Revisiting Play Styles Part 2: The Theme Playstyle

Hey Reader!

Welcome back to the blog! Tiberius wrote a blog post recently about list building for beginners, based on a 2015 post I made talking about the seven list building play styles I noticed at the time. Last time we talked about the Collection Playstyle, and in today's post we are looking at the second playstyle: the themed army.

Similar to our last post we will examine what goes into this playstyle, and then discuss how we can maximize the effect of that playstyle and which armies best allow us to maximize the potential of the theme.

I.  The Theme Playstyle: "Feel Over Math"

In a very oversimplified paraphrase of the philosophy, this playstyle comes down to accuracy over aptitude. If Lorien wasn't at Helm's Deep in the books, then we aren't taking elves in a Helm's Deep centric army (and in fact, you're probably playing Vanilla Rohan so you can add Hama and Eomer to the army, as Hama dies there and Eomer is also with them). If Gimli wasn't with Balin when he setup the Kingdom of Moria you won't run Gimli in a Kingdom of Moria Khazad Dum army. The theme comes first.

Minuteman Kirk in our gaming group is renowned for this, and I suspect that Red Jacket falls into this category to some extent as well: the feel of the army is critical to how we build lists.

Now, this means that there's a good chance that good models (like Gimli) won't be taken in an army because they just don't fit the theme, which is why the power level of the model isn't necessarily considered (hence "accuracy over aptitude"). It also means that you may not take advantage of other boons or special rules available to your faction.

Why cave trolls? Because they are one of the cheapest monsters in the game,
and their stats are good enough to hold up in a 550pt tournament

I recently played a "troll horde" army at the 2021 THRO Tournament, which was an Angmar army that had no spirit models. Why didn't I ally in a dragon from Moria (since I wasn't getting my army bonus anyway)? Because it didn't fit the theme: I wanted a troll horde, not just a monster horde. So I didn't take obvious models to include (barrow wights mixed in with trolls are brutal, not to mention giving your orcs Terror), even though they would have made the army stronger.

Now it's worth noting that this is not always true: most legendary legions are thematic, so playing with the legendary legion can lead to a strong theme that is also strong out of the box due to what it allows for army composition. We'll talk about this more below, but just suffice it to say for now, legendary legions tend to be a great way to get theme without sacrificing optimization.

But sometimes you do have to get creative with optimizing your list while still being consistent with theme, and that's where we turn next.

II.  Maximizing the Theme Playstyle's Potential

So we'll get the obvious out of the way: there are some powerful legendary legions that have a strong theme, so if you like playing thematic armies and you want to do well in a tournament, may I recommend the Rangers of Ithilien, Breaking of the Fellowship, Vanquishers of the Necromancer, or Riders of Theoden for the Forces of Good, and Assault on Helm's Deep, Depths of Moria, Black Riders, and Rise of the Necromancer. All of these will serve you well, and truthfully almost any legendary legion will do pretty well while maintaining a strong theme.

But since I want this post to have some semblance of surprising content, here's a few other things you can do, :P First, you can focus on a specific model type. Maybe you're running Isengard and you want to maximize the number of attacks you do, so you are building a list at, say, 700 points, and you think, "Huh - I can take Lurtz and Mauhur who both have 3 attacks, tack on Sharku who starts with 2 attacks but can get 3 attacks on the charge, and I can now take almost 40 warriors with 3ish attack heroes. I wonder how many more attacks I can get in," and then you look and discover you can take 35 feral uruk-hai and an orc with a banner (giving you rerolls for your duel rolls near him) at 700 points. That's almost 40 models, all but one of which is rolling 2+ dice to win a fight. Suddenly we have a cool theme: The Meat Cleaver Squad.

Will it win? Maybe, actually - your chances of rolling 6s go up immensely if you have 2-4 dice in the fight, and as long as you take take advantage of terrain for archery protection the D4 of your feral uruk-hai shouldn't come up all that often. Plus you've got March all over the place, so archery isn't so bad. Is it optimized? No - it's heavily theme-y without a thought toward optimization, but will it work? Against a good number of armies, probably.

A "Halloween Army": a wide range of spooky models in one army

You can also focus on a calendar theme. If the tournament takes place around Halloween, maybe you run a spooky army of spirits, monsters, and orcs (Angmar and Mordor do this really well, though arguably you can get the same feel from any of the Azog or Dol Goldur armies too). If the tournament is around Christmas maybe it's Radagast on his sleigh joined by a bunch of elves (and it's a "What fun it is to ride and sing a slaying song tonight" army). Maybe it's around Easter and you do characters who came back from the brink (Gandalf, Glorfindel, Aragorn, Frodo, etc.). The sky is wide open.

You can also theme around a specific special rule. Maybe you like poison, or hatred, or Bane of Kings, so you take a bunch of models that get the special rule so you can play with it. This is most common for monster armies, but it could be that you really like Hasharin, Dalamyr, and the Betrayer because they get to reroll all failed to wound rolls, so you build an army around that. Similarly you might be a, "14 barrow wights at 700 points" person (which, the more I think about it, the more I want to run that army, :P People would hate me, but hey, whatcha gonna do), or a "Double Dragon at 700 points" person.

III.  Factions to Consider 

Fun theme: All Dragon Army for Moria! Also I'm less
than enthused about the GW dragon sculpt

Some factions play better with specific playstyles, and this is very true for Theme players. On the whole theme armies tend to be more common in armies with more options (there aren't a lot of themes beyond painting schemes for, say, Easterlings), but there are a few notable exceptions to this which we will note below. A few ideas for factions that will perform decently well if you have this mindset.

• Halloween Army: I run Angmar, and Angmar has a lot of good options for a "Halloween Army" full of spooky things. You throw in a few orcs for spooky mobs, a barrow wight or two and a shade for ghosts, dead marsh spectres for zombies, a troll for a terrifying abomination, and a nazgul of even more spoopiness. Maybe add in or replace some stuff for Gulhavar, though at that point you don't have a lot of models. But you get the idea: instead of building an optimized Angmar army you are building a spooky army (probably with little to no Might Points because, you know, lots of undead heroes). Is it the "best way to run Angmar"? No. Is it loads of fun to run? Yes, from personal experience it is a lot of fun to play, even though I had literally zero Might Points in the whole army. It was so fun, and I'd gladly do it again.
• Osgiliath Defense Force: This also works for the Rangers of Ithilien legendary legion, but you take a specific set of Gondor troops and heroes and build your list around them. This means you'll pass over excellent troops like Tower Guard and Citadel Guard because they don't fit the theme, and you'll pass over useful heroes like Elessar and Gandalf the White, but in exchange you get a cool theme. Maybe you're running a Rangers of Ithilien Legendary Legion, or you're running an Osgiliath force of Osgiliath Veterans and rangers led by the two Sons of Denethor, and you build your terrain accordingly to reflect the army. Loads of fun, even if it's not the most optimized use of points (as you are not getting shieldwall, longbows, siege weapons, etc.).
• Chariot Swarm: Khand is probably best run either as an ally contingent or with a mixed set of horsemen, chariots, and some infantry for holding objectives, but do you know what is really fun? Running a dozen chariots through the enemy lines, tearing through their massed infantry ranks, and praying that you somehow don't get in each other's way. Is it likely that you'll traffic jam yourself? Oh yes. Is that likely to reduce the effectiveness of the list? Maybe if you don't practice with it, though at the same time since you can put a bow on these guys, if you cut off a charge route for a chariot you can always pivot it, run it wide, and then shoot. But either way the theme is fun, it's unique, and it's quite effective with practice. You can kill a lot of guys and dismount a lot of heavy-hitting heroes with a good chariot charge.
• Gothmog's Actual Army: Personally I don't like the Army of Gothmog legendary legion, as I think it has some clear gaps that should be present (ringwraiths on fell beasts were definitely there, but lo: none of those in the legion, Great Beasts of Gorgoroth brought Grond up to the gates, etc.), not to mention we see models in the movies that were part of the army that don't make an appearance (Easterlings pouring into the Great Gate with the orcs as one example). So themed armies can also just be scenes from one of the books or movies, choosing models that fit that particular battle or event. And in this case you could have war beasts supporting a phalanx of Easterlings joined with Morannon Orcs for S4 killing power, which is not a bad anvil. Add on a few trolls, and you've got yourself a strong offensive army.
• Moria Monster Mash: Since Moria has multiple monster heroes and options for monstrous warriors, you could run a "Monster Mash" army: an army just composed of monsters. You can also do this with Angmar and Mordor, by the way, but I'm choosing Moria because they have the most variety. I ran one of these a few years back (a dragon leading a troop of cave trolls), and I'll tell you this: it's not the best at completing objectives, but boy oh boy is it fun to use. Between all the hurls, barges, and rends, it's a very asymmetric list to face because of the theme of the army.
• Smaug: Yeah - this one writes itself. If you like the theme of, "I am DEATH" then here you go. It's the best way to do it, hands down.

And if you have your own examples, let us know in the comments! I'd love to see the cool themes you come up with!

Conclusion

Thematic armies allow you to get into a mood when you play. It's what encourages you to dress like your army, make spooky sounds when moving your guys, or whatever boats your float. And that's part of the fun of running a thematic army: you get to do shenanigans that could work (that's the key for this series) that are not being done by the meta.

Next time we'll be talking about linchpin army, an army that takes one specific aspect of the game and turns that up to 11 to reach victory. Until next time, you know where to find me,

Watching the stars,

Centaur

"Remember, Firenze, we are sworn not to set ourselves against the heavens.  Have we not read what is to come in the movements of the planets?" ~ Bane, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone