TMAT Fantasy Fellowship Campaign Preview

Good morning gamers,

Over the past two years, I've been working on collecting and painting models for Quest of the Ringbearer - and specifically, models needed for Fantasy Fellowships. Yes, I've also collected models like Barliman Butterbur, Harry Goatleaf, and Gildor Inglorion who appear in the Quest of the Ringbearer book and NOT in Fantasy Fellowships (unless you choose to bring them in your fellowship), but for the most part, I've been trying to build up my collection so I can play through the campaign with some of the guys in our area. Well, at long last, I have enough terrain built and enough of the models procured for us to begin, so I'm setting out on a LONG journey with my son Gorgoroth and my good mate Centaur as we seek to play through a Fantasy Fellowship campaign together (which, let's face it, doing this with my son and best friend feels awesome and exciting, no matter how things turn out in the end)! Let's get some organizational details out of the way first and then we'll jump into the Fellowships!

A quick note: for the past few years (I can't believe I just wrote that!), we've been posting regularly on this blog on Mondays and Thursdays every week. Fantasy Fellowship/Quest of the Ringbearer content has popped up on the Thursday free-for-all posts for quite some time, but hasn't drawn as much interest from our readers as other topics (based on reported views as well as comments - though there are a few of you out there who love it immensely and I see you!). As such, since the Fantasy Fellowship/QOTR content is going to be increasing this year, I've decided to dedicate every other Saturday to Fantasy Fellowship content instead of taking over a bunch of the Thursday slots. This means extra work for me for most of the year (current projection is through September), but also means more content for you. So . . . you're welcome. :)

Fantasy Fellowships: The Campaign

As we've covered before, there are several new scenarios (nine in total) that we get from War in Rohan and Gondor at War. The interesting change is that we lose certain scenarios in order to get a story that follows all the members of the fellowship rather than just Sam and Frodo. Your Ringbearer and your Companion remain two of the most important choices in your list but the other characters are not throw away options (except for Boromir, sadly).

We'll have a series of article that deep-dives into the different Fellowship positions based on the missions you need to play/opponents you need to face (though you can check out some initial thoughts here), but for now, you should know that we've mostly chosen a theme for our Fellowships (me and Centaur) OR just a bunch of models that we think are cool (in the case of Gorgoroth). Let's dig into the Fellowships!

Gorgoroth's Fantasy Fellowship

Dori the Dwarf will be replaced with the Champ version later . . .

Gorgoroth's Fellowship went through some serious overhauls, originally featuring both Beorn and Grimbeorn (with Gildor replacing Gimli for three 8" move heroes), but this meant he needed a cheap hero for his Wizard, and he didn't like that at all. He then went bigger on the wizard and opted for only one bear, but didn't like that either. So at last he cut the last bear loose and settled on Elessar instead:

• Replacing Frodo: "Old" Bilbo Baggins
• Replacing Sam: Farmer Maggot with Grip, Fang, and Wolf
• Replacing Merry: Denethor, Steward of Gondor 
• Replacing Pippin: Damrod, Ranger of Ithilien 
• Replacing Gandalf: Saruman the White 
• Replacing Aragorn: Aragorn, King Elessar 
• Replacing Legolas: Thorin Oakenshield, King Under the Mountain with Orcrist 
• Replacing Gimli: Dori the Dwarf, Champion of Erebor 
• Replacing Boromir: Meriadoc Brandybuck

Dori will be swapped out for his non-Company self later (more on that in a future post), but otherwise we have all the models! The Fellowship begins with Bilbo and his pal Farmer Maggot meeting up with two lost men from Gondor (Damrod and Denethor - the self-proclaimed leader of this enterprise). This squad lacks a lot of Might, but is incredibly cheap and can pack a punch considering the relatively small investment.

Also joining the Fellowship are Saruman as the caster (Gorgoroth wanted someone good), mega-Dori as Gimli, Merry as Boromir (again, my son needed the points - and Boromir only appears in a few missions anyway), and two absolute powerhouses in King Thorin and King Aragorn as Legolas and Aragorn. Yep, the other members of the Fellowship are going to support the little guys just fine.

Centaur's Fantasy Fellowship

Centaur settled on most of his Fellowship right away: Frodo and Maggot were going to be escorted by Beregond and Eowyn and run into Aragorn in Bree. Where he struggled was with the Legolas, Gimli, and Boromir slots. Originally, the thought was (I think) to take Girion, Bard, and Brand with Gandalf as his wizard, but he eventually chose to run a cheap caster in Gildor Inglorion and get Halbarad (with his banner) and the Twins to support Aragorn (Strider with Anduril):

• Replacing Frodo: Frodo Baggins
• Replacing Sam: Farmer Maggot with Grip, Fang, and Wolf
• Replacing Merry: Eowyn with armor and shield
• Replacing Pippin: Beregond
• Replacing Gandalf: Gildor Inglorion 
• Replacing Aragorn: Aragorn - Strider with Anduril and armor 
• Replacing Legolas: Elrohir with heavy armor and Elf bow 
• Replacing Gimli: Halbarad with the Banner of Arwen Evenstar
• Replacing Boromir: Elladan with heavy armor and Elf bow

The interesting thing about this Fellowship is what happens after Amon Hen: Elladan will be dead, so we assume that Elrohir will be going berserk throughout the five missions that he participates in. Tactical play will kind of go out the window for him, but it's important to note that his Fellowship hits really hard when they rush in together, so we'll see if losing Elladan is a boon or a hurt later.

Tiberius's Fantasy Fellowship

The Dwarves will all be replaced later this year too . . .

I have gone back and forth about who to bring in my fellowship and ultimately decided I wanted to run a suboptimal but incredibly thematic list: The "Erebor Reunion" list. I had an example of this list in my article on what to think about when building Fantasy Fellowships, but it included models like Dain, King Under the Mountain and didn't have Gandalf to better use our points. Well, we're going hard into theme this time and running Bilbo, an old friend of his, Gandalf, and the six mobile Dwarves from the Company:

• Replacing Frodo: Old Bilbo Baggins with Sting and Mithril Coat
• Replacing Sam: Farmer Maggot with Grip, Fang, and Wolf
• Replacing Merry: Bofur the Dwarf 
• Replacing Pippin: Bifur the Dwarf 
• Replacing Gandalf: Gandalf the Grey
• Replacing Aragorn: Nori the Dwarf, Champion of Erebor 
• Replacing Legolas: Dwalin the Dwarf, Champion of Erebor 
• Replacing Gimli: Gloin the Dwarf, Champion of Erebor 
• Replacing Boromir: Dori the Dwarf, Champion of Erebor 

For starters, Bombur is too fat to travel at this time, so we've left him behind (even though he was alive). Personally, I'd rather have him in there than Bofur, but theme! I could have swapped Farmer Maggot for Bombur (same cost) if I ran Young Bilbo instead of Old Bilbo (wouldn't start with the Mithril Coat, but whatever), but we'd have to break theme there too (at least in some way - though with both Old Bilbo and Maggot showing up in Gorgoroth's Fellowship, I do feel like this might have made things more interesting). In the end, this team isn't optimized (it doesn't even use all of my points - I have 25pts extra!), but I like it. And yes, we're all running Maggot . . . apparently we can't leave the dogs at home!

Bofur and Bifur are playing the parts of the Dwarves who accompany Bilbo out of the Shire after his spectacular 111th birthday party and they give you the potential for free Heroic Moves or shrugging off magic from Barrow-Wights and Nazgul in the early missions. All told, not bad (though I would love to have Bombur).

Gandalf is our wizard, obviously, and while I don't think he's as good as Radagast (and possibly Saruman), I have every hope that he'll be at full stats going into Balin's Tomb thanks to Bill the Pony and Strengthen Will (I don't think I will need to Blast too much). Our "big four" are filled by the rest of the surviving, mobile members of Thorin's Company - Dwalin, Gloin, Nori, and Dori. 

You may have noticed that I put Nori in Aragorn's slot - I could have put any of the big guys in there, since I most wanted the ability to two-hand Anduril for free during the Black Gate mission (and all four have weapon master). Nori won out not because his profile is better (it's easily worse than the profiles for Dwalin and Gloin), but because he gets the Lord-of-the-West-like reroll on both the dueling roll and the wounding roll, which will be awesome when he's wielding Anduril two-handed and good throughout the campaign when I don't have a banner.

I chose to let Dori take the fall in Boromir's place - I thought Dwalin's flexible attack options and Gloin's Piercing Strike/third Might point were better - and my son is running Dori, so he's already getting screen time. Gloin takes his son's place for reasons obvious and Dwalin takes the Legolas role (though it's unclear to me whether he's getting a bow when we get to Lothlorien or if we get a rule that would help us reroll shooting attempts . . . don't think it matters though, seeing as how we're not a shooting list).

Perhaps the best thing about this Fellowship (and my son's, oddly enough) is that it's prompted me to try conversions for the Champions of Erebor. While I could drop ~$150 on the actual models, I could also drop ~$150 on 24 Grim Hammers, 24 Warriors of Erebor, and a second 15-model set of Thorin's Company - and if I get the conversions right, I'll also get ~30 Erebor guys to convert into Iron Hills Dwarves for my Defenders of Erebor LL force AND some really cool conversion project for the leftover bits that I'm excited to work on. But as I said before, more on all this in a future post!

Conclusion

So that's our Fantasy Fellowships all set up. I'm chronicling my journey now, so be on the lookout for summaries of my matches (in play-by-play style) over the coming months! Until next time, happy hobbying!