In Defense Of: Azog

Good morning gamers,

Today we come to a TMAT crowd favorite who seems to be absent from much of the competitive circles: Azog. Despite being a member of the of "6-Might-club," Azog has several limitations that make many players look the other way towards his cheaper son, Bolg. For me, Centaur, and my son Gorgoroth, though, taking Azog is a no-brainer and he's head-and-shoulders better than his competitors (especially his cheaper son, Bolg). Want to find out why? Well, let's have a look - Centaur, get us started!

Why NOT To Take Azog

Photo Credit: Games Workshop

Centaur: Okay, so to start off, I think Azog is only worth taking if you take him with the White Warg. This means, full stop, he's expensive for what you get. At 225+ points you're looking at a model that is only at par for wounding D6+ warriors (5s or worse, same as you get on a 100pt Theoden, Faramir, etc.), whereas an evil monster hero for the same cost or cheaper is ripping those warriors apart on 4s or better. He's got a good offensive profile and he's very good at killing heroes (one of the best against heroes generally), but when compared to Bolg he's not dramatically better and is a good 50ish points more expensive.

Add onto this that Bolg gives all of your archers Morgul Arrows (a niche benefit when fighting multi-wound models, but hey, it's a boon against those high Defense multi-wound models that you don't want to have to wound more than once with S2 archery) and potentially access to free Might Points if he can kill enough stuff, and it begs the question whether you need Azog over and against his younger counterpart.

Azog also suffers from the perennial named orc problem of low Fate Points, which means he has some survivability issues. D5-7, probably with a chance of taking wounds on the warg, is good, but it's not great odds against serious archery teams, and when factoring in special rules that can auto-kill you if you don't Fate save (siege weapons, King of the Dead, The Necromancer), and that low Fate Point pool is an issue. But even without factoring that in, it means scoring points for wounding the army leader is easier than it is against the vast number of D7+ 3 Wound 3 Fate heroes that exist. While this is an issue with Azog's Legion (and Azog's Hunters, for that matter) in general, this becomes a bigger issue with Azog because of the fact that he's a larger points sink: you don't have as many pieces to shield you from danger, thanks to stacking more Might Points and special rules in one place.

Azog also lacks a ranged attack, which means that if you can't get him into melee (heavy magic armies shutting down your movement, high mobility armies skirmishing you at range, etc.) you're not getting a lot out of the points you've invested in him.

Gorgoroth: I think that the Stone Flail is very expensive - with it, you get +1 To Wound for +20pts. Additionally, if you use it, you go down to F6 and can't Heroic Strike to increase your Fight Value. Bolg starts with a two-handed pick and can Strike from F7 without buying anything else.

Tiberius: Bolg is the usual point of comparison for Azog, and as Centaur has already covered, he's cheaper and "basically does the same damage." But if Azog was already viewed as too expensive, he becomes even MORE expensive if you're considering taking the Signal Tower. Though a model/terrain kit hasn't been made for this yet, a 200-point upgrade on an over 200-point hero (assuming you took the White Warg - which you should) is WAY too much to spend on one guy. When you could get Bolg on a Warg for 175pts, a Gundabad Captain to call Heroic Marches for 55pts, a Gundabad Orc with shield, spear, and banner for 35pts, 5 more Gundabad Orcs with shields for 45pts, and a war horn for 30pts, you're spending ~330pts for the same number of models as you'd get for 425-445pts on Azog with the Signal Tower. Sure, you don't get a 6+ save or a Courage -1 debuff applied to your opponent's models, but you're saving 100-120 points . . . this doesn't seem like a worthwhile endeavor.

Centaur: So if these are issues for you, you should avoid running him. I don't think any of these are bugs: all of them are features. And they're all reasons that you should run him.

Why TO Take Azog

Centaur: First and foremost, we should address the Azog v. Bolg question by saying that I personally think Bolg is better if you're running Azog's Hunters, but I think that Azog is better if you're running Azog's Legion. Bolg's Morgul Arrows ability is a nice boon to your hunter orcs, but is worthless on an Azog's Legion army.

But where Azog pulls ahead is that Bolg is comparable to Azog when he gets going: against a Vanquishers of the Necromancer legendary legion, Fellowship army (of various stripes and kinds), or other low model count army, Bolg will kill almost no models, meaning that he will get...Terror? Reliably? At which point he's far weaker than Azog in almost every respect, save for wounding warrior models (which, again, these kinds of armies don't field hardly at all, if at all).

The benefit of Azog is that you get immense power out of the gate. You don't need to wait to get a lot of Might Points: you have 6 Might Points when you start on the warg. You have a D5 mount to protect you and itself against S2 archery. You have a mount you can dismount and it will stay with you through the thick and thin, no need to Courage test. You wound a D9 or D10 hero on 3s with a mace. Even Sauron - one of a small cadre of models that cost more than a 225pt mounted Azog, let alone a 245pt mounted Azog with the stone flail - can't do that.

And he does all of this while still having Master of Battle. So while he may not get access to Mighty Hero, he is getting, effectively 1 free Might Point each turn as long as your opponent calls something you like. And technically, with access to Heroic Challenge, you could get some Might Points back if you play your cards right.

Oh, on that point, there's an advantage to having limited Fate points, and that is the ability to bait people into accepting a challenge. [WARNING: CONTROVERSIAL POINT COMING UP BECAUSE, BELIEVE IT OR NOT, CENTAUR ACTUALLY BELIEVES THAT HEROIC CHALLENGE IS WORTH USING IN NICHE CIRCUMSTANCES] See, since they can call Heroic Strike (or Heroic Defense) on the same turn you call Heroic Challenge, the other person has ways to stay alive for the first round at least. So if they have reason to believe that they could kill Azog in a single turn (like if he's out of Fate and only has 2-3 wounds left), that's just free Might Points on the table for them, and that might encourage them to accept the challenge (especially if it means pulling a troll or other dangerous model out of the fight with them to even the odds). And when they don't beat your Fight 7 with their Strike, or they roll lower than a 6 and you don't, or any number of other things that could go your way, you bash their skull in and take their money (aka, get some Might Points).

And this doesn't even get into how great it is to have access to a Signal Tower, or a stone flail that only drops you to -1 Fight when you whirl, or any of the other nice goodies you get with Azog. He's a powerful character, and the package he presents is phenomenal. Definitely worth the look.

Gorgoroth: S5 on the charge is good, but it isn't too good - Warriors of Minas Tirith/other D6-7 units will be wounded on 5s, but with the Stone Flail, you'll wound them on 4s. Warriors of the Dead are normally wounded on 6s (which isn't good), but the Stone Flail lets you wound them on 5s. I think the Stone Flail kills warriors really well.

When you're being swarmed by warriors, you can also Whirl (still at F6) - and Whirl isn't very common. Whirling makes it easier to call Heroic Combats when your opponent tries to bury you with warriors or mass-slay models if you don't want to risk pouring Might into wounding rolls.

Tiberius: I actually spent quite a bit of time talking about the Signal Tower in my Bare Necessities post on Azog's Legion - it's well worth the points. For starters, my half-hearted argument about Bolg + Gundabads with banner/war horn ignores a few critical facts. First, the Lieutenants you get each have 1 Might/Will/Fate, which makes them better than normal Gundabad Orcs on a number of levels. Pair with this that their Heroic Marches that they can call can be free and you can have three Marching Captains for your army while still manning all four stations. With profiles that are basically Dunedain without bows but with +1 Defense, you're looking at ~170pts in value for 7 of these guys - which is almost the same as the Signal Tower itself.

The remaining points would be made up by the Horn of Gorgoroth, which is a war horn + Courage debuff. War horns are 30pts each no matter what faction you're playing, but a better price point for comparison is the Moria Goblin Drum, which has an 18" range banner AND a battlefield-wide Courage boost AND a battlefield-wide Courage debuff for your foes. If you ignore the two drummers (Moria Goblin Warriors with weapon-swapped clubs = 5pts each), the drum costs 65pts, which means between two of the features of the Signal Tower (battlefield banner and the Horn of Gorgoroth) and the guys manning it, we've already saved 35pts (roughly). I should add that an 18" banner on a Moria Goblin Drum is basically the entire battlefield, but it isn't the entire battlefield, while the Signal Tower is . . . so 35pts in savings is a very conservative estimate.

We then get free Heroic Marches - which we may not need, but for every Heroic March we call for free, we've saved ourselves 5pts . . . which may not matter, but could matter quite a lot. The placement of the Signal Tower is important, since scenarios like Reconnoitre, Hold Ground, Divide and Conquer, or Storm the Camp can allow us some very interesting tactical advantages to help us "get somewhere" with or without free Heroic Marches - see my article for more info on most of these scenarios.

Finally, we also get a 6+ save on all of our Gundabad models. The distinction is important because Goblin Mercenaries aren't Gundabad models (as are almost everyone you'll ally in, including Hunter Orcs . . . don't know why that is). A 6+ save doesn't work very often, but every model you save is points you didn't lose, positioning you didn't give up, and potentially control of an objective that wasn't lost. If you're up against a shooting-heavy army and you're wounded on 6s already, any wounds you can deny with a 6+ save are well worth it. All of the heroes in this list (particularly Azog and Bolg) only have 1 Fate point, so any save you can try to make BEFORE committing to using your Fate point is valuable.

Making It Work

Centaur: Okay, the others are going to do this with Azog's Legion because they're smart, but I'm going to do this with a historical alliance between Azog's Legion and Azog's Hunters, using Azog as a single drop. This is not per se the wisest plan, but it gets us what we want (Azog with Master of Battle) while giving us a loooooot of numbers and toooooons of attacks in melee. Add onto excellent shooting, good mobility, and good economy heroes, and you've got a good start to the list. So here's 700pts of crazies for you:

• Azog on the White Warg (Army Leader - Azog's Legion)
• Narzug
• 6 Hunter Orcs with Orc Bows
• 5 Hunter Orcs
• Fimbul with Fell Warg
• 4 Hunter Orcs with Orc Bows
• 5 Fell Wargs
• 2 Hunter Orcs with Two-Handed Picks
• Hunter Orc Captain with Two-Handed Pick
• 4 Hunter Orcs with Orc Bows
• 1 Hunter Orc with Banner
• 2 Hunter Orcs with Two-Handed Picks
• 5 Hunter Orcs

This gives you 38 models (and only 3 off of full warbands in the Azog's Hunters side of the list; you could drop the captain and ten of the hunter orcs to make room for spearmen in Azog's warband which could bring you over 40, but I opted not to for this build), 6 fast attack models (one of which is Azog, and one of which ignores penalties for difficult terrain), 16 orc bows (one of which gets a free Might per turn and has Morgul Arrows) all hitting on 4+ or better, and a baseline of 70 attacks (or more, depending on if you charge) if all of your boys make it into melee combat, which, considering how many centerline deployment scenarios there are, is possible. Sure, you're overwhelmingly F3 D4, but who cares: you're going to maul the enemy to bits when you win a fight, as everyone is S4+ in melee, and if they try to skirmish you've got decent suppressing fire to cover Azog on his approach.

Gorgoroth: 

• Azog on the White Warg with the Stone Flail
• 1 Gundabad Troll with Scythe Gauntlets
• 1 Gundabad Troll with Crushing Club
• 1 Troll Brute
• 1 Gundabad Berserker
• 2 Gundabad Orcs with shields and spears 
• Catapult Troll

Tiberius: Azog enters "god-mode" when he has everything - he decimates heroes with F7/Strike/Master of Battle, he decimates warriors with the Stone Flail, and he makes his army amazing with the Signal Tower. Taking the Signal Tower requires bulking out your numbers to make up for the loss of points (445pts for a fully maxed out Azog including the Signal Tower). As such, the 700pt list below has a healthy amount of models (43 models - surprisingly high considering we invested almost two-thirds of our points in 8 models), most of which benefit from the Signal Tower benefits:

• Azog on the White Warg with heavy armor, the Stone Flail [ARMY LEADER]
• 15 Gundabad Orcs with shields
• 9 Gundabad Orcs with shields and spears
• The Signal Tower
• 7 Azog's Lieutenants
• Goblin Mercenary Captain
• 10 Goblin Mercenaries

This list may not look like much, but only one warband deploys at the start of the game (besides the Signal Tower) and all of those Orcs will be moving quickly, shrugging off the occasion wound, and rerolling a dueling die - they're dangerous! The Mercenaries can flood the Tower if need be (or ambush from a board edge). And amidst the chaos emerges Azog, resplendent in all his awesomeness - let's see Bolg pull that off, shall we?

Conclusion

Tiberius: Well, that wraps up another discussion on heroes that get critiqued. If Azog is your jam (or if you hate him), let us know below! In our next post, we'll be delving into the Army of Thror to look at a profile that seemingly has no place in it: Grim Hammer Captains. Often compared to the other generic hero profile (Captains of Erebor), these guys just don't seem that valuable since they don't have a shield and are "only" S4 (which Grim Hammers who have been upgraded to Guardians of the King can be as well). Are these guys pointless heroes to have in your list? Are they a wasted profile? I don't think so - find out why next week - until then, happy hobbying!