The Stuff of Legends: The Defenders of Helm's Deep

Good morning gamers,

Today we're covering one of my favorite Legendary Legions to date: the Defenders of Helm's Deep! Who doesn't love the last hour of the Two Towers, where we see Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli "doing their thing" helping the beleaguered soldiers of Rohan and the stalwart guardians of Lothlorien fighting against the unrelenting tide of Uruk-Hai (my, those were big words). This Legion was certainly the Legion I was most excited about when War in Rohan was announced and I can't wait to dig in and talk about bringing it to the tabletop! 

Part 1: What Do You Need?

Legion Tax: 80-85pts

The only model you NEED to take is Theoden, King of Rohan with heavy armor. For 80 points, he's pretty inexpensive - but let's be honest, we're taking the shield to bump him up to 85 points. Theoden isn't a power-house hero, but with F5/S4 and 2A on offense, paired with D6-7 with 2H/1F on defense, he's "fine". 3 Might is nice, as is 3 Will when you need to resist magical attacks, but he's on the squishier side of army leaders (even when run in a normal Rohan list). Like you'll find in most Rohan armies, Theoden leads from a safe spot on the board, able to lend some combat power to a manageable part of the board without overly exposing his position. If you need someone to take on the bulk of your opponent's force, you'll want some other heroes.

You'll need some way of dealing with big enemy threats, which means either running Gamling with the Royal Standard of Rohan (to keep Theoden fighting longer) and LOTS of Rohan guys surrounding them (the more Rohan Royal Guards the better), or some combination of Aragorn - Strider, Legolas Greenleaf, and Gimli, son of Gloin. Haldir isn't a bad fighter either, but like Theoden or Legolas, he's only "fine" when fighting (F6/S4 with 2A, D6 with 2H/1F), so I wouldn't rely on him dealing with big threats (unless you intend to shoot them - which this Legion can certainly do).

Supporting these heroes are three warrior options: Warriors of Rohan (F3/S3/D4-5 with the option of taking an axe to Piercing Strike up to S4), Rohan Royal Guards (F4/D6 with swords and Bodyguard), and Galadhrim Warriors (F5/D5-6 with Elven-made hand-and-a-half swords). With banners and spears/throwing spears available to all of these units (and the ability to use your throwing spears as normal spears), you have lots of options for ranking up your troops (such as supporting Warriors of Rohan with Galadhrim Warriors for a D5 frontline or supporting Rohan Royal Guards with Warriors of Rohan for a D6 frontline and an affordable second rank).

Most lists will also include Haleth, since he can make your Warriors of Rohan F4, your Rohan Royal Guards F5, and Aragorn F7 if Haleth is engaged in combat near them. For 30 points, he's sort of expensive for an independent hero, but you can put him in Aragorn's warband with 3 Rohan Royal Guards in the front rank and 5 Warriors of Rohan with shields and throwing spears in the second rank (plus one banner) for just under 300 points. This means that even in a 500-point game, you can add ~100 points of warriors to Theoden's warband (some Elves perhaps?) and have a decent number of troops to support Aragorn and all those F5 Rohan Royal Guards.

Finally, if you want to capitalize on shooting, Aldor isn't a bad choice - not as good as Damrod (same cost, cheap Archer hero), but he's an Independent hero who can be slotted into Gamling's warband so he gets rerolls to hit and wound with a Might point each turn for boosting. Theoden, Gamling, Aldor, Haldir, and Legolas will cost you about 400pts, but you can easily have archery dominance over most armies (even if Blinding Light is up).

Part 2: Why Take This Legion Over "Normal" Allied Forces?

This army is a melding of three "vanilla" armies: Rohan, Lothlorien, and the Fellowship. While Rohan is historical allies with Lothlorien, and while Lothlorien is historical allies with both the Fellowship and Rohan, the Fellowship is historical allies with Lothlorien but only convenient allies with Rohan. To normally ally these armies together would result in the loss of all of their army bonuses, which is fine to be honest:

• Rohan's army bonus only helps their mounted models - and if you require all of your models to be infantry, the army bonus won't be helpful;
• The Fellowship's army bonus is only helpful if Frodo is in your army (and part of it requires that your force is ONLY composed of Fellowship models); and
• Lothlorien's army bonus gives your Lorien units Resistant to Magic, which would be useful and is the only thing we're really losing.

With few rules lost and many rules gained, there's a lot of reason to take the new Legion if you were looking at recreating the alliance between Men and Elves (and one Dwarf) at Helm's Deep. But let's look at what you're giving up from running these lists normally . . .

Weakness #1: No Mounts

Defenders of Helm's Deep Bonuses

Obviously, the first weakness you'll find is the lack of cavalry models. The "vanilla" Rohan list has one of the strongest cavalry contingents in the game and both Lothlorien and the Fellowship have good cavalry models (though spamming cavalry from either of these factions isn't really recommended). Losing speed is one penalty to not having access to cavalry, but it also means that if your list is charged by a lot of cavalry models, you won't be able to remove their cavalry bonuses (which can be devastating). 

Strength #1: Lots of March

You are required to bring Theoden who is an okay fighter on foot, but gives you 3 Might points that can be used for March. This is really good - no matter how you build your list, you know you'll be able to March (which is the same reason I prefer Balin to Durin when I run my Dwarf armies). You can also take Gamling (who has March AND can take the Royal Standard of Rohan to replenish either his Might OR Theoden's Might OR Aldor's Might OR Haleth's Might - you get the idea). If you take Aragorn, you can call March for free early in the game if required, which is icing on the cake when it comes to March. So yes, you'll be slower than you could be without cavalry, but you won't be moving THAT slowly.

Weakness #2: Limited Combat Killing Machines

This list has Aragorn and Gimli, both of whom are really good killing machines. This version of Aragorn is probably the least powerful of all the versions of Aragorn in the Legendary Legions that have been released (no Anduril, no Elven-made weapons), but he's still really good at killing things. Gimli, especially when paired with (and has a lower kill count than) Legolas, is REALLY good at killing things. But beyond these heroes, your ability to cut through models will rely on heroes with 2 Attacks and F5/S4 or F6/S4. This is "fine," but not particularly good. I also find that with the way the army is built, you're likely to only see one of these big heroes, so while your list has two, it functionally has one.

Strength #2: So. Much. Shooting.

I love shooting - if you've read anything on this blog, you probably know this already. This list is good at shooting - not only do you have the ability to equip all of the warriors with shooting weapons (throwing spears on their Rohan units, bows on Warriors of Rohan, or Elf bows on Galadhrim Warriors), but most of the heroes can take shooting weapons as well (not Theoden, Gamling, Haleth, or Aragorn - 3-4 of which you may be taking). With an extra +6" of range on your bows/Elf bows if you stand still, you can scoot-and-shoot for one fewer turns each game and just stand-and-shoot (which means you'll be hitting on 4s or 3s) and force your opponent to come to you. Once they get close, you have the flexibility of using throwing spears as throwing weapons OR as standard spears if you get charged/want to charge instead of skirmishing. 

Strength #3: Lots of F5+

Besides the 33% of your units that can have the Lorien keyword (Galadhrim Warriors, let's say), this list includes Haleth, which allows your Rohan Royal Guards to reach F5. Pairing this with lots of F5+ heroes (Theoden, Haldir, Legolas, Gimli, and Aragorn), it's not hard to have lots of F5+ everywhere, which should give you a Fight Value advantage against most armies and make it a bit harder for some heroes to carve through your ranks!

Strength #4: Great Courage

Aside from the Bodyguard that's present on Rohan Royal Guards and Gamling, your army is great at the Courage game. If your army is broken, your Warriors gain +1 Courage (C4 on your Rohan Warriors, C6 on your Galadhrim Warriors) AND get to reroll failed Courage tests if within 6" of Theoden - which means if you don't get to call a Stand Fast with Theoden, those around him are likely to stay in the fight anyway.

Of course, Elves (C5 on the Warriors, C6 on the heroes) are already very good at passing Courage tests, and access to War Horns on both Warriors of Rohan and Galadhrim Warriors make all of your units very reliable at passing Courage tests - even before you are broken. The heroes - many of whom are C6 or have Bodyguard - are bastions of reliability when you need to charge something big and scary. While this Legion isn't quite as good as the Men of the West LL, they're pretty good - and certainly won't struggle with Courage like the Lurtz's Scouts LL does.

Part 3: Legendary Legion Improvements

As I mentioned before, I was looking forward to this Legion a lot (I think a lot of us were). With everything that got baked into this Legion, I think they mostly hit it on the head. There are a few changes I would have made though. First, I would have given it something like the volley fire mechanic that used to be in the game instead of the +6" of range that they received. Back when I started playing MESBG (when it was LOTR SBG), 10+ models equipped with the same kind of bow (not crossbows, siege weapons, or throwing weapons) could hit targets that were between 18" and double their normal range (36-48"). The model only had to be visible to someone on the board (woe to anyone who fought against Radagast) and all 10 models had to shoot together at that model (and those nearby). Shots hit on a 6+ regardless of your shoot value and both players alternated assigning arrows that did hit to targets nearby (like scattering, except you just picked).

This mechanic didn't survive the rules rewrite (it may not have survived the Hobbit SBG rules - I don't remember), but to account for the Elf archers shooting from BEHIND the Deeping Wall (aka, volleying), it would have been nice to allow archers who didn't move to suffer a -2 penalty in order to hit models between 18-48" away (with a spotter needed to call the shot). This would mean Galadhrim would hit on a 5+ and Warriors of Rohan would hit on a 6+, which wouldn't be too much worse than it is now and the range would potentially be much longer. What we have right now is basically just "hey, you can shoot farther" with no real reason to "not do it" unless they have to move somewhere. One additional note: I think the intention was to have the +6" of range reflect them being on a wall, but since this isn't how shooting from a height works in this game (you actually get less range but fewer in-the-way rolls), I don't see a good way to justify it.

The other changes I would have made would be to the army composition rules. Forcing a ceiling of 33% Lorien models makes sense if you're trying to account for ALL of Helm's Deep. To do the Deeping Wall part of the battle alone, you need to rely on a Historical Alliance between the Fellowship and Lothlorien (which we'll probe later). While that kind of alliance works fine, I would have preferred a restriction that said you could only take Galadhrim Warriors in warbands led by Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, or heroes with the Lorien keyword and allow that to be as much of the army as possible (instead of a max of 33%). To make this element of the battle work, you'd need to bring either Theoden or Aragorn as your leader (Theoden if you bring him, Aragorn otherwise).

Similarly, Rohan Warriors would be able to be led by Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, or heroes with the Rohan keyword, which would allow for a Hornburg-only army or a mixed army. Honestly, you can do this now if you want (though you aren't forced to avoid taking Rohan units with Haldir or Galadhrim Captains). Unlike the Men of the West Legendary Legion, I feel like this Legion would have benefitted from more strict constrains on which warriors could be led by each of the heroes (without a 33% Lorien rule) but it's "fine" as-is.

Part 4: Army Strategies

For starters, you want to figure out whether you want Aragorn in your list. As we'll cover in the lists below, taking Aragorn will probably mean that you don't take Gimli, as you need to take Theoden, you probably want Haleth, and your archery bonuses encourage you to take Legolas and/or Haldir in your list (both of which are around the same cost as Gimli). Taking Aragorn means you don't have to worry about March in your list AND you can reliably call Heroic Combats that will carve through enemy troops OR be able to Heroic Strike/Defense against enemy heroes to beat them down or stop them from wading through your ranks.

Next, you'll want to figure out if you want to bring Gamling with his banner. The banner is most helpful near Theoden (to help him continue to call Heroic Moves/Strikes/Combats or just boost his rolls), Aldor (to help him boost his shooting rolls or call Heroic Accuracies, if you believe in that sort of thing), Haleth (to help him call Heroic Defenses every round), and King's Huntsmen (so they can burn through Might to get wounds on models with lots of wounds and STILL get Might back). Gamling himself can use it to call Heroic Defenses (or Marches/Moves) as well, but only one model can benefit from the banner now, so pick who you want.

The downside to taking Gamling is that you COULD be buying Legolas, Gimli, or Haldir - any of which is going to kill more models than Gamling will. If you want to run Gamling, you probably want to take Aragorn and a bunch of Rohan heroes and pass up on heroes like Legolas, Gimli, and Haldir.

Next, you'll want to figure out what your warrior choices are: Galadhrim Warriors are really good troops, but they're expensive. Since you can run 33% Lorien models in this list, you are encouraged to give them all bows (though you can take shields) and their spears are cheaper than the throwing spears that the rest of the army can take, so you could be paying 12 points/model for these bowmen. That's . . . kind of a lot, but not much more expensive than Royal Guards.

By contrast, Warriors of Rohan with bows cost 7 points/model (almost half the cost of Galadhrim) and have the same range, a 4+ shoot value (instead of a 3+), and S2 (instead of S3). This is "worse," but not THAT much worse. Front-line options are basically the choice between Galadhrim Warriors with shields (which means your archery is probably coming from Warriors of Rohan), Rohan Royal Guards (who can be very similar in profile if near an engaged Haleth for the same cost), and Warriors of Rohan (who, at 7 points/model, are 3 points cheaper than the other models you're looking at).

Like all armies that have limited troop choices, I think maximizing your basic war gear is important for this army: you should have close to 33% bows and close to 50% spears since you have to rely on your standard wargear to carry the day. Add a banner (from Gamling or someone else) or possibly two and you've got a pretty nasty army to bring to the table.

Last thing about strategy: your army has great bows, but DON'T forget how you win the scenario! You need to make sure your army moves to where it needs to be to score - and while you have plenty of March options available to you, you may need to ignore using your bows and focus on getting somewhere (or getting locked in).

Part 5: Army Showcase

Our first list is a 500-point list that runs just Rohan models - no, seriously! No Aragorn, no Elves of any kind, just Rohan guys. This list will be relying on its archery 12 bows, including Aldor and Haleth - and its constant regrowth of Might from Gamling (and his banner) to break its foes. Aldor gets the Might regrowth early in the game, while Haleth (Defense), Gamling (Move/Defense), or Theoden (Strike) regrows Might later in the match. With 32 models at 500 points, you are likely to start with a numerical advantage against your opponent (and with 30" bows, you are likely to be able to bring your opponent's numbers down even further before you are engaged). Oh, and you can have 14 F5 Royal Guards near Haleth. It's important to note that this army COULD be run in a vanilla Rohan list, but you wouldn't get the bonuses of fighting in ranks or the extra range on your bows (or a Courage boost once you're broken) - both of which are critical to this strategy working:

• Theoden, King of Rohan with heavy armor and shield [AL]
• 2 Rohan Royal Guards
• 2 Rohan Royal Guards with throwing spears
• 4 Warriors of Rohan with shields and throwing spears
• 10 Warriors of Rohan with bows
• Gamling, Captain of Rohan with the Royal Standard of Rohan
• 5 Rohan Royal Guards
• 5 Rohan Royal Guard with throwing spears
• INDEPENDENT: Aldor, Rohan Archer
  
• INDEPENDENT: Haleth, Son of Hama

At the start of this post, I mentioned that you can run the Aragorn-Haleth combo at 500 points, so if we trade Gamling and Aldor for Aragorn (and drop a bunch of guys), we can get a list like the following one. With 24 models, you've got 8 fewer models, but you've got Elves in this list AND Aragorn AND 50% spears (and you've still got a banner):

• Theoden, King of Rohan with heavy armor and shield [AL]
• 5 Warriors of Rohan with shields
• 6 Galadhrim Warriors with spears and Elf bows
• Aragorn - Strider with armor
• INDEPENDENT: Haleth, Son of Hama
• 2 Rohan Royal Guards
• 2 Warriors of Rohan with shields
• 5 Warriors of Rohan with shields and throwing spears
• 1 Warrior of Rohan with shield, throwing spears, and banner

Our third list continues to bump our points limit up to 700 points, but adds Haldir, Legolas, Gimli, and Elves to our first list (and dropping Aldor, Haleth, Gamling, and all the Royal Guards). We've upped the model count a bit (37 models instead of 30), but upped our killing power by adding Gimli for melee damage and Legolas and Haldir for range damage. With 13 Elf bows (for 14-16 shots each turn) and 7 throwing spears + 1 throwing axe, we have a very impressive archery presence. Our Fight Value has remained high, thanks to having 11 supporting Galadhrim Warriors (instead of running Haleth to boost Rohan Royal Guards). Losing Gamling and not picking up Aragorn means that Theoden will need to March our army around (in scenarios that require it), but Gimli's warband isn't encumbered by archers, so they can move very quickly if joined by Theoden and three of his warriors - leave 3 Warriors of Rohan as meat shields for the Elves - for fast movement and quick game play:

• Theoden, King of Rohan with heavy armor and shield [AL]
• 4 Warriors of Rohan with shields
  
• 2 Warriors of Rohan with shields and throwing spears
• 3 Galadhrim Warriors with Elf bows and spears
  
• Haldir with Elf bow and heavy armor
• 3 Warriors of Rohan with shields
• 4 Galadhrim Warriors with Elf bows and spears
• Legolas Greenleaf with armor
• 4 Warriors of Rohan with shields
  
• 4 Galadhrim Warriors with Elf bows and spears
  
• Gimli, Son of Gloin
• 4 Warriors of Rohan with shields
• 4 Warriors of Rohan with shields and throwing spears
• 1 Warrior of Rohan with shields, throwing spears, and banner

Our fourth (and sort of final) list also runs hero-heavy and pairs excellent heroes with elite warriors. Pairing elite heroes/warriors with good shooting means that you can force your opponent to come to you and later smack down whoever makes it to fight them. The following list runs both the Haldir-Legolas combo and the Aragorn-Haleth combo, which means we can have F5 warriors all over the place. The list only has 27 models at 700 points (10 fewer models than we had previously, +3 models over our 500pt variant that featured Aragorn and Haleth), but it has 10-12 Elf bow shots every turn, and plenty of spears/throwing spears to keep your troops fighting on:

• Theoden, King of Rohan with heavy armor and shield [AL]
• 1 Warrior of Rohan with shield
• 1 Galadhrim Warrior with Elf bow and spear
  
• Aragorn - Strider with armor
• INDEPENDENT: Haleth, Son of Hama
• 2 Rohan Royal Guards
• 1 Warrior of Rohan with shield
  
• 4 Warriors of Rohan with shields and throwing spears
• 1 Warrior of Rohan with shield, throwing spears, and banner
  
• Legolas Greenleaf with armor
• 3 Warriors of Rohan with shields
  
• 3 Galadhrim Warriors with Elf bows and spears
  
• Haldir with Elf bow and heavy armor
• 3 Warriors of Rohan with shields
  
• 3 Galadhrim Warriors with Elf bows and spears

Bonus list - while I was writing this post, I got to thinking about what a "Deeping Wall Only" army would look like. You can't do this with the Legendary Legion, but you CAN do it with a historical alliance between the Fellowship and Lothlorien. While the "Full Helm's Deep" army we just covered had 27 models, a Fellowship-Lothlorien tagup with Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, and Haldir at 700 points can be run with 20 models (because we needed a Galadhrim Captain). With 5 heroes and 14 Might (plus mighty hero), you can determine where the fighting happens pretty easily. I've omitted both shields and spears from this army, as neither shields nor spears were taken to Helm's Deep in the film - I admit this is sub-optimal, but we're going for theme, people:

• Aragorn - Strider with armor [AL]
  
• Legolas Greenleaf with armor
• Gimli, son of Gloin
• Haldir with Elf bow and heavy armor
• 5 Galadhrim Warriors
• 1 Galadhrim Warrior with banner
• 2 Galadhrim Warriors with Elf bows
• Galadhrim Captain with Elf bow
• 4 Galadhrim Warriors
  
• 3 Galadhrim Warriors with Elf bows
  

Army Summary

The defense of Helm's Deep remains one of my favorite parts of the Peter Jackson telling of the Middle-Earth saga and I am quite pleased with what GW did with this Legion. Next week, we'll be looking at the other side of the action, reviewing one of the most dominant evil Legions in the game right now: the Assault Upon Helm's Deep Legendary Legion. With only two hero profiles to choose from and a handful of warrior profiles to use, this Legion packs a punch with the raw power that comes from buckets and buckets of Uruk-Hai and two of the nastiest siege weapons in the game. Want to learn more? Tune in next time - until then, happy hobbying!