Quest of the Ringbearer Inspired Lists: Cirith Until LL

Good morning gamers,

We're almost done with the year and we've almost finished with this mini-series of taking our collection from Quest of the Ringbearer onto the tabletop for matched play. Today we turn to a Legion that I was very excited to see (and kinda groaning at collecting - the models are SO EXPENSIVE!) - the Cirith Ungol LL. This Legion, run as a normal Mordor list for a long time by theme-minded fans, looks a lot like the Ugluk's Scouts LL, but behaves very differently. Let's look at what we have to work with!

The List

This is once again an army that can use Orcs - and as we saw with both Angmar and the Ugluk's Scouts LL, Quest of the Ringbearer gives you a LOT of Orcs. Unlike the Ugluk's Scouts list, we only have 16 Uruk-Hai (including Shagrat), so our options for running Uruk-Hai in this Legion is pretty limited (though only just less than the 25 Uruk-Hai we had for Ugluk's Scouts). Thankfully, though, we do have plenty to work with - let's see what we have:

• You'll need the Shagrat and Gorbag pack - the new one with the two poses of Shagrat is best, more on that in a minute;
• You'll also need Shelob, who is a nasty piece of work in this legion;
• You'll need 37 Orc Warriors (12 shields, 12 spears, 6 Orc bows, 6 two-handed weapons, and 1 banner); 
• You'll need 3 Orc Captains and if you purchased the Orc command blister, you also have an Orc Shaman; and
• You'll need 15 Mordor Uruk-Hai - technically, you need 15 with no extra gear, so this could be as many as 30 Mordor Uruk-Hai if you want to spend a lot of money and be technically correct.

True talk: I'm not sure that anyone would ever run Mordor Uruk-Hai with no extra gear in matched play - getting a shield seems to be a popular choice, though I prefer the Orc bow (they're decent archers and scary to charge). I equip some of these Uruks with two-handed maces as well for extra damage. If you're buying 3 packs of Mordor Uruk-Hai so you have 18 warriors (though again, you COULD buy 5 packs so you have 15 warriors without extra wargear), we can safely assume you have 18 Uruk-Hai to work with in reality. Today, we'll be taking advantage of our "actual collection" and assume you have access to 18 Mordor Uruk-Hai (plus 2 Shagrat models) - let's look at the list:

• Shagrat, War Leader [ARMY LEADER]
• 1 Mordor Uruk-Hai with two-handed mace
• 3 Mordor Uruk-Hai with Orc bows and two-handed maces
• 4 Mordor Uruk-Hai with Orc bows
• Mordor Uruk-hai Captain with shield
• 1 Mordor Uruk-Hai with two-handed mace
• 2 Mordor Uruk-Hai with Orc bows and two-handed maces
• 5 Mordor Uruk-Hai with Orc bows
• Gorbag, Orc Captain with shield
• 6 Orc Warriors with shields
• 5 Orc Warriors with shields and spears
• 1 Orc Warrior with shield, spear, and banner
• Orc Captain with shield
• 6 Orc Warriors with shields
• 6 Orc Warriors with shields and spears
• Shelob

The equipment is all wrong and many of the Uruks are Isengard Scouts . . .

700 points, 45 models, 14 Orc bows hitting on a 4+, 5 D6+ models, 1 fast infantry, 10 Might

Let's begin with this: if you'd like to drop the two-handed weapons in the list and replace them with shields (or some extra spears with blue stuff you can add to your Orcs), be my guest - I stuck with the models as-modeled and just added bows to the Uruks. Competitively, this is probably not the right move - though frankly, getting two-handed weapons on S4 models in a list that also has animosity has its charms (especially since you can get spear-supports (who don't trigger animosity) to help with winning the fight.

Besides that, the units we're taking have basically been chosen for us - I've chosen the second Shagrat models to be our Mordor Uruk-Hai Captain (should be pretty easy to see, give him a shield and he's good to go). We have both a Mordor Uruk-Hai Captain and an Orc Captain because a) I wanted more than 12 Uruks, b) the Shaman is nice, but we'd just be piling in Mordor Orcs with shields and I'd rather have Uruks, and c) this list REALLY needs March. D4-5 troops aren't good at winning a shooting war with another army that has decent archery, so being able to call an audible and move at the double-quick to engage is a good idea. One Captain might be enough, but I like having two so your third or fourth-string hero isn't out of Might by the time the fighting begins.

We've maxed out our spears (basically) which is as important for this list as it is for the Ugluk's Scouts LL - and as we talked about in the Cirith Ungol LL review in our Stuff of Legends series, I've chosen to max out on archery as well (on the Uruks, of course). This is also similar to the Ugluk's Scouts LL, except that our bows aren't as good . . . for reasons nobody knows. We've got a single banner (I'd prefer two, honestly) and enough spears to back up most of our Uruk-Hai (or stand in front of them if we're facing S2/S4 archery and want to get into a stand-off).

And we have Shelob, who I don't think should be written off in this list. She's under 100pts and gives our army a) much-needed speed, b) is F7 with S7 and 2-3 Attacks when she charges, depending on what kind of model she's fighting (in a Good vs. Evil context, she's quite likely to get the +1A bonus). She may not have Might or Fate and she may not be able to call Strike from F7, but with D7 and 6 Wounds, most heroes and warriors will find it incredibly hard to kill her off. This can buy your other heroes time to chop through the enemy and can hold up a S4 mid-tier hero for quite a few turns. If a hero runs out of Might to Strike against her without killing her, they'll find more than they bargained for in the great spider.

With this basic understanding of the models we've chosen, let's dig into how the army works.

Army Theory

Let's begin with the purposes of our Orcs and our Uruk-Hai. We have four traditional warbands and a lone spider - each of the Uruk-Hai warbands has 9 models in it and each of the Orc warbands has 13 Orcs (6 spears in each one). This means that we don't have the 1:1 ratio of spearmen to Uruk-Hai that we'd probably want, but we do have a 1:1 ratio of either spearmen to support Uruk-Hai or Orcs with shields to stand in front of our Uruk-Hai. With all of the Uruks in this particular list being D4 (except the two heroes), we've got some innate vulnerabilities to archery. D5 Orcs might not be any better at stopping a S3 arrow or thrown weapon, but their losses don't feel as bad. We should also have a few Orcs handy to walk behind Shelob as "snacks on the go" so she can reroll dueling dice (which makes her MUCH more effective). 

Shagrat and the Mordor Uruk-Hai Captain should always have spears behind them, Gorbag and the Orc Captain should always have spears behind them as well, and 8 Mordor Uruk-Hai (I'd recommend the 7 two-handed weapon Uruks and 1 Orc bow Uruk) should have spears backing them up as well. If you are able to deploy your entire army together, a 12-man shieldwall is a pretty good line - and with 8 more Uruk-Hai and 12 more Orcs, you can guard the flanks of this battle line pretty well (put 4 Uruks with 4 meat-shield Orcs in front on each flank - that battleline is at least 20" long!). Oh, and Shelob is somewhere nearby, ready to shift the balance in your favor.

Who's in front is based greatly on how your opponent has positioned his troops and built his army. Shooting-heavy lists will be less thrilled with Orcs as meat-shields - especially if they're marching. If you know you can't out-shoot the enemy (though again, you have a lot of archery), March with two ranks of Orcs in front of all your Uruk-Hai (a Millenium Falcon formation would work really well for this) so there are two D5 in-the-way rolls that need to be made before your critical units are hit. With 2 Marching heroes, you can probably chase anything down if you really want to.

Shagrat wants to get into combat with heroes - specifically Heroes of Fortitude who can't Strike. Why? Because he can Challenge them - and if he's engaged in combat with an Orc (and 1-2 spear supports), your opponent is looking at taking a real beating thanks to Animosity (Shagrat will be rolling 3 dice at S5 with +1 To Wound - brutal!). If the target hero rejects the Challenge, you just kill him - 'nuff said. As I mentioned in my review of the Cirith Ungol LL, getting Animosity in Shagrat's fight is pretty hard, but if you have two heroes near him (Gorbag especially and the Mordor Uruk-Hai Captain if possible), these guys can charge two models each, leaving enough space for Shagrat and an Orc buddy to charge into the enemy target hero. Spears then come up and support the four models that have charged, while the rest of the army spreads out to engage the battle line and keep the enemy from wrapping around the heroes.

If your opponent sees a mess of heroes bunched together, chances are good, this is where your opponent will either swing most of his force OR retreat with as much as he can. Given that, your use of Shelob is basically to corral the enemy towards your big heroes (or distract his big heroes with the big monster). Shelob doesn't look tough, but she is - she really is. Unless you're a S5 hero with +1 To Wound (or Aragorn with Anduril), you never feel good about attacking Shelob. Heroes with S4 (the vast majority of them) wound her on a 6+, which can be a 5+ if they have a +1 To Wound bonus or are willing to boost with Might, but with 6 Wounds and immunity to being knocked down, you have to trap her if you want to have a good chance of killing her in one go. With some Orcs to help her out, that isn't likely (if you make sure she has her flanks protected and room to back up). 

What's more, if Shelob gets a good roll and the enemy doesn't, there's a real fear that she will a) barge someone who called Heroic Defense away, b) double her wounding dice with Monstrous Charge if she charged, c) hurl one of the engaged models into friendly models, or d) risk a single die strike with her Caught in a Web Brutal Power Attack to paralyze the model (ouch). None of these are good options - suffice it to say that Shelob can draw resources out of people pretty easily. 

But this underscores an important principle about this list: the heroes in this list aren't particularly good. Yes, Shelob can be amazing and yes, Shagrat is a beast, and yes, Gorbag is pretty good for his cost. But these heroes are either F7 with 1-2 Attacks or F4-5 with 2-3 Attacks and access to Strike. If you run afoul of armies that have several F5 heroes with Strike (like Rohan) or several F6+ heroes with Strike (like Rivendell/the Fellowship), your ability to win fights with your heroes against their heroes could be severely limited and you could find your Orc/Uruk-Hai heroes knocked over and getting smashed into the ground. Add to the fact that these are your most courageous models (and even then, they're not that brave), Terror armies could neutralize your heroes pretty well too. Managing your match-ups for your heroes is going to be the key to success.

The good news, of course, is that you have lots of troops to assist you in winning games - 14 Orc bows that hit on a 4+ and that turn into F4/S4 beaters in combat are going to do work for you, and having lots of Orcs means that objectives can be swarmed with pretty good numerical odds (and if those Uruks are getting +1 To Wound from Animosity and +1 To Wound from their maces, there's very little they can't chop through if they can win the duel in the first place). This army is pretty tough to stop once it gets rolling - and so the job of your heroes is really to enable your warriors to do what they do best: killing everything.

Game Play Strategy

Maelstrom & Object Missions (Pools 1 & 3)

This army really doesn't want to play maelstrom missions, but only in that your Uruks won't have spears in their warbands. Your Orc spearmen are only half of your Orc warriors, so you CAN have a shieldwall of Orcs if you need to. In Hold Ground, you want to get to the center quickly, so you should begin by deploying your two Captain-led warbands (the March ones) and accept whatever you get. If they don't appear next to each other, that's fine (and in some ways, can actually be good). Then, deploy Shagrat and Gorbag and spend Might to deploy near one of the Marching warbands (if you have the choice, deploy Shagrat near your Orc captain and Gorbag near your Uruk-Hai captain). Shelob can do whatever she wants - either racing to the center if your opponent is faster than your infantry or ramming into an enemy warband like a grenade (Hurling if possible to slow the enemy down). Once you're in the center, try to block-out your opponent from being in scoring range.

In Command the Battlefield, you don't need to March necessarily, so if possible, get your warbands to arrive on the centerline of each board edge at the least, but ideally you'll have one Orc warband and one Uruk warband on the north and south board edges OR on the east and west board edges. Deploying on the center allows you to contest all four quadrants from two board edges, though the squads won't be in a position to help each other. Shelob should deploy near one of your Orc warbands if possible to assist them from getting overrun. Focus on getting to the enemy, though shooting may be alright for you in this scenario (if the terrain is kind). 

In Heirlooms of Ages Past, you want to deploy with all four of your traditional warbands together and March towards the objectives as a unit (deploy around a corner so it doesn't matter if you get choice of north/south or east/west board edges). Shelob can deploy wherever - she's fast, ignore terrain for movement penalties, and hits hard. Place your objectives near the center of the board so Shelob can reach them easily - since she's infantry, she can claim them and get away with it quickly. If she does find it, get behind your wall of troops and hide. Shooting her to death (or even sniping her with magic) can be quite difficult, so she's a great objective-holding caddy.

In Seize the Prize, we once again want Shelob to do our work. March her forward on the first turn so she can try to dig up the Prize, though you'll want to support her with your Uruks and Orcs as closely as possible. Punch through the enemy if he tries to meet you in the center, queuing up as many Animosity fights as you can (this can be really difficult). If Shelob gets the Prize, run her around your troops and use terrain as a screen (she ignores their penalties, remember). If you can, keep a Captain within range to March her forward and out of danger - she'll be hard to snipe if the enemy can't keep up.

In Destroy the Supplies, Shelob is great for harassing your opponent's objectives and you have plenty of troops to hold his forces up away from your supplies. Use Shagrat and Gorbag to chop through troops where possible so you can force your opponent to draw resources away from his defensive positions, giving Shelob an opening.

Retrieval is, perhaps the best scenario for Shelob to shine, since she's fast, dangerous, and the rest of your army will draw aggro from everyone if they're moving forward towards the enemy. Deploy as far up as possible so you have the shortest distance to cross, leaving some Orcs with shields behind to defend your objective (you can leave some archers behind too if you want).

Control Missions (Pools 2 & 5)

In Domination and Breakthrough, you have a TON of units - make sure you deploy on the center line in two clumps, with Orcs that can race backwards to other objectives as needed. Shelob guards the center, "wagging" to wherever your opponent tries to strike OR racing off to attack a vulnerable spot. Shagrat and Gorbag should focus on carving up whatever position your opponent is most concentrated in, always forcing your opponent to dedicate resources to containing them. Thanks to flooding our army with Orcs, we have plenty of bodies to leave behind at objectives.

In Command and Control, you have to control five objectives - your goal is basically the same, though you want to deploy heavily in the center, sprawling out towards both of the side objectives too. With such a large battle line (and units on the flanks who don't have spears - and so have no reason to rank-up), your opponent may try to punch through your ranks to get to the objectives in the rear, but because this game can end randomly after one side breaks, having lots of models on lots of objectives can win the game even if you break. Shelob should be around to either plug holes in your line or to race around the enemy ranks and threaten the rear objective on your opponent's side of the board.

Reconnoitre is going to be tough for you, but Shelob has a good chance of getting off the board (if she's being Marched and if she's given a screen by your troops). I'd work to get your army Marched up to the center of the board so you can engage the enemy far from your board edge. Use your archery to make your opponent move slower (or whittle down his numbers as he races towards you) and make a Thin Red Line to keep the enemy from racing around your flanks and scoring. If you can get some Orcs and Shelob off the board (with one of your Captains to keep them going), you have a good chance of winning the game if you can keep your opponent in the center of the map. While this army doesn't have great Courage, this can play to your advantage if you break, as you can quarter yourself without much difficulty.

Seize the Camp is a similar strategy - start by deploying Shelob so you don't run out of space in your deployment zone. March towards the center and meet your opponent as far from your camp as possible. While most of the armies I've reviewed recently are encouraged to keep their archers near their camp for defense, you need your Uruks at the forefront. Skirmish with the enemy near the center for as long as you can, engaging in combat when you can take advantage of your numbers. If you can get Shelob into the enemy camp, she has a good chance of clearing the entire objective on her own.

Divide and Conquer is the last control-based mission and you should alternate your warbands so you can guarantee you have Uruk-Hai and Orcs in each of your deployment zones (two Captains, then two named heroes, then Shelob). Marching to the center would probably be helpful, not only because controlling the three objectives is where most of the points are located, but also because your bows are short-range and getting in position early is best for shooting. Make your way to the center (have Shelob lead the way if your opponent has fast warriors that you can pounce on) and circle up there for as long as you can.

Killing Missions (Pools 4 & 6)

To The Death will either be great for you or horrible for you, depending on how much shooting the other side has. If your opponent has lots of bows, you're in trouble. If he has a "normal amount," you might do okay if they're S2 bows. If he has hardly any bows, you have a distinct advantage (whittling down the enemy in numbers before slamming into him with F4/S4 with spear-supports). Focus your fire on the sections of your opponent's armies that have banners in them, as you want the banners to fall before the game ends. Do your best not to break - if you don't break and can quarter the enemy (or the game times out), it's hard to lose this one.

Clash by Moonlight will be similarly difficult if your opponent has lots of shooting (D4-5 gets cut to ribbons by any kind of shooting when they get +1 To Wound), but if you have most of the shooting, it should be easy for you. Thankfully, your opponent can't shoot from beyond 12", so if you time your Marches, you can March to within 6" of the enemy and endure one round of archery before charging into combat. Like To The Death, not being broken is a big part of the scoring, but you also need to kill heroes, so I'd employ Shagrat and Shelob on that front (use your other heroes to carve through warriors).

Lords of Battle is probably the trickiest of these killing scenarios, as you have LOTS of points you can hand out from your D4-5 troops (and Shelob - she has a LOT of points to give up if she runs). On the flip-side, you can deploy on the center line and charge the enemy quickly if you don't have the shooting dominance OR you can sit back and shoot if your opponent left his bows at home. Animosity will be key here - get it in as many fights as you can (it's hard, do your best) so you can chalk up a few more kills.

In Contest of Champions, Shagrat isn't a bad killing hero. He can probably carve through enemy warriors quickly, but if possible, you want him to avoid heroes of all kinds. Since Shagrat has to start in the face of the enemy, you might as well drop everyone else on the centerline too. Leave room for Shelob to work on the flanks, ideally getting a Hurl down the line into the enemy army leader's fight (keeping him on the ground and possibly denying him kills from the guys he charged). If you get a chance to attack the enemy army leader while he's on the ground, take it (ideally with Shagrat and an Orc).

Assassination will be tricky, as your opponent has lots of D6/2 Health/1 Fate heroes to choose from and Shelob (who is D7/6 Health/0 Fate). Getting a wound on any of your heroes is probably not hard. Your assassin should probably be either Shelob or Gorbag, depending on which one you feel better about getting a kill in. The target may be chosen for you, but as much as possible, you want to pick someone you can isolate with Shelob or Gorbag (ideally who can't Strike, as Shelob will probably have the advantage that way). Work to break the enemy quickly so you can roll to end the game before your heroes have time to be targeted.

Fog of War will be even trickier. You probably want to protect your Orc Captain, have him March your army up, and then have him retreat to safety. Your opponent will probably want to target one of your Captains (though again, Gorbag and Shelob are viable targets and are all but guaranteed to be in the action). You'll want to target a hero that's easy to kill in melee with any of your units - heroes probably, but your warriors pack a punch too so long as you can get Animosity to trigger. The objective you'll want to hold should probably be something near/on the center line so you can move up as a blob and stake it out. You can do a deep-fake with Shelob, though, sending her to some other terrain piece as a feint, able to race in and bail you out if you need to.

Conclusion

This is one of those Legions that I look forward to playing in 2022 (once I get all the Uruks converted up). The models are cool and it's a unique way to run Mordor (kind of like the Black Riders list we looked at last time . . . only without all the magic and with a ton more guys). Next time, we're wrapping up the series for the year by looking at the now-altered Rangers of Ithilien Legendary Legion. Once the pride, joy, and down-right hated dominant faction at 500-600pts, the Rangers of Ithilien have been critiqued as being "nerfed into oblivion" by the requirement to take Frodo, Sam, and Gollum. 

As someone who advertised for this tax (at least the Sam and Frodo bit), I figured it behooved me to try the Legion out at the 700+ scale (where most people thought it wasn't viable anyway because of your opponent's access to anti-shooting) and to report out how to approach games with it. Maybe I'm crazy, but I think this list is still plenty scary. Join me next time as we not only plumb the depths of this Legion, but how you can use your Quest of the Ringbearer models (and maybe an additional purchase) to run it. Until next time, merry Christmas and happy hobbying!