The Stuff of Legends: The Beornings

Good morning gamers,

We've covered several of the Legions from Defence of the North so far (the Army of Dale, the Defenders of Erebor, the Assault on Lothlorien, and the Fell Beings of Mirkwood) and today we're covering one of the last Legions that has proved to not only be popular, but also be competitive at top tables. Yes, today we're getting our broken overalls and our plaid shirts on and looking at the Beornings Legendary Legion!

It should be noted that next week we'll be reviewing the "normal" Beornings army list, which isn't exactly an "army list", but functions VERY differently from this Legion. We'll cover when you'd want to use the normal list instead of the Legion in that article, but everyone seems to want to run this Legion and I'm inclined to think that this Legion might be the most competitive way to play with bears and their acolytes. Let's get into it!

Part 1: What Do You Need?

Legion Tax: 200pts

This Legion doesn't require you to run a particular bear (Beorn or Grimbeorn) but does require you to run one of them. Beorn can't lead any troops other than Great Eagles in Radagast's Alliance (the only other list he's in), so popping him into this Legion gives him access to cheaper troops (though they're still pretty pricey, even for elite warriors). Grimbeorn can be fielded in the aforementioned Beornings "list", though with no other help, his contingent caps out at 500pts (so you're in the same boat you'd be in with the Three Trolls if you ran them pure). While both bears are definitely threats to any hero, this Legion allows you to run them together (what would normally be an Impossible Alliance) and get decent numbers in their ranks.

What you ACTUALLY need to run this Legion is probably both bears - even though only one is "required." For "only" 400pts, these are two big investments, but they're tough, strong, and pack a punch in this list. Grimbeorn is basically the same as his dad - his FV is slightly lower in both man form and bear form, but he loses the Berserk rule when he's in bear form and he carries a great bow when in man form (not a decent bow, not a good bow, but a GREAT bow, ;-) ). This gives him more tactical flexibility and makes for a great complement to Beorn (who usually doesn't mind smashing through things with reckless abandon).

You'll also need Beornings - though we'll talk about their equipment a little later. Basically, you have two choices for your Beornings: Burly guys with hand-and-a-half axes or great bow guys - and BOTH are very useful. At 20pts/model, you're going to be coughing up a few points as a handicap to your opponent if the points level isn't divisible by 20 (unless you want to do weapon swaps - more on that later), but it's fine - you've got two elite heroes and two elite warrior options (I view them as two units, even though they're technically the same profile).

Okay, let's dig into what you get in the Legion that you can't get elsewhere!

Part 2: Why Take This Legion Over "Normal" Allied Forces?

Grimbeorn has a few alliance options if you take him outside the Legion: Thranduil's Halls is Historical allies with him if Thranduil is in the list (and Impossible allies otherwise!?!?!?!?!) and "the usual suspects" are Convenient allies (anyone who was fighting during the War of the Ring, to include Brand/Bard II-led Dale and Dain/Thorin III-led Erebor Reclaimed). In each of these alliances, Grimbeorn and his followers are likely to be the side-show to the other force (allied in for muscle, not numbers) - something we'll talk about in detail next week. Beorn, as we talked about above, is incredibly hard to get into an allied list since a) Radgast's Alliance doesn't have a lot of Convenient allies, and b) Beorn and the Eagles he can lead are REALLY expensive. So let's see what the trades are for this Legion over your normal alliance options.

Weakness #1: Low Model Count

If you're running Beorn with the Army of Lake-town (or the Survivors of Lake-town if you don't want Bard in it), you can get 50+ models at 700pts while still getting a bear in your list (more on this next week ). If you ally Grimbeorn into an army with a cheap Hero of Valor/Legend and several other affordable heroes (more on that next week), you can get high numbers as well.

This Legion won't do that - at 500pts, you'll max out at 16 models (probably a good 10 models below your expected army at this points level), at 600pts, you'll max out at 12 models (because you need to take both bears), and at 700pts, you'll have 17 models (your 500pt list + the-bear-you-didn't-take). Even at this Legion's maximum level (1000pts), you'll "only" have 32 models - which is pretty normal for a game played 200-300pts lower than that. Yep, numbers will not be your friend.

Strength #1: Super Elite Army

The Beornings are basically lower-Defense Half-Trolls - they're F5 (excellent for troops, better than most that aren't Elves/monsters), they're S4 with hand axes (thanks to the August 2022 erratas) and potentially a hand-and-a-half axe (if they don't take a great bow) that can be used to Piercing Strike up to S5 (and get a free +1 To Wound with that hand-and-a-half axe thanks to Burly). With 2 Attacks each and treating the bears as banners, these guys can ROLL over enemy battle lines no matter what Defense they're facing (even D8-9 models can be wounded on FIVES by these guys).

Similarly, your bears are about as elite as they come - they have 3 Attacks/3 Wounds like most non-monster, super-elite models do, they have F7-8 with access to Strike (better than most models across the range), they are S8/D8 (wounding most things on 3s and being wounded by most things on 6s or worse), and they're both Fearless with C7 (they'll pass the Courage tests they need to make and won't be wounded by most Blades of the Dead shenanigans very easily). With 3 Might/3 Will/3 Fate, the usual array of monster Brutal Power Attacks (not to mention a "bear hug" pseudo-unique BPA), these guys are a lot to deal with.

Weakness #2: SSSSSLLLLLOOOOOWWWWW

Grimbeorn would have been better in my book if he were more like Quickbeam - give him March instead of Strike/Strength/Defense and he could make those Beornings get into the action faster (and make up for being an all-infantry, Move 6-8" army). Some speed would be nice - but this list doesn't have it. If one-in-three of your Beornings have great bows, they'll be moving up to 3" each turn if they want to shoot and your D4 Beornings will be maxing out at 6" each with no Stalk Unseen, no Woodland Creature, nothing to keep them from getting blown apart by enemy archery. Resistant to Magic, yes, but other protections? Not so much.

While having 8" move bears in your army is quite good, their large bases can make that 8" move a little difficult to use. The larger your base, the larger the circle you need to make to go around something - and in Beorn's case, this increased movement can force him to charge someone WAY out of the way because he's "just barely in range." Yep, 8" move can be sweet . . . or it can be a real pain.

Strength #2: Mega Boosts For Your Bears

Beorn and Grimbeorn are fine outside their Legion, but IN their Legion, they become absolutely ridiculous. For starters, they get to change between forms whenever they want (and as clarified in the August 2022 FAQs, this can even be used to displace models that they're near and can be used as part of the movement they do in a Heroic Combat). The reliability of this is MASSIVE for their army - you can basically choose when you want to be a bear and "just do it" instead of trying to turn it on and it not going on (or if you don't want Beorn to go rampaging after some lone warrior and you want some control over him, you could fail to return back to Man form).

Second, both Beorn and Grimbeorn when in their bear forms gain Monstrous Charge - something WE thought they should have had ages ago when we did our first podcast on the best Monsters in the game, but has finally become both a reality and a game-changer for these guys (though not a game-breaking one, I think). Knocking stuff over is often the difference between good killers and great killers and now the bears finally have it in their arsenal . . . job's a good one.

Third, while in bear form both Beorn and Grimbeorn gain a 5+ Gift-of-Foresight-like save. If you've never faced Arnor and that annoying 5+ save that always seems to work when you most want it to fail, well you're gonna have that every STINKING time you try to wound these guys. Yeah, focus on quartering this army if you can - because you need some REAL punishment to be dealt to take out these bears!

Part 3: Legendary Legion Improvements

To be honest, there are only two changes I'd have made to this Legion: I'd break out the Beornings into two profiles - one that has Burly and the hand-and-a-half axe (Beorning Woodsman, let's call them) and one that doesn't have Burly and has a great bow (Beorning Trapper, let's call them). This would have some minor effects on the game (the Trappers wouldn't carry heavy objects the same way as the Woodsman would, since they're not Burly), but the actual game-play experience wouldn't be that different.

In exchange for losing Burly, the Trappers could get a 3+ shoot value (which would seem a reasonable trade for not being Burly). This is a minor detail, but they are the only profile I can think of that radically changes its profile based on the gear it chooses to swap out (losing access to a special rule just to gain different gear . . . well, some Shieldwall units do that too, I guess).

Second, since these are woodsmen who are trying to protect their forests and valleys from attack, it would make sense for them to have dogs or birds to help them out. Similar to the pet options in Battle Companies, it would be cool if each Beorning model (or maybe just the heroes) could pay a certain number of points to bring along a dog, raven, or something like that - each getting some of the bonuses you see in Battle Companies. This would also make collecting the army more fun and not just buying a heap of one blister and two heroes. The game play advantages of having fast models that might provide additional bonuses would also be cool (but would come at the not-insignificant cost of Burly/bow-armed elite infantry).

Part 4: Army Strategies

Okay, so this list is all about those bears - everything about it is designed to not only make the bears stronger and more resilient, but also to make their placement integral to the success of the army. These guys are your only tough models (D8 whenever they want to be with 3 Wounds/3 Fate) and provide a 6" banner radius EACH for your Beornings (but not themselves, interestingly enough - you need to get a Beorning into combat with them for the fight to be in range of a banner).

The bears themselves are a pain to deal with - they're faster than most 60mm base monsters (8" move - only beaten by fliers), they can change their base size to fight into slightly smaller places at the risk of making their Fight/Defense lower for a turn (the drop in Strength is negligible because of those Burly two-handed axes they have at S5), and they've got 3-Might-with-Strike-or-Defense, 3 Will with Resistant to Magic/Fearless, and 3 Fate with a 5+ pre-Fate save . . . ouch.

But for their cost, these buffs aren't everything - 3 Might is as high as most heroes get, but without free heroic actions and no cheap, spammable heroes, these guys can't be counter-calling every Heroic Move and will have to choose when to use their Might for Heroic Combats (vs. troops) or Heroic Strikes/Defenses (vs. heroes) . . . and they are likely to have no Might to boost rolls they make. Similarly, 3 Will with Resistant to Magic/Fearless is really good, but 3 Will points will only last for so long if you get targeted by relentless magic - though against a single caster army, you're quite likely to get ONE of the bears where they want to go (if not both). Finally, 3 Fate with a 5+ save is pretty nasty, but against several S4 hero with +1 To Wound/Might they're willing to boost with, a trapped bear is still going to take a heavy beating and could go down - and once one of these guys goes down, the Beornings aren't likely to be far behind.

All that to say, if your bears are alive and their stats are high, you're in good shape - but take care with them or your army will fall apart quickly.

When it comes to using the bears, I've generally changed Beorn and Grimbeorn into bears quickly - not only is the extra movement range nice to have early in the game, but it removes the danger of taking damage early from enemy archery almost entirely out of the picture. The only exception I've made with this is when I have Grimbeorn on the board and I don't need to charge the enemy right away. Grimbeorn's great bow is really helpful for this army - a S4 ranged weapon doesn't need a lot of Might behind it to land wounds, but having someone who CAN spend Might to make an important horse die or pluck a wound/Fate point off an army leader can be a huge deal. His bow isn't THAT accurate, though, so don't rely on the shooting game too much (when your opponent gets close to you, transform and charge).

We also need to talk about the Beornings some - and let's begin with the number of great bows you want to field. As a general rule, I get most of my armies to 33% bows no matter what kind of bowmen I have. If you're Goblins, Orcs, or even Ruffians, having 33% bows may not seem like a good idea, but having a strong archery presence can often mean that enemy armies will need to charge your guys before you need to charge the enemy. Overwhelming shooting on the enemy's side of the board has always been a pain in my side when I've left my archers at home, so I don't leave home without a strong archery contingent of my own (and often times, some form of archery protection - usually Blinding Light).

But I wouldn't advise this after a point with this army - you want 6 great bows max with the rest of your Beornings wielding their axes. Why? Because by going with the bow, you're choosing to NOT take the hand-and-a-half axe. The number of models that exchange a piece of gear for something else is pretty low, but when you're paying for Burly (and that is a REALLY useful way to bring the model count disparity down), those bows need to be REALLY beneficial to you. With 6 models shooting with a 4+ shoot value, you're expecting ~3 hits/turn and ~1 kill/turn - increasing the number of bows you have (maxes out at 10 Beornings + Grimbeorn with great bows at 1000 points) is only likely to get you to almost 2 expected wounds/turn - that's just not that good. If you run 5-6 great bows in your army, you can get 8-24 Beornings who can two-hand without penalty (depending on your points level - you need to play at 720pts or above to even reach 6 great bows) - that's a lot of damage potential.

Frankly, as was just mentioned in passing, this is a moot point until you've reached 780pts, but if you play at the 800-point level or above, I'd still just take more two-handing Beornings. And this comes from the world's most ardent lover of shooting - just take the two-handers.

Finally, we need to talk about those melee-only Beornings. My experience with these guys is that they are some of THE biggest archery magnets in the game - they're D4 models who will wreck you if they charge you and aren't THAT hard to wound from a distance. As such, I'd expect most opponents to "just stay away from them" if they brought sizable shooting OR try to swarm them with bodies if they brought a non-shooting horde. 2 Attacks each is pretty good if you're up against 2 enemy dice (and if you get 3 dice from a reroll, that's good too). However, if your opponent has 4 dice against your 2 dice, you've got roughly even odds of winning the fight - and if he's got 8 dice, you have even odds of winning the fight if you have your banner reroll. Even odds is pretty good, but when you're wounded on 5s (or possibly 4s), that's a real risk - and every model that loses a fight isn't bringing the model count disparity down (and every model that dies is making the model count disparity worse).

So what do you do with these guys? Well, we'll cover THAT in an upcoming formations post, but for the now you should know that you want to deploy on the centerline if at all possible and that if you have to slog across a board, you need to be patient, use terrain to your advantage, and use your bears as a screen if there's no terrain to use. Do the best with what you have and get locked in as much as you can!

The VERY last thing we need to talk about these guys is weapon swapping. While most players would choose Piercing Strike over every other weapon swap in the game, I'm going to advocate for two different weapon swaps for the Beornings (who, as of the August 2022 FAQ, only have Piercing Strike as a special strike, since they got their daggers turned into axes): maces/hammers for Bash and clubs for Stun.

When I talked about weapon swaps when the new edition dropped, I mentioned that if you have Burly, weapon-swapping your two-handed weapon for a two-handed mace would be really good. For Beornings, trading in a hand-and-a-half axe for a hand-and-a-half hammer on a few guys can give you the ability to not only knock an enemy mounted model to the ground (removing the mount and preparing the model for death by a friend), but it also gives you a non-lethal attack option in case you need the game to go on a little longer. Two handing with an axe that can get you better wounding probabilities with Piercing Strike is good, but having a few guys to knock someone over is useful (especially if he's fighting alongside one of your bears and the bear was charged this round).

But the more interesting weapon swap, I think, is to trade out that hand axe on your archer Beornings for a club. Clubs give you access to Stun and while Stun isn't that reliable and you have a great chance of dealing 1-2 Wounds, there are some models that will just be easier to deal with on the following turn if they're Stunned. Consider big enemy monsters like the Balrog or Sauron: if you have Beorn/Grimbeorn against one of these guys and you win the fight, Beorn/Grimbeorn may try to squeeze the Balrog/Sauron to get some damage off, but they'll be more likely to win the following fight without spending Might if Sauron/the Balrog is F1 with 1 Attack - and you get that by using Stun (rolling a 6, but you'd need to get a 6 to wound these guys anyway). I've seen Centaur do this a LOT with his Hobbit Shirriffs in recent months (he had a bunch of them in his NOVA list) and you only need to bonk Sauron on the head once in a game to send the message. If your points level would have you wasting points, consider getting a few of these.

Part 5: Army Showcase

Our first list is a 500-point list that features only one bear, but with him is the maximum number of Beornings he can field (15). With 16 models in the list, we have a pretty good army size with very elite (albeit squishy) models. I've opted to take Grimbeorn for two reasons - first and foremost, I don't have to worry about my bear hero being baited away from the action to leave my Beornings to struggle without their leader. Second, Grimbeorn has a bow, which gives me skirmishing options if I have the advantage in shooting (and I love shooting).

I've also opted not to run both bears because it would drop our numbers down to 7 - which not only means that our opponent could get lucky and kill 4 guys to break us (though quartering us would mean leaving one model alive on the board), but it also means that our archery would max out at 2 Beornings + Grimbeorn - which is to say, we're basically not shooting anymore and controlling objectives will be hard. With 6 bows in this list (including Grimbeorn), I feel much better about being able to have decent shooting each turn and enough bow-armed guys to do something from a back objective while still disincentivizing the objective to be rushed.

While you could run this list with the "normal" Beorning army, you'd lose all four of the bonuses from this Legion (Resistant to Magic on everyone, complete autonomy over when you change forms, Monstrous Charge, and the 5+ save against wounds) - so yes, run the Legion instead of the normal list:

• Grimbeorn [ARMY LEADER]
• 10 Beornings
• 5 Beornings with great bows

While we could have run two bears above, our next list at 700pts is our 500pt list + Beorn - there we go, we finally have both bears. With only 17 models in our list, we're certainly small, but we're also going to be a pain to deal with (some players ran at 650pt variant of this list at the Ardacon Masters tournament, and they were the talk of the town, apparently). I've kept the maximum number of bows I could here, placing half of them with Beorn and half with Grimbeorn so each warband can have a skirmish triangle to guard an objective or harass an enemy.

• Beorn [ARMY LEADER]
• 5 Beornings
• 3 Beornings with great bows
• Grimbeorn
• 5 Beornings
• 2 Beornings with great bows

Our final list today boosts this up to 800pts (a pretty common points level here in the States for our big tournaments) and while I've "just added 5 Beornings," I've only added one additional archer, getting us to 6 great bows (not good bows, GREAT bows - okay, I'm done) and an expected 1 Wound/turn while moving WITHOUT forcing Grimbeorn to contribute to the shooting. The added 4 Beornings gives us 7 Beornings around each bear to hold the enemy down and generally wear out his center while the bears roll up the flanks (or the bears can take the center, whatever).

• Beorn [ARMY LEADER]
• 7 Beornings
• 3 Beornings with great bows
• Grimbeorn
• 7 Beornings
• 3 Beornings with great bows

Army Summary

If you've run this army, let us know what your experience is with it! In our next post, we're looking at the other side of the coin and looking at the Beornings "army list" - and you might be surprised just how different this list plays when you don't get access to all the rules in the Legion. Until next time, happy hobbying!