An Apologetic for the Stun Special Strike

Hey Reader!

So in his recent ranking of the five special weapon strikes, Tiberius came down pretty hard on my main man Stun, so I thought I'd take a minute to beat a dead horse that probably no one cares about by talking about why this special strike is better than you imagine (and should at least be above Bash on Tiberius's list, if not higher). 

I know, no one asked for this post, but I was sick on a Wednesday morning and was off from work, and this is what my mind decided to fixate on, so I don't know what that says about me, but here we are, :P

I want to first walk through why the Stun special strike is so advantageous compared to the other special strikes, and then walk through how the armies that field this special strike compliment it well, as I think the faction context (short of paying for a weapon swap) is the part that a lot of people miss when evaluating this special strike.

I.  Stun: The Irresistible Special Strike

The first and most important part about this special strike is that it's not an opposed roll: your opponent can do nothing about your attempt to stun them. There's no roll-off like you have with Bash, there's no reduction to your Defense if you lose like with Piercing Strike, no penalty to your fight value like you have with Whirl and Feint, and no fear of damaging yourself like you have with Stab.

So in that respect it's the best special strike: nothing hurts you if you fail to win the fight, and your chances of winning the fight aren't diminished either.

Furthermore, you stun human-sized models on a 5+, and you stun monsters on a 6+. It doesn't matter what the target's Defense value, Strength value, Wounds value, or anything else is: it's a 5 or a 6 based on the type of creature you're targeting. And do you know what's great about that? Melee wounding rolls are overwhelmingly done on...a 5 or a 6, or worse than that, especially with the S2 and S3 models that overwhelmingly have clubs and staves (there are also wizards who are S4, but those are rare, and them using the Stun special strike is even rarer, in part because the two "battle wizards" among them either can get lots of attacks thanks to sleighs or they have a S5 sword and often choose to use that instead). So it's not harder to stun someone than it is to wound someone in the vast majority of cases.

In fact, in a lot of cases it's actually easier than wounding thanks to who gets access to staffs/clubs. We'll look at a breakdown by army in the next section, and naturally you can pay +1pt/warrior or +5pts/unnamed hero to weapon swap, but the models pre-equipped with clubs/staves are predominately S2 and S3 models with 1 attack, and that means that they are not going to be wounding hardly anything on better than a 5, and for monsters it's rarely better than a 6. So it's actually easier in a large number of cases to stun someone than it is to wound them.

Furthermore, these models are, comparative to their counterparts, cheap. Hobbit Shirriffs are 5pts each. Ruffians are 5pts each. Goblin shamans are cheaper than comparable shamans (Druzhag is an exception, but the exception that proves the rule), and elf stormcallers are typically the cheapest heroes in their list (Bilbo Baggins for Rivendell excepted). We can go on and look at more models, but the point is clear: staff/club models are cheap, and that means you can have plenty of Stun across the battlefield if you want it.

And finally, and not something commonly addressed, is the fact that stun damage is non-lethal. In matches where the game ends randomly when someone breaks or the match ends when one side is quartered - which is all of the scenarios as far as I know - you want to be careful on when you end the game, and that means that you may want the opportunity for non-lethal damage. Some models can do this by shielding, and others may employ the Bash special strike, but Bash is not particularly easy to get off, so you might find yourself with no real benefit from attempting the special strike.

Stun on the other hand not only doesn't do damage, but it reduces your target's Attacks to 1 (take that copycats like the Knight of Umbar, let alone those big monsters with 4-5 attacks when they are on the charge) and their Fight Value to 1 (try getting past that, Heroic Strike). So there's a huge advantage to future fights, not to mention the fact that a lot of the models with Stun built in have lower Fight Values (wizards excluded, but even then there's a good number of wizards that don't have Heroic Strike, so their F5 can be beaten rather easily).

II.  Army Selections for Stun: The Ideal Special Strike for Those that Have It

As I noted above, a lot of what makes Stun appealing is that the armies that have it really need it. Let's take a quick look.

Shire: It goes without saying that, in this army, making your opponents F1 is awesome, because you have a lot of F1 in your army mixed in with a good bit of F2 and F3. The fact that you can get this on models that are F3 is also great, as it means that you have the Fight Value advantage once you stun the target when going for repeat stuns, and if you can get 3 shirriffs into a target, you can effectively guarantee a stun against a man-sized model every turn for the rest of the game.

Ruffians: when you're F2, it sure helps if the target is F1, especially if numbers are on your side. Ruffians come with clubs standard on almost everyone (a few heroes lack it, but that's it), so you can literally have this everywhere if you want it, which is really nice.

Goblin Blackshield Shamans: let's be real, we don't want them fighting, and if they do get attacked they won't be doing any serious damage, so if they have to be in a fight their best contribution is to weaken the enemy to make it easier for your F2 goblins to do their job. That's the ideal situation, and Stun makes that ideal far more achievable than wounding someone.

Malbeth the Seer: Arnor lacks a true "power hero" in its list. You have one decent mid-range hero (Arvedui), a good captain, and Malbeth the Seer. But Malbeth's staff allows him to Stun, and that means that suddenly your decent mid-range hero is a serious threat to the stunned target, especially if that is a high Fight Value hero that would otherwise be calling Heroic Strike. And if you can keep winning fights with Arvedui against the target, Malbeth can keep stunning the target until they are gone. Add onto this that he's surrounded by durable spearmen who can hold the line against a lot of punishment, and you've got a good way of dealing with high-ticket enemies on a non-fighting character.

Dwarves: There are a few dwarves that have staffs (Floi, Thorin's Company Oin, etc.), and in a dwarf army that is a very useful special strike as you have good attack stats and defense on your models. Whether you're running Khazad Dum or Thorin's Company, being able to take a power unit and make them feeble is extremely useful, as you have a lot of good mid-range heroes and your high-end heroes tend to have survivability issues (though Company Thorin is admittedly close to that level even though he's under 125 points, which is the top of mid-range for me).

Monsters: Okay - there are some trolls and ogres that get clubs, but I'll be honest: I wouldn't really use them for Stun. Just make attacks. Like, if you win against Gil-Galad or Glorfindel and you don't think you can kill them in one go, it might be worthwhile to just Stun to make sure you can beat them next turn and slowly whittle them down, but you don't get a bonus to Stun for being monstrous, so I would just use your attacks 9 times out of 10.

Related, I wouldn't Stun with Bandobras Took or other heroes that have a good number of attacks, as you don't get to roll 1 dice to Stun for each Attack you have: you just get to roll 1 die. But in a pinch, you could.

Conclusion

Stun provides a wide range of options with no save by your opponent and no drawbacks: it's just a free negative effect on your opponent on a 5 or 6. I think this puts it above Bash (which is very situational as the size of your opponent and their Strength Value give a wide range of success ratios based on who is doing the bashing, and a lot of your "good bashers" you want performing strikes anyway), and I think it's above Whirl as well, as dropping all of the way to F1 makes getting Whirl to go off very hard to do (unless you Stun the target first - because Stun is so awesome, it even sets up other special strikes to do their thing more effectively).

I won't go as far as to say that it's better per se than Piercing Strike, but, as Tiberius noted in his article, it's very situational based on the Defense of the enemy: when it makes a difference it's really good, but when it doesn't it's completely useless. Similarly Feint/Stab can be risk-free if you have spear support and/or enough people in the fight, so fair enough, but I'm just saying: risk-free v. sometimes risk-free.

So give Stun a chance: it's far more useful and far safer a move than people give it credit for.

Watching the stars,

Centaur

"I watch the stars, for it is mine to watch, as it is yours, Badger, to remember." ~ Glenstorm, Prince Caspian