Good morning gamers,
We've covered a lot of Legendary Legions already in this series - and today, we turn to one of the Legendary Legions I was most excited about in the Quest of the Ringbearer book (and one I ran at a tournament LONG before the Legion was available): the Black Riders. While the "actual" models (sans the Witch-King) have only recently become available (I provided four different ways to get them if you want to play through the Quest of the Ringbearer scenarios), these models represent one of the most iconic forces of Evil in the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. While their Fell-Beast-mounted cousins are more powerful on offense, these guys are set to dominate the magical game in ways that other Ringwraiths will envy forever. Let's dive in!
Part 1: What Do You Need?
 |
| Legion Tax: 80-165pts |
Since most games are played above 200 points, you'll be running at least one Ringwraith on horse, but you really want to include at least 3 Ringwraiths on horses. Like the Witch-King, I think you want to run these guys with 2 Might each and at least 1 Fate point. This means they're at least 80 points each - and each stat improvement will cost you 5 points/model (if you're going to have these guys have different Will/Fate allocations, make sure you mark your Ringwraiths well!).
We'll be talking in the Strategy section about when to get more Will/Fate on each Ringwraith, but for now let it suffice to say that the customizability of this force is largely found in the allocation of Will/Fate to each model (I think you run full Might on all of them - even over Fate). An interesting OTHER way to customize your army is to do weapon swaps on your Ringwraiths: as generic heroes, you can swap their swords for other weapons (axes perhaps?) if you want some variety in your ranks (or just do more damage). In February 2019, I recommended giving these guys clubs so they can get the OLD version of Transfix via the Stun special strike - not sure it's worth it in this Legion because you need to be killing things, but it could be very useful (stunned models are easy to kill).
Weakness #1: VERY Vulnerable to Archery
When you are playing with a Forces of Evil army, absorbing enemy archery is going to be a thing. The exception is if you choose to ally in the Shadow Lord (who gives you the ability to pop Blinding Light up each turn by spending 1 Will). This list has no Shadow Lord AND is heavily reliant on keeping their D4 horses alive. If you're up against a lot of enemy archery, you could be in HUGE trouble. |
| Black Riders Bonuses |
Strength #1: Fast, Fast, FAST Army
All-cavalry armies are fast - everyone knows this. All-cavalry armies that can March are really fast - everyone knows this too. This army not only has all-mounted heroes (and all but the Witch-King can March your troops), but they all cast magic and none of them can shoot - so you can move 10-15" each turn and STILL do everything you like to do. Want to get around an enemy flank and make their formations have to about-face? Well, this list can do that!
Weakness #2: No Shooting
Unlike the Riders of Eomer Legendary Legion, this Legion has to do its damage up close (unless they throw Black Darts). Depending on how much Will you put on your Ringwraiths (and your levels of acceptable risk of not casting a spell), you CAN throw Black Darts, but that's not a sustainable solution - your kills are coming in melee. If you're facing models that aren't F5 and if you can keep your horses charging, you MIGHT be able to just slash your way to victory, but on the whole, I think you're in for a real struggle with this army because you can't skirmish like other all-cavalry armies can.Strength #2: Magical Domination
We'll begin with the good that comes from being able to throw a channelled Transfix that gets a 6-high from each of your heroes once during the game. That's CRAZY! With all of your heroes being F5 and Transfix keeping your opponent from being able to call things like Strike, you will have a higher Fight Value than anyone who isn't the Balrog, Sauron, or Gil-Galad (and you'll have a roll-off against each - Gil-Galad will have advantage in the roll-off though). Transfixes are not often channelled anymore (Might is really precious and in high demand for everyone), but in this list, they'll show up ALL. OVER. THE. PLACE.
After you reckon with 4+ channelled Transfixes, you've got the rest of the Ringwraith arsenal to deal with: with each wraith having 6+ Will to use on casting spells (or resisting spells/passing Courage tests), you can reliably cast 3 spells if you cast Drain Courage or Transfix/Compel (face it, you're not casting Transfix with actual Will though). You have an off-chance of getting up to 2 reliable casts of Black Dart/Instill Fear, which are good for clearing out warriors (and Black Dart can clear heroes, theoretically - though it's questionable whether you need it if you've got channelled Transfixes). The Witch-King casts Instill Fear more reliably than the others (4+ instead of a 5+), which means he can make warriors run screaming more often and buy time for your Ringwraiths.
Weakness #3: 1 Wound On Everyone
Sure, your heroes can all have 2-3 Might points each. Sure, your heroes can all have 2-3 Fate points each. Sure, you are harder to kill just by losing your Will points (since you don't lose them for being engaged in fights). Sure, your heroes are all Defense 8 and Fight 5. All of this is true - but your heroes all have 1 Wound, which means a single, random Wound can spell certain doom for your Ringwraiths. And, if you want to get more models, you're likely running low on Fate on each of your models (or Will to cast neutralizing spells). Having 1 Wound also means your opponent is encouraged to boost Wounding rolls with his Might, since it could mean your Ringwraith dies OR loses Might of his own to boost a Fate save or two.Strength #3: Utterly Terrifying
You know what stat most new players don't think about when they build their army lists? Courage. Fight Value is great (the higher the better). Strength is great (in most cases, the higher the better). Defense is great (in most cases, the higher the better). Attacks are great (the higher the better). Wounds are great (the higher the better). But Courage? Would I really spend extra points to just get extra Courage? Well, against this army, maybe you would!
This army has Terror - on everyone. This army also has Harbinger of Evil - on everyone. But lots of lists have Terror - and many of those lists have Harbinger of Evil. But this list allows you to get IMPROVED Harbingers of Evil by applying further Courage reductions if 4+ (or 7+) Ringwraiths are within Harbinger range of their enemies. It's pretty nasty. And before you say, "Well, it doesn't matter because I run Rohan Royal Guards and I've got Bodyguard." Sure, you do - but as we'll see later in the Strategy section, there are ways around this too. No one is safe.
Part 3: Legendary Legion Improvements
There were a few things that got omitted - and a few things that I've thought that they should get since then. First and foremost, this list needs Horselord on everyone. This list, like the Riders of Eomer and Riders of Theoden, lives and dies based on its mounts. Without them, you have 1 Attack heroes who are hamstrung at killing things. If you want to kill things, you need to be mounted. Sure, only having 0-3 Fate points on your models isn't going to keep your horses alive for very long, but you REALLY want the ability to save your horses. So . . . each Ringwraith should have Horselord.
Second, the Witch-King should have an ability to reroll casting/resisting rolls. As we covered a lot in our recent series on mastering magic, getting that reroll makes the Witch-King REALLY reliable as a spell-caster. Not able to reroll dice means he needs to spend more Will than normal to cast spells - and while you don't need to spend Will to be in combat (and you get auto-cast Transfixes on everyone), there are spells that you'll NEED to have work in order to handle horde armies (like Instill Fear and potentially Black Dart). If you could reroll a die, you'd be in better shape.
Third, it would be cool if the Ringwraiths got titles that gave special rules, like the Nazgul of Dol Guldur receive in the Dark Powers of Dol Guldur list. Not saying that you need to have the same rules or anything (+1 Attack on Khamul, bonuses to Wound, etc.), but just SOMETHING that would make the Ringwraiths more interesting to play (and encourage modifications to your wraiths to make differentiating which Ringwraith you're using easier). Personally, I think this would be good for generic Ents as well (making their base cost lower and perhaps drop their stats a bit but allow you upgrade one to an Elm tree, one to an Oak tree, etc. and each gave them something new).
Part 4: Army Strategies
Let's begin with something very, very simple: all of your Ringwraiths are a base 80-points to buy (55-points base, 10 points for the prerequisite horse, 10 points for +2 Might points, and 5 points for 1 Fate). Similarly, the Witch-King is a base 100 points (70-points base, 10 points for the prerequisite horse, 15 points for +3 Might points, and 5 points for 1 Fate point). No matter what your opinion of Will and Fate is (which we'll get into next), you need to take horses and you will want max Might on everyone - moving on.
Whether you run Ringwraiths in this Legion or other armies, you need to figure out the balance between Will and Fate. When running Ringwraiths outside of this Legion, you can die just by being charged by enemy models (since the Will of Evil requires Ringwraiths to give up a Will point every turn they spend in combat, and if Ringwraiths run out of Will, they die). In this Legion, Ringwraiths don't have to spend Will while in combat, but their magical powers are in many ways more important than in other lists (you don't have warriors to tie models down/screen for your wraiths). As such, I think a discussion on when I buy Fate for my models is still valuable in this Legion.
I did a post in August 2019 on how to use Multi-Purpose Will Casters, or basically models who use Will for casting magical powers and other things (triggering special rules and "staying alive"). In that post, I mentioned that there are five "bins" for Will that you (might) need to fill for your Ringwraiths (and other random characters who qualify):
- Combat Store: if you have the Will of Evil, you need to spend Will in order to fight.
- Casting Store: if you want to cast magic, it costs you Will.
- Special Rule Store: if you have special rules you wish to trigger, that'll cost you Will as well.
- Resisting Store: might not be necessary, unless your opponent has a spellcaster too - this can often be bundled into your Casting Store, but if you're facing an enemy caster, it helps to break it out.
- Life Store: because you need Will to stay alive and most of the time, that's a good thing.
In this Legion, you don't have to worry about the Combat Store (because the Will of Evil rule doesn't require you to spend Will when fighting) or the Special Rule store (because the Witch-King and generic Ringwraith profiles have no special rules that require you to spend Will). With "only" three bins to fill, you may wonder how important having Will is. In my opinion, having Will in this Legion is just as important as when you run Ringwraiths normally.
My system is simple: for every full 6 Will points that you have on a Ringwraith, buy 1 Fate point. This means a few things:
- You should always buy at least 1 Fate point for your Ringwraiths (base 7 Will) and the Witch-King (base 10 Will).
- I usually get 2 Fate on the Witch-King because he gets more than 10 Will points (living in the to 12-17 Will point range means you want 2 Fate).
- If using this system, you would want to get 3 Fate for the Witch-King once you reach/exceed 18 Will.
Most of the time, I run the Witch-King with 15 Will points - so my usual build is 3M/15W/2F. This means that before you buy the Crown of Morgul, a Morgul Blade, and a mount (I go with a horse, but have a growing respect for the Fell Beast), you're spending 120pts on the Witch-King - which is on par with the other named Ringwraiths. Picking up the Crown, the Morgul Blade, and a horse (my go-to) will get you a pretty good killing machine for 165 points. The Witch-King in this Legion can't get the Crown of Morgul and gets a discounted Morgul Blade, so the equivalent build here would be 135 points - which is not a bad deal at all.
Speaking of other Ringwraiths, all the named Ringwraiths (aka, the not-customizable-wraiths) EXCEPT the Undying follow this same methodology:
- The Tainted: 14 Will and 2 Fate
- The Dwimmerlaik: 16 Will and 2 Fate
- The Knight of Umbar: 12 Will and 2 Fate
- Khamul the Easterling: 12 Will and 2 Fate
- The Dark Marshal: 14 Will and 2 Fate
- The Shadow Lord: 14 Will and 2 Fate
- The Betrayer: 14 Will and 2 Fate
- The Undying: 18 Will and no Fate
The Undying both does and doesn't follow this methodology, since he has 18 Will (which would normally require 3 Fate points), but he can use them as Fate (which means he is likely to use more than 3 Fate with less than 15 actual Will points). Still, if you're looking for a method of allocating Fate to your models, this seems a pretty good system - and gives you a nice balance between Will that can be used for fighting, Will that can be used for casting, and Will that's saved for "just staying alive" and not over-investing in Fate.
One might argue that this Legion changes everything, since your Fate is more necessary and your Will is less necessary. True, you can't be charged to death and your opponents will be trying to kill you with everything they have, but to those who say that you should max out your Fate as well as your Might, I must say that I disagree. Very strongly.
Fate is important - and when you have models with 1 Wound, it's REALLY important. But Fate isn't an extra saved wound - it's a chance at an extra saved wound. Will (used for casting/resisting magical powers) is how this army deals with both spam armies AND elite armies. Taking an extra Fate point MIGHT help you, but it might not - and it might overly-restrict your options late in the game when you've only got 1 Will point left on your wraiths. So, don't forsake the taking of extra Will points if you can help it.
Personally, my magic number for Will points on Ringwraiths in this Legion is 8-9. At 80 points base (horse, 2 Might, 1 Fate), you're looking at 85-90 points/Ringwraith if you run it this way. Depending on what you want to cast will determine how you spend your Will, but generally speaking, this will give you 3-8 casts in a game - which should be enough to neutralize enemy heroes or snipe enemy warriors so that you can win. I discussed this during my series on magic, but here's the summary for how much Will you need to spend to have a 70% chance or better at casting a spell:
- Drain Courage: 1 Will = 83% chance of passing
- Transfix: just use your auto-cast channelled one (though 2 Will = 89% chance of passing)
- Compel: 2 Will = 75% chance of passing
- Black Dart/Sap Will/Instill Fear: 3 Will = 70% chance of passing
 |
| Spreading out gives you room to maneuver - and gives you angles for retreating . . . |
Once you have your force built, you want to pair up your units into squads of two, with the squads roughly 6-10" away from each other. What this will do is allow your harbinger bubbles to spread across the map, making it difficult for your opponent to be out of range of somebody. Enemy heroes should be (where possible) within range of two squads, who should direct their magical powers against these heroes. I've seen recommendations to just Black Dart enemy heroes to death - and that can certainly work against certain models. Personally, I think Compels are just fine - especially if your opponent has already moved and you can draw them forward to be charged (away from supporting models).
Your free Channelled Transfix (successfully auto-cast as if a 6 was rolled) on every Ringwraith once per game is really good - but should be used on a turn when you can charge multiple wraiths into a targeted hero (or when you declare a Heroic Challenge with the Witch-King). Channelled Transfixes mean you don't have to Strike most of the time (your opponent will be F5 at best, which is the same as your Fight), so where possible, save the Witch-King's Might for Heroic Combats (or just boosting rolls in an important fight). These aren't free channelled Compels, so you're looking for targets that you can root in place and kill - that is probably going to be heroes or monsters, but multi-attack Warriors are good targets as well.
Move the Witch-King last (when possible) so that you can see how your match-ups are looking. While you might be tempted to throw him into a big hero (and particularly tempted if the Witch-King is armed with a Morgul Blade and can fight someone who has been hit with a Channelled Transfix), I find that he's much better at clearing out warriors (which you REALLY need to do in order to keep yourself from being surrounded and overwhelmed). You've got plenty of Might, so use that to your advantage to keep the charges going and Heroic Combatting into even more warriors.
When throwing magical powers that aren't your free Channelled Transfixes, there are a few pointers I can recommend (many of which were recommended in our recent series on magic):
- Drain Courage (cast normally with 1 Will, cast channelled with 2 Will) is useful for targeting heroes with low Courage (or high Courage if channelled);
- Don't cast Transfix normally unless you just need to root someone in place (2 Will) - rely on your free channelled Transfixes instead;
- Compel to bring enemy heroes/monsters forward in order to be crushed by your Riders before combat begins OR to draw important enemy models away from an objective;
- Instill Fear with the Witch-King (2 Will) to clear out enemy models who are swarming you;
- Sap Will (3 Will) should be used when you need to force a model with 4+ Will (or the Will of Evil) to burn through their Will;
- Cast Black Dart (3 Will if you need it to work, 2 Will if you're doing it with everyone on one turn) to clear out enemy warriors if they can't resist magical powers.
One last thought I'll put out there: you need to be patient with this list. You can move very quickly and you can swamp an enemy army with magical barrages, but you still only have 1 Attack/1 Wound models across your army (and your horses are not able to be protected with Horselord or Pall of Darkness). As such, you need to be patient - use terrain to shield you, pop out from behind cover and harass your opponent, draw out his forces into bad positions and then regroup quickly to capitalize on an advantage you get against an enemy hero/important model. Ride in, deal damage, get out. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Part 5: Army Showcase
Our first list is a 500-point "Ringwraith spam" list. As I already mentioned, this Legion really likes playing at high points levels, but you can be REALLY annoying at low points levels too (where archery and big heroes are less likely to show up). In this Legendary Legion, the magic numbers are 4 and 7 - you apply -2 Courage when there are 4-6 Ringwraiths in Harbinger range of a model and -3 Courage when there are 7-9 Ringwraiths within Harbinger range. With full Might allocated to each model, we can't get to 7 Ringwraiths, we CAN get 6 of them (which should mean that we reliably get 4+ Ringwraiths in range of just about everyone), but I've chosen to get 5 of them (so they have more than their basic profiles with max Might and 1 Fate each).
Our army is fully mounted (as required), and everyone has 8-15 Will to throw at spells (unless our opponent has a caster we need to worry about). Thankfully, the low points limit helps us in that we are unlikely to face more than one real threatening hero/monster (especially if our opponent focuses on his numbers), so we can take our time skirmishing with our opponent, keeping our Ringwraiths in packs of two, moving them so that the packs of two overlap Harbinger ranges as much as possible.
My biggest concern about this army is (as has already been mentioned) the low Fate count (1-2 Fate each), low Wounds count (1 Wound each), and no Horselord to keep our horses alive from enemy archery. Still, if we can use terrain to shield us and use Compels to draw warriors towards us and we can charge them, call Heroic Combats, and get away (or devastate an enemy flank), I think we'll be okay.
- The Witch-King of Angmar on horse with Morgul Blade and 3M/16W/2F [AL]
- 4 Ringwraiths on horses with 2M/9W/1F
- The Witch-King of Angmar on horse with Morgul Blade and 3M/19W/3F [AL]
- 6 Ringwraiths on horses with 2M/9W/1F
By upping our list to 750 points, we can add that magical ninth wraith - this is the bare minimum points level where you want to run all nine, as you can still get 2/7/1 Ringwraiths on horses AND get full Might on the Witch-King. To get the last wraith, we've not taken any extra Will on anyone (but he's kept the 3 Might/2 Fate). Those who are more Fate-conscious might prefer to drop one of the Ringwraiths (frees up 80 points) in order to get +1 Fate on the remaining 8 models (40 points) and +1 Will on all of the models (the Witch-King would be 3/11/2 with a Morgul Blade, while the Ringwraiths would all be 2/8/2). No Morgul Blade could be rough, just saying - maybe this list is worth it, but I'm not sure . . .
- The Witch-King of Angmar on horse with 3M/10W/2F [AL]
- 8 Ringwraiths on horses with 2M/7W/1F
Army Summary
Another Legion down - we're getting there! With two all-hero armies out of the way, we're turning to an army that has an interesting mix of cavalry and skirmish infantry: the Paths of the Druadan. Do you like moving freely through trees? How about rerolling all 1s to wound against Orcs, Goblins, and Uruks in melee? Do you hate losing those Heroic Move-offs? Well you might want to check out this Legion! Next week, Centaur walks us through the Paths of the Druadan, things you need to think about when running it, and a few sample lists that showcase amazing Rohan cavalry and some of the squishiest infantry in the game.
But before that post comes, we will be having more content than normal coming your way in preparation for the TMAT Grand Tournament. Until next time, happy hobbying!
No comments:
Post a Comment