In Defense Of: Balin the Dwarf, King of Moria

Good morning gamers,

We turn today to one of the first heroes I got for the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game (then the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game) and one of my first purchases on eBay: Balin the Dwarf, King of Moria. Balin has been a staple of the armies I run for the Dwarves of Khazad-Dum since the very beginning and though his profile has changed from era to era only slightly, the utility of such a hero has been questioned at high points levels. Let's dig in today and specifically look at how including Balin your army at high points levels can be surprisingly good.

Why NOT To Take Balin

One of my oldest models . . . who has been my friend through many dangers . . .

If you haven't watched the Unexpected Podcast team's review of the Kingdom of Khazad-Dum/Moria, you should - it's REALLY good. In that podcast, you'll see that Balin is championed as the "better choice" for lower points levels (500pts and below) because he provides a similar profile to Durin for a lot fewer points. To understand why this is, let's take a look at the Khazad-Dum list and what the "bare necessities" are for that army.

First off, you have two ways you can run the list - you can run the "Kingdom of Moria" (colloquially called the "Moria Expedition") which features Balin the Dwarf (our hero for today), Floi Stonehand, Ori and Oin the Dwarves (in their Champions of Erebor forms), and Gimli (these latter three only if you include Balin in your army first). The second way that you can run the list is as the "Kingdom of Khazad-Dum," which gives you access to Durin and Mardin. Both lists have access to the full suite of unnamed heroes and warriors - which means that the debate over which one to run is strictly based on hero choice (and on some level, how those heroes can help your warriors).

If you compare Balin and Durin, you see pretty similar profiles that differ in a select few (but very important) ways:

Paying 50pts extra for +1 Defense/Attack/Wound? Sign me up, am I right?

Both Durin and Balin are F6/S4 and have Courage 6 and 3M/3W/1F. With Durin's Axe in possession of both, each gets +1 dice (effectively) to their dueling rolls and +1 To Wound without penalties (master-forged two-handed weapons and all). So far, pretty similar - and both pretty good compared to heroes from non-Dwarf lists.

Where they differ can be huge depending on your opponent. Durin has +1 Attack and +1 Wound, which makes him less likely to botch a dueling roll and requires more wounds to be dealt in order to die. Durin is also D9 with a 6+ save from the Crown of Kings, which further increases his resilience to incoming damage. Durin is also Fearless and causes Terror so long as he has the Horn of Zirakzigil (which could be valuable target for a Blackshield Shaman). Finally, Durin can boost your troops with his war horn (the Horn of Zirakzigil again) and he can upgrade Khazad Guards in his warband into Hearthguard who gain the Burly keyword (so they also can two-hand without penalty). He can also reroll priority once during the game (while Balin might be able to do this more than once by spending Will points, thanks to the Longbeard special rule).

Well, that seems like a wealth of reasons to take Durin over Balin - did I mention that he also costs 50pts more? While 50pts (+2X pts where X is the number of Hearthguard you want) might not be a deal-breaker to taking Durin, let's look at what Khazad-Dum also needs to include in the list in order to be a threat at low points levels.

As I said in the Bare Necessities post on Khazad-Dum, these Dwarves need two things: Heroic March and at least 1 banner. Heroic March is available on two generic heroes in the list (Dwarf Captains and Dwarf Kings) and will run you 60-85pts. A Dwarf Warrior with a banner will run you an additional 34pts (assuming you give the Dwarf Warrior both a banner and a shield), which means your March+Banner combo is taking up 95-120pts in your army (for 2 models). Add Durin to the mix and you're spending 250pts on 3 models - and granted, you have 29-32 warrior slots left, but if you only have 250pts to spend and you want at least 10 Hearthguard in your force (at 13pts/model), you probably have 20 guys at the end of it.

Furthermore, if you REALLY want to maximize on points efficiency, you probably want to take a King's Champion for 140pts instead of a Captain/King and banner, since you get a Dwarf-King-like profile (better in some respects, worse in a few places) and two banners for less than you'd pay for a Dwarf King and two banners. With 1 banner to stand behind the Champion and 1 banner to stand behind Durin, you can kill quite a bit (check out my post on King's Champion formations for more info on how you might structure this kind of list).

But at 500pts, if you do this, you won't be Marching - which means scenarios that require you to get somewhere will see your Dwarves running around at 5" each turn trying desperately to get somewhere. And if they can't within the time limit, you'll lose (even if you've lost a handful of guys). With all this in mind, saving 50pts would allow you to run Balin (who has Heroic March) and a King's Champion with a LOT of guys at 500pts and below and tick off all the boxes of things you need to compete in every game.

So what does Balin buy you at higher points levels that you can't get with Durin and his Hearthguard? Plenty - let's take a look.

Why TO Take Balin

Balin, on his own, isn't a match for Durin - he's just not. At 110pts, however, he doesn't have to be - like Isengard armies that run a lot of Uruk-Hai heroes, he is cheap enough that you can bring him and a few friends along in order to do more killing overall than you can do with just one big hero. While Durin is definitely the most beastly profile of the Dwarves of Khazad-Dum, let's see how that bench fills out if you take the Kingdom of Moria vs. the Kingdom of Khazad-Dum:

Mardin vs. Gimli and Floi

If you run the Kingdom of Khazad-Dum at 700pts, you can get Durin, a King's Champion, and a Dwarf King with no extra equipment (better than a Dwarf Captain with a shield in almost every way if you have 10pts to spare) for 375pts (basically half your points) and this would allow you to pick up 18 Hearthguard and 10 Dwarf Warriors with Dwarf bows (or shields, if you don't like archery - or you can swap Dwarf Warriors with Dwarf bows for Dwarf Rangers with standard bows because they cost the same). Note that you have 1pt left over, so you can do a weapon-swap on one of the Hearthguard so you can have a two-handed mace in the army (two-handed bash whoever is fighting one of the big heroes so that hero can double their wounding dice). This would give you "only" 33 models at 700pts, but you'd have a tough army to beat and three good combat heroes (along with 2 banners and 2 Might for Heroic March). This is a small army, but anytime you rely on a TON of Hearthguard, you're going to be small.

By contrast, if you take Balin instead of Durin, you save not only the 50pts difference between Durin and Balin, but you also have 36pts from the purchase of the Hearthguard upgrade. With 87pts to spare (if you don't do a weapon-swap), you have some interesting choices:

• If you're not going to get Hearthguard, I'm not sure that you need 18 Khazad Guards. As a result, you can downgrade 7 Khazad Guards to Dwarf Warriors with shields (save 2pts/model, leaving us with 101pts left over) in order to get Gimli. As you can see from the chart above, he's at least comparable to Balin - which effectively turns one big hero (Durin) into two pretty big heroes (Balin and Gimli). If you're used to facing an opponent who brings one spellcaster, this approach is far more likely to succeed.
• If you don't like Khazad Guards without the Hearthguard upgrade, we can downgrade 7 Khazad Guards into Dwarf Warriors with shields (saving 2pts/model, saved 15pts) to upgrade three of our remaining four Khazad Guards into Iron Guards with weapon-swapped axes. This gives us 2 Attacks at D6 instead of 1 Attack at D7 with Bodyguard and the opportunity to two-hand.
• If you don't like Iron Guard, you could swap most of the melee troops you have (12 out of 14 Dwarf Warriors with shields, 3 Iron Guard, and 1 Khazad Guard) and 1 Dwarf Warrior with Dwarf bow for 7 Vault Warden Teams (which would give you 31 total models, but you'd have a VERY big D9 front-line - very similar to one of the other King's Champions formations we looked at a few months ago).
• Regardless of what you choose to do with your warriors, you don't actually need the Dwarf King in this list for March (if you're willing to March with Balin), which means you could free up some points by taking a Shieldbearer (who helps you with the Courage tests you won't auto-pass with Hearthguard and the war horn you're not getting with Durin). You'll also get free Heroic Combats with a F5/S4-5/2A hero, which is pretty good for slaying an extra guy each round and keeping Balin from getting swarmed by troops.
• If you don't want a Shieldbearer, you can do a straight swap of a Dwarf King for Floi, who isn't a great combatant (as you can see from the chart above), but does allow you to remove Active and Passive abilities from enemy heroes, which includes Aragorn's ability to wound more easily with Anduril (or Azog's ability to wound heroes more easily with his I Am The Master rule) - or take away niche rules like Master of Battle, Venom/Bane of Kings, or the ability for the Necromancer of Dol Guldur/the Undying/Castellans of Dol Guldur using their Will points as Fate points. This can be clutch in some games.
• Finally, you could just drop the Dwarf King and take additional troops - 4 Iron Guard with weapon-swapped axes with some extra points on the side, 8 Dwarf Warriors with shields or Dwarf bows, 6 Khazad Guards with some points left over, 3 Vault Warden Teams, or a Dwarf Ballista (with some points left over after you get an extra crewman). Lots of options.
  

Balin isn't a bad hero for 110pts - and he's one of the cheapest Heroes of Legend in the game (edged out by Theoden, potentially Thorin Oakenshield from Thorin's Company, some very limited builds of the Witch-King of Angmar, Dalamyr, Suladan the Serpent Lord without his horse, and Sharkey - and Worm, I guess). Compared to these other guys, he's a great purchase in his own right - and the savings that you get (both by him innately costing less AND the fact that he can double as your March hero) means that your basic troops can be better (or more plentiful) and you can have additional heroes as threats. Seems like a decent reason to take him to me.

Balin also allows you to reroll priority three times during the game (unless there's a magic caster gunning for you). While you might not think this is THAT good, getting priority with Dwarves can mean the difference between life and death (whether it's charigng cavalry before they can charge you, getting out of charge range so you can shoot a turn longer, or making sure your lines don't get wrapped so your high-Defense Dwarves are taking double-dice to wound). Durin can do this once - which is good, but not as good as Balin.

Finally, Balin might not have as good a stat line, but his stat line is plenty good enough to deal damage to most foes you face. Durin's 3 Attacks will probably have two rerolls (one from Durin's Axe and one if he's within range of a banner), which is effectively 5 dice to win the fight (~88% chance of getting a 5+). Balin by contrast will almost always have a King's Champion, so he will be getting 2 rerolls for his 2 Attacks (which isn't as good but still gives you 4 chances to get a winning roll - and an 80% chance of getting a 5+). 80% isn't 88%, but it's close.

When taking damage, yes, Balin will fall faster (2 Wounds/1 Fate isn't good), but D8 is still plenty hard to wound (most heroes will need a 6 to wound, while most warriors will need a 6 or 6/4+ to wound). If you can manage his exposure, he can do just fine. Durin is definitely the better brawler (he ranked #36 for the Forces of Good slayers for me while Balin wasn't ranked at all - somewhere in the 50s or 60s), but his resources are dedicated strictly for fighting stuff (or keeping magic from rooting him in place - this makes him a better brawler, by the way). Balin's Might and Will are more flexible and he's still pretty decent in combat - and at the end of the day, that's useful (especially if you have 1-2 other big brawlers in the list).

Making It Work

We've already talked about some list building ideas in the section above, but I'll just highlight my discovers about Balin from using him for the past 10 years (across several editions of the game):

• Balin needs a King's Champion in his list - and you should be able to get this at any reasonable points level (400+). If you're playing below that, chances are you could still get away with it - your opponent probably doesn't have an answer for 2 F6/D8 Dwarf heroes at 300pts.
• While you can certainly run one with Balin, most of the time you don't need a Dwarf King. Dwarf Kings are great heroes (especially for allying with other factions - like Arnor or Elves) and I think they're essential if you run Durin. But Balin basically IS a Dwarf King with a lot of extra boosts (+1M/+1W, the ability to use Will to reroll priority, +3 warrior slots, auto-pass first Stand Fast test, Durin's Axe) for 35pts more. Sure, those 35pts could be spent on other things, but if you take Gimli over a Dwarf King, you're getting a lot more flexibility on your offense (+1M/+1F, access to Strike instead of March, throwing axes and master-forged two-handed axe included in price, leads -3 warriors).
• Khazad-Dum can be melee-heavy, but the Kingdom of Moria is a shooting army, since you aren't encouraged to swing heavily into Khazad Guards. If you run 33% bows and add throwing weapons or ballistas to get additional shooting out of your melee troops, you can be a potent threat against armies that don't shoot (and your high defense makes you a threat to most shooting-heavy lists as well). My go-to builds include maxing out archery with a 50/50 split between Dwarf Rangers with bows and Dwarf Warriors with Dwarf bows, a handful of Dwarf Rangers with throwing axes to be included in Balin's warband (to be Marched 8" each turn towards objectives while still threatening with their throwing axes), some Iron Guard (more throwing axes) to support the King's Champion, and a handful of Khazad Guards/Dwarf Warriors with shields to support Gimli.

Here's a 700pt list that I like to run - 41 models (4 models shy of our max), three big heroes, 3 Might for March, and over half the list is capable of shooting (6 Dwarf bows hitting on a 4+, 6 bows hitting on a 3+, 5 throwing weapons hitting on a 4+, 6 throwing weapons hitting on a 3+):

• Balin the Dwarf, King of Moria [ARMY LEADER]
• 2 Khazad Guards
• 4 Dwarf Warriors with shields
• 2 Dwarf Warriors with Dwarf bows
• 2 Dwarf Rangers with bows
• 6 Dwarf Rangers with throwing axes
  
• King's Champion
• 2 Heralds
• 4 Iron Guard with weapon-swapped axes
• 2 Dwarf Warriors with shields
• 2 Dwarf Warriors with Dwarf bows
• 2 Dwarf Rangers with bows
  
• Gimli, Son of Gloin
• 1 Khazad Guard
• 1 Khazad Guard with two-handed mace
• 4 Dwarf Warriors with shields
• 2 Dwarf Warriors with Dwarf bows
• 2 Dwarf Rangers with bows
  

Conclusion

Well, that's it for my review of Balin the Dwarf, King of Moria. If you have experience running Balin (or Durin, for that matter), let us know in the comments below. Next time, we turn our attention to a faction that has been getting a lot of love in the past year and will be getting a prominent part in the next sourcebook release: the Easterlings. Amdur needs no introduction and neither does Khamul. Dragon Knights are great at killing things (and not great at fighting off mages or archer heroes) and Shamans can be really helpful in getting more oomf out of heroes like Amdur or Dragon Knights.

But what about the lowly Eastering Captain? Is he worth including in your army? How should you kit him out? And why does he seem to be ignored by many players who want those big, shiny killing models? Well, check out the post coming up next week from Centaur (since my dislike for Easterlings in general is well-documented here) who will be taking us through the ins-and-outs of one of his favorite Easterling models. Until then, happy hobbying!