Back To Basics: Army Composition & Unit Profiles

Good morning gamers,

I recently introduced a friend to MESBG and I was reminded that there are a lot of rules in MESBG (no kidding, right?). Helping our friends slowly immerse themselves in the rules is a critical part to not turning people off to the game, so I figured it might be good to take a few weeks to review what's "really important" in each phase of the game with a mind to helping new players get going in the game (and helping us veterans "go back to basics"). 

I'm going to start off by saying that if you want to watch a very good synopsis of how MESBG works, you should check out Jacob Lucas's video on Conquest Creations - it's really good. We're going to dive into how to play the game next week, so this might be a good piece of homework to do before you read any more articles in this series. 

What we're going to talk about today is the a priori discussion of how to build an army list in MESBG. With erratas that come out every February and August, just reading the book isn't actually enough to build an army list anymore (much to pity) and I'll put in a plug now for the Bare Necessities series that I did in 2020 (and will be returning to in a few weeks when this series is completed). You can also check out the Conquest Creations video on what makes lists competitive if you want to see Jacob's take - he and I covered very similar ground. 

Army Composition Basics: Heroic Tiers

When building an army, you have to start with heroes - and not all heroes are equal. In past editions of the game, there either wasn't a hero-to-warrior ratio you had to follow (during the Legions of Middle-Earth days when I got started) or there was a 1:12 ratio (when the "warband" books came out). Now, there are five different tiers of heroes, giving you differing levels of command for your heroes. Let's look at Minas Tirith as an example:

Aragorn is the King - many would follow him and listen to his commands . . .

Heroes of Legend can lead 18 warriors in their warbands. They also pass their first "Stand Fast" roll automatically, which we'll cover in a later post (but for now, just know that when your army thinks it's time to flee the field because they've lost a lot of guys, these heroes say, "No, we've got this!" and the warriors stay in the fight). Heroes of Legend are rare - 0-2 choices for most armies - but they allow you to bring a LOT of guys with them, allowing you to bolster your numbers without the "tax" of an extra hero.

Fleshing Out the Rangers

Hey Reader!

As we're talking about the Rangers this week, I thought I'd take a moment to do something a bit different: offer some ideas for new profiles for Ranger models to expand the range a bit more.

Not every faction needs to be as fleshed out as, say, Minas Tirith or Mordor, and the Rangers are one such faction: I don't think you need a lot of options to choose from to make this faction feel thematic and unique. The fact that it is an all-hero faction already makes it feel unique, and we don't want to detract from this.

But since this can also lead to a lack of options to deal with different threats and play styles, I present the following as homebrew profiles that might make your Ranger armies more flexible in dealing with threats.

I.  The Rangers of the North

In Tolkien's legendarium we have no indication that the rangers have vast numbers of troops - only a small platoon of men join Aragorn in his quest through the Paths of the Dead, and these are all that could be mustered by Halbarad. So while the obvious gap in the faction's options is troop options, I want you to know that 1) as a former Grey Company player from the old edition that had the option to take Rangers of Arnor, and 2) as someone who really misses having 30 shots in a round, I want to state upfront that we're not resurrecting that option in this update. You will still have an all-hero force, so your numbers will likely always be lower than your opponent.

And that's fine - that's the ranger way.

I will also say, thematically, all of the ranger profiles that currently exist should get hand-and-a-half swords instead of just swords, based off of Aragorn's ranger sword. I also don't think that requires a point increase, as they are not getting Burly or another rule that allows you to two-hand without a penalty, so personally I don't think there's a big deal with just making that change. But eh, we'll see what happens.

What we will provide below are a small number of new options to fill the other needs: slightly cheaper options so you can expand your numbers somewhat (at the expense of veterancy and survivability), as well as some support options to help you cover over some of the common issues the army faces. We will also provide some new named rangers, just to give the list more flavor, much like the new ranger heroes that were added with Quest of the Ringbearer.

The Stuff of Legends: The Rangers of Ithilien

Good morning gamers,

We have come to it at last: we're looking at the last Legendary Legion that has been released so far - the Rangers of Ithilien. This Legion, often touted as the most competitive Legion at low points levels, has seen an increase in popularity (and notoriety) at higher points levels with the release of two Ranger Minor Heroes in Quest of the Ringbearer (Anborn and Mablung).

Most players love the theme of this list (the scene with "the Rangers shooting the Mumaks" from the Two Towers is really cool), but feel this list is "a good way to lose friends" as well. Sure, you can run it at competitive events, but is this actually a good list? And how do you structure your army so that you can handle any scenario (and fight a mirror-match, which may happen)? Well, that's what we're digging into today - let's see what we have!

Part 1: What Do You Need?

Legion Tax: 85-95pts

The only model you NEED to take is Faramir, Captain of Gondor. On foot, he's 85 points with his bow, but you can also give him a horse for 10 points. 95 points is a pretty small tax for a Legion (something we'll get into later), which means that no matter what your points level is, you should be able to get plenty of models to bring the pain to your opponent. With Rangers of Gondor not counting towards your bow limit in Faramir's warband (thanks to a Legion army building rule), you can take up to 15 Rangers of Gondor (120-135pts) before you NEED to bring another hero. If you spend 215-230pts on 16 Ranger models, I feel like you could do worse.

What you actually need are at least three other heroes: Madril, Captain of Ithilien gives you 3 Might for Heroic March (important since you will be overwhelmingly infantry and not very fast), as well as a guarantee of better arrival options in Maelstrom fights and +12 free Ranger slots. Anborn, Ranger of Ithilien gives you +6 free Ranger slots and gets a free Might point to be used each round on shooting rolls, which makes him a very good 30-point hero. Third, you want Mablung, Ranger of Ithilien in your army to give you yet another +6 free Rangers lots and he provides the Stalk Unseen rule to any Rangers you have - perfect for making those pesky Rangers of Gondor ineligible targets for enemy archery! A recent FAQ clarified that his Birdcalls special rule allows Rangers nearby to ignore the Stalk Unseen rule for models they wish to shoot (no spotter required to see those models for them). For 30 points, he's also a bargain hero.

A nice supporting cast of Gondorian heroes includes Damrod, Ranger of Ithilien, who doesn't have any special rules in his own right, but gives you +6 Ranger slots and costs a little less than the other named Rangers of Ithilien (25 points). For 25 points, I think he's worth taking over 3 Rangers of Gondor simply because a) he has Might, which makes him more reliable model at taking down D5 hero mounts, b) he gives you another small warband to delay deploying your important warbands so you can see where your opponent has deployed his strongest pieces, and c) the Will/Fate he has can help him survive a little longer and help his mates not die to a Wrath of Bruinen/channelled Nature's Wrath (which wounds Rangers of Gondor on 5s). You also have access to a Captain of Minas Tirith, who not only gives you +2 Might for March, but gives you another mounted hero - and one who can take a lance! While F4 heroes aren't great, charging him in with Faramir (who can also be mounted) can get you more killing power in melee (Faramir's 3 Attacks with knock down supplemented by 3 Attacks with knock down and +1 To Wound). This is something this Legion really doesn't do very well (but one might argue that it's unnecessary if your opponent is half your size when they finally make it to you).

UPDATE: As of August 2021, you are required to take Frodo, Sam, and Smeagol - but seeing as how that rewrites much of this article, I'm just going to note it here.

There is some debate about whether Frodo, Sam, and Smeagol should be in your list (either at all or at certain points levels). The advantage to taking Frodo is that you have a Ringbearer in your army who gives you +2 Might. He comes in at a little more expensive than a Captain of Minas Tirith with horse, shield, and lance, but allows Faramir to not have to spend Might for Strike (you could guarantee yourself the higher Fight Value, but Sting gives you an Elven-made weapon in the fight). Frodo also has Heroic Defense with D6 and 2 Wounds with 3 Fate - which makes him an interesting grenade to hold down an enemy hero for a turn or two (giving Sam potentially free Heroic combats if he's nearby - maybe in the same fight as Faramir?).

TMAT Talks: Episode 15 - The Ultimate Uber-Slayer Podcast (Part 4)

 

Well, it's finally that time.

After going through the top-10 monsters, casters, supports, snipers, and big honkin' things, the TMAT team is going to attempt the impossible: rank the top slayer models in the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game.

The epic journey comes to an end (for now) in Part 4, as Tiberius, Centaur, and Rythbryt roll out their picks for Good's top-10 slayers. Did your favorite model finish on top?

For more on our methodologies, and for further discussion on just how hard it is to rank heroes like this, you can also check out both Rythbryt's and Tiberius's take on Jay Clare's top-10 slayers for the forces of good.

There are two options: the audio-only version is available on Anchor, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and most places you can hear podcasts. And if you like visual aids, you can watch the entire cast over on the TMAT SBG YouTube Channel!

Music: Happy Haunts by Aaron Kenny

______________________________ Show Notes: Intro & Rank Clean-Ups (0:00) Birds, Elves, and Men (Oh my!) (10-7) (1:45) Burly, Burly, Burly (6-4) (43:10)

The Final Count-Down (3-1) (1:20:00)

Fleshing Out the Faction: Fangorn

 Hey Reader!

Welcome back to the blog! I want to start off by saying that I love the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game, and am ever so pleased with the hard work that the team at GamesWorkshop puts into the game to bring us the best play experience possible. I have been overwhelmingly pleased with the supplements and models we have gotten, and am very grateful for the hard work behind the scenes.

But I also think that with the release of War in Rohan there were a few missed opportunities for both Fangorn and Isengard, and I wanted to cover the former of those in this post.

Fangorn is a great faction: it's full of monsters (which are fun to use), very defensible (Defense 8 and 3 Wounds will take you far), and we even got two new ent heroes in the new lineup! But even with the new additions, there really isn't a lot of variety in the faction, and what makes forests so interesting is their variety. It's what makes a forest look wild, and having some variety in the faction would be fantastic.

Naturally there are many ways to add variety, some of which may dramatically change the way the faction plays, so we will start by looking philosophically at what the faction should be, and then from there discuss a new set of upgrades to the basic Ent warrior, and then move on to three new profiles to further flesh out the faction.

I.  Philosophy: Options and Balance

To start with, the ents are the shepherds of the forest: they look after trees and huorns (awakened trees) and protect them from internal and external threats. They are not great in number (so you should be one of the smallest armies in a tournament - we will not be changing that) but make up for that with tremendous size and fortitude.

The ents dig deep, drinking water and eating earth for centuries as they pursue their calling: to guard what Yavanna made from the children of Aule and the peoples of Middle Earth that would threaten the beauty of the forests. But since they lost the entwives, they are running out of shepherds to patrol everything, and thus some question whether ents are even real, as they are so scarce seen.

(This also means don't get your hopes up for an "Entwife" profile later in this post. Yes, I thought of an idea. No, I didn't add it. Yes, if we do a First Age or Second Age supplement I'll note it there, but that would not be a traditional Fangorn army, so I'm not including it here. Suffice it to say, though, yes, the entwives do have a "Farming" and "Nut and Acorn" special rule that I'm very proud of, :P )

So from a lore perspective, we want to incorporate all of this. From a balance perspective, we also need to keep in mind that the current costs for heroes and warriors in this faction is basically perfect for most standard game sizes (as Jay Clare noted recently online), so we will not be adding point costs to any of the ent warriors. Instead, we will be offering a set of free upgrades to your ents that give both bonuses and penalties to keep the balance between styles of ents while also giving you some customization options to make your Fangorn army more unique and serviceable to meet other needs.

The Stuff of Legends: The Grand Army of the South

Good morning gamers,  

This is the last Legion from Gondor at War - and one of those Legions that looks great on the tabletop (but really restricts your model count). If you like Mumakil, this Legion is probably your first stop (either running a War Mumak of Harad with Suladan OR running the Mumak War Leader with Suladan OR running the Mumak War Leader and ANOTHER Mumak). But how do you make this list work (and since it has the largest Legion tax to date, what's your most important follow-up purchases)? Rythbyrt joins us again to provide his thoughts on this Legion (a Legion that sports a hero that Rythbyrt likes a lot).

Legion Tax: 375-400pts (realistically, much higher than that)

Rythbryt: We come to it at last... the greatest legendary legion tax of our time. Until Sauron gets one (and maybe that's coming), this is it, and it's hard to imagine it'll be topped by any other kind of list. On top of that, it's also the legion that sports the largest model in the range (other than Smaug, of course... but I'd be very surprised if he gets a legion--wouldn't you?). Finally, while it may not be the legion that requires the largest points limit to play (my vote would be for the Grey Company), if you're playing a small points level, building this legion will probably give you the most fits.

So with that ringing endorsement, let's dig in!

COVID Painting Projects: Rohan Army Showcase

Good morning gamers,

COVID has affected all of us in different ways, but chances are if you're reading this article, you play the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game. And chances are that if you were playing MESBG before COVID hit, you spent at least some time while quarantined away from friends and family painting miniatures. Well, I got the Battle for Pelennor Fields box set right around Christmas 2019, which meant that, in addition to some Riders of Rohan that I got from Centaur and some Warriors of Rohan I ordered off eBay (probably from someone else's Pelennor Fields box set), I had loads of Warriors of Rohan and Riders of Rohan to paint during quarantine.

Today's article is a highlight of the army and the different things I've done to get them all painted (most of the basing still needs to happen). I'm not the best painter (I try) and I'll tell you that painting a Rohan army looks like a deceptively small task because "you don't have a lot of models," but when you consider that each mounted model has a dismounted rider, a mounted rider, and a horse, an army of 24 warriors is actually 72 models to paint up . . . which is more than many spam infantry armies have. This took me by surprise, so here is the culmination of a LOT of work that is finally being shown to you all (though I've sneaked images of my Rohan models into tactics posts recently).

Part 1: The Heroes

Like most Rohan armies, we start with Theoden. Theoden is a great auric hero and a decent combat hero. Mounted on his armored horse, he has incredible maneuverability and can pack a punch on the charge. I prefer to have him focus on clearing out troops instead of heroes.

Next up is Eomer - because he's Eomer! I'm looking at getting the new Eomer sculpt (he's great), but for now I have the old one (with throwing spears and shield added). Eomer may not be a Top 10 hero for everyone, but he's devastating on the charge and can be hard to kill with 3 Wounds and 3 Fate (and maxes out at 125pts, though I normally leave the barding armor at home).

The Stuff of Legends: the Depths of Moria

Good morning gamers,

We've covered a lot of Legions so far - we've covered almost everything from Gondor at War, we've covered everything from War in Rohan, we've covered both Legendary Legions from the Scouring of the Shire, and we've covered almost everything from the Quest of the Ringbearer. Today we cover the Legion I am most excited to try out at a tournament (our recent escalation tournament wasn't a good format for this Legion, but we'll pull it out soon): the Depths of Moria. 

While my love for the Balrog in the last year-and-a-half is well documented on this blog, I know that most people who have reviewed this Legion have been incredibly critical - NOT because the Legion is bad, but because they already hated the Balrog and this Legion makes fighting the Balrog even harder than it was before. I've also heard people say, "It's fine - this Legion just has the Balrog, so once you tie him down, the Legion is easy to beat." My hope is that this article addresses both of these concerns - the Legion isn't overpowered, the Legion isn't impossible to beat, and it isn't EASY to beat either. It's  . . . well . . . just another Legion. Let's dive into it!

Part 1: What Do You Need?

Legion Tax: 350pts

The only model that you NEED to include is the Balrog. At 350 points, he's a pretty pricey model (only less taxing as a Legion than the Grand Army of the South LL), but he gives you an AMAZING combat profile. On offense, this model is ridiculous - F10/S9 and 4 Attacks is a beastly profile, though it's important to realize that many heroes can get to 4A so long as they have access to a mount, have 3 Attacks base, and are charging enemy infantry (which includes most flying models and monsters, such as the Balrog). Some models (like the Dark Lord Sauron) have 4A as well with a pretty similar combat profile. Other heroes have 4A AND Monstrous Charge (like Cave Drakes, Dragons, the Witch-King with the Crown of Morgul on a Fell Beast, and kind of Smaug--he gets the knock-down, but not the extra attack) or more than 4A (with or without Monstrous Charge, such as the Watcher in the Water while he hasn't suffered 4+ Wounds, the Gundabad Catapult Troll if he gets a 2+ on his D6 roll for his crew, the Champions of Erebor on Chariot, and of course an unwounded Gulavhar). Having 4A base is a pretty exclusive club, but the Balrog isn't the top dog in it.

What causes the Balrog to stand out above the rest (and the thing that makes most people not like him) is that he's got 4A at F10 - he doesn't have to Strike. Unless you're Sauron (who doesn't have an Elven-made weapon) or Gil-Galad (who does have an Elven-made weapon), you aren't guaranteed to reach F10, though a few heroes (F7-8) have a pretty good chance of making it to F10 when they Strike - and many of those models are monsters with really high Strength levels (or they're Elendil or Glorfindel). Since getting to F10 isn't guaranteed for anyone except the Balrog/Sauron/Gil-Galad, there's often a complaint that "no one should be that high." Even Sauron and Gil-Galad can only make it to F10 three times in a game (potentially more often for Gil-Galad if he can kill smaller heroes without using Might, since Blood and Glory gets him more Might), so while they can guarantee a roll-off against the Balrog if they tie his highest roll, they're not likely to be able to sustain it long enough to actually kill the Balrog.

TMAT Talks: Episode 14 - The Ultimate Uber-Slayer Podcast (Part 3)

Well, it's finally that time.

After going through the top-10 monsters, casters, supports, snipers, and big honkin' things, the TMAT team is going to attempt the impossible: rank the top slayer models in the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game.

In Part 3, Tiberius, Centaur, and Rythbryt finally crack the top-20... before stalling out at #11. There are a bunch of big names here, and more than a few disagreements. Who's claim to "top slayer" ran out of gas? And who's left standing as we finally approach the top 10?

For more on our methodologies, and for further discussion on just how hard it is to rank heroes like this, you can also check out both Rythbryt's and Tiberius's take on Jay Clare's top-10 slayers for the forces of good.

There are two options: the audio-only version is available on Anchor, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and most places you can hear podcasts. And if you like visual aids, you can watch the entire cast over on the TMAT SBG YouTube Channel!

Music: Happy Haunts by Aaron Kenny

____________________________________________

Show Notes:

Intro (0:00)

Horse Lords and Dwarf Lords (20-17) (4:00)

Monster Mash (16-14) (40:28)

Ring, Burly, Banner (13-11) (1:20:42)

Top 10 "Bathroom Special Rules" in MESBG

Hey Reader!

Okay - so now that our title has caused you to open the article, I should probably explain what I mean by, "bathroom special rules," so that we can then evaluate the top ten of these special rules in the game. The term stems from a metaphor of my own design, said in reference to a magic spell: 

"[SPELL] is like a bathroom: you don't always need it, but when you do, you want to have it on-hand."

So to be clear, to make this list, it has to be 1) a special rule (so no spells or personal abilities will make this list), and 2) it has to be something that is useful sometimes but not all the time, so Bane of Kings for example is not a "bathroom special rule": it's a go-to special rule that you will always use.

So, with that in mind, let's look at some special rules that are useful to have, but won't necessarily come up in every game (let alone have a substantial impact on the outcome of a game).