As some of you faithful readers may know, TMAT's spring tournament is upon us this weekend. (In case you missed it, you can find Tiberius's thoughts on his entry here.) It's shaping up to be pretty small (most likely five players overall), but everyone has a pretty good grasp of the rules, and we always have a good time of it. Plus it's a chance to try out some of my new terrain boards!
As with every tournament we've ever done, I had a characteristically difficult time settling on a list for this event. In fairness, given that this particular tournament is an escalation event, I actually had to settle on three lists... so I was kinda screwed from the beginning.
I had several criteria going into this tournament:
- Run something new. Playing games is the most fun, but I enjoy the hobbying side of MESBG quite a bit, and had a lot of plastic kits sitting in my storage closet when the tourney was soft-announced by Tiberius around Christmas time. So I figured, why not take the opportunity to try something new? I've run orcs twice (Mordor once, and Angmar once), and Iron Hills the other two times (a hero-heavy Erebor Reclaimed for 2019's Grand Tournament, and an Iron Hills / Survivors of Lake-Town alliance at a follow-up Fall event), and while I dabbled in a few lists that featured more orcs or more dwarves, I ultimately decided on something different.
- Competitive at all three points levels... but not oppressive. Part of this is probably residual guilt from taking Angmar to TMAT's Spring festivities... that army is definitely competitive, but it's not exactly fun to play against (go figure, for a list with triple barrow-wights plus the Witch-King on Fell-Beast). This time, I wanted something that'd be at least somewhat fun to play against for most armies--yet another reason I shied away from my beloved Iron Hills dwarves (and a reason why I looked more seriously at regular Mordor orcs for a while)--while also giving me some fun pieces to play with. The escalation aspect had more of an impact on competitiveness than I thought it would: the Rangers of Ithilien Legendary Legion is really, really strong at 450 and 600, but I think it starts to suffer diminishing returns (or runs into harder counters) at the 750 level... not that I was considering taking the Rangers, of course (because I'm trying not to be oppressive, remember? :-P ).
- Combat heroes... preferably in multiples. Again, I'm not knocking Angmar, but it's an army (as I built it, at least) that didn't have much in the way of combat heroes (the Witch-King and a Wild Warg Chieftain), and almost no Might to speak of (5 total). I quite enjoy playing armies with lots of heroes, because it can create some interesting challenges for both sides: heavy-hero armies tend to be outnumbered a lot, so there's a lot riding on your heroes to even the odds before you succumb to attrition. It's also one of the best counters I've found in practice to enemy magic, because most armies don't run more than one top-tier wizard and/or two beefy heroes, so if you have 3+ combat heroes, there are very few armies that can lock all of them down. And let's face it... the game is far more interesting when there are heroes involved (especially if they're iconic heroes). The fact that the 750 match would be Fog of War (which can reward you for having multiple heroes) was a nice bonus, and I also suspected that there'd be a fair bit of Bodyguard cav at this tournament (in which case, I would prefer a solid Might store to stay in the game): far better to have the Might and choose not to use it, than to need the Might and not have it.
- Average to above-average model count. I've run super-elite hero-heavy armies before (my Erebor Reclaimed force a couple years back featured only 24 models at 700 points, with five of them being heroes--but that doesn't really count, because Iron Hills Warriors aren't your typical warriors). My experience with Angmar in the Spring really sold me on having a solid number of models. I also think the choice of scenarios, on balance, favors having more models than less: Hold Ground (450 points) is a more-models-than-you-in-the-center mission, To the Death (600) awards a ton of points if you can break the enemy without breaking yourself, and Fog of War (750) may require me to be in several spots at once on the opponent's side of the board at the end of the game (which may be a problem if I have low-courage troops and am broken). My goal was to shoot for 20+ models at 450, and 35+ models at 750. Anything at or above that level--coupled with a few combat heroes to do the work--should be at least competitive in all three scenarios.
- Have at least one incredibly fun model. I checked with Tiberius (who's TO'ing this event) about the power-curve of this particular tournament, and he assured me that I could get as competitive as I wanted with these lists (in his words, "this is the GRAND TOURNAMENT, after all"). Having said that, I did want to include at least one "fun" model who's a joy to play with on the table--something along the lines of Aragorn, or Bolg, or Glorfindel (all of whom I play-tested at various points over the past few months). At 750, I figured I could probably afford whoever I wanted (even Sauron)... but scaling an army built around a big hero, and accomplishing everything else I wanted the list to do, proved to be a bit more challenging.
With these general goals in place, I set about the task of list-building in earnest. And boy, did I build lists... most of them got recorded in the "Notes" app on my iPhone, and I literally have forty-five notes dating back to December 2020 filled with different lists ideas. Most notes contain 6-9 different lists (because again, it's an escalation event), so that's easily 200+ lists that I wrote down at various points over the past four months (God only knows how many more I thought about, and didn't commit to digital paper).
To be fair, some of the lists I jotted down were never really in the running (my "Wee Three Kings?" list, for example, featuring the Goblin King, the Witch-King of Dol Guldur, and the Spider Queen... though it did come in at 52 models, which isn't bad for a convenient alliance that featured a banner, four cav, a decent number of hunter orcs, three Mirkwood Spiders, and a Bat Swarm). But eventually these six lists rose to the top... and then fell by the wayside for one reason or another.
Option 1: Men of the South (Waaaaay South)
The first army I really wanted to run involved Corsairs, because I played an evil horde at TMAT's last tournament and really enjoyed it. The problem with the force was three-fold. First, I initially built the list assuming we were playing at 500, 650, and 800, and I really liked how the Corsairs scaled at that points level (basically, I could get to 50 models at 800 points and have the Knight of Umbar on Fell Beast as my third-banana multi-use combat/magic hero, along with Dalamyr and Delgamar plus a Bosun).
Scaling the lists down to 450, 600, and 750 proved more challenging than I thought, and I could never settle on something else that I really liked. This list is the closest I got to locking things in...
Now I know what you're thinking: Where's the Goblin King at 450? I had the same thought quite a few times, but here's the thing: in a Hold Ground mission, the goal is to have more models than your opponent does within 6" of the center of the board. The Goblin-King, at 130 points, costs the same as 32.5 goblins. Which meant to squeeze the Goblin King into a 450 point list, I was going to have to choose between (a) having fewer than 30 models (which is just not a competitive option for Goblin-Town), or (b) dropping at least one (and probably two) of the following heroes: Grinnah, the Scribe, Gollum, the Goblin Captain, or the Goblin Mercenary Captain. None of those choices were particularly attractive:
- Gollum was the easiest include. He's pretty good value anyway (35 points for a 2 Attack, Fight 4 hero with March), and insanely good value if he has the One Ring (which he probably does). The Goblin-King is big at 450, but there can be other big things at 450 (and even some bigger things at 450). He needs Gollum to take out those really big things. So Gollum was staying.
- Grinnah was also an easy keep, because he has three Might and Strike. Now F3 isn't a great number to strike up from generally... unless you have the Ring, in which case it's quite good (you only need a 3+ on your Strike roll to get to F6... which will be higher than anything else you'll face in a combat if you have the Ring, except a Striking Witch-King or Dol Guldur nazgul). Swap with Me is also absurdly annoying...
- I did several playtests both with and without the Goblin Mercenary Captain... and ultimately, I decided the list played better in general with him. Goblins hate archers and horses and horse archers, and while the Scribe is great (more on him in a minute), he doesn't always give you the goblins you need in the numbers you need at the moment you need them (four goblins followed by six goblins followed by three goblins can wreak havoc on an enemy archer block... two goblins followed by no goblins followed by one goblin? Not so much). The Merc Captain's Warband meant that as long as I was willing to spend Might and Will, I could pretty much drop 9 goblins (one of whom is a two-attack hero) whenever I needed them (usually to back-up a large drop from the Scribe in the preceding move phase). The fact that TOs tend to like putting big, juicy centerpiece terrain features in the middle of their boards is a very nice bonus (in a mission where the goal is to get a whole bunch of models to the middle of the board).
- That left just the Captain and Scribe. And to be perfectly frank... I kinda needed the Captain, because Goblins only move 5", I have to get to the middle in Hold Ground, and Gollum only has one Might (while the Merc Captain may not be able to deploy anywhere near the rest of my troops). Which meant I'd have to leave the Scribe at home (plus twenty Goblins) to bring the King.
- Again, we have Gollum + Grinnah, which means we can deal with most big heroes anyway... eventually... if we have to. On the flip-side, having 20 more goblins (plus the bonus goblins we'll pick up from the Scribe) means I may not have to actually deal with a big hero for much longer. Unless you're hitting one of those rare heroes with free Heroic Combats (like Elendil or Aragorn or Helm or King Thorin or the Balrog), most heroes can't take out more than 2 Goblins a turn unless (a) you help them out by putting more goblins into them (in which case, put more than four), or (b) they burn might for Heroic Combats to kill generic troops (which isn't sustainable). Having 20 extra Goblins meant I could take up to 10 more hero combats. The Goblin King can tank a hero, too, of course... but only in one spot, and if he happens to botch the results are quite a bit more dire. If two goblins "botch" a combat with a hero, the results are... you lose two goblins. Now to be fair, there is the niche case of a big hero with Terror, who will be difficult to charge with Grinnah or Gollum (let alone both at once). But Grinnah's Swap with Me is a work-around at least (get any generic goblin into the fight in the Move Phase, then swap Grinnah into the fight in the Shoot Phase... because if you wait until the Fight Phase, you can't also call Heroic Strike... life lessons). But let's not pretend the Goblin King was going to have an easy time charging the Balrog, either. ;-)
- 20 more bodies is also 20 more bodies we can do things with--the most important of which is getting to the center, of course. Sending those 20 models straight to the center of the table frees up our other 40 models to do... whatever else needs done. Which usually includes stuffing up the enemy's models, so they can't reach the center of the board (much less clear our horde off of it).
- While the Goblin-King moves faster than generic Goblins (and Gollum), he's still not remarkably fast (just 6"), which means it takes him a while to leg it around the board. And since he's the only major combat piece in the army, if has to leg it far across the board (or if the enemy plays keep away), he may have trouble making back his points (and smart opponents will take advantage of that fact by keeping away from him, especially if they have shooting). Turning that one model into 20 models (wait, you guessed it) means it's actually quite hard for the enemy to play that avoidance game, specially when the Scribe and Merc Captain constrict the size of the board.
- Lastly, while the Goblin King would help alleviate one very serious problem with this list (if it breaks, it's definitely running, whereas he'll auto-pass his first Break test because he's a Hero of Legend), we've gone to absurd lengths to prevent that from happening by cramming a whopping 60 models into a 450 list. Even against elf shooting (and I've tried this list against elf-shooting lists), it's incredibly tough to amass 31 kills in 75 minutes, in a scenario where there's maelstrom deployment and a Merc Captain and a Scribe (in which case, we won't break), especially once the elves have to start shooting into combat (because they can't). And if we manage to catch an enemy's warband out in the open with a couple of our own, we can decimate them surprisingly fast.
I really liked this list... to the point that I play-tested it upwards of ten times combined, at all three points levels, making several tweaks along the way. (The two Half-Trolls at 750 were a late add, after deciding I needed some additional staying power in infantry brawls.) 27 models at 450, scaling to 50 models at 750, gave me a pretty good count considering the number of elite models I had in the army (at least 5 camels and a Great Beast, at all points levels). The list also topped out at a sneaky 5 heroes for Fog of War, which I managed to cram into both the 600 and 750 lists without sacrificing too many numbers (can you spot the fifth one?).
Once I'd settled on a core of Castellans in principle, I then had to figure out how to configure a list around them that would make the most sense. I knew I wanted one of the Dol Guldur nazgul with them (primarily for the Might, but also for Harbinger and to get at least the threat of Heroic Strike for dealing with F6+ heroes), and eventually settled on the Witch-King (because again, Might). The Lingering Shadow was also an option for a double-wraith list, which would have featured a whopping 7 Castellans at 450 (four with Morgul blades, plus the two wraiths), and 14 Castellans at 750 (only 16 models at 750, but all of them would be nigh-unkillable). But I moved away from that idea mostly because of concerns about speed (again). Fortunately, Dol Guldur has access to all sorts of fast models (Fell Wargs, Hunter Orcs on Fell Wargs, and Mirkwood Spiders if I wanted to keep army bonuses, and Bat Swarms and Giant Spiders if I wanted to ally with the Dark Denizens of Mirkwood). I also tried really hard to fit the Necromancer in (who I completed and painted just in case), but alas--it took out too many Castellans. In the end, I opted to swap out two basic Castellans (80 points) for 80 points of Fell Wargs and Hunter Orcs on Fell Wargs, eventually settling on two Hunter Orcs on Warg, and six Fell Wargs, giving me 8 models that could move 10" (plus two models to counter-charge enemy cavalry, if needed--something that can completely flip a fight against a big hero in a Castellan's favor).
Full disclosure: I was heavily experimenting with this army right when I released my re-ranking of Jay Clare's top-10 combat models for the forces of evil, and friend of the blog Sharbie correctly took me to task for under-ranking Bolg, because I didn't account for the fact that Bolg has Master of Battle if you take him from Azog's Legion, he's your army leader, and you have your army bonus. I corrected that mistake in my subsequent write-up, but that got me thinking about whether Bolg might be the fix that this army needed: he's got more Might than the Lingering Shadow, can definitely deal with big heroes (because he's F7 with Strike), and that Master of Battle (with no roll attached to it, either) meant I could not only contest enemy Heroic Moves, but also Combats, Strikes, and whatever else was going on. Last but not least, it'd be another 10" move model to buff the speed of my army. Plus, Bringer of Death meant I could get Terror and Harbinger on Bolg in most games, with the potential for Mighty Hero if I could accumulate those magical ten kills.
Aragorn, King Elessar on Armored Horse
- x8 Fountain Court Guard with Shields
- x6 Rangers of Gondor with Spears
- x4 Knights of Minas Tirith with Shields
First things first: there is absolutely nothing thematic about this list. Yes, Aragorn fought with both Haldir and Boromir, but not at the same time and definitely not in his "hey, let's storm the dark castle" form. I also don't have any thematic reason to have Galadhrim fighting with Gondor. Or for Haldir to be traipsing around Middle-Earth with Celeborn and Galadriel's elite guards.
But dagnabit, this list may be the most fun I've had at 750 with any list, ever. On top of freakin' Aragorn (what can I say--I'm a fan) and that killer 19-model warband (which I did manage to work into the list in its final form), Haldir and the elves allow our already pretty good Fight 4 warriors (Rangers and Fountain Court) to get the advantage on other Fight 4 warriors (with Galadhrim) and even Fight 5 elves (because F6 Galadhrim Court Guard, for 12 points a pop, are insanely good value). Boromir in his Fellowship form (who doesn't make an appearance at 450, because Maelstrom) is a bit fragile, but he's way overqualified to be our "second beater" (which he totally is, in a list that features King Aragorn), just like Haldir is seriously overqualified to be our third banana. In addition to a metric ton of Might (12 at 600 points), there's Fight 6+ everywhere, which is a real problem for a lot of enemy heroes. Add the Defense 6 from the Galadhrim (who also bring elven-made weapons) and Defense 7 from the Fountain-Court Guard (who still have Bodyguard for dealing with Terror), plus the shock-value of the Knights on the charge (especially if you can get a F6 pike in their fight when they charge), and you can deal with a lot of threats before you have to commit your heroes (all of whom have tools to neutralize even more threats, if needed). Before trying this list out, nothing I tried could consistently best the Castellans and Bolg in higher points games. This list dismantled them three times in a row.
And yet... there was just something about it that I couldn't work out. For all these three heroes could do (and don't get me wrong--they can do a lot), there were some things they couldn't do. One is shrug off magic--Aragorn can do it for a little while, but eventually he runs out of Will (unless he rolls 6s all the time to resist), at which point he's still useful (he still calls Heroic Moves every turn to put pressure on the enemy caster, and still contributes a 6" banner even if he's Transfixed or Compelled), but he's not acting like Aragorn. Haldir and Boromir are more susceptible (because they only have 1 Will each), and unlike Aragorn, with just 2 Wounds/1 Fate or 3 Wounds/0 Fate, they can't actually survive multiple rounds of combat if they're Transfixed or Compelled. And while I'd like my #1 hero in a fight with any other army's #1 hero, and my #2 in a scrap against most other #2s, and my #3 to out-kill a fair bit of enemy #3s... I did only have three heroes at the end of the day, so if the enemy had more than three heroes I'd be in trouble (although six Galadhrim Guard backing up eight Fountain Court Guards meant I could weather that storm better than most armies). I also didn't have a real solution for enemy heroes on horse, besides trying to shoot out their horses (I looked long and hard at swapping Boromir for Legolas, for precisely that reason), or beating them in Combat with Aragorn (which he can do... but it's not a guarantee, especially if he's not picking up that fourth dice to win fights from charging, and doesn't get a knock-down bonus).
But once again, in the end I was thwarted by the scaling. I really liked the 450 list with Aragorn's full warband drop. But I couldn't take both Boromir and Haldir at 600 if I ran that warband, and if I took Boromir first I was out of warband slots (plus I kinda wanted the Galadrim Guard more at 600 anyway). That meant no Boromir until 750, which meant I was dealing with just 6* Might until 750 (and only two heroes, who could be transfixed in the meantime). While 32 models isn't bad at 750, it was definitely on the small side. Plus Boromir's slightly fragile (and if he dies early, that's a big problem), plus I wasn't 100% sure Boromir was a better play than Legolas...
In the end, there were just too many questions, so I tabled it for later. At a set points level, I think a list like this would be really brutal, and I will return to it eventually. But I just couldn't configure it in the way I wanted for an escalation event.
So I went back to the drawing board (for what would turn out to be the last time).
Option 6: Budget-Aragorns
Before that, a slight digression.
Here's the thing about Aragorn: everyone reads Aragorn's profile (any Aragorn profile), and everyone thinks, Wow... this guy's awesome. And then you read all the entries for his special rules, and think, Holy cow! This guy's [insert word of your choice here] awesome! But then you read other profiles, and you find other guys who do sort of the same things as he does for fewer points, and who are in armies you like better (or who are in actual armies, in the case of Fellowship Aragorn), and he sort of gets forgotten.
Then one day you decide (like I did), You know what? Aragorn. I know he's awesome, but I never play him. Let me give him a go. So you do. And it's not only awesome (or "[insert word of your choice here] awesome")--it's like way more of whatever-word-you-inserted than you ever thought it could be.
And once you have that experience, it's really hard to go back to life before Aragorn.
That was me. Having tasted the absolute bliss that is Aragorn (mostly Mighty Hero, but also a 4+ to wound or better all the time, and a 6" banner, and knocking dudes over on horse, and being a F6 Striking machine), every list that couldn't do those things just seemed lack-luster. So I did the logical thing: I started looking for different allies for Aragorn (because clearly, Haldir and Boromir were the problem).
Around this time, I was listening to the Green Dragon Podcast's episode on Lothlorien, and they were talking about powering up throwing weapons on wood elves by being able to call free Heroic Moves (probably with Fellowship Aragorn). Now I have some Wood Elves (not painted), but I wasn't going to take them for two reasons: (1) Tiberius was already running wood elves, and I'd never be derivative like that (besides, he's much better at running wood elves than I am), and (2) there's a much better throwing weapon troop than wood elves anyway: Guardians of the King, from the Army of Thror (S4, D7 Grim Hammers, which I happen to own quite a few of and have played with a lot in casual games).
Having already thrown theme to the wind with my "Aragorn's Dead Mates" list, I decided to chuck Aragorn into an impossible alliance with the Army of Thror, because who cares about impossible alliances when you have Aragorn, right?
As it turns out, the Army of Thror cares.
It didn't used to be this way, but it turns out that if you build an impossible alliance now, both forces break separately (which I cared a little about, but not enough to abort) and neither force can benefit from the other's banners (which I cared about more, given that Thror was going to lose the army bonus that gave him a 6" banner effect) and neither force can benefit from the other's heroic actions (which... defeated the whole point of the army). So yeah, I could run Aragorn, and I could run S4 D7 dwarves with Throwing Weapons, but they'd fight as basically two separate entities (and if either force lost just 10 models at 750, the entire force would count as broken).
So that was dead on arrival (which made me sad, because I rather liked that list). But I was hooked on this idea, so I started thumbing through the Armies of the Hobbit to see if I could find someone who could bring what Aragorn could. And of course there isn't. But then I got to the Army of Lake-Town (not the Survivors of Lake-Town with Gandalf and Bilbo, and not Girion's Dale... this is the Master's Lake-Town, which I always thought was bad)... and they didn't have Aragorn, but they had bits and pieces of what Aragorn could do. They had a 6" banner effect (the Master's Moneybags). And a 3-Might hero who could get free Heroic Actions on a 4+ (Braga's The Master's Puppet). And a way to get that 3 Might hero even more might (Alfrid's Dubious Counsel). And a cheap Hero of Valor for alliances (the Master). And yeah... none of them were Fight 6, and there was no Anduril, and they have no cavalry to speak of, but what they did have was reeeeeeeeally cheap spearmen to back up my S4, D7 dwarves with throwing weapons (who are actually dangerous for cavalry armies). They were so cheap, in fact, that I could get well over sixty models at 750 if I wanted to (yes, you read that right... sixty). It was literally perfect!
And also impossible.
It's an impossible alliance.
(Darn it.)
Furious now (and probably suffering from some after-effects of obsessively list-building for almost four months solid), I decided to stick it to the rules writers (because of course they care about my tribulations) and abuse the alliance matrix by pairing my new-found "budget Aragorns" (the Master plus Braga plus Alfrid is a surprisingly cheap 120 points, which is pretty good for all those bonuses plus 39 warband slots) with armies that were convenient allies with basically everyone... which eventually crystalized into some sort of elves, some sort of wizard, and something really punchy.
And with that, I present to you:
Lock it In: Fearsome Lake-Town*
At the same time, I also started looking hard at Galadriel, Lady of Light, from the White Council list. I initially looked at her purely because she had Blinding Light for free (no need to cast it) and Fortify Spirit, which would give my other heroes some protection from magic (the Lake-Town Guard really need the Master to be in the correct position, and he needs to have Will left in his store to trigger Braga's free heroic actions, so the thought of having some protection against Compels from enemy casters was appealing). If I had to venture a guess, I'd say most players start looking at Galadriel for those two reasons. But there were a few more I discovered, as I started digging into her profile:
- First off, she may be the most multi-use magic caster good has. She's not just "fine" in a scrap--she's very good in a scrap. Defense 3 is low, but it only matters if you lose fight. And with three attacks, base Fight 6, and access to Heroic Strike, she doesn't lose a lot of fights (plus you have three rerollable Fate to weather a botch). That already makes her better than 80% of evil's man-sized heroes when it comes to fighting, and a fair number of Good's. She's also S4 and never counts as unarmed, which means she can still deal with D5-6 opponents pretty reliably (especially if they're trapped), and even D7-8 opponents can be wounded on just straight 6s (instead of 6s plus something else).
- Second, while there's no denying the raw killing power of mounted heroes, one of their disadvantages is that they tend to wander off from your main battle line (I ran into this with King Aragorn a lot whilst play-testing my Minas Tirith list). That's not necessarily bad (as long as they're off doing heroic things), but it's much less risky if you have above-average troops. Since my core troops are only average (the definition of average), I thought it wouldn't hurt to have a very good combat model nestled in the line, too. Braga sort of fits that bill (he's F5 if Moneybags is active), but without the option to Strike, he's best deployed as a Heroic Defense speed-bump to opposing heroes (especially since the Defense may be free)--he's not likely to actually beat a hero like Aragorn or Boromir in a brawl. Galadriel is different, because she's base F6 with Heroic Strike; put a single spearman behind her, and suddenly there's four dice to win a fight (plus potentially a fifth from a banner reroll). At a minimum, she's consistently beating (and then carving up) enemy troops in your opponent's battle-line, and supported by friends (or a monster) she can also beat and kill pretty big enemy heroes (she spearheaded a successful assassination run on Treebeard this past weekend).
- Third, she's a much, much more resilient army leader than any of the Lake-Town heroes. 3 Wounds and 3 rerollable fate are always great, and while she's still Defense 3, the fact that Blinding LIght is up all the time, combined with Fight 6, Strike, and no longer being Unarmed means she's surprisingly difficult to wound enough times that she'll die, especially if a second combat-y hero is nearby to serve as her bodyguard. I've had a lot of success with Braga and a spearman in that role (F5 with 3 Attacks, plus a banner reroll), because he's got potentially-free Heroic Combats. She also synergizes well with Braga: with Galadriel nearby, Braga isn't the clear-cut choice for "public enemy number one" anymore, and if the two of them are in reasonably close proximity, enemy heroes can get nervous about charging into both of them and a mess of Lake-Town warriors.
- Fourth, because she has a 6" Harbinger of Evil bubble, I thought she'd be a cool companion for Radagast's Aura of Dismay. I ended up playing against Tiberius's wood elves a couple of times with Harbinger armies (with both Angmar and my Castellans), and even Courage 5 gets a little shaky once you start applying -1 Courage debuffs. Again: Lake-Town Guard are pretty squishy if they lose fights, so anything that made them harder to charge disadvantageously seemed like a boon.
- Fifth, because of that Courage debuff, she's also sneaky-good at clearing objectives because she has a 4+ Instill Fear. If you're not familiar with that spell, it's pretty nasty. And while most models who have Instill Fear (namely, Sauron and Ringwraiths) don't bother casting it because they have other fantastic spells at much longer ranges, once Galadriel is done giving Fortify Spirit to whoever needs it, and if you're not facing Spirit models who need to be Banished, what else is Galadriel going to do with her free Will per turn? So why not spam Instill Fear?
- Finally, there was the cost difference. I looked at other wizards, too (I did my due-diligence on Saruman the White and Gandalf the Grey from the White Council, as other companions to Radagast), but in the end, Galadriel was better in combat for significantly fewer points. 40-50 points may not sound like a lot, but that's an extra 6-10 Lake-Town Guard. It adds up.
Now I probably could have called it there (and maybe I should have). But call me crazy: I was still a little worried about my ability to deal with multiple enemy heroes. No doubt, this was shaded by my fear that at some point, I'd have to play Tiberius's stupid Broken Fellowship legion, which for reasons unknown he'd decided to make the "automated player" for this tournament in case there were ties. But that list features four F6 heroes, all of whom can Strike, and who are really tough to beat in combat (Legolas, Boromir), or kill (Gimli), or both (Aragorn). And while I felt pretty good about Gwaihir taking on heroes of that caliber (and to a lesser extent, Galadriel, if I had the numbers advantage), the rest of my list would have to hope to overwhelm them (or, in Braga's case, out-last them). Getting the advantage on them would take time, as Gwaihir made his way across the board. And if something freaky happened, and Gwaihir went down early (which, by the way, is always on the table as long as Legolas is around), I didn't have many good plan Bs (and maybe one plan C... that was it).
To find that final piece of the puzzle, I went back to the metaphorical well / Mirror of Galadriel: I dusted off Haldir and his platoon of Guards of the Galadrim Court, who were the unheralded secret sauce that made the Aragorn/Minas Tirith list so formidable (and now actually have a thematic reason to be there, given that (a) Haldir isn't dead yet, and (b) Galadriel is there, so of course she brought some of her personal guards along). Haldir plus five Galadhrim Guard (at 750) gave me six additional F6 models, which meant that with Gwaihir and Galadriel, I had one for each member of the broken Fellowship (and almost one for each Ringwraith in a full-strength Black Riders legion... hopefully no one's bringing that to the tournament). It also gives me some additional models who can successfully charge enemies with Terror, which doesn't matter until it does (Courage 6 will flub Courage tests, but thankfully it's pretty rare).
Haldir also gave me a third model who could call Heroic Strike if we needed it, plus an elven-made weapon to help Gwaihir in Fight-capped combats (or at least keep the roll-offs even). That instantly vaulted him up to my #3 threat (for which I feel he's probably slightly overqualified). That shifted Braga down to my #4 threat (which is kind of crazy--he's definitely over-qualified for that role). The Master probably still fits into the #5 spot (depending on how you feel about F6 warriors with pikes), but Alfrid is basically an afterthought. Finally, reinserting a warband from Lothlorien allowed me to bring an actual banner in the list for the 600 point match (To the Death), when there could be actual VPs at stake.
This was the last decision I made on the list, and it took me a while to pull the trigger. While you generally want banners in high Fight Value armies, this army is kind of a special case because the Master's Moneybags rule means you can get a banner effect (and a big one, at that) without having to take an actual banner. That doesn't help with scenarios like To the Death that award VPs for banners, but as long as you can kill the enemy's banner-bearer before the enemy is quartered (and Gwaihir's pretty good at doing just that), you can play around that. A banner-bearing Galadhrim Warrior (with spear and shield) also cost 36 points, which doesn't sound like a lot, but it's an extra 3 Galadhrim Guard (or six Lake-Town Guard with spear or bow, or seven without wargear), so that's a -2 to -6 penalty on model count, just for bringing a banner. Taking Haldir and five Galadhrim Guard had already reduced my model count from 54 to 46, which was still a good count... but adding the banner would drop me down to 42. And going from 54 to 42 is a significant drop.
In the end, however, I did end up pulling the trigger, for two reasons.
The most important reason was to help out Gwaihir. While Galadriel (and, to a lesser extent, Haldir) can generally get the reroll from Moneybags (you just glue a Lake-Town Guard with spear to their backs), I found it surprisingly hard to get Lake-Town Guard into Gwaihir's fights consistently (since models with a 25mm base can't support him with spears). This was especially true when trying to take down models with Terror (where you generally want that Duel reroll), but it also became a problem if Gwaihir had to go to an extreme flank (or behind the enemy's lines) where infantry models just couldn't reach. Gwaihir can take most botches on the chin, but he's far more lethal when he's winning fights. And that banner reroll really helps him win fights.
The other reason--and this came into play in several of my test games--was (for lack of a better word) "Alfrid insurance." Alfrid is pretty dependable: 83% of the time, he'll roll a 2+ on his Dubious Counsel die (5/6 chance), at which point nothing bad happens. But if he rolls that "1," he steals a Might point from the intended target. Which isn't the worst thing in the world... if he's counseling Braga, who starts with 3 Might (and may get Heroic Actions for free). But if he's counseling the Master (who only starts with 2 Might, and which you'll want to do if he's your only source of a Banner reroll), losing 1 Might to Alfrid means you've lost a turn of banner rerolls (and a Fight buff, too boot). And in an army that has a pretty elite component (again--eight F6+ models kicking around), a turn without those banner rerolls can hurt.
Here's the other thing about rolling dice: the more dice you roll, the more likely you are to get a particular result. If Alfrid rolls his Dubious Counsel dice one at a time, he has an ~17% chance of rolling a 1, and an ~83% chance of rolling a 2+; but if he rolls two Dubious Counsel dice at once, his odds of rolling at least one "1" go up from ~17% to ~31% (that's almost one-in-three, which of course means it happens almost every game :-P). And if you roll all three Dubious Counsel dice at once, that's a 42% chance to roll at least one "1" (and an almost 7% chance of rolling at least two "1s"... which, I get it, is low... but it's not an impossible chance).
The problem is that even a single "1" hurts the Master's Moneybags production quite a bit. If you roll no 1s, Alfrid gives the Master 3 Might, and steals 0 Might; the Master ends with 5 Might (2 + 3), which means he can call Moneybags up to five times--that's usually enough to resolve battles, especially if you have a monster and the fight-advantage on opposing armies. Now, suppose Alfrid rolls two 2+ dice and one "1". Alfrid gives the Master 2 Might, and steals 1 back; the Master ends with 3 Might (2 + 2 - 1), which means he's lost two turns of Moneybags. That's a huge loss. And again... that's just with Alfrid rolling a single 1 (which, again, happens 42% of the time if you roll the three dice at once). If the doomsday scenario happens, and Alfrid rolls two 1s, that's just one turn of Moneybags with the Master (2 + 1 - 2).
At the risk of understating the obvious, that's bad.
The Banner is there primarily for that 42% of scenarios (which, again, happens to me almost every time) where Alfrid decides to be devious. If my force is clustered together, and if we have enough F4+ models in combats (between the elves and Gwaihir, plus Braga), we may not need Moneybags--that 3" banner may be enough. And if something goes wrong, we at least have something we can use once the Master's Might is spent. (Plus one more elf with F5 on a stick is never a bad thing.)
Overall, I'm pleased with that addition at 600, in every respect but one: unfortunately, it meant axing Braga. This is the one thing I would rework in this list, if I could. I made the decision early that I wanted both Galadriel and Gwaihir in my 450 list, because you need the shooting protection and the threat for enemy heroes. That left 170 points for the rest of the force, and while Lake-Town and their heroes are cheap, taking all three Lake-Town heroes (120 points combined) would have left only 50 points for troops, which is only 10 Lake-Town Guard with no gear (15 models total). Given that Hold Ground is both a Maelstrom mission and a model count mission, I wasn't too excited about dropping Alfrid or the Master with just a handful of D4 troops between them and whatever the enemy had. So I opted for bigger numbers, which meant leaving someone at home. And in the end, the model I left was Braga, for several reasons.
First, you can bring way more troops if you leave him at home: that 30 point difference between he and Alfrid meant an extra 5-6 troops, so instead of bringing four more guys by dropping Alfrid, you can bring 9-10 more guys by dropping Braga. Second, I felt the army needed a few extra turns of Moneybags more than it needed free Heroic Actions (free moves are great and all, but F4 with a banner reroll is probably better--and given the other armies who are playing, most of whom are F3 or F4, I think that was the correct call in retrospect). Finally, the Maelstrom rules meant there was a chance that Braga and the Master could be forced apart, in which case I may not get to use The Master's Puppet much (if at all).
Before I added Haldir and the banner, getting Braga into the 600 list was pretty easy. But Haldir (85) plus Braga (50) plus the Banner (36) is way more than 150 points (21 points more, to be precise), which meant I'd have to go into the 450 match down 21 points (-4 models) and wouldn't be able to bring any Galadhrim Guard until 750... which seemed like a mistake. I could, of course, have dropped the Banner for some Galadhrim Guard... but not taking the Banner in the scenario that gave VPs for having a Banner also seemed like a mistake.
In the end, I felt like I could get more utility out of Haldir, some Galadhrim Guard, and a banner than I would out of Braga at 600 points. The addition of Haldir gave me a healthy Might pool (11 Might before Alfrid--up to 14 Might if he behaves), which should be a competitive amount at 600. So Braga makes his triumphant arrival at 750, when my Frankenstein-Aragorn list is finally complete.
So much for the list-building. Now to see if we win any games. :-P
What do you think about Rythbryt's lists? Did he make the right choice, or would you have gone in a different direction?
And I thought I had it hard deciding what to take. :) The lists presented here are great - there are some lists that I would love to see on the tabletop sometime (though having played most of these in practice, I can say they could do just fine if given the chance). :)
ReplyDeleteOne thing I will reserve judgement on is this: I think with the addition of Anborn and Mablung, the Rangers of Ithilien struggle less now at 750 than they used to. The Rangers of Ithilien are renowned to be powerful at 500 and below because anti-archery is hard to come by (and you'll probably have a numbers advantage), but with the ability to get 46 models at 750 while getting Sam/Frodo/Smeagol and all the named Ranger heroes (3-4 more models if you drop Smeagol), you can have 43 bows, which will still hit ~7 times through Blinding Light, which will still kill 1-2 models a turn (occasionally more, due to those Minor Heroes having nothing better to spend their Might on). With 15 spears when your opponent arrives, I think you can bring enough of your numbers to bear to wear out most opponents.
I definitely agree re the Rangers, the sheer number of models is pretty overwhelming at any points level. I think the lack of mounted models (aside from Faramir) does start to limit them a little the higher you go, but I guess you don't need horses if you shoot out all the enemy cavalry
DeleteYou have access to mounts with Faramir and Captains of Minas Tirith (who also give you March). While I think taking Faramir, Madril, Anborn, and Mablung are always worth it, taking 1-2 Captains can give you a decent cavalry presence and quite a bit of extra movement on your infantry.
DeleteThat army of laketown list seems familiar lol. In all seriousness I like what you've done with it. I prefer to take legolas instead of haldir because he is stronger in every way but I like the galadhrim court. I'm interested in how you do with it. It's undefeated for me so far but I haven't taken it to a tournament. Good blog post!
ReplyDeleteLol, yes--I discovered after settling on it that the Lake-Town plus Galadriel plus Gwaihir combo is a bit derivative. :-P The full force at 750 has proven to be very flexible, thanks to the addition of the elves. Hopefully it'll perform well at 450 and 600.
DeleteI really enjoyed this article, and I really like a lot of the lists. Those Corsairs look nasty, Goblintown is a nightmare, that Great Beast list looks hilarious, and there's no one alive that really wants to charge a Castellan frontline. The Aragorn King lists look great fun, although him and the Dead really struggles below 800 or so. I've actually found Aragon and Beregond to be a great combo at 500, it gives you a shockingly weighty list with okay numbers, good shooting and mobility, impressive resilience and the strongest hero in the game. But 450 makes that a lot trickier, as does trying to bring some Undead along.
ReplyDeleteThat Laketown list on the other hand looks absolutely filthy. Solid numbers with lots of rerolls, Galadriel LoL, Gwaihir and even some F6 Elves? Brutal. I've run Gwaihir plus the three Lake Town heroes at 500 before and enjoyed it a lot, the combo of horde with shocking combat prowess and big monster is a strong one. Spicing it up with arguably the best value foot hero in the game is unsurprisingly brutal.
Where I actually think you could have improved things is by swapping out Gwaihir for Thandruil. With just the swords and circlet (and maybe the armour) you'd only be dropping 1-3 models, you wouldn't be losing out in combat power (4-5 Attacks is probably about equal to the Monstrous Charge and S6 of Gwaihir), and you'd be getting Aura of Dismay to combo with Galadriel. If you have those two next to each other in the centre of your line, it is practically impossible to charge you at all, and if Galadriel is uncharged then she gets to sweep away the enemy spear supports with her own spellcasting. It would be a little more annoying for the Maelstrom aspect, but that combo of Harbinger, Instil Fear and Aura of Dismay is absurdly oppressive. In fact, that's arguably the best reason not to take it: it possibly violates your 'fun to play against' rule. It would also mean that you could fit in F6 Elves without needing to plump for Haldir, or you could fit in either Legolas or Tauriel to act as better versions of him. Or just Braga tbh. Or hell, move some points around and fit in someone terrifying like Dwalin on Goat to up your killing power by a massive amount. The opportunities are limitless once you've got Thandruil along!
Also, a useful tip for using Alfrid and the Master: if you let the Master burn through his two Might before using Alfrid, there's no chance of Alfrid stealing any. In fact, given that they're both likely to be safe behind your lines in most games, you can feed the Master one Alfrid Will point a turn after the Master's Might is gone, ending up with either 4 or 5 turns of Moneybags very reliably.
Thanks for the Alfrid tip. I had thought about that, and it definitely makes sense.
DeleteI did consider Thranduil heavily, for the synergy you mentioned (Aura of Dismay). I have a hard time building a Thranduil that I like, but if I would have been able to keep the army bonus, I probably would have sprang for it.
The thing in Gwaihir's favor is that flying monsters are always disruptive, and can reach targets that foot Thrandy can't. That said, Gwaihir + Haldir vs. Thranduil + Legolas is a very interesting thought exercise: not sure which I'd prefer.
I did enjoy playing the Great Beast list quite a bit--it looks like it shouldn't work, but as long as the enemy doesn't cause Terror, it's pretty hard to lock down at higher points levels, moves surprisingly fast with an equally surprising amount of shooting, and is quite lethal when it closes.
Thranduil always does feel kinda weird to build, tbh. So many of his options are amazing, and he's objectively underpriced, but there is so much weird tension between the different upgrades. The Circlet incentivises you to play a buffing role, but also synergises excellently with Galadriel, at which point you lose your army bonus and are worse at buffing. The swords make him an amazing close combat character, but have this anti-synergy with the horse or elk you'd normally give any combat character. It's a weird toolkit, even if everything in it is absurdly good value individually. Having played with Thandruil a lot in Fantasy Fellowship, however, I can say that the foot version is one of the few foot combat heroes that puts in solid work. And if you're not taking more than a handful of Elves, then you don't really care about the army bonus much.
DeleteI do absolutely see the appeal of Fly, and I've actually run a Gwaihir/Laketown alliance quite a few times for exactly that reason. In fact, if you didn't have Galadriel then I'd say Gwaihir would definitely be the way to go. I just find it so hard to go past that Aura of Dismay/Harbinger/Instill Fear combo though