In Defense Of: Grim Hammer Captains

Good morning gamers,

Today we travel to the mountain of Erebor to view one of the most underrated generic heroes in the game: Grim Hammer Captains. Once a profile with an out-of-production model (they came out recently as made-to-order), Grim Hammer Captains exist in an army list with a very limited set of profiles. Unfortunately, most players ignore these guys, choosing instead to go with one of the five named heroes from the Army of Thror or the other generic hero option, Captains of Erebor (who also got a model back in production). So today, we'll be looking at what's missing from this model that gives it the bad wrap that it gets - and why they're perfectly good heroes to take.

Why NOT To Take Grim Hammer Captains

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

Grim Hammer Captains have a great profile - most Dwarf heroes do - but when compared to the other generic hero option in the list (Captains of Erebor), they just don't look as good:

Grim Hammer Captains cost +5pts and have, as you can see, an identical stat line to Captains of Erebor with shields, though they have throwing axes and the ability to fight two-handed instead of being able to shield. For most players, shielding (getting 4 dice to win the Duel and foregoing the wounding roll) looks a lot better on a F5 hero that can't Strike than going two-handed (where you'd get a -1 penalty to your 2 Attack dice to win the Duel and getting +1 To Wound if you win the Duel roll). Shields save lives - and the cheaper guy has one.

Additionally, Grim Hammer Captains have the option to Bash instead of using Piercing Strike, but doing so forfeits their 2 Attack stat and isn't any better than Bashing with a Guardian of the King. Though how many Khazad Guards are upgraded to Hearthguard when brought with Durin is a point of some debate amongst veteran players, basically all Army of Thror players agree that if you're going to bring Grim Hammers, you might as well pay +1pt/model to upgrade them to Guardians of the King (so they're base S4). Guardians of the King aren't as good as Khazad Guards, but they are pretty cheap and you can get a TON of them with Thror. Thanks to that 6" banner Thror has (if/when you keep your army bonus), these guys don't need to be spear-supported to be dangerous. Does a Grim Hammer Captain need to Bash? Probably not.

The third critique of these guys is that they're paying extra points to get a throwing axe - and with a 4+ shoot value, these guys just aren't reliable enough to count on killing stuff with throwing axes. Without additional specialized heroic actions, a higher heroic tier, or a special rule that makes them stand out, these guys just don't look cool. But just because they can't shield, can't call Heroic Strike, and are a tad more expensive doesn't take these guys off the table for me - in fact, the lack of shield and the presence of throwing weapons actually makes them MORE appealing to me. Let's see why.

Why TO Take Grim Hammer Captains

To understand why I like these guys so much, we need to take a look at their Armies of the Lord of the Rings generic Dwarf hero cousins - Dwarf Kings and Dwarf Captains:

What you're seeing in the image above is the comparison between the Grim Hammer Captain and Captain of Erebor that we viewed before alongside the comparison of a Dwarf King with throwing axes (80pts) compared to a Dwarf Captain with shield (65pts and an identical profile to the Captain of Erebor besides the faction-specific keywords). The Dwarf King is +15pts and gets +1 Fight Value, +1 Courage, +1 Will, Heroic Resolve, +3 warrior slots thanks to an erratum that made him a Heroes of Valor, and throwing axes (which the Captain can get as well, but would mean everything above was included for a 10pt upgrade). For most competitive players, if you have the 10-20pts you need to get a Dwarf King, you get one - because they're just better.

But why is the lack of a shield option for the Dwarf King not a deal-breaker? Why are we okay with a F6-without-Strike hero who has 2 dice to win the duel instead of a F5-without-Strike hero who can shield to get 4 dice to win his duel? It's because all of the little benefits he gets (bonus Fight Value, extra Courage/Will to pass Terror checks more reliably, extra slots to help you horde out instead of having to take an extra hero) is more valuable than shielding. Grim Hammer Captains aren't F6 (as was shown earlier, they have an identical statline to Captains of Erebor), but they're also not 15pts more expensive - they're only 5pts more expensive. So let's look at the options that Dwarf Kings and Grim Hammer Captains have that make them more appealing than "just a shielding Captain."

The first big thing that both Dwarf Kings and Grim Hammer Captains provide is the presence of a throwing axe. Throwing weapons are intrinsically unreliable shooting weapons (unless you're charging, you're probably suffering the -1 penalty To Hit and they're all S3, no matter who's throwing them), but anyone who is D5 and below is hesitant to get close to these guys if they can't charge them - an axe to the face hurts a lot. If you only have one hero with a throwing axe in a squad, you're not that worried - but if a Dwarf King is leading a host of Dwarf Rangers with throwing axes (or Iron Guard), that squad can move quickly and absolutely devastate anyone who tries to tie them down. I will pause here to give a hat-tip to the Dwarf Captain from Khazad-Dum who CAN get throwing axes (as I've already said) . . . he really would be a great hero if he didn't have to compete with a Dwarf King . . .

Similarly, a Grim Hammer Captain who is leading a small squad of Grim Hammers/Guardians of the King can rush towards a far-flung objective (Marching if needed) and has a constant 6" threat bubble that they can cast towards anyone who wants to try to catch them - and a hero with at least 1 Might point backing up his throwing weapons could REALLY throw a wrench in your day (well, throw an axe in your day . . . as it were). And unlike Dwarf Rangers, you can't just try to shoot these D7 warriors and D8 hero before they get to you if you dare - they're probably not going down!

Second, both Grim Hammer Captains and Dwarf Kings lack shields - and this encourages them to actually do damage. While a shielding Captain of Erebor can hold ground for a long time (or force resources out of a big hero), Grim Hammer Captains will only not be doing damage if they choose to Bash - and as has already been stated, they aren't really encouraged to do that since there are so many 1 Attack models that can Bash. If you have a spear-supporter (and especially if you have a banner in the fight), these guys can be absolutely lethal when fighting two-handed - and as I've found out while running the Assault Upon Helm's Deep LL, saving your Might exclusively to boost Dueling rolls with your hero REALLY does pay dividends so that hero can two-hand all the time.

Making It Work

Let's start with this: there's nothing wrong with running a Captain of Erebor. If you want to save five points to get a model that can defend by shielding and can't use throwing axes, that's fine - you do you. I think you're losing some great options, but I can also see the need for points savings and winning important fights (Rock Captains are a thing).

Grim Hammer Captains don't exist in a vacuum - they are always better when escorting a small subset of warriors across the field to handle objectives and other scenario needs. Any Army of Thror list starts with Thror himself and probably includes Thrain second or third (usually behind whatever Marching hero you need). You probably want a fourth hero for extra killing power (Thorin is an excellent choice, with Dwalin being a slightly cheaper, less resilient alternative), which would give you a list like this at 800 points (with 39 models that are D7+ and 19 throwing axes):

• Thror
• 18 Guardians of the King
  
• Thrain
• 11 Warriors of Erebor with shields and spears
  
• Young Thorin Oakenshield with the Oakenshield
• 1 Warrior of Erebor with shield
  
• 2 Warriors of Erebor with shields and spears
  
• Grim Hammer Captain
• 3 Warriors of Erebor with shields and spears
  

While we've given the Grim Hammer Captain a squad of Warriors of Erebor, he will want to pick up some Guardians of the King from Thror too (since they can then move 5-8" while still shooting 6" with their throwing axes). Since you can't take Guardians of the King in his warband (only in Thror's warband), we've given him some models that will provide good protection during a maelstrom deployment should you need it.

Thrain and Thror should deploy together where possible so that Thrain, Thror, and 9 of the 18 Guardians of the King can benefit from spear-supports. The 9 Guardians without spear supports can shuffle off to travel with the Grim Hammer Captain or Young Thorin's warband as needed - you'll still have plenty of models if they disappear. Young Thorin is your flexible warband, able to slot in with Thror and Thrain or operate on his own - and he has a small warband of followers to tag an objective or flesh out a battle line as needed.

Conclusion

We're nearing the end of this series (for now - more to come I'm sure) so we can focus on some of the content from the new Defence of the North book (we know, you guys have been clamoring for it - but we've finally had time to play around with it, okay?), but before we close out, we will be heading over to Minas Tirith (almost where this all began) to look at one of the most snubbed units in the game: Osgiliath Veterans. Loved by most Minas Tirith players for their aesthetics and backstory, but consistently condemned by competitive players because they don't distinguish themselves from other Minas Tirith models (who wants to pay for +1 Courage?), do these guys just not have a place? Are they ever worth taking? Find out next time as we try our hardest redemption article yet (admittedly, some of those Ruffian articles were hard)! Until then, happy hobbying!