Overly Pedantic Stats: The Ten WORST Slayers (Evil)

 Hey Reader!

In our last post we looked at the top ten worst slaying heroes for the Forces of Good. Since Rythbryt has taken his look at Jay Clare's list of the top ten slayers for the Forces of Evil and then did his follow-up post on the top three in greater depth, in the same vein as our last post we will be looking at something completely different: the absolute WORST evil slayers in the game. 

In this post we continue by looking at the stats to find the "top ten" worst slayers for the Forces of Evil. These models fall under the same parameters as our last post: the models must be capable of dealing wounds (which actually doesn't prevent anyone from making this list - I guess that makes sense for evil models?), the model must be a hero, and all troop types (siege weapons, monsters, etc.) are on the table. As you can imagine, no monsters made this list.

We will be looking at five categories for this, as we always do: hero slaying capabilities (to show how well you kill heroes), troop slaying capabilities (for how well you chew through armies), defensive capabilities (for staying power to keep killing things), support capabilities (for making it easier for people to kill around you), and mobility (to get into range to kill stuff, be that at range or in melee).

So with no further ado, the literal WORST evil killers in the game!

The Stuff of Legends: The Riders of Eomer

Good morning gamers,

Last time we looked at the Riders of Theoden Legendary Legion - one of the most prolific and beloved Rohan Legendary Legions. Today we look at one of the LEAST loved Rohan Legendary Legions (and the most profile-restrictive Legendary Legion to date - narrowly edging out the Return of the King and Lurtz's Scouts Legendary Legions). Does limited choices mean a "worse" Legion? Today, Centaur takes us through this remarkable Legion and some of the neat tricks you can pull out of the hat with it - take it away, Centaur!

Part 1: What Do You Need?

Legion Tax: 110-120pts

Centaur: You have to take Eomer, Third Marshal of the Riddermark on horse (and a 110-120pt Eomer at that, so you do save some points), but in truth, if you're giving up the Arise, Riders of Theoden! bonus and the universal charge bonus, you should be taking Gandalf too. This means that the list is far more effective in higher points games, though even at 500pts (as you'll see in a moment), having Gandalf dramatically changes things as he's really hard to beat in lower points games. So the "requirements" for the list, to be fair, are steep, but probably worth it.

Overly Pedantic Stats: The Ten WORST Slaying Heroes (Good)

 Hey Reader!

We were blessed a few months ago with Jay Clare's thoughts about the best slayers in the game, and I've really enjoyed seeing everyone's take on it. Whether that's Rythbryt's analysis or Tiberius's analysis (both of which have good math and metrics behind them), or comments in Facebook groups and on YouTube, I've really enjoyed seeing the love shown to so many models in the game, and that just speaks to the quality of the models that have been made for our game. 

So a huge thank you to the team at GW for making all of this possible, :)

But some models suck at wounding, and since literally NO ONE asked for that, we're going to use some overly pedantic stats to bring to you the absolute WORST slayers in the game, starting with the Forces of Good.

We have two rules for this competition. First, you must be capable of wounding, so no, Frodo of the Nine Fingers, Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, and Goldberry will not be doing a three-way tie for #1. You must be capable of wounding, but not be very good at it. 

Second, you must be a hero to be considered: we will not be looking at warrior models for this competition. This means we will be considering siege veterans, but the model must be a hero in order to count for the competition. No surprises to anyone, no monsters made this list, but we have left it open to hero monsters in case one of them was somehow atrocious at killing things.

We will be looking at five categories for this, as we always do, but a little different this time (as cost doesn't play as much into this equation): hero slaying capabilities (to show how well you kill heroes), troop slaying capabilities (for how well you chew through armies), defensive capabilities (for staying power to keep killing things), support capabilities (for making it easier for people to kill around you), and mobility (to get into range to kill stuff, be that at range or in melee).

So with no further ado, the literal WORST killers in the game!

The Stuff of Legends: The Riders of Theoden

Good morning gamers,

Today we continue our review of Legendary Legions from Gondor at War (we've already looked at the Men of the West, the Grey Company, and the Army of Gothmog) and we turn our attention to one of the most popular legions from that sourcebook: the Riders of Theoden. While many of the Legions from Gondor at War have remained popular years after its release (the Return of the King LL, the Black Gate Opens LL, and the newly-revamped Rangers of Ithilien LL among the front-runners), the Riders of Theoden is not only a good Legion for new players to try out (since you only need the starter box to get going), but remains one of the most competitive ways to play Rohan (even after Gamling's banner got nerfed). To be honest, this is a Legendary Legion that needs very little introduction - if you've played the game a few times, chances are you've played with or against this Legion.

Because everyone's probably run into this Legion before, I sent this article to one of the Legion's greatest advocates, Lachlan Linton-Keane from Zorpazorp (which, if you haven't run across his stuff on YouTube, you really need to give them a watch)! Lachie has great videos for MESBG (as well as other tabletop game systems) and great videos for terrain building, tournaments, and Battle Companies. Amidst all of these videos is the clear impression that if Lachie had another choice, he'd have been born on the plains of Rohan in the Third Age. He also sells terrain supplies (including free templates for the Minas Tirith project he's been working on with the community), so check out his store and support one of MESBG's flagship entrepreneurs! I'll be highlighting Lachie's thoughts where they differ from my own - and with that, let's dig into this Legendary Legion!

Part 1: What Do You Need?

Legion Tax: 100pts

The only model you NEED is Theoden, King of Rohan (who comes with the kitchen sink and weighs in at a very affordable 100 points). A mega combat hero Theoden is not, but his 12" Fight Value buff to Riders of Rohan, Rohan Royal Guards, and the seldom-seen-in-this-list-Captains-of-Rohan is quite useful (and is critical to how the list works). His ability to call "Death!" at the start of one Fight Phase makes him an essential piece to keep safe early in the game as well (I mean, it's one of the reasons to take this Legion over the vanilla Rohan build). With F5/S4/2 Attacks when charged and F5/S5/3 Attacks and the knock-down on the charge, Theoden has the potential to do some pretty nasty damage to enemy warriors.

But Theoden, like Gothmog (who we discussed last time), isn't an anti-hero power-piece. While he can Feint (reroll 1s at the cost of -D3 Fight Value) even when his starting Fight Value is lower (useful), he CAN fight enemy heroes, but with only 2 Wounds/1 Fate and "only" Defense 7, he's not THAT resilient (plus any wounds he suffers will give your opponent victory points in most scenarios AND he's important for your army buffs). This shouldn't be taken as a big critique - lots of Rohan heroes are D7 with 2 Wounds/1 Fate, so "it's to be expected."

Armies of Middle Earth SBG: Re-ranking Jay Clare's Top-10(ish) Evil Combat Heroes, Part II (the Big Three)

Photo Credit: alswns3421.deviantart.com

Last week, I took a stab at re-ranking Jay Clare's top-10 combat models for the forces of evil. We got as far as #4 before I had to call it quits, because blogger (quite literally) wouldn't post the rest of my thoughts on the top-3. So I'm back, as promised, to finish the set.

Before jumping into that, however, I have a little clean-up to do on the other rankings. After posting, Sharbie reminded me that Bolg also has access to Master of Battle if he's taken from Azog's legion and is your army leader (I'd plumb forgot, because our local scene always has Azog leading Azog's Legion--go figure). In Azog's case, having Master of Battle was good for another point in four categories (Troop Slayer, Hero Slayer, Mobility, and Impact). Bolg got max scores already in one of those categories (Troop Slayer), but since I'm trying to apply these already-subjective criteria as consistently as possible, I went ahead and gave Bolg a +1 point boost in the other three categories. 

On further reflection, I also thought that while I've never managed to get Bolg all ten of the kills he needs to unlock the Mighty Hero achievement, the possibility of Mighty Hero + Master of Battle on the same model was probably worth at least a +1 boost to his Empowerment score (I made it 1.5 to get to an even "6"), and also probably worth at least a slight bump to his cost score (given that he costs so much less than Azog does, and with Master of Battle + Mighty Hero, he may actually be be better than Azog). So here's Bolg's new platinum-level card, as well as his updated score breakdown:

Score Break-down:

• Hero kills (10): Base 8 (F7, 3 Attacks); +1 for Burly; +0.5 for The Bringer of Death (Mighty Hero if you get to 10+ kills); +1 for Master of Battle (potential free Strikes).
• Troop kills (10): Base 8 (F7, 3 Attacks); +1 for Burly; +1 for mount option; +0.5 for The Bringer of Death (Mighty Hero if you get to 10+ kills); +1 for Master of Battle (potential free Heroic Combats).
• Toughness (8.5): Base 6 (3.5 combined Wounds/Fate (3/1)); +1 for Defense 7; +0.5 for Master of Battle (potential free Heroic Defenses); +1 for Terror / Harbinger of Evil (1 and 5 kills with The Bringer of Death).
• Mobility (9): Base 6 (10" move); +1 for Fell Sight; +1 for 3 Will; +1 for Master of Battle (potential free Heroic Moves).
• Empowerment (6): Base 6 for The Bringer of Death (Mighty Hero if you get to 10+ kills).
• Impact (10): Fight 6 heroes don't like Bolg (he has a whole trick named after him that makes suckers of Fight 6 heroes). Striking monsters have to be careful around him, too--at Fight 7, he's got the base fight of most striking monsters (Dragons, Troll Chieftains, Bill/Bert) and at Strength 5 with Burly he wounds most of them (D7 or less) on 4s. He can't Rend them, so that works in their favor; but if they can't one-shot him, they're likely to lose some blood.
• Cost (6.5): Blog is very expensive, but he's way cheaper mounted than Azog is mounted, and if you do manage to tier The Bringer of Death all the way up (and pair that with Master of Battle from the Azog's legion army bonus), he's arguably as good or better than Azog, at a much lower points cost. You don't always have those two upgrades, but I did feel the potential of getting them was worth a slight cost boost.

Laid out like that, I think it's pretty clear I underrated Bolg last time around (but only if he's the leader of Azog's Legion--if you're running him just in Azog's Hunters--or if Azog is around and the Army Leader--I'm not sure I'm sold). What's less clear is where this version of Bolg slots in the final pecking order. On the one hand, I still have some reservations about putting a 3 Wound, 1 Fate orc on a 1 wound, Defense 4 Warg ahead of a big bruiser like Bill the Troll, although I fully admit that a full-power Bolg with Mighty Hero and Master of Battle is going to look pretty scary to Bill. On the other hand, his updated score (60) is substantially higher than Bill's (52), and is firmly in the same tier as Gulavhar (59) and Azog (59.5). 

Now, I know I said I'm not beholden to the scores (and that was my justification for putting Bill ahead of Bolg the first time), but at some point the score gap becomes so large that it's just not justifiable. I feel like I've reached that point with Bolg. So I'm going to bump him ahead of Bill (who falls to #7), and push Bolg into that next tier with Gulavhar and Azog. I suspect he may jump Gulavhar as well... but since we're going to rank all the evil slayers shortly on TMAT Talks, I'm going to mull it over for a couple weeks before committing to a final decision. Because there is a lot to mull over.

Anyways, with that cleaned up, it's time for the main event: my take on the last three models remaining: Sauron, the Balrog, and Smaug (to borrow Jay's order). 

There's a ton to talk about here, so strap in...

Announcing the 2021 TMAT Grand Tournament!

Good morning gamers,

Well, 2020 saw us put our grand tournament on pause, but it's time again! The tournament will be held at Patrick Henry College on April 17, 2021. This year, we're doing something a little different with an escalation tournament that begins at 450 points and builds up to a 750 point round. Without further ado, here are (in my typical style) the Ten Commandments of the Tournament (Rules):

The Stuff of Legends: The Army of Gothmog

Good morning gamers,

So far in this series, we've covered two Legendary Legions from Gondor at War (the Men of the West and the Grey Company) and both Legendary Legions from the Scouring of the Shire (the Defenders of the Shire and the Chief's Ruffians). Today we continue our review of Legions from Gondor at War: the Army of Gothmog. If you bought the Battle for Pelennor Fields box set, you're well on your way to collecting this Legion (just pick up a Gothmog model and two Orc heroes and you're all set)! While this might be an easy acquire for new players, how competitive would a Morannon Orc spam (with Troll support) be? And are there things that would be better if they were changed? Let's delve into that discussion and see, shall we?

Part 1: What Do You Need?

Legion Tax: 130-145pts

The only model you NEED is Gothmog, Lieutenant of Sauron (who, fully kitted-out, is only 145 points - not a high tax by any means). Gothmog's stats are, as I discussed in our recent post on Heroic Strike heroes, not great (good for an Orc hero, but not great by any means): he's "only" F5 (a higher Fight Value would mean that Master of Battle would give you a free Heroic Strike against F5 heroes - with F5, there needs to be a friendly Striking hero or a Troll nearby ready to stomp on a F6-or-below hero in order for Gothmog to get a free Strike), he's "only S4" (despite other Orc heroes in this list being S5), he gets to D7 (which is good, I admit, but kinda expected for most heroes), he's got 3A/3W (which is also good - certainly better than any other heroes we're looking at today), and he's got 3M/3W/1F (the Fate isn't very good but on-par with Evil heroes - the Might/Will are on-par with other top heroes, regardless of Good/Evil affiliation). Against warriors, Gothmog is a pretty solid choice - especially if he's astride his warg and on the charge. Against heroes, however, Gothmog's profile leaves something to be desired (especially since he costs almost 150 points). I mean, compare him to almost any Dwarf hero (80-160 points) and you're looking at "about equal" stats or worse stats for more/about-equal cost. Seriously, he's not that great . . .

Army of Gothmog Bonuses

In this Legion, Gothmog becomes a Hero of Legend, which gives him slightly more models in his warband (and is slightly more vulnerable to Heroic Challenges). While you might scoff at the fear of Heroic Challenges, think again for Gothmog: thanks to having Master of Battle, his ability to call free Heroic Moves is huge late-game - and since he's "only" F5/S4 with 3 Attacks and "only" D7/1F with 3 Wounds, it's not THAT big of a risk to fight him. If the person challenging is at least F6, Gothmog will have to call a Strike (probably using his own Might) to potentially have the higher Fight Value - and that Strike will only be free if your opponent calls a Heroic Strike near Gothmog's fight (which he should try not to do with a nearby hero if he's issuing a Challenge). After 3 rounds of Striking, Gothmog will have the lower Fight Value and you've got him on the ropes for sure. Beware those Heroic Challenges, my friend . . .

Armies of Middle Earth SBG: Re-ranking Jay Clare's Top-10(ish) Evil Combat Heroes, Part I (11th-4th)

Photo Credit: Sangle on Pinterest

Last month, I dug into an excellent and thought-provoking article by SBG-Lord of the West Jay Clare, where he ranked his top-10 combat models for the forces of good. As with any rankings article, there were places where I agreed and disagreed with Jay's take (and where the commenters agreed and disagreed with my re-rankings... and then Tiberius gave his own take that the commenters agreed and disagreed with, and now our children are chiming in... the cycle is endless. But I digress).

I found that exercise particularly helpful to me, since TMAT was conveniently (fortuitously?) about to start its own in-depth series on the top slayers in the game (which we officially kicked-off last weekend). So when Jay dropped his list of top-10 evil combat models just before Christmas, I was very stoked. I don't usually think of myself as a chaotic-evil sort of person (I like to think I'd have stayed a Jedi instead of falling to the dark side), but I've been playing a lot of evil armies lately and I have to say, they generally don't disappoint when it comes to killing things. And while I'm always going to be Team Aragorn, it's hard to deny that when it comes to combat models, evil has some of the coolest.

So today, I'll take my stab at re-ranking Jay's top-10 evil combat models. I won't bother going over my methodology again (it's explored in detail here, if you're curious), but if you haven't had a chance to read Jay's article first, I would encourage you to do that before continuing.

Three pre-rankings disclaimers before we get started. 

First, this is a re-ranking of the ten (well, eleven) models that Jay shouted out in his article. All of these models made my top-50 (which we'll unveil as part of our TMAT Talks podcast series in the coming months), and the order I've ranked them here reflects the order they appear in my top-50, but not necessarily the rank (i.e., the model I ranked 6th here will be ranked lower in my top-50 list than the model I ranked 5th here, but that doesn't mean those models will be ranked 5th and 6th in my final ranking... there may be some mystery models above them, and even between them).

Second, this article is long because there's a lot to discuss. And it was originally going to be much longer... so long, in fact, that Blogger wouldn't let me post the whole thing in one post. So this part only re-ranks my picks for 11th through 4th--the top-three are coming later (gee, I wonder who they could be...).  I'll have a reminder again at the end, but if you skipped this part to see who won, and then got redirected up here, I did try to warn you. ;-)

Third, "rankings" = "subjective," so "disagree" = "comment!"

Overly Pedantic Stats: Improving Isengard

 Hey Reader!

Welcome back to the blog! In our local tournament meta Isengard has been having a bear of a time with it, struggling to win at tournaments for the past several years. Whether this is because of poor rolling, difficult scenarios, or list building is unknown to me, but I figured there's only one of those that I can fix, and that is the list building element for tournmaent goers.

So I cracked out my overly pedantic stats spreadsheet and gave myself an afternoon to just look at what they had and how the models stacked up to see if people are making suboptimal choices when building out an army, and what I found astounded me.

As a quick reminder, we're looking at models and how they rank in five categories: offensive capability, defensive capability, support options, mobility, and cost (with low scores indicating a high cost, and a high score indicating a low cost).

I.  Best Statistical Heroes for Isengard

Not surprisingly, the best hero in the Isengard list is Saruman (3.4), who sports a horse for good mobility (and actually decent melee prowess on the charge, as you get F5, a two-handed staff, and access to magic before the fight begins) accompanied by a wide range of supporting and debilitating magic. What does surprise me is how many Isengard armies I see that don't use Saruman. Naturally if you are running a legendary legion you will not be taking Saruman, but I've also seen vanilla Isengard armies that run only uruk heroes (mostly to save points and build out numbers, all while taking advantage of that F5 S5 combo), and while they are good, Saruman is far better than all of them.

The next two heroes are also not necessarily surprises: Lurtz and Thrydan Wolfsbane (tied at 3.0). This also explains why these legendary legions perform well: both have good heroes that are very good at killing things for a relatively low cost. Naturally I think these guys bring less to the table than Saruman, but on their own they will make good contenders as your army leader. Naturally Thrydan is best in the legendary legion, though backing him up with F4 uruks is also very competitive, so don't shy away from bringing this guy.

The Stuff of Legends: The Chief's Ruffians

Good morning gamers,

We're continuing our discussion on Legendary Legions today and we follow up Centaur's post last week on the Defenders of the Shire LL with a review of their nemesis, the Chief's Ruffians. Ruffians are . . . well . . . not great soldiers. In fact, they barely count as militia! All they are, in reality, is a horde of disgruntled men willing to get paid a little money to go beat people up: not disciplined fighters, not well equipped, absolutely no armor. In what some players (including Centaur) view as the worst army in the game, is their Legendary Legion a way to get a leg-up on the competition? Well, Centaur takes us through this Legendary Legion today - take it away, buddy!

Part 1: What Do You Need?

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community
Legion Tax: NOTHING!

Centaur: Fun story: you are not required to take any models, including Sharkey and Worm, in your army. Now, you are required to take all of the heroes before you can take all-warrior warbands, so you will have to take a few heroes at least. And you get a lot of perks for being near Sharkey, so there's a good reason to take him off the bat, but technically no one is required.

In actuality, you'll take almost everyone: Sharkey and Worm for the Sharkey bonuses, Sid Briarthorn for the banner and decent damage output, Rowan Thistlewood for setting things on fire and lending some muscle, Ted Sandyman for taking dirt cheap hobbits to flesh out your numbers, and Lotho Sackville-Baggins to help your Ruffians and hobbits (though he's the most expendable from this list). You can take Bill Ferny, but you can probably also live without him; while situationally useful, I'm not sure he's worth more than 6-8 Ruffians (if he was less than 40 points, he'd be an auto-include, but at 40 that's a lot of guys you're passing up to take him). So if you need to take him because you have to take all the heroes, great - but in smaller point games, you can pass.