad. Farmer Maggot has a two-handed scythe (which can Piercing Strike up to S3 with +1 to wound) and comes with three dogs who are S3 with 8" of movement (ideal for tagging people you don't want to fight like spellcasters). Farmer Cotton can use his Might Point and his pitchfork as a spear, allowing you to fight with heroes (and Might combats) from the safety of the second rank. Lotho Sackville-Baggins can spend Will to increase your Fight Value on your hobbits near him, and Gaffer Gamgee gives you flower pots to make your troops better.

So Shire fights differently from other forces: you have to synergize your heroes, but if you pull it off you can take on heroes far larger than you with a force far larger than theirs. So if you commit to fighting, go all-in. Don't hold back.

"But Centaur," you say, "What if my boys get slaughtered because I committed them?" I'm glad you asked - one final thought before we go...

VI.  Drop to 25% Quickly

If this is a match where the game ends based on dropping to 25% of your force, time the victory conditions so that when you get the upper hand (outnumbering them at places on the map and the like) you end the match soon afterwards. This also goes for random ends to the game after someone drops below 50% but obviously this is not as predictable, so keep that in mind. But with a Shire force that will likely outnumber your opponent 2:1 (maybe even 3:1 depending on the army you're up against), even if you lose half of your guys you're probably still outnumbering them on the field. And if you drop to a quarter, if you've been killing your opponent's people, there's a good chance that you're still outnumbering them even then.

So as a final bit of advice (and it sounds weird, but here it is), don't be afraid to drop to 25% quickly. You're one of the few armies that can get away with it, especially if you keep Merry (and a War Horn, if you took it) alive. Since hobbits start at Courage 3 and can get up to Courage 4 or 5, even if you break there's a good chance they'll stick around and refuse to flee the battlefield, Harbinger of Evil notwithstanding. And since you get a ton of heroes, there's also a good chance that you'll have ample Stand Fasts across the battlefield.

So don't be afraid to bleed guys - it can actually give you the win.

Conclusion

Playing Shire is bizarre compared to playing any other faction - there's really no other group in the game that plays like them. And yes, you'll hit those hard counters to your force (Dead of Dunharrow, Iron Hills, an All Dragon Moria force), but it is a fun list to play with, and I've never regretted taking them to a tournament in the past ten years that I've played the game. I hope that these thoughts inspire you as you bring them to the table,

Watching the stars,

Centaur

"(Your teacher) is a human...and is therefore blinkered and fettered by the limitations of your kind." ~ Firenze, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix