The Bare Necessities, Part XXXIV: The Serpent Horde

Good morning gamers,

We've looked recently at the Fiefdoms (renowned for their elite troops with average Defense and average Cost) and the Rangers (renowned for their ability to spam cheap mini-heroes to flood the board with Might). Today, we look at one of the most competitive armies in the game - and a long-time dominant army here at TMAT: the Serpent Horde. While I haven't played with this army, 50% bow limit (and lots of practice fighting it) makes it an army that I should begin playing soon. Thanks to the Quest of the Ringbearer sourcebook requiring two Mumaks, I know I'll be diving into the Serpent Horde eventually, but travel with me through my ever-entangled thoughts about what to pursue with this army. Let's dig in!

The Serpent Horde: Spam Vs. Troop Carriers?

Photo Credit: Tumblr

The Serpent Horde has the ability to spam pretty good troops - their Haradrim Warriors with bows, spears, or weapon-swapped axes are 7 points each, which means you can throw out a lot of these guys if you want to. The down-side to them is that they can't get shields, so your army is going to be vulnerable to archery of any kind (D4). To compensate for this, the army is flush with models who have poison (rerolling 1s to Wound) and you can take 50% of your models with bows (so you can outshoot most armies before they shoot you to death). With pretty cheap light cavalry that hit hard and a few non-poison models who can chop through enemy models with burly two-handed swords or multiple attacks, the army has no limit to good models you can spam out.

And it has Mumaks. Mumaks are some of the most iconic and coolest models in the game - complete with four pages of rules (two for the Mumak itself and two for war beasts), lots of impact hits, and good resilience against siege weapons (since it is explicitly called out as a siege target instead of a battlefield target - no auto-kills here, baby!).

Mumaks are incredibly expensive and often get in the way of spamming out warriors (though it will provide high Defense in-the-ways for those low-Defense troops standing in the howdah). So is it worth it to add a Mumak to your list or just buy a hero and a whole warband of troops? Most competitive players say leave the Mumak at home, but we'll delve into some Mumak lists later in the post. For now, let's look at a spammable Serpent Horde army that emphasizes one thing above all others: poisoned weapons.

The List

• Suladan the Serpent Lord on armored horse with bow [ARMY LEADER]
• 3 Serpent Riders
• 7 Haradrim Warriors with axes
• 7 Serpent Guard
• The Betrayer on Fell Beast
• 7 Haradrim Warriors with bows
• 6 Haradrim Warriors with bows and spears
• 1 Haradrim Warrior with bow, spear, and banner
• Haradrim King on horse with war spear and bow
• 6 Haradrim Warriors with bows
• 2 Haradrim Warrior with spears

42 models, 22 bows hitting on a 4+, 1 D6+ model (the Betrayer), 6 cavalry, 7 Might points

The purchases required to get these units are as follows:

• You need the Suladan set - and if you're planning on collecting Serpent Horde at all, you probably want to buy Suladan as a first purchase (he's a very cheap 6" banner, to say nothing of F5 with 3-Might-and-Strike);
  
• You'll need the Betrayer and a Ringwraith on Fell Beast to call the Betrayer (you could do some hacking and put him on there if you wanted to).
• You'll need 29 Haradrim Warriors, so buy two boxes of them. Seven of these guys have weapon-swapped-axes (for reasons we laid out in the weapon swap post), so you'll want some spare axe bits too.
• You'll need two boxes of Serpent Riders and 10 Serpent Guard (3 dismounts) - if you buy a box of Haradrim Raiders, you could probably convert these guys up if you wanted to use the Haradrim Warriors you already have.
• Take 1 Haradrim Warrior and 1 Haradrim Raider (or Serpent Rider) to make a Haradrim King (since the model isn't available right now).

This list is pretty pricey - especially if you use the actual models (that are available). That said, the Serpent Horde has a pretty great reputation here at TMAT (especially in previous editions) and continues to be a feared force around the community. Let's dig in and see what each of these warbands are doing:

Warband #1: The Serpent Lord

Suladan provides your army with a 6" banner, which makes him the perfect leader for a small hit squad of cavalry that can also support a battle line of infantry. Your front line is Haradrim Warriors with Poisoned Axes (thanks to the army bonus) backed by F4 Serpent Guard with Poisoned Spears, so you'll be able to Piercing Strike with the front rank guy and wound enemy models with S3 and S4 rerolling 1s. That's pretty nasty. Supporting Suladan are three Serpent Riders, which are hard-hitting S3 cavalry thanks to their Poisoned War Spears (+1 To Wound and reroll 1s).

Warband #2: The Poison Bunker

The Betrayer is mounted on a Fell Beast because you can afford it - the Serpent Horde has pretty cheap core troops, so you can splurge on your heroes without impacting your numbers much. The Betrayer isn't great at casting spells, so you're going to use most of his Will to make your Poisoned weapons turn into Venom weapons (rerolling all failed To Wound rolls instead of rerolling 1s). We've placed him with 14 Haradrim Warriors with bows and poisoned arrows (7 spears and a banner in that group as well - nice F3 bunker gunline) to get an early benefit from your poisoned arrows, later turning into boosting the damage of your Poisoned Daggers/Spears (or flying over to support Suladan's melee battle line). While the second banner might not be necessary, this is a banner that can be passed around to other warriors, which means getting victory points for having a banner is much easier. Plus, in scenarios where banners count as victory points, having your only banner on your army leader (who is also worth points) seems like a recipe for disaster.

Warbands #3: The Marching Squad

Our final warband has "everyone else" - 2 Might for March on the Haradrim King (slightly better value than a Haradrim Chieftain) and 6 Haradrim Warriors with bows and poisoned arrows backed by 2 Haradrim Warriors with poisoned spears. This warband is best placed between the other battle lines so you can get your army Marching quickly. The archers don't NEED to go with the rest of the group and instead can be sent to objectives that you start with or left near good firing lanes by terrain.

Scenario Overview

Let’s take a look at each of the available scenarios and see some thoughts/considerations for using this list:

• Domination: Your two main blocks of troops should focus on holding the center - having lots of archers in the middle of the map will mean you can keep fire up on the outer objectives while having a powerful host to dominate the center. Your Serpent Guard are escorts to Suladan - send him wherever you need to harass your opponent and crush a small number of troops. The King should keep your army moving, while his archers scatter across your starting objectives.
• Capture and Control: Six archers from the Haradrim King's warband stay on your back objective, while the rest of your troops start on the center line, ready to get locked in fast. The Betrayer should get most of them in range of his Master of Poisons rule to give your army rerolls on all their failed To Wounds, which should punch a hole through your opponent's army. Make sure you have a Long Fang formation ready to receive enemy cavalry charges (your army fights cavalry really well if it can keep them from getting their cavalry bonuses).
• Hold Ground: Well, you're maelstroming in, so make sure your archer-heavy warbands only move onto the board half of their max distance so they can shoot at whoever shows up near them. Suladan and his warband can move on full speed and he can March his team closer to the center on the second turn. Your King and his spearmen (and possibly the archers, if they have no one to shoot at) can March towards the center as well. Hedge up there, waiting for your archers and the Betrayer to support you (ideally after shooting a bunch of guys on the way). Breaking is fine, so long as you get most of your army on the center and the game ends quickly.
• Seize the Prize: Call a March on the first turn and race ahead with your 5 cavalry and the Betrayer. Make sure both Suladan and the Haradrim King are on the front lines so that one can call a Heroic Move and the other can call a Heroic March if you don't get priority on the first turn. Get to the center, dismount with a Serpent Rider if you want to, then move up your melee infantry as fast as you can to support. Your archers MAY have to stand still on the first turn if they can't March far enough, so you CAN choose to run your cavalry near the sides of the objective, leaving firing lanes for your archers to pound anyone who charges towards the objective and letting you sweep in afterwards.
• To The Death: Um . . . sit back and shoot? I know, it sounds boring, but sit back and shoot - and drill holes through the enemy lines until you punch through any banner-carriers they have. If none of them are presenting themselves, you should be drilling holes through the army leader. If HE's hiding too, just kill warriors and focus on breaking the enemy. If you break him and aren't broken yourself, you can't lose.
• Lords of Battle: Well, your opponent is probably going to start on the center-line. If you don't think you can shoot him to death, you should start on the center-line too and work your melee damage plan. Use your heroes to chop holes through enemy warriors to rack up kills quickly - you can even throw a few two-dice Transfixes with the Betrayer to weaken 1-2 Will enemy heroes and stop them from getting kills. This game is likely to end quickly, so any turns you can stop an enemy hero from killing stuff will help you a lot (even though the Betrayer isn't good at casting, he isn't likely to need all of his Will to fight or grant full rerolls to failed To Wound rolls).
• Contest of Champions: Suladan isn't super powerful, but he's good enough for the job. The real winner in your army here is the Betrayer, who can Hurl models into the enemy army leader (hopefully dismounting him and knocking him Prone) AND throwing out some Transfix spells to keep him from killing stuff. While you could try to flash-kill him with the Betrayer, you may not need to - if his army falls apart quickly, he may not have time to get that many kills. Plus, since your models are low Defense, his troops may kill far more models than he does . . . which won't be great for you, but is a small consolation.
• Reconnoitre: You've got some fast troops in the 3 Serpent Riders and the Haradrim King, plus you've got Suladan (who you should run off the opposite board edge if you can so you can deny your opponent points for killing your army leader). The Betrayer could be flown off as well, but you probably need him to support your archers so you can kill enemy models trying to run off the board. I don't think it'll be hard to break yourself (or even quarter yourself) in this mission, so get your cavalry off as quickly as safely possible!
• Storm the Camp: Getting to the enemy camp? Possible. Keeping people out of your camp? Probable. Breaking? Almost impossible to avoid. This mission is a toss-up - get to the camp with the Serpent Guard and your Haradrim King if you can, keep Suladan and the Betrayer safe playing defense on your side. And shoot stuff.
• Heirlooms of Ages Past: I have no recommendations for this mission besides the usual recommendation of "find the heirloom and hide it." You do have lots of archers, so you could try to just shoot people as they go for objectives. You could also try to NOT dig up an objective next to you in hopes that all of the other objectives are picked up and are "not the Heirloom" so you know that the last one IS the heirloom. This mission is such a toss-up anyway, I'm not sure which is the better idea. I'm inclined to say that if you don't feel good about shooting your enemy to death, you probably want to dig up every objective you find in hopes that you get it.
• Fog of War: Um . . . you're trying to keep the Betrayer alive (because you need him). You're also going to try to kill whatever hero you think you can isolate and slay (ideally with archery). You're also probably going to break your opponent, so the only thing you need to think about is how risky you want to be with the terrain objective. You could choose something on the periphery to clear with the Betrayer (or King) and the Serpent Riders, but I'm not sure that you want to do that. Instead, use your numbers, get to the center, and pick a piece of terrain near the center line!
• Clash By Moonlight: Once again . . . you shoot stuff . . . everything . . . with +1 To Wound once they're within 12" and rerolling all failed rolls . . . target enemy heroes and slay them all - any questions?

Modifications

Some variation of the list above seems to be the go-to for many competitive lists for the Serpent Horde, but like other factions we've studied in this series, there are lots of ways you can run Harad that have more of a thematic appeal.

• Run the Golden King - The Golden King suffered a lot in the new rules edition - and basically nobody recommends you run him. At nearly the same price as the Betrayer, you're probably not running him AND the Betrayer. He provides a second banner to your army and he's got a good number of attacks at a good Strength (with a burly two-handed sword). As a hat-tip to Zorro who introduced us all to the Golden King when we got started back in 2010, here's a list that's slightly larger than our previous list but otherwise looks pretty similar (we're running the Abrakhan "fatty" Guards and Watchers of Karna instead of Serpent Guard though, not focusing on the poison as much as we did in the last list because we don't have the Betrayer):
• Suladan the Serpent Lord on armored horse with bow [ARMY LEADER]
• 4 Serpent Riders
• 7 Haradrim Warriors with bows
• 7 Haradrim Warriors with bows and spears
• The Golden King of Abrakhan
• 5 Abrakhan Merchant Guards
• 3 Watchers of Karna with Twin Blades
• 7 Haradrim Warriors with spears
• Haradrim King on horse with war spear and bow
• 2 Watchers of Karna with Twin Blades
• 2 Haradrim Warriors with spears
• 4 Haradrim Warriors with bows
• 4 Haradrim Warriors with bows and spears
• Run the Grand Army of the South Legendary Legion - The Grand Army of the South Legendary Legion was reviewed recently by Rythbryt in our Stuff of Legends series and it's a list with a high initial tax because you need to buy a Mumak. The Mumak War Leader is pretty good, but doesn't have Rappelling Lines, so whoever's on him isn't coming down to the ground (they're "stuck" in the Howdah). Maybe that's okay - maybe you're fine sitting up there in the Howdah all day. I've chosen in this list to go with Suladan and running a War Mumak of Harad with minimal upgrades (Sigils of Defiance and Rappelling Lines) instead of the Mumak War Leader, simply because I like having the ability to pull models off the Mumak if you get charged by guys you don't like (Aragorn with Anduril and the King of the Dead, for example). Despite having Suladan and a Mumak, we still managed to get 33 models and quite a few mounted models (to buzz around the Mumak and protect him):
• Suladan the Serpent Lord on armored horse with bow [ARMY LEADER]
• 5 Serpent Guard
• 3 Haradrim Warriors with weapon-swapped axes
• 5 Serpent Riders
• 5 Haradrim Raiders with bows and war spears
• War Mumak of Harad with Sigils of Defiance and Rappelling Lines
• 10 Haradrim Warriors with bows
• 2 Haradrim Warriors with weapon-swapped axes
• The Double Mumak List - I'll admit, you probably don't want to run this list until you reach 750 points, but as you know by now, I'm working on collecting everything from the Quest of the Ringbearer sourcebook and in one scenario, you need two Mumaks. So . . . I wondered if you could get two Mumaks in at this points level. The answer is, "Yes, but not very good ones." This list manages to get 24 models to the table, despite spending over 550 points on two Mumaks! You could choose to drop the Rappelling Lines on one of these guys to give all of your "vanilla" Haradrim Warriors either spears or weapon-swapped axes - obviously, you'd want your melee guys all in the War Mumak with Rappelling Lines along with 2 archers, while the other 8 archers are in the Mumak with no Rappelling Lines:
• War Mumak of Harad with Rappelling Lines
• 5 Haradrim Warriors
• 5 Haradrim Warriors with bows
• War Mumak of Harad with Rappelling Lines
• 5 Haradrim Warriors
• 5 Haradrim Warriors with bows

Well, that's it for the Serpent Horde. I didn't do any allied lists today, but we've actually looked at those already in our posts for the Corsairs of Umbar and Far Harad - check those out if you're interested. Our next journey takes us to an army has gotten some love in the form of new models (with one more eagerly awaited): Fangorn. This all-monster army is known for its limited access to numbers AND because it only has one Hero of Valor/Legend, it's pretty hard to ally into other armies without adding "just Treebeard (and Merry and Pippin)." So who works well with Fangorn (giving up their army bonus to get access to a monster or two)? And how balanced would it actually be? Check back in next week to find out - until then, happy hobbying!