A Season of Giving: The Light of Caras Galadhon Fan-Made Legendary Legion

Good morning gamers,

We're continuing our list of custom Legendary Legions today (for the running list, check out the House Rules page) and we've come to one of the Legions that I thought was sorely lacking from Defence of the North: a defence-of-Lothlorien Legion! There was a lot of chatter on the Facebook pages predicting that we'd get a "shape-shifting" Galadriel that allowed the 1A Hero of Legend to NOT be the Army Leader and when we didn't get that, I decided that this HAD to be one of the Christmas(time) presents we gifted to you all - so let's dig into what the Legion provides!

Why Make This Legion?

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Let's face it: we have three mini-campaigns in Defence of the North (Dale/Erebor, Mirkwood, and Lothlorien) and of those three campaigns, we got 2 Legions for the first, one Legion for part of the second (Beornings), and NO Legion for the third - #Travesty! You can't start talking about why this Legion is needed without acknowledging that, if the movie timeline is to be taken as canon, we need a Legendary Legion that keeps us from running Haldir in a Lothlorien list.

There are three common critiques of Lothlorien that you'll find everywhere in the community: first and foremost, we already mentioned that needing to make Galadriel (your only Hero of Legend) your army leader can be a real pain in 1-2 scenarios (Contest of Champions, possibly also Fog of War). While I think she's perfectly fine as an army leader in Contest of Champions, a lot of people struggle to do well with her (so I get it). Many Lothlorien players take this one step farther though: since Galadriel, Lady of Light was downgraded to a Hero of Fortitude in a recent FAQ, and since one of the first FAQs requires that a Hero of Valor/Legend be used to ally between two Convenient factions, and since (for reasons unknown) the White Council is Convenient Allies with Lothlorien (despite having 2/7 members in the White Council list), you can't get Galadriel, Lady of Light into a Lothlorien list without bringing along someone else (like, say, her husband). This is a problem - you should be able to get Galadriel, Lady of  Light into a Lothlorien army and she should not have to be your army leader by default.

But another common critique is this: while the 1pt/model upgrade to King's Guard for any High Elf Warrior in Gil-Galad's warband is universally seen as a good thing (+1FV on each of those models, max of 18 models benefitting), the upgrade to Galadhrim Guard for 1pt/model in Galadriel or Celeborn's warband . . . is just not worth it (+1C on each of those models, max of 33 models benefitting). Courage 6 is good - Guards of the Galadhrim Court get this along with F6 for +2pts over a Galadhrim Warrior with spear - but paying 1pt/model to get Courage 6 instead of Courage 5 is . . . well, just not worth it most of the time. Perhaps the case could be made that a Galadhrim Warrior with Elf bow sitting on a back objective (far from anyone's Stand Fast!) would benefit from it, but a) that benefit will be marginal, b) Wood Elf Warriors with Elf bows generally do a better job (thanks to their Elven cloaks) and can't get this upgrade, c) Celeborn has a 12" Stand Fast! radius, so you may not need to test for Courage while sitting on an objective, and d) your likelihood of getting a sum of 2-4 on two dice (where C5 fails) is a 17% chance - and even if Harbinger of Evil/Ancient Evil is in play, you only fail on C4 28% of the time . . . your marginal benefit of getting that extra pip of Courage might help sometimes, but it also might not matter. If we're going to "fix" a Lothlorien ability, we need to make the Galadhrim Guard more valuable (either by adding to it or making it free).

The final common critique of Lothlorien is the lack of mounts for the named heroes. While we could certainly have given Rumil and Orophin mounts, I decided to show some restraint and require some of the named Elven captain-level heroes to walk. Like Erestor and Gildor, not everyone needs to have a mount - so what I did instead is allow Celeborn and Galadriel to take mounts and give them the Fleetfoot and Expert Rider special rules (so they can race alongside the Lothlorien mounties). Since I was messing with wargear anyway, I decided to also allow Galadriel to take armor since the old Galadriel, Lady of the Galadhrim model has armor on (and she wears armor in the vision Frodo receives when she unveils herself). This isn't heavy armor - her manifest armored form isn't on the same scale as the other Galadhrim we see in the Two Towers film and this will only bring her to D4, so I figured it was probably fine to allow.

While not innately critiqued, the final thing I wanted to address was the lack of place that Wood Elf Captains (and Wood Elf Warriors) have in the Lothlorien list. Unless you're running a "pajama party" list (where everyone has Elven cloaks), Wood Elf Captains are just sub-par to Galadhrim Captains - the heavy armor, shield, armored horse, and Elf bow are just better than wielding a bow and Elven cloak (optionally a Wood Elf spear so they can shield/support). They just are (and I'm a huge fan of Wood Elf Warriors). So I wanted to give these guys a place in the list and the solution seemed simple: allow one warband of Wood Elf Warriors/Sentinels led by a Wood Elf Captain to ambush in. If you're defending Lothlorien, this seems absolutely legitimate and I followed the template that the Defenders of the Shire LL used - I think it will be fun to use for those who want to go down that path!

Okay, let's talk about how the Legion functions!

Legion Design

With several Legions just getting a reduced unit selection from the original list, I wanted to walk the line between enough buffs to make you run the Legion, but not too many buffs to make the original list unappealing. As such, let's begin by talking about what Celeborn and Galadriel are doing in this Legion.

Celeborn is still his strong, killy self, but with access to a horse (something you would normally be tempted to ally in - usually with a monster like Gwaihir, Boromir of Gondor, or a mounted hero from Rohan), he becomes the focal point killing hero in the list - and while he'll always be Lothlorien's strongest killing piece, access to the horse makes him not only a strong cut ahead of the other Lorien heroes, but also reasonably competitive with alliance choices.

Galadriel picks up the option for a horse, but also gets the option for armor so you can use the old Galadriel, Lady of the Galadhrim model if you want to. Going up to D4 is marginally better than being D3 and the horse makes her a little more killy than being on foot (though it does nothing to solve her unarmed limitation).

When she shape-shifts into Galadriel, Lady of Light, though, she becomes more deadly, getting up to 4 Attacks on the charge without the unarmed penalty - yeah, she's really starting to come into her own! But this once per game shift is trickier than it looks: once she gets her game face on, she can't go back to Galadriel, meek and mild. Choosing when to be an Immobilize/healing caster and when to become an anti-magic/dispersal killing machine is a non-trivial choice.

We don't have Haldir, which means our Wood Elf Captains or Galadhrim Captains become our go-to shooting heroes in the list (which isn't a bad thing). Despite both of our required heroes having horses, Galadhrim Captains remain the go-to choice for Heroic March in the list and as mounted heroes, they can be absolutely lethal when their match-ups are picked right. In contrast, we're encouraged to be sneaky with our Wood Elf Captains by enabling us to ambush a warband of Wood Elf Warriors/Sentinels led by a Wood Elf Captain onto the board from a wooded terrain piece or on a board edge of our choice - pretty nasty surprise, that!

Of course, you don't have to use a Wood Elf Captain as your ambusher - you could use Rumil if you give him an Elven Cloak. Rumil is your fourth-best killing machine, but still one of your best hold-up-something-big machines, thanks to having Heroic Defense and the ability to make an opposing hero reroll that 6 he got (boy would Orophin not like that match-up!). Sure, you could have Galadriel immobilize someone or have Celeborn immobilize/charge someone, but why not let them go off and deal with other threats or clear out chaff when you could just have Rumil stand there and Heroic Defense for three turns?

Speaking of Orophin, you have Orophin in the list - and no, I did not think giving him Heroic Strike in this Legion was a necessary thing (though I expect push-back on him not getting a horse - not everyone needs it, guys!). No, Orophin remains the embed-him-in-the-battle-line-with-pikes-supporting guy and will be chopping up enemies as much as he pleases. With 3 Might for Heroic Combats or Heroic Moves, this guy is one of your chaff killers and second only to Celeborn in doing it well (maybe third to war-form Galadriel in this list).

The trickiest thing is which of these hero options you pick for your third hero (if you even need one). With Galadriel and Celeborn required in your list, do you want someone who can neutralize a third threat (Rumil)? Or chop through troops (Orophin)? Or March your army around (Galadhrim Captain)? Or ambush troops in when playing objective/get-there missions (Wood Elf Captain)? Everyone has a place and the choice doesn't appear to have a default answer - exactly how a Legion should be!

For our warriors, we have . . . well, everything. Our Galadhrim Warriors get free upgrades across the list to Galadhrim Guard, so our armored infantry (be they Galadhrim Warriors or Guards of the Galadhrim Court) will be C6 and reliable at passing those oh-so-valuable Courage tests. We can also have a sneaky squad of Wood Elf Warriors or Wood Elf Sentinels to pop up out of the trees (or walk onto a board edge) and harass the enemy with bows or throwing daggers (something a lot of Lothlorien players don't normally do - at least not en masse). We've also got Galadhrim Knights, but you could forego these guys in favor of Wood Elf Warriors ambushing in if you don't think you need more cavalry to turn off enemy cavalry charges - your choice.

So that's the list - we got our usual army bonus, some upgrades for our heroes, boosted Courage on our warriors, and a neat deployment rule for one of our warbands - not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but probably worth taking in place of alliances sometimes. With all this in mind, let's build some lists!

Exemplar Lists

Our first stop is 500 points - and in this list, you really don't need any extra heroes besides Celeborn and Galadriel. Naturally, we're putting Celeborn on a horse (though I've passed on the shield - it saved me points). With so much invested in two heroes, we're really light on numbers - but we were always going to be at 500 points. To support them I've gone with 7 Galadhrim Guards with shields, 2 Galadhrim Guards with shields and spears, 3 Guards of the Galadhrim Court (who are only 1pt more expensive than Galadhrim Guard with shields and spears), and 7 Galadhrim Guard with Elf bows - giving us as much punch as we can while still being D5-6:

• Celeborn with Elven-made hand-and-a-half sword, heavy armor, and armored horse [ARMY LEADER]
• 7 Galadhrim Guard with shields
• 2 Galadhrim Guard with shields and spears
• 3 Guards of the Galadhrim Court
• Galadriel with armor
• 7 Galadhrim Guard with Elf bows

Scaling up to 700 points allows us to keep our two heroes so we want to get to our maximum 32 models AND supporting equipment for our heroes, like a banner and a good chunk of cavalry (still not a lot of models, but good punch/longevity from those two heroes):

• Celeborn with Elven-made hand-and-a-half sword, heavy armor, and armored horse [ARMY LEADER]
• 5 Galadhrim Guards with shields
• 4 Galadhrim Guards with shields and spears
• 1 Galadhrim Guard with shield, spear, and banner
• 3 Galadhrim Guards with Elf bows
• 2 Galadhrim Knights with shields and Elf bows
• Galadriel with armor and armored horse
• 5 Galadhrim Guards with shields
• 3 Galadhrim Guards with Elf bows
• 2 Galadhrim Knights with shields and Elf bows
• 5 Guards of the Galadhrim Court

We could turn a third way to the army - throwing in another hero and not relying on cavalry or a banner as much. While I think the choice of your third hero is a puzzling question, I've opted for the cheapest hero and the slightly cheaper warriors in the form of a Wood Elf Captain with Elf bow leading a large ambushing warband of Wood Elf Warriors with Elf bows. If you wanted to run one of the other heroes, Galadriel is probably walking . . . not the worst thing in the world, but not as good as what I'm seeing here. We got up to 34 models in this configuration - but we have 11 open warrior slots, so if you wanted to scale up to 800pts, you could easily get over 40 models with a banner!

• Celeborn with Elven-made hand-and-a-half sword, heavy armor, and armored horse [ARMY LEADER]
• 5 Galadhrim Guards with shields
• 5 Galadhrim Guards with shields and spears
• Galadriel with armor and armored horse
• 5 Galadhrim Guards with shields
• 5 Galadhrim Guards with shields and spears
• Wood Elf Captain with Elf bow
• 11 Wood Elf Warriors with Elf bows

Conclusion

I hope I did the Lothlorien players justice with this list - I've been really excited for its release and have gotten some play testing in with it over the past few months (and it's been a joy to play). If you use it, let us know! If you hate it, let us know! But as we continue this season of giving, don't forget to check our page every Monday and Thursday for new updates to the factions you love (or the Legions you didn't know you needed). Next Monday, we're rectifying another missed opportunity in the Defence of the North sourcebook, so be sure to join us next week! Until next time, happy hobbying!