Jay Clare's Top 10 Slayer Heroes - Tiberius's Take

Good morning gamers,

A few weeks ago, Rythbyrt did a re-ranking of Jay Clare's Top 10 Slayers list for the Forces of Good. The MESBG community has had a lot to say about Jay's article (both here and on the rest of the interwebs), so I thought I'd provide a different way to evaluate the heroes on Jay's list. While Rythbyrt highlighted with pictures a lot of heroes who could have made the Top 10, I'm going to skip that and just focus on Jay's guys (most of them made my Top 15, so I think it's a pretty good list).

Methodology: Categories and Weights

Like Rythbyrt, we're looking at seven categories, but we're applying weights to them in order to make the two "Slayer" categories stand out more. I also decided that my ability to evaluate these heroes couldn't be done objectively if I took a subjective, feel-based approach (there are some heroes that I just want to see do well). Why didn't I feel like I could be objective?

Because I evaluated 178 profiles for the Forces of Good.

Yes, you heard me right - I evaluated heroes as powerful as Treebeard and as weak as Rosie Cotton. I did NOT evaluate Frodo of the Nine Fingers or Lobelia Sackville-Baggins because they couldn't wound anyone, and therefore are not slayers (somehow I doubt they would rank well even if they could). I could probably make a list of 50 models and say, "Yeah, I think I could rank these 50," but invariably, I'd miss someone, have to fit them in somewhere, and then look at the list at a later date and say, "Well, I know from experience that this hero is really good at killing things - I need to make room for him on the list." The iterations would never end and each time I'd probably feel like I got both closer to "what felt right" and farther from "what felt right". So to avoid all of that, I turned to math (and let whatever iterations fall where they would - for the record, I'm not happy with some of my rankings, but that is what it is).

My approach was to take the score that each model received in each category and weight them - assigning 33% of the final score a model got to their Hero Slaying score, 33% of the final score to the Troop Slaying score, and divide up the remaining 33% between the other five scores. These five other scores would serve to be tie-breakers between models that are "basically the same at killing heroes/warriors" or reward models who might be "a bit worse at killing" but are "better overall" than other models. In our list today, almost everyone ranked really well, so these tie-breakers were important for making distinctions between models, but didn't catapult models that were good at Empowerment/Cost over models that were good at killing heroes/warriors.

I will say that there was one feature that caused many heroes to jump in ranks over models that (personally) I think should have done better: the ability to get a mount. Horses are great - and as was mentioned in the comments on Rythbryt's post, they really should be more expensive as heroes get better because of the value that they add. In the metrics below, you'll see why this helps so much - they help you kill warriors better, they help you kill heroes better, and they increase your mobility. Sometimes, they even help you in other categories, but we'll cover that later.

Two other contributing factors were access to S5+ and bonuses To Wound. When talking about slayers, your ability to wound things is as important (if not more so) than your ability to win fights. As we'll see in the methodology section, being S5 or higher (most Good models aren't) was helpful, as was getting bonuses to your wounding rolls (note that many Rohan heroes get access to S5 while mounted and charging, and many men/Elves get bonuses To Wound from lances - yet another reason mounts help you).

One last thing I need to mention: the most important rule for a metric framework like this is that we want to see change - the actual scores don't matter half as much as whether there's variety in the scores. You can have all of the characters that Jay had in his list score an 8-10 in the killing categories, but if they're all "basically the same," then your actual rankings are nearly meaningless. As a result, if a character gets a 4-5, that doesn't mean they're bad - it just means that, relative to other heroes, they don't do quite as much.

Category #1: Hero Slaying (33% of final score)

When I first began this exercise, I said, "Okay, this one's easy: how likely is a model to beat and wound a Mordor Troll Chieftain." Mordor Troll Chieftains are good heroes - and their high Defense/Wounds means you have to work hard to kill them with most models. What I found out, though, was that Mordor Troll Chieftains are actually quite hard to beat. :) Instead of having everyone clumped at the bottom (as happened when I used a Troll Chieftain), I figured it would be better to find a hero that was easier to beat, had Strike (to make heroes with Strike do better than those without), and was decently hard (but not overly-hard) to wound. And so, I turned to Shagrat, Warleader - how likely are you to beat him in a duel and how many wounds can you deal to him if you win? The math worked out like this:

(Probability of Winning the Duel) x (Expected Number of Wounds)

Obviously there are modifiers in play here - here are a few that I considered:

• We assumed that all Striking models got +4 to their FV (including Shagrat);
• Mounted models get +1 Attack and got double-dice for knocking things down (we assume they charged and Shagrat is an infantry model - remember what I said above about horses?);
• Models get any To Wound bonuses that apply;
• If you have rerolls, then you have rerolls; and
• When models have multiple weapon options, I scored each and found whichever one scored the highest and said, "You're using that one."

Once I got everyone's scores, I made equal bands (the technical term for the values that define these bands is decile) and wherever you fell, that's the score you got. The resulting score is the expected number of wounds you should deal to Shagrat after factoring in how likely you are to win the fight. Here's how the points fell:

1. Score of 0.00-0.35 Wounds
2. Score of 0.35-0.70 Wounds
3. Score of 0.70-1.05 Wounds
4. Score of 1.05-1.40 Wounds
5. Score of 1.40-1.75 Wounds
6. Score of 1.75-2.10 Wounds
7. Score of 2.10-2.45 Wounds
8. Score of 2.45-2.80 Wounds
9. Score of 2.80-3.15 Wounds
10. Score of 3.15+ Wounds

Category #2: Warrior Slaying (33% of final score)

Our second category involves an all-too-common scenario for me: your hero is fighting 3 Uruk-Hai Scouts with shields. Uruks are powerful - and great grunts for killing heroes. At 9 points/model, Scouts aren't THAT cheap, but they are dangerous to heroes if the hero flubs a roll and the Uruks have a decent-enough Defense that they survive against 2A heroes pretty well. With 3 of them against you, they can be quite the handful to fight and kill off - even if you're a power-house hero like Aragorn or Gil-Galad. Our metric was as follows (very similar to what we did before):

(Probability of Winning the Duel) x (Expected Number of Wounds)

This rating is, once again, the expected number of wounds that you'll deal to three Uruk-Hai Scouts, factoring in whether you win the duel. The corpus of scores gave us our bands and you fell where you fell (the bands here are a little larger than what we saw with the hero-slaying category, but not by much):

1. Score of 0.0-0.4 Wounds
2. Score of 0.4-0.8 Wounds
3. Score of 0.8-1.2 Wounds
4. Score of 1.2-1.6 Wounds
5. Score of 1.6-2.0 Wounds
6. Score of 2.0-2.4 Wounds
7. Score of 2.4-2.8 Wounds
8. Score of 2.8-3.2 Wounds
9. Score of 3.2-3.6 Wounds
10. Score of 3.6+ Wounds

Category #3: Survivability (<7% of final score)

When I first started out, I asked, "How likely are you to be wounded by a Mordor Troll Chieftain?" The problem with this metric (again) was that Mordor Troll Chieftains are monsters - and because no sane Mordor Troll Chieftain player would wound a D8 model normally, he just Rended everyone. So, what we did was use the Hero-slaying scenario of fighting Shagrat and computed your likelihood of taking damage from Shagrat if you lost the duel (and how likely you were to save wounds with Fate). The math worked like this:

(Probability of SHAGRAT Winning the Duel) x (Expected Number of Wounds) - (Expected Passed Fate Saves)

This metric was weird to score, since a "good" value is going to be negative! Elrond, for example, isn't likely to lose very often to Shagrat if they both Strike and even when Shagrat wins, he needs to get past D7 and 3 rerollable Fate points (which, yes, I did calculate). A positive score means you're expected to take that many wounds from Shagrat (after burning through your Fate). A negative score means that you should be able to stop his damage with your Fate points and have X successful Fate saves left (so a score of -1 means you should have 1-2 Fate after Shagrat tries to wound you):

1. Score of 1.25-0.90
2. Score of 0.90-0.55
3. Score of 0.55-0.20
4. Score of 0.20-(-0.15)
5. Score of (-0.15)-(-0.40)
6. Score of (-0.40)-(-0.75)
7. Score of (-0.75)-(-1.10)
8. Score of (-1.10)-(-1.45)
9. Score of (-1.45)-(-1.80)
10. Score of (-1.80) and lower

Category #4: Mobility (<7% of final score)

This was probably the easiest category to compute: 

(Model's Max Movement - 3) + (Bonus points for movement-related special rules) 

This would give 1-9 points for a model (4" move models get 1 point, 12" move models get 9 points). We then awarded additional points for movement-related keywords (such as Woodland Creature and Mountain Dwellers), allowing the max score of the model to be up to 10 (Glorfindel has Fleetfoot and Woodland Creature, which would give him a score of 11 while riding Asfaloth, but we capped him at 10). Here's the scoring schema for reference:

1. 4" move
2. 5" move
3. 6" move
4. 7" move
5. 8" move
6. 9" move
7. 10" move
8. 11" move
9. 12" move

Category #5: Empowerment (<7% of final score)

In Rythbryt's article, this was the category that got the most critique - how do you value a hero's ability to make other people better? For this, I took the cop-out and said, "You need to have an auric buff - and your score is based on the size and permanence of that buff." The scoring worked like this:

2-6 points for buff radius + 1-4 points for buff permanence 

While Stand Fasts were considered (everyone scored something), most non-Stand-Fast buffs were better than the Stand Fast alternatives. Some heroes had more than one buff on them - when that happened, we took the one that scored the highest (Thranduil with the Circlet of Kings has a 6" Aura of Dismay AND a 6" banner radius for Mirkwood Cavalry AND a 3" radius for +1 To Wound to most armor-wearing Mirkwood models). Here's the scoring metric:

• 2 points for a buff with a 0-3" radius
• 4 points for a buff with a 3-6" radius
• 6 points for a buff with a 6-12" radius
• +1 point if the buff is a Stand Fast!
• +2 points if the buff is a one-turn ability (e.g. Will Whitfoot spending a Will point to count as a 3" banner for a turn)
• +3 points if the buff lasts as long as a heroic resource lasts (e.g. Aura of Command, Aura of Dismay)
• +4 points if the buff lasts as long as the character is alive

Category #6: Impact (<7% of final score)

Have you ever run into a special rule that you just say, "Man, that's going to bite . . ."? Have you ever run into a model that has several of those rules? Well, that's what we're rewarding here! 

5 + (bonus points for each special rule that falls within certain categories)

I gave everyone a base score of 5 and then chose ten categories of special rules that a model can have that do really good things for a model. For each rule they had (even if there were more than one in each category), 1 point was awarded, to a maximum of 10 points. Here are the categories:

• Rerolling To Wound (e.g. Bane of Kings, Venom, Ancient Enemies)
• Blades of the Dead
• Regaining Might points (e.g. Blood and Glory)
• Not getting a penalty To Wound (e.g. Burly, Weapon Master, Master Forged)
• Auto-passing Courage Tests (e.g. Fearless, Bodyguard, Sworn Protector)
• Bonuses To Wound (e.g. Hatred, Backstabbers)
• Multiple Wounds (e.g. Mighty Blow, "bane" weapons, Drain Soul)
• Free Heroic Resources (e.g. Mighty Hero, Master of Battle, free Heroic actions)
• Monstrous Charge
• Wild Card (a "great special rule" that wasn't well reflected in the previous categories, max of 1 from this cateogory)

The baseline of 5 was choose after looking at the results - no one had more than 5, so getting +5 to this metric worked out. Since we're doing an average of scores, these kinds of baseline points do make differences!

Category #7: Cost (<7% of final score)

This category was the most straight-forward: instead of evaluating how much value we were getting for free (like Rythbryt did), I took a simpler approach:

ROUNDDOWN{(Total cost of the model) / 25 } 

This metric causes more expensive models to get a lower score than cheaper models. As an example, Forlong the Fat on a horse is 90 points, so he would score a 7 (90 / 25 = 3.6, rounds down to 3, and 10 - 3 = 7). Models that cost more than 250 points get a 1 (none of the heroes we're viewing today cross that threshold, though a few models came very close). Models that include multiple heroes in the same profile got their prices reduced accordingly (e.g. Murin and Drar split 150pts evenly, the King's Champion was evaluated at 70pts to factor in two roughly 35pt Heralds).

Changes That Would Make A Difference

The first change that would really mess with the rankings would be to not allow mounts to be taken as additional wargear. Mounts are great and powerful - and they tend to alienate the killing power of good units that can't take mounts. This isn't to say that models without mounts can't kill anything (Celeborn, Gimli, and several members of Thorin's Company do just fine without mounts, even when compared to mounted characters), but most of my highest-ranked slayers were mounted - and I think there's a reason for that. 

A few problems arise from this kind of requirement: first, some heroes (like Dernhelm or any hero from certain Legions) come with horses automatically - allowing these units to be evaluated against models that HAVE to be on foot is not fair. Second, by banning horses, we get an unrealistic picture of how good certain heroes are compared to other heroes - and that would reduce the impact of this study.

Another change that could be made would be to swap Shagrat out for Amdur (with Bladewrath cast on him). Shagrat starts at F5 and has no Elven-made weapon, which means that if you change him for Amdur (marginal cost increase), you can a) remove the benefits of mounts because Amdur is likely mounted, b) make Elven-made weapons more valuable since those who get to F10 (like Amdur will) need to have the Elven-made weapon in order to do well, c) Amdur still boasts a high number of attacks with Strike, which means he'll be hard to tackle for models that don't have Strike or find it hard to get to F10, and d) if Amdur were to not have Kataphrakts nearby, he'd be D6, which would make the value of S5 less valuable. There are pros and cons to either hero - perhaps the true answer would be to evaluate both and take the average . . .

One final change that could be made: there wasn't a good way to measure Might in this metric - besides calling Heroic Strike/Strength. I could have had models choose between calling Heroic Strike and Heroic Defense (or calling Heroic Defense in general), but there are some heroes who get free Might every turn and heroes who have limited Might to begin with - and none of that is well reflected here. Perhaps expected Might per game would be good for a category (Impact, perhaps?), but whatever - all analytic models are wrong, but some are useful, eh?

With all that prologue, let's look at Jay's rankings!

#10: Durin - "Good Stats, Not Enough Dice" (Jay's #7)

So I'm going to admit this: my personal bias against Durin (I prefer Balin) didn't cause Durin to rank on the bottom. What did it more than anything else is that all of the other heroes can take mounts! Durin's hero slaying ability is not as good as most of the other heroes we're looking at because he only gets 3 dice to wound (wounding on 4s if you Piercing Strike, which I did), which translates into "only" 1.5 wounds against Shagrat. Since Durin Strikes from F6, he was more likely to have the higher Fight Value, which means he'll win the fight more often (especially with 4 dice to win the fight), but still not THAT great at killing heroes like Shagrat. If you deal 1 Wound every turn (which might be saved by Fate), you may burn through all of your Might just killing Shagrat - and then where will you be when you need to face someone else who can Strike from F4/5?

Durin is pretty good at killing Uruk-Hai, but he doesn't double his dice against them - so comparatively, his ability to kill troops is also limited. Recall what I said at the beginning: getting a 3-4 in the killing categories isn't bad - it just means there's a lot of room to improve.

While I think Durin is a great model, there are some aspects of his profile that just didn't compute very well. Durin's war horn, for example, could be counted as an Empowerment buff (and it would be a 10, since it's battlefield-wide and lasts as long as he's alive). I didn't count this for other heroes (like Forlong the Fat, who has both a war horn and a 6" reroll-1s-to-wound buff), but that leaves Durin with just his Stand Fast. I did the calculation and Durin jumped a few spots in my rankings, but was still nowhere near the other guys we're looking at today.

Another ability that wasn't well reflected here is his ability to reroll priority, which not only helps you get the charges you want, but also can deny enemy cavalry models (or models with Monstrous Charge) from being very dangerous. Against many of them, you can rely on your D9 to blunt any victory they get against you this round and avoid calling a Strike (saving Might for a turn when your opponent is out of Might). Yep, Durin is great - but it's not shown very well here. I chose to count this as his wild card bonus for Impact, alongside the rerolls he gets for his axe.

Durin's Survivability score could be higher if we didn't Piercing Strike, but we'd sacrifice our Hero/Troop slaying abilities by not being S5 (not sure it would actually result in a lower overall score, but to get the best possible offensive results, we chose to do it). Like Empowerment, this COULD have raised one of his numbers up a little, but not being S5 in our scenarios really hurts you (goes from wounding Shagrat on 4s and the Uruk-Hai Scouts on 3s to wounding Shagrat on 5s and the Uruk-Hai Scouts on 4s - still pretty good, but not as good as it would be otherwise). So, I opted for the Piercing Strike.

There are two stats though that can't be helped: Mobility (he's a Dwarf without a mount) and Cost (he's 160 points with no optional gear choices). Both of these are going to be low and there's nothing you can do about it - the Cost isn't THAT low, but will run you about the same cost as some of the other heroes in this list who are mounted (increasing their mobility score) and do massive damage (usually at S5 with +1 To Wound). Considering that Dain (more on him in a bit) costs the same number of points while mounted on his war boar, it's little wonder why Durin wasn't much higher . . .

#9: Eomer, Marshal of the Riddermark - "Good-Enough Point Efficiency" (Jay's #9)

I'll be honest, I didn't expect Eomer to rank very well - and for a long time, he was around the same level as Durin! After all was said and done, of the ten models that Jay chose, I ranked Eomer . . . ninth . . . the same as Jay did . . . fancy that.

Eomer is capped at F5 no matter what list he's in (except for one turn in the Men of the West LL), he doesn't have a lance, and he's "just got 3 Attacks/Wounds/Might/Will/Fate." By all rights, he shouldn't be very good. I originally scored him in the Riders of Theoden and vanilla Rohan lists, but one morning I had an epiphany: let's view Eomer in the Riders of Eomer Legendary Legion!

How would a Legion as "bad" as that one help Eomer look his best? Well, he still gets the Strength +1 on the charge to be S5 (important for this evaluation), he gets 4 Attacks on the charge (which is more than Shagrat, giving him a slight edge against him), and he has the "good" Defensive stats of D7 with 3 Fate points to avoid taking damage.

What he ADDS by coming from this Legion is a 12" Strength +1 buff to friendly Riders, which gives him a 10 on the Empowerment score (instead of a 5 for his normal stand fast). He also has to be cheaper than 125pts, so he'll lock into Cost 6 instead of reaching Cost 5 (every little bit helps).

When we look at his hero-slaying ability, Eomer begins at the same Fight Value as Shagrat, which means he's going to tie Shagrat's Fight Value in this evaluation. His extra die for being on the charge gives him a slight edge for winning the fight (not quite as likely as Durin is, but pretty close). Like Durin when he uses Piercing Strike, Eomer will be S5 on the charge - but while Durin gets 3 dice to wound (looking for 4s), Eomer gets 8 dice to wound (looking for 5s). With an expected 3 wounds against Shagrat, Eomer not only has a good chance of wounding Shagrat, but he could kill Shagrat (if his Fate has already been depleted OR if the dice gods hate him).

When we turn to warrior-slaying, you see a pretty similar story: Eomer's base F5 is good enough to beat the Uruk Fight Value without calling a Strike, he will roll more dice than them, AND he'll wound them on 4s with double-dice for knock-down. Because Eomer is expected to get twice the number of wounds as Durin, his Troop Slaying score is twice as high as Durin's score.

Eomer's other stats are pretty simple to explain: his Survivability is higher because he can avoid taking damage better with 3 Fate instead of 1 Fate and a 6+ save. His Mobility score speaks for itself (10" move, maybe he should have gotten credit for Expert Rider?), and his Empowerment score is based on the 12" Strength +1 on the charge. His Impact score is . . . the default score, since he has no applicable rules in this Legion to give him extra oomph. We've already mentioned that we get some great Cost savings with this version of Eomer - 120pts makes him the cheapest guy on this list.

#8: Boromir, Captain of the White Tower - "Lance Good, Banner So-So" (Jay's #2)

So I need to start off with this: I think GBHL great Jasmine Tetley is the only person who advises people to take the lance on Boromir instead of the Banner of Minas Tirith (EDIT: Captain Fantastic said it too - my mistake). I computed Boromir's scores with a lance and he jumped quite a bit higher in my ranking system by doing that (for reasons we'll see in a moment). Remember that your ability to kill Shagrat and Uruk-Hai Scouts (D7 and D5) were the primary ways to score well - and to score well in the Hero slaying and Troop slaying categories (worth 66% of your final score), you needed to kill as well as the best people on the block. That meant that Boromir needed the lance to compete - so that's what he got.

His Mobility and Survivability scores don't suffer for not having the banner (marginal loss due to not getting the fifth die to win the fight on the survivability category, but it didn't make a big difference). By contrast, his Cost stat increased a little (+1) and his Empowerment stat didn't change at all by taking the lance - not because Boromir has an innate buff that is 6" and lasts as long as he's alive (which you would get from the banner), but because Osgiliath Veterans within 6" get a +1 FV while he's alive (maybe there is a case for taking them . . . or not). Even if you don't count the Osgiliath Veteran bubble, you'd drop from an 8 to a 5 in a category that's not worth that much of your score - while increasing two categories that help your score a lot (I think it's a good trade).

His Impact score and Cost score were pretty low regardless of his kit - without the banner, he's still 180 points (horse + shield + lance), which is pretty high (though on-par for this group). He got the wild card point for Impact, which is due to his Horn of Gondor (the impact COULD have been computed against the Uruks and gotten him some help - but he was already beating them most of the time, so it wouldn't have improved his final ranking much).

Survivability is great, mostly because a D7 model with 3 Fate is unlikely to take anything from Shagrat - especially when you roll 4 dice in the duel for being on the charge (rerolling 1 for the banner if you took it, for a total of 5 dice to win the fight) and Strike up to F10. Boromir isn't likely to get carved up by Shagrat, so he scores well. Turns out all the other guys score well too here, so it's not that big of a deal in the final rankings.

Since Rythbryt and Jay both evaluated Boromir with the banner, I evaluated him with it as well - you'll see those scores above. Your ability to kill heroes and troops is "fine" - you're taking this version of Boromir for his augmenting abilities and his ability to tie down enemy heroes (and maybe kill them). I am sad that this scoring paradigm didn't reward Boromir for having the banner as much as it could have (again, all analytic models are wrong, but some are useful).

#7: Thranduil - "Fast With LOADS Of Attacks And Buffs" (Jay's #6)

If you look closely at the scores for Boromir and Thranduil, they're nearly identical! Both are 6/8 in the hero/troop slaying categories, both have the same Impact/Survivability/Empowerment scores, and both are about the same Cost. So what elevates Thranduil above Boromir?

For starters, Thranduil has great mount options - while his horse is fine, I evaluated him with his Elk, which is a better value than you get from the horse. This mount not only boosts Thranduil's Strength on the charge (getting him to S5 - which was good for this specific set of scenarios), but also benefits from Fleetfoot, which is great if you are hiding from enemy archers. Boromir can do this kind of damage on a normal horse for less points, but it does require him to take a lance instead of his banner.

Second, Thranduil has two Elven-made swords with bonus attacks when outnumbered. Just taking the extra sword makes Thranduil F7/3A, which puts him on-par with Boromir while he's carrying his banner. While Thranduil doesn't have a banner rule for himself, he does get to 4 Attacks if he's dismounted (and potentially more than that if he's outnumbered - which he would be if he were dismounted by the Uruk-Hai Scouts). While not well-reflected in the scenarios we've done here, Thranduil's Elven-made weapon keyword gives him an edge should he and the person he's fighting tie high Fight Values (either after a Strike-off or because Thranduil is fighting a Mordor Troll that is F7 and can't Strike).

Third, Thranduil is a more flexible hero when it comes to dealing with other heroes. With an Elf bow (that hits on a 2+ while standing still), Thranduil can dismount enemy heroes before they reach him or pluck enemy warriors off of objectives that are too far for him to charge. Similarly, Thranduil provides a mixture of auric buffs, varying from Aura of Dismay (auto-cast once per game) to bonuses To Wound for the armored units of the Halls of Thranduil. Thranduil does a lot of bubble benefits for his team - and while Boromir does two bubble benefits with his banner, Thranduil does three bubble benefits (Aura of Dismay, +1 To Wound, banner bonus for Mirkwood Cavalry) just by purchasing the Circlet of Kings. Yep, I think he's just better.

One point in favor of Boromir is that he has 6 Might, while Thranduil only has 3 Might. This is certainly a compelling argument for why Boromir might be a better choice, but if they were dueling against each other, I'd have a hard time believing that Boromir came out on top (unless he won the first roll-off with a disadvantage - Boromir would have to take out the Elk so Thranduil wounds him on 6s instead of 5s (and Boromir would actually have more Attacks if he can get the charge on Thranduil). Still, I said at the beginning that Might isn't well-represented in this methodology, so there's probably a case for Boromir being a tad better. 

Okay, back to the stats and out of the speculations: Thranduil and Boromir kill stuff about the same. When it comes to Hero Slaying, both reach F10 more often than Shagrat and get 4 Attacks on the charge with 8 dice that wound on 5s. Thranduil has Elven-made weapons, which would have helped more if we did a distribution of Fight Values, but as it is gives him an in-game advantage that we didn't compute here. When it comes to Troop Slaying, both beat Uruk-Hai Scouts in both dice count and Fight Value - and both will knock them over and wound them on 4s. All told, pretty good and even killers . . . if Boromir has his lance.

Thranduil scores higher in Mobility because of his keywords (Fleetfoot, Woodland Creature). His Empowerment score reflects his 6" banner benefit for Mirkwood Cavalry (which scored slightly higher than Aura of Dismay, which scores slightly higher than the +1 To Wound buff). His Survivability is on-par with Boromir's because Shagrat is S5, so the difference between being D6 and D7 is non-existent. Thranduil's cost is just below 200, which means he'll get the same Cost score as Boromir (who came in at just under 200 with his lance). Finally, both heroes got +1 for Impact because they have special rules that are really good (Boromir has the Horn of Gondor, while I credited Thranduil with his Circlet of Kings, since it didn't factor into any other categories and we paid for it).

#6: Helm Hammerhand - "I Killed A Man With THIS THUMB!" (Jay's #8)

Okay, this is our first S5 model with +1 To Wound and a mount - recall I said at the beginning this is a really powerful combo. Well, here's why: when Helm Hammerhand tackles the Hero Slaying test, he wounds Shagrat on 4s with eight dice - if he wins, he's supposed to deal FOUR WOUNDS! That's crazy (guaranteed to deal at least 1 Wound - if not kill the guy). Helm can Strike from F5, just like Shagrat, so if he has the charge, the higher dice count will help him win slightly more often. When it comes to Troop Slaying, Helm gets four sets of double dice wounding on THREES! That's three dead Uruks if he wins - pretty reliably, even if you flub one set of rolls.

When it comes to the other stats, Helm is both impressive and . . . well, underwhelming. Helm's Survivability score is a lot worse than Boromir's or Thranduil's because a) he's likely to tie Shagrat's Fight Value instead of "just beating it" and b) he only has 1 Fate point. Shagrat wounds Helm the same as he wounds Thranduil or Boromir (on 5s), which means if he is more likely to win fights against Helm than the other two guys, he's going to deal more damage initially to Helm (and fewer of those wounds can be saved). Yep, Survivability isn't great.

His other stats are pretty good though: he's got a similar Cost to most models in this list (3), and he's got a "good-but-not-great" Mobility score of 7 for having a 10" move horse. His Empowerment score is good at 8, since he gives a +1 Fight Value buff to friendly Rohan models within 6" of him. This isn't as good as Eomer's bubble range, but on-par or better than the other models we've covered so far. Finally, he has a very impressive Impact score of 8, thanks to having Burly, Mighty Hero (thanks to his Legion bonus), and a bonus point for having a war horn that gives him Terror.

#5: Elendil - "I'm Like Helm - But Better" (Jay's #5)

So let's start off by saying that I agreed with Jay on this one (out of the guys he chose) - way to go, me!

Yep, we're in the Top 5 and we've jumped up to a 9 in Hero Slaying (still a 10 at Troop Slaying). Elendil has a lot of the features that Helm has, but slightly better: both are S5 with +1 To Wound, both have high Defense with 1 Fate, and both have potent keywords with nice area buffs. There are some key differences between these heroes though: Elendil is F7 instead of F5, which means he's likely to stay ahead of Shagrat's Fight Value if he Strikes (and is more likely to get to F10). While Helm is D7, Elendil can either be D7 or D8 (depending on whether he two-hands or not). Since we gave him the +1 To Wound on offense, we rated Elendil as D7 on defense, but his slightly higher FV results in winning fights more often, causing him to push the next bracket and upping his Survivability a bit higher than Helm's.

Both Helm and Elendil have the same Mobility and Empowerment scores: both ride horses (Helm has Horselord, which is not THAT great of a rule if you're spending your only Fate point to protect your mount), so both get a score of 7. Both heroes also have 6" buffs that last as long as they're alive (Helm gives +1 Fight Value, while Elendil grants Resistant to Magic). When we view their Impact scores, Elendil has the Master-forged keyword to match Helm's Burly, he has free Heroic Combats to match Helm's Mighty Hero (which isn't a true match, but free Might nonetheless), and both have special rules that fill the wild card slot (the Horn of the Hammerhand for Helm, and Unbending Resolve for Elendil). Yep, pretty equal footing for these guys.

There is one category where Helm came out the winner though: Cost. Elendil with the full kit just clips 200 points - and we COULD have increased his score a little by not giving him the shield (since it isn't doing anything in this evaluation). Frankly, though, I think most people take the shield to keep him safe from archery (and just in case you need to NOT two-hand and claim the D8 - something I wish I was able to do when I went to Brawler Bash, where I didn't take the shield). Elendil is a great hero - but there are a few categories that bring his overall score down, so to see who beat this powerful lord of Numenor, we turn our attention to . . .

#4: Gil-Galad - "Striking Is For Wimps" (Jay's #4)

We're three-of-seven in agreement with Jay - fancy that!

If you were looking for someone to topple Elendil, it's his old buddy Gil-Galad (who ranked a few spots higher on Rythbyrt's chart). With Gil-Galad, I ran into an interesting problem, where his Strength wasn't good enough to wound Shagrat well (S4 only allows Gil-Galad to wound D7 on 5s). Since he's F9, I broke from the usual Heroic Strike game, relied on the Elven-made weapon to win the roll-off, and called Heroic Strength instead.

When we look at Hero Slaying, Gil-Galad's Lord of the West rule comes in clutch, giving us the ability to roll 5 dice to win the fight with F9 and an Elven-made weapon (pretty good chance of winning the fight) and he's got an estimated S6 with Heroic Strength and +1 To Wound from Aiglos (which is the same wounding potential as Elendil and Helm against D7 models). Add in a reroll to one of those dice, which makes the wounding probability a little higher. Unfortunately, relying on a roll-off instead of just having the higher Fight Value wasn't enough to carry Gil-Galad to a 10 in Hero Slaying, so he remained about the same score. Troop slaying is easy for Gil-Galad - running Uruks of any kind is easy when you're S6 and have 5 dice to win the fight and eight dice to wound (rerolling a failed roll). Needless to say, he gets full marks on this one!

The other categories saw a more balanced score than Elendil: both he and Elendil scored a 5 for Survivability, which we said was the result of having only 1 Fate point that is balanced by a high Defense value (D8) and a high probability of winning the fight. His Mobility and Cost scores are a point better than Elendil, because Gil-Galad gets credit for having Woodland Creature (doesn't benefit him while on horse) and comes it at under 200 points. Gil-Galad scored slightly worse than Elendil on Impact because Gil-Galad doesn't have a 6" buff that lasts as long as he's alive but instead gets credit for his 12" Stand Fast (which only gives 7 points). Perhaps there should have been a way to account for getting F6 troops, but oh well . . .

The Empowerment category was tricky: he has Blood and Glory for extra Might (which encourages him to fight heroes, while Elendil would prefer to carve through warriors with his free Heroic Combats) and we gave him a Wild Card bonus point for having Lord of the West (which, like Unbending Resolve) makes Gil-Galad really nasty. However, without the no-penalty rules, he just comes in a little behind Elendil. We could have given him an extra point for Aiglos giving him +1 To Wound without penalty, but it wouldn't have increased his final ranking at all.

#3: Dwalin, Champion of Erebor - "More Affordable, No Lack in Killing Power" (Jay's #10)

Okay, it's time for me to eat my hat and admit that this version of Dwalin did better than most heroes in the list. When I read Jay's article, I thought "Tenth seems about right." As I refined the math, I slowly saw Dwalin crawl up the rankings, until he settled here at #3. Here's why . . .

Dwalin is going to Strike from F6, which is good enough in many cases to beat Shagrat's Fight Value. With S5, a two-handed axe, and TWO rules that give him no penalty to wielding his two-handed axe (take that, Floi), Dwalin has incredible killing power. Pair this with a war goat, and you've got killing power that is on-par with the likes of Elendil and Helm. As such, both his Hero Slaying and Troop Slaying scores are on par with them, but he pulls away in the other categories.

Let's start with Survivability: Dwalin's 2 Fate makes him more likely to blunt the attacks of Shagrat (though admittedly, we didn't factor in the 2 Wounds that Dwalin has and the 3 Wounds that the other heroes have). With D8 (better than Helm and Elendil if Elendil is wielding Narsil two-handed), he's a tough nut to crack, further reducing his damage intake. Dwalin also excelled in the Cost category, being only more expensive than Eomer from his Legion (5 points less). 

His most obvious excelling point, however, is his Impact score, getting a perfect 10! Some of these rules are sort of redundant (having both Burly and Weapon Master), but it means that he's resilient to models like Floi Stonehand who might try to take his rules away or models like the Blackshield Shaman, who might try to break Dwalin's weapons (though there are three of them, so you'd have to be on fire with your Shatter rolls). Dwalin continues the redundancy scoring rules by having both Sworn Protector (Thorin, King Under the Mountain) and Fearless (which means there are some redundancies against Floi OR an unexpected flash-bang-kill against Thorin). His final point comes from his ability to swap weapons to get 4 Attacks with no +1 To Wound, which makes him marginally better at killing average-Defense troops (as you get more dice and aren't improving your wounding potential that much by wounding better).

Dwalin does fall short in two categories: for Mobility, he's on an 8" move War Goat, so his score is lower than horse-riding heroes, though the goats have Mountain Dwellers, which gives Dwalin a 6 instead of a 5. This is still lower than the 7s that were seen on the horse-riding heroes we've covered so far (and one of the models still to come), but not bad. Similarly, Dwalin (for all his combat prowess, relative inexpensiveness, and impact on the game) has no auric buffs, so he gets the default 5 points for having a 6" Stand Fast. That's all - if you want the same kind of damage output from someone with big bubble buffs, look no further than . . .

#2: Dain Ironfoot - "Team Player Version of Dwalin" (Jay's #3)

Shall we start with the fact that this guy has FOUR categories that are 9s or 10s? I'm pretty sure that if I averaged evenly the scores for these guys, Dain would be on-top. Dain is, in many ways the perfect hero for this challenge - let's see what he does.

You know all that stuff we've been saying about S5 heroes who get +1 To Wound while mounted and charging? Well, Dain's got all that. With a base F6 (like Dwalin), he's as likely as Dwalin is of beating Shagrat (or Uruk-Hai Scouts, for that matter) and his S5 with eight dice to Wound on 4s will deal a massive toll against the Uruk hero (and warriors). Dain has an advantage over other heroes we've evaluated in that he has Master of Battle (4+), so half the time Shagrat Strikes, Dain can Strike for free - that'll make those 3 Might points go a lot further than you'd think! Hero Slaying and Troop Slaying? Check.

When it comes to Survivability, Dain is the first hero we've viewed who has D8 AND 3 Fate points - which puts him in the same survivability band as heroes like Mega-Boromir (D7 with 3 Fate) and Thranduil (D6 with 3 Fate), both of whom are quite likely to win fights because of all the dice they're rolling, despite having lower actual Defense than Dain. Dain is, in many ways, more survivable than either of these guys because he has a very tough mount to kill (D6 with 2 Wounds), so attacks directed as his pig will result in fewer attacks against his person. Sure, he doesn't have Horselord (or Boarlord?), but who needs THAT!?!?!?

Cost was a category that Dain did very well in because of our system: at 160 points, he came in higher than most of the heroes we've covered so far (not Eomer or Dwalin) and packs a whollop for that cost! Compared to him, Durin is . . . well, not close to being #3 (sorry Khazad-Dum brothers). Similarly, Dain did alright (not spectacular) in Mobility, since he's on an 8" move mount, which gives him incredible killing power and decent movement. Compared to other people on this list, Dain is in the bottom half, but compared to many models (especially Dwarf heroes), the 8" movement is quite nice.

But it's in the final two categories (Empowerment and Impact) that you really see Dain shine: with a 12" Fearless buff for Iron Hills models, Dain can be the center of a storm that fears no monsters, spooky front lines, or tricksy Spectres or Sentinels. Killing Dain (as I've tried to do a time or two) is pretty difficult, even if he's being thrown without any caution into your front ranks. Sure, he can cave to magic, but there's very little in the way of shooting or combat that scares him. When it comes to evaluating Impact, Dain's got a lot of scary keywords: Burly (for that free +1 To Wound), Master of Battle (on a 4+, but still), Fearless (which he passes along to his team as well), and the Wild Card category (shall we give it to him for his Head-Butt ability to knock a model prone on a turn when he didn't charge - or perhaps the fact that he gets Terror?). Yep, high marks in both categories - and a very powerful hero.

To be honest, the final score for Dain was tied for first, but I had to give him second because I couldn't justify an upset of (who I think we'd all assume is) the best Good hero model in the game . . .

#1: Aragorn, King Elessar - "I'm The King - Of Course I'm #1" (Jay's #1)

No surprise, right? Elessar is amazing - Anduril with a mount makes Aragorn do outrageous damage to heroes and warriors, he's got a good defensive suite, some great auric buffs and keywords, and access to a horse. Yep, he's really good.

The race between him, Dain, and Dwalin was actually quite close - until I let Elessar two-hand with Anduril (and then it was all over). Aragorn is a powerful - yet expensive - hero and I think he deserves top billet no matter who shows up. He's not as good as Dain in Empowerment/Impact/Cost, but he's at least as good in the other categories and when it comes to general killing, he's just better. Let's look at a few reason why.

When evaluating Hero Slaying, King Aragorn has Anduril (always wounds on 4s, unless it would be better than that). As such, there's almost no reason to call a Heroic Strength (like we had to do with Gil-Galad) UNLESS you are fighting a mdoel with Defense 3-5 and you want to wound the model on 3s (or 2s if you two-hand). Against Shagrat, you have 4 Attacks on the charge AND a banner reroll to beat his three dice. You can Strike for free thanks to having Mighty Hero - and with a higher base Fight Value, it's pretty likely to go your way. When it comes to wounding, you can wound Shagrat on 4s with eight dice (like everyone else) OR you can two-hand (being willing to spend an actual Might point to boost your roll) if you want to wound on 3s on eight dice. Chances of killing Shagrat? Pretty good.

Similarly, what are your chances of killing a few Uruk-Hai Scouts? Please . . . Troop Slaying is a given. There are other categories that are pretty obvious: at 240 points (including the mount), Aragorn gets the absolute lowest score possible for Cost: 1. Similarly, he "just has a horse," so his Mobility stat is going to be 7. Survivability? Give him the same score you gave Eomer, because he's D7 with 3 Fate points (and Horselord, come to think of it) and pretty likely to win the duel (more likely than Eomer, as well). 

Like Dain, it was the other two stats that were the most interesting for Elessar: in Empowerment, Aragorn has a 6" banner bonus (for 8 points). This could have been improved to a 10 if we took Elessar from the Men of the West LL (where he has a battlefield-wide Bodyguard rule), but we'd lose points on his damage output (for not getting double-dice for knock-down and having -1 Attack) as well as his mobility (and not seeing an improvement in his cost). For Impact, Elessar's got a lot of good rules, but the only ones that get credit are Mighty Hero and the Wild Card (which we could assign for any number of things, but I'm going to chalk it up to all of the heroic actions we didn't account for, like Heroic Defense and Heroic March - which almost no one in this list has). 

Final Thoughts

So, all told (and a bit to my surprise), I agreed with Jay on nearly half the models - if these were the only models to consider. Don't want to spoil anything from our upcoming podcast on this topic, but six of these models were in my Top 10 and nine of them were in my Top 15, so I think the list was really good. There are some models that I think were pretty flagrant omissions from the list, but we'll get into that when we do the Slayers podcast. Until next time, happy hobbying!