Unexpected Military Formations: The Mushroom Charge

Good morning gamers,

Today we're continuing our discussion of formations and we're using as our inspiration a very exciting moment from the Two Towers: the charge of Eomer's Eored as they slam into the Uruk-Hai at Helm's Deep. 

Photo Credit: Tumblr

We've already looked at ways to fight against cavalry (see our article on the Long Fangs formation as well as our articles on the Schiltron and Tercio formations as ways of protecting vulnerable units from being gronked by a cavalry charge). Today we're looking at the other side of the coin and viewing how to maximize your effectiveness when charging with cavalry.

To illustrate the formation today, let's assume that you have the following forces in a 500-point game (if one of these armies looks familiar, it's because we viewed it recently):

• The Riders of Eomer (10 models):
• Eomer, Marshal of the Riddermark on horse with throwing spears and shield
• 3 Riders of Rohan
• 1 Rider of Rohan with throwing spears
  
• Gandalf the White on Shadowfax
• 3 Riders of Rohan
• 1 Rider of Rohan with banner
  
• The Assault Upon Helm's Deep LL (33 models):
• 1 Uber-Uruk-Hai Captain with two-handed axe [ARMY LEADER]
• 5 Uruk-Hai Berserkers
• 7 Uruk-Hai Warriors with pikes
• 1 Uruk-Hai Warrior with pike and banner
• 4 Uruk-Hai Warriors with crossbows
  
• 1 Uruk-Hai Captain with crossbow
• 4 Uruk-Hai Warriors with shields
  
• 4 Uruk-Hai Warriors with pikes
• 6 Uruk-Hai Warriors with crossbows
  

Wow - our all-cavalry army is down-handed 3:1 in this match up. While we don't have any ballistas or demo teams to worry about (worth 145+ points), we do have LOTS of Uruks to worry about (you can get ~14 Uruks for the same points as the ballista and demo team, which means +8 total models). So how do we use our cavalry effectively against such big odds?

My Tiny But Powerful Band

Well for starters, I know the Riders of Eomer Legion gets critiqued on a number of levels (even by me) and are commonly held to be the less-competitive, less-powerful cousins of the Riders of Theoden (denying the usual rules of power curves that the newer something is, the more broken its rules become so that the "coolness" factor grows over time). Against an army like the Assault Upon Helm's Deep Legion (with 11 crossbows, one of which is on a Captain), the Riders of Eomer have a few advantages over the Riders of Theoden - let's look at a few:

• First and foremost, this Legion has access to Blinding Light via Gandalf the White, which makes the effectiveness of our bows (8 bows hitting on 5s when we move and wounding on 6s) as effective as those crossbows (11 crossbows hitting on 6s and wounding the riders on 5s). Having small numbers means we're all but guaranteed to be able to fit in that 6" bubble of protection if we want to.
• The Legion also has Sorcerous Blast, which isn't as powerful in this edition as in previous editions, but it will make sure that enemy heroes (especially mid-tier heroes with 1 Will, like Uruk-Hai Captains) end up on the ground. This makes it very hard for those heroes to March their army around (since they give up half of their max movement to stand up) and to catch your cavalry. It also wounds Uruk-Hai Captains on 5s if they're the target no matter how they're equipped, which can be certain doom for normal captains who only have 2 Wounds and a single Fate point (and maybe 2 Might to boost that Fate roll). Since Gandalf casts this on a 4+, he can cast it quite a few times with a 0.75 probability of success before he has to risk only a 0.5 probability of success (which is still quite good).
• When the Legion chooses to charge, you can declare at the start of the Fight phase that the Sun is Rising so long as Gandalf is on the board (he probably is), which applies a -1 penalty to all enemy duel rolls for the duration of the Fight phase. This makes your Riders of Rohan (who are capped at F3 for who-knows-what-reason) more likely to win their fights - 2 Attacks on the charge and hopefully within range of a banner means you get three chances at getting a 6, which will automatically beat whatever your opponent has (unless it's a hero who chooses to use Might).
• Eomer and Gandalf (and Erkenbrand if the points level is high enough) are no slouches in combat - on the charge, these are devastating heroes (they can all be S5 when charging) and are pretty typical of what you'd see in a Riders of Theoden force (except that Gandalf has the advantage of having an Elven-made weapon that makes him always S5 instead of having mundane weapons that are S5 - or S4 if you're Dernhelm) on the charge alone.

Photo Credit: Tumblr

For many players, these are not good enough reasons to make the Legion worth playing - and that's fine. Today we're going to look at a formation you can run when charging to get the most out of your limited toolkit of models AND that one glorious turn of charging when the Sun is Rising. Let's look first, though, at what usually happens when you "just charge" with your cavalry - and why a lot of new players are afraid to try this.

The battle lines are drawn - charge!

We're going to charge on a turn when we don't have priority - this prevents us from being counter-charged and we can choose where we engage. We start by using Sorcerous Blast to knock over the Uber-Captain in the battle line (along with a Berserker and a banner-carrier that he's touching - see our post on Sorcerous Blast for how to do that legally):

The Captain is the target, and being in base contact with two models and being shoved directly through both bases, all three fall over, but no one is killed by the damage roll . . .

We didn't kill anyone (oh well), but we know the Captain is on the ground, so we can charge him with a warrior without any risk. Let's assume that we charge two warriors with Gandalf (as he finishes his move) and Eomer rides in nearby into two other warriors:

"You take that side, I'll take this one!"

Then we charge with a Rider into the prone Captain and Berserker:

"For glory (and hopefully a promotion - Gandalf, are you watching this?)!"

Then we throw everyone else in:

"TO THE KING!!!!!"

When we get to the Fight phase, we declare that the Sun is Rising (no point in delaying - let's get in, deal damage, and get out) and we call Heroic Combats with Gandalf and Eomer (since we charged warriors and have the higher Fight Value with a -1 penalty applied to our opponent's rolls for this round only) - the fights turn out as you'd expect:

2 Berserkers and 2 crossbowmen down . . . and Gandalf slams into the Uber-Captain ("Hey, that was my chance at a promotion!?!?!?!")

We then resolve the fights in the order our opponent wants (he has priority after all) and here's how it goes:

Lots of dead Uruks, a few dead Riders . . . but most importantly, the Uber-Captain fell . . .

If you look at the Dead pile, you might be feeling pretty good:

12 kills/2 losses sounds pretty good to me . . . especially since one was the army leader . . .

Sure, we killed a lot of stuff, but because we charged in with basically everyone, we are looking at being flanked on our left flank pretty badly on the next turn and while our heroes might be okay, they're low on Might and calling a Heroic Move is a dicey proposition (pun definitely intended). 

We also lost a couple of Riders on the ends of our battle line because we were spread out so wide that we couldn't have our one banner supporting all of our battle line. As we go into the second round, here's how things look (we got priority, the Uruk-Hai Crossbow captain calls a Heroic Move, we counter-call with Eomer because "we need it this turn" (1 Might left), we lose the roll-off (I knew that would happen), and the Uruks slam into our guys):

We charge as best we can with our remaining models (blasting with Gandalf, which killed a Berserker):

Four charges, then some counter-charges . . . Gandalf's Terrifying Aura wasn't much help against Berserkers . . .

But then we're counter-charged by the models we couldn't tag and the fights go predictably - considering that we're out-diced, have the lower Fight Value, and don't have a banner near most of our forces:

1 Uruk killed, Gandalf lost a Fate point despite having a really bad set-up, and 2 Riders were killed . . . Much worse round, but probably could have been even worse . . .

If we continue with this pace, we are going to lose - Gandalf is surrounded, Eomer is surrounded, our banner is exposed, and our warriors don't have the higher Fight Value. There's got to be a safer way for us to engage that still hits hard but also sets us up better for the next round of combat (when our army is quite a bit weaker if we don't have the charge). Thankfully, there is. I present to you the mushroom charge!

You could make it more mushroom shaped if you wanted to - but think more "atomic bomb mushroom" than the edible kind . . .

Yep, nothing special about this formation - it's three riders spaced out a bit in the front rank, two heroes spaced between them, and five riders in the second rank (one of which has the banner). All of these models are comfortably within Blinding Light range and only the two guys on the end aren't within range of the banner. While we won't be charging with everyone on the first turn, we do gain something we didn't get before - reserves.

The principle of reserves has actually shown up in two prior formations - both cavalry formations - in this formations series: the Cantabrian Circle (designed for helping cavalry archers skirmish better without being caught easily) and the formation that attacked the Long Fangs formation. In both formations, having cavalry models behind the front line gives us flexibility if our front line can be charged in that we can guarantee that someone will not be tagged if we move second - and that means someone will be charging. 

Pro Tip: if you're running a cavalry-heavy army, make sure some people are always charging. Whenever possible, you want to do this without spending Might.

In Rohan lists that include Theoden, this will mean that someone is going to be F4-5 (depending on the model doing the charging) and get +1 Strength in most Legions as well. In this legion, we get the Strength +1 because Eomer is nearby, but the Fight Value remains the same. Still, a model with more dice than another model doesn't need the higher Fight Value in order to have a better chance of winning a fight. As such, by just holding a few Riders in reserve, we make it easier to kill models on the second turn - even if we don't have the charge with all of our models (or the global -1 penalty being applied to the enemy).

Ideally, this charge won't be happening on the first turn. In fact, hopefully it's not happening on the fifth turn. This Legion doesn't have to engage - and if Gandalf has unleashed all of the fury of the Valar against the enemy (warriors or heroes), the lines you may be facing could be a LOT worse off than we showed in the first example. Just to keep the comparison simple, though, let's look at the same set-up as before but engage in the "mushroom" formation instead:

Gandalf leads the charge, casting Sorcerous Blast against the Uruk-Hai Uber-Captain on his way in and charging someone (same as before):

Same thing we did before . . .

We then have Eomer and the other front line guys charge, keeping everyone tight together (so we can maximize our banner use):

Weeeeeeeeeee!

We then have the second rank drift forward (within Blinding Light but not close enough to be charged):

As we did before, we declare that the Sun is Rising and we call two Heroic Combats with Gandalf and Eomer - they go predictably (though both had to spend Might to get their kills this time, so each has 1 Might left):

And then we resolve the other fights - which are a little less devastating to our opponent this time because we had fewer models charging, but because almost everyone who charged was within 3" of the banner, we only lost one fight and we killed most of the models that we charged (including the Uruk-Hai Uber Captain - another great round):

Like last time, we win priority, but because our footprint was much smaller this time, calling a Heroic Move with the crossbow Captain won't allow the Isengard player to charge anyone except Gandalf (exposing his line to a counter-charge by our reserves), so the Heroic Move isn't called. As a result, we start by hitting where we're strong:

Gandalf casts Sorcerous Blast again (doesn't land any kills though):

And we finish our charges with some sacrifices:

Gandalf and Eomer are playing the mid-field, while two of our reserve Riders are "just tying people up" . . .

The Uruks respond with some nasty traps, but again, they can't reach much:

Gandalf and Eomer spend their last Might points calling Heroic Combats and they slay their foes and charge to fight again:

Four more dead Uruks!

When the fights are resolved, we're in a much better position (with Gandalf being the only real model in danger - something we could have fixed by having him race away from the bulk of the army, I guess):

We lost 3 Riders, but we killed four more warriors too . . .

So what has this done for our kill count? Well, we managed the following kills:

16 kills/4 losses (instead of 13 kills/4 losses) - only one away from breaking the enemy army!

So why did that work out? Well, it was mostly due to positioning! If our opponent knows a Heroic Move won't let him tag much of anyone, he won't call it, giving us charges (which we want). Our emphasis on our right flank also made it easier to kill the models on that side, securing a better position for ourselves. Sure, our left flank got rolled (poor guys), but our concentration of mass meant that on the subsequent turns we would be free to dictate where we wanted to be (there are 6 Uruks still on that side, but we have 5 models including Eomer there to pound them in). 

Like an atomic weapon (not that I'm advocating for the use of those things), the goal with this formation is to have continuous power driving into the opposing force - and by keeping troops in reserve, we can do that. Ultimately, I think this list benefits a lot from charging as much as you can on the one turn you have the Sun Rising penalty, but how you concentrate your attack is a big part of winning the longer game that's being played. And sometimes, losing out on a few Riders charging in order to be in a better position for the next charge is worth it.

One final note: I've heard a lot of people say that having a Shade makes Angmar Orcs effectively F11 since they can get a 6 and their opponents can't. In our example today, the Sun is Rising does something similar, but the likelihood that a F3 Rider of Rohan on the charge with no banner to support him wins a duel against 3 dice from F4 Uruk-Hai is actually closer to a 50-50 proposition - so unless you have banners that help all your Riders, you could lose half your fights:

53% of the time, the Rider should take it - the number goes down to closer to 25% when the Uruks don't have a -1 penalty, which is why you want that first charge to be spectacular.

Conclusion

Hopefully you've learned something from this post - I'm looking forward to trying out cavalry-heavy lists (pretty new to me, despite playing the game for over 10 years) and hope to bring these guys to a tournament some time (perhaps not with this Legion - I really like Theodred and vanilla Rohan). We'll have another formations post next month - until then, happy hobbying!