War in Rohan Inspired Lists: The Army of Dunland Revisited

Good morning gamers,

Last time we mentioned there are lots of ways you can run your Isengard faction models in Matched Play - and while Uruks do make up the mainstay of most of the missions, the other prominent subfaction of the Isengard models in War in Rohan are the models from Dunland. Dunlendings got new life with War in Rohan and the Army of Dunland Legendary Legion has been a force on the tabletop since its release. In War in Rohan, we get almost all the Dunland models - and in general, we get them in good quantities:

• Gorulf Ironskin
• Frida Tallspear
• The Wild Man Oathmaker
• Thrydan Wolfsbane on foot and mounted
  
• 3 Dunlending Chieftains
• 12 Wild Men of Dunland
• TECHNICALLY, we have 12 vanilla Wild Men of Dunland and 12 Wild Men of Dunland with two-handed axes
  
• 16 Dunlending Warriors (6 shields, 6 bows, 4 two-handed axes)
• TECHNICALLY, we have three boxes of these guys since we have 3 Chieftains, which means we have 12 shields, 12 bows, 12 two-handed axes, and 3 banners
  
• 6 Dunlending Huscarls
• 6 Dunlending Horsemen
  

Photo Credit: War in Rohan

This is a rather large collection of models, but there's a glaringly obvious model missing: Crebain. Despite being released in War in Rohan, Crebain don't show up in any of the scenarios - and the penalty they apply to hitting them with ranged weapons, their Fly special rule, and their multiple Wounds makes them great for holding objectives and sneaking to get artifacts. Yep, they're a really good model - and thanks to us applying these stupid list building constraints, we're going to build a list today without them.

The List

By now, you may be wondering something: "Tiberius, why do you do this to yourself - don't you know that by limiting yourself to what's in the scenarios, you won't get an optimized, competitive list?" Trust me, I've thought this many times - but every time I do, I find that the list building constraints of this series actually make me think differently about what's ACTUALLY important - and to date, I haven't been disappointed with any of the lists I've written.

Furthermore, as someone who's been playing this game for a decade, it's a fun challenge to limit your options (it's kind of why I like Legions in general as well - having to do without certain models or alliance options really makes you dig into what a Legion is all about, or what wonky mechanic it's trying to take advantage of/abuse). The challenge is real and sometimes it can make you appreciate models that . . . well, you just didn't think were any good before.

Dunland, though, doesn't give me this feeling at all - sure, Crebain are undoubtedly quite useful as objective holders and object grabbers, but it's not like they're the only fast models we have. In fact, if you have any amount of Wild Men of Dunland, your model count is likely to be a good clip above most other people, so if you also have some March heroes in there, you can probably flood your opponent with guys quickly, making a few flappy birds more of a cherry on top instead of a dire need. It's not like these birds half someone's Fight Value or something - we can live without them. Our list today is probably what you'd expect - a bunch of the big heroes and TONS of guys to buy them time/swarm the enemy (and we're definitely taking those technicalities I noted above into account):

• Thrydan Wolfsbane on horse [ARMY LEADER]
• 4 Dunlending Warriors with shields
• 6 Dunlending Warriors with bows
• 4 Dunlending Horsemen
• Gorulf Ironskin
• 4 Dunlending Warriors with shields
• 1 Dunlending Warrior with banner
• 6 Dunlending Warriors with bows
• 1 Dunlending Huscarl
• The Wild Man Oathmaker
• 1 Dunlending Warrior with banner
• 11 Wild Men of Dunland
• Dunlending Chieftain
• 4 Dunlending Warriors with shields
• 5 Dunlending Huscarls
  

700 points, 51 models, 12 bows hitting on a 4+, no D6+ models, 5 cavalry and 2 Might for Heroic March, 11 Might points

I will note that we have 4 remaining warrior slots - and since Wild Men of Dunland with two-handed axes cost 6 points/model and Dunlending Cavalry cost 12 points/model, we COULD have ignored cavalry entirely (besides Thrydan, of course) and just gotten more units. I thought the cavalry had value (especially since we don't have Crebain), so I've opted for them.

I did take more Dunlendings than we have in the scenarios, but we're putting those three boxes of Dunlendings to good use (though I didn't leave any of the Dunlendings with shields to be dismounts for the Dunlending Horemen - so I'm counting on converting Dunlendings with two-handed axes to have shields too and serve as the dismounts). 51 models is a lot of guys (as we talked about last time) and while the horde is mostly F3, we can provide situational F4 with our Huscarls or count on just having more dice to carry the day. Let's see what we have going on in the list!

Army Theory

Dunland is one of those lists that needs to play hyper-aggressively - because they are (for the most part) an average-Fight, average-Defense list that happens to have above-average-Strength, which means you need to get locked in and swarm the enemy quickly or a war of attrition will eventually see the Dunland force crushed to the ground. This list happens to have 11 Wild Men (D3 models), 14 Dunlendings with either bows or banners and the Wild Man Oathmaker (D4 models), and the others being a more standard average Defense (D5 models) - so with only half of our models being D5, we need to get moving quickly.

Towards this end, we had to have a Dunlending Chieftain - I talked about this when I reviewed the Army of Dunland LL in our Stuff of Legends series, but when your army is predominantly infantry and is only average Defense, you probably want March. Dunlending Chieftains are decent generic heroes (F4 isn't great, but S5 is quite rare) and compared to the Dunland heroes besides Thrydan and Gorulf (both of whom are in our list), they're the best we have. So we've taken one.

We also have 26 Dunlending Warriors (half of our army) - 12 shields, 12 bows, and 2 banners. Dunlendings with bows aren't anything to write home about, but since we don't have any spears, bows are our best option for getting one-on-one combats (and ideally a few two-on-one combats) before the fighting occurs. If we're fighting someone who has abandoned archery, it also gives us options for NOT having to charge (to say nothing of the threat we can pose to mounted heroes). The bows have been divided between Thrydan and Gorulf's warbands and they can be run as two skirmish triangles to either cap off the flanks of both warbands OR be left near objectives to defend them from assault (one of the advantages of having lots of guys is you can leave an extra guy or two at important objectives).

The extra range on the banners is really good in this Legion since we can't get spears on our core troops, so having two banners (one for the Wild Men, one for Gorulf) was probably always going to happen. Each warband will want a few guys standing near these guys so the banner doesn't get lost (which could mean having bowmen standing in the second rank of Gorulf's warband instead of being in skirmish triangles).

Speaking of spears, we've taken all 6 of the Dunlending Huscarls we have access to - simply so we can get selective F4 in our fights. They've been placed in the warbands led by Gorulf and the Chieftain, with the idea that we'd want a spear-support for Gorulf (or one of the guys near him) and supporting everyone in the Chieftain's warband (since his warband will be pressing forward quickly).

Our Wild Men are cheap bodies (basically Orcs with better Courage and lower Defense) and their use is two-fold: first and foremost, they can be thrown into Terror-causing models with abandon because near the Oathmaker they become Fearless, but they can also be used to wrap around the enemy lines if run behind your "shieldwall." Since they don't have the ability to support each other, they can run without a clear formation, retaining their flexibility. The Wild Man Oathmaker has 3 Might that are pretty much only good for calling Heroic Moves, which guarantees that this warband will either get the positioning they want OR force the enemy to fork out resources to challenge them.

When we have as many models as possible engaged in combat, we want Thrydan to use his once-per-game War Cry ability - and if possible, we want this in the first round of fighting. Getting as much damage out as possible up-front could make the model disparity drop dramatically early-on - and that will make up for our average Fight Value quite a bit (and maximize the benefit of those extended-range banners, which will be upping our dice being rolled even more).

Finally, we have five cavalry models (Thrydan and four bodyguards) - these guys are intended to be used for speed OR tip the scales in select fights to our advantage. Dunlending Cavalry are basically Warg Riders with +1 Courage and a bonus to wounding mounts, which is really great (Warg Riders have a good value for cost, so to be Warg Riders with a little more is even better). With both daggers and axes, these guys are also hard to disarm (though killing these D5 riders on D4 horses isn't hard). We want these guys to focus on the objectives, not on killing things per se (though they're good at that too, so long as they have help).

Okay, let's walk through some scenarios!

Gameplay Strategy

Maelstrom & Object Missions (Pools 1 & 3)

For both the Rohan and Isengard lists in this series so far, we've seen lists that don't really care where their warbands show up (in both cases, because the warband construction of each force is basically the same). Here . . . well, things are different. No matter what scenario we're playing, we want to begin with our Chieftain's warband, since he's our only March hero (so we might need his Might for speed) and then we want to get at least one of the warbands led by Gorulf or Thrydan (ideally both) so they can extend the shieldwall of the Chieftain's warband.

In Hold Ground, our goal will be to flood the center with bodies - though we don't mind getting some of our troops there while others swarm enemy warbands that are left in the open. The Chieftain's warband would do well to walk on in a Pac-Man formation (or a bow-tie formation) so you maximize the amount of area you can lead in a Heroic March and any bows that are able to deploy near his warband will have the choice of moving quickly to the center OR get dropped part way on the path to harass the enemy.

While you could certainly spread out in both Command the Battlefield or Heirlooms of Ages Past, it's probably best for your army to arrive together (on the center of a board edge as much as possible in Command the Battlefield, near one of the Heirloom locations in Heirlooms). Concentrating your forces (if possible) allows you to advance from a position of strength, getting good firing lanes for your bowmen, and Marching your army in bulk towards the enemy position (to claim quadrants you didn't arrive near or to press towards other Heirloom locations).

When we approach object missions, we have a lot of bows, but we probably can't win a shooting war if our opponent has a gunline looking at the center of the map in Seize the Prize. As such, it's probably a good idea to have your Dunlending Warriors rush forward with your Captain, backed by Wild Men of Dunland so you have numbers in force but with the more vulnerable models behind the rest. After one March, you should be very close to the objective - either close enough to swarm on the second turn or well positioned to wrap around your foe should your opponent pick it up. Make sure your Oathmaker is among the models charging forward to call the Heroic Move on the second turn and Gorulf and the Huscarls should be nearby too to begin the bloodbath. Your archers and cavalry would do well to lock down the flanks, ready to stop anyone racing off with the prize around your Warriors and Wild Men.

We have enough archers to provide some protection for our Supplies in Destroy the Supplies and our flag in Retrieval. Our battleline will be long and we should be able to push nearly 40 models towards the enemy, which should stretch their resources on all fronts. Ideally, our cavalry can get to the enemy supply markers or flag (though someone will have to dismount to pick up the flag . . . boy would Crebain be useful).

Control Missions (Pools 2 & 5)

Centerline deployment again in all three scenarios - Chieftain down on the center objective first, then Gorulf and Thrydan deploy nearby on the flanks. Our Wild Men will want to react to how our opponent is set up, picking a flank to crash if our opponent has set up strong on one side or to run behind the lines should our opponent be hanging back and counting on shooting us to death.

In Domination, we want to place our objectives within 12" of the center objective, though we don't care too much if the objectives are heavily slanted to one side of the board or not. By having lots of models, we plan to get to all of them by "just pressing on" (and if we begin with most of them, even better). In Command and Control, our cavalry and archers can be used to tag objectives and then hover near them to hold them while our melee infantry horde drives the enemy away from as many objectives as possible. If you're playing Breakthrough, your strategy is very similar, dropping back some of your archers to make a perimeter around the objective your opponent will be pushing for, while your horde of melee troops (and cavalry) sweep towards your opponent, using your troops to shore up weaknesses in your line (reserves - something we talked about in a recent formations post).

For the scenarios that require us to get somewhere, we want to use March to the max. In Storm the Camp, our Chieftain goes down first (well, he's going down first in all the scenarios, but especially in this one), probably in a Pac-Man to throw our army forward quickly with a maximal March area. Our archers should move up as far as they can, eventually falling behind to provide cover fire to protect our camp. Frankly, if we can get across the board fast enough, we probably don't have to worry about actually having models AT our camp, since we'll have plenty of bodies to throw at the enemy and spread out to hold them down/crush them. Get to the enemy camp if you can, but mostly you can focus on getting the enemy to break and not break yourself/let Thrydan die to get the win.

In Reconnoitre, we want to roll for our Chieftain first - and if he shows up, we want to form up as many of our warbands as we can near his formation so our models can be Marched up the board quickly. Similarly, if we're playing Divide and Conquer, we'll have one warband with our Chieftain and two warbands in the opposite corner - I would deploy the Chieftain first and Thrydan second (since he's got all the fast units and needs March the least), leaving our two banner-carrying warbands to respond to our opponent's deployments. Whether the Chieftain Marches a horde of Wild Men towards the center or Gorulf is going to hurt - and whichever is left to support Thrydan's mini shieldwall is also not going to change much. Our goal is simple though: get to the center quickly, hold out against everyone who comes.

Killing Missions (Pools 4 & 6)

The killing missions SHOULD be the ones we welcome the most - but with lots of models to kill and low- to average-Defense, we stand to a) break quickly if we can't overwhelm the enemy with dice and b) cough up a lot of points in wound-count missions. In To The Death, whether we can break the enemy is basically everything (if we can break the enemy without being broken, we basically win by default). With two banners, we have a good chance of getting the VPs for having a banner at the end, so long as there are bowmen to pick it up. If there is a shooting army on the other side of the board, we need to move quickly (we probably can't win the shoot-out), but if we can force the enemy to come to us, we want to wrap-and-trap with a War Cry as quickly as possible.

Lords of Battle and Contest of Champions are abysmal risks for us: normally we'd look for a hero to tie down the enemy army leader in Contest of Champions, and while Gorulf can do that sort-of with a free Heroic Defense, a lucky set of natural 6s will see Gorulf go down along with a bunch of our supporting killing power. We'd almost be better off charging in with a Wild Man and shooting him in the back with our bows (a worthwhile strategy if you can do it). Deploy everyone on the centerline, with Gorulf and some Wild Men able to engage as needed. In Lords of Battle, we just need to wrap the enemy as quickly as possible, but like Goblin-town and Hunter Orc spams, we run the risk of just coughing up too many points to the enemy because of our low Defense. If you can shoot the other guy from afar, do that - but more than likely, you're going to just have to commit and hope your heroes help you get an edge (and use the War Cry early).

When it comes to the hero slaying missions, things get really interesting: none of our heroes are D6, so they can all be taken down pretty easily at range if we leave them exposed. In Assassination, our best assassin model would be Thyrdan, but since he's our army leader, we probably want to settle for Gorulf. This is probably an obvious choice, so the sneaky ones among you might turn to the Chieftain for this and charge him in with Thrydan if possible so that you can win the fight more easily and then sneak in a trapped-kill with the Chieftain. Your opponent might choose to kill the Oathmaker (he's the lowest Defense of the bunch), so I'd keep him well in reserve, using his Might for Heroic Moves from a safe position. 50 guys can buy you a lot of time to get away from an enemy if you're intentional with their placement.

In Fog of War, you should probably protect your Chieftain - the Oathmaker's Might is really valuable in the mid- to late-game, so you want him near the fighting (but not too close - your opponent very well might peg him as the model to kill since he's so vulnerable-looking) while the Chieftain's Might is really useful early (Heroic Marches). If you March once or twice and then beat a hasty retreat with him, you might signal to your opponent who you're trying to protect, but hopefully there will be enough guys in the way that he can't do anything about it. If you use a bow-tie formation to March your army up, you'll have an escape route built into your formation, so there's that. Pick terrain near the center that you can swarm and don't forget to War Cry early!

Finally, we have Clash by Moonlight . . . while probably not as bad as Lords of Battle for us, it's still not going to be a great scenario (especially against S3-4 ranged weapons), so do your best to get locked in quickly and War Cry early to catch up on any model count disparity that builds up early in the game. And for goodness sake, keep those heroes in the third rank if you can while advancing across the board so you don't lose a hero to archery on the advance!

Conclusion

Well, that's Dunland for you - and while there are definitely scenarios that would have been easier with Crebain, I can't say I'm displeased with this list. In our next post, we turn to the Forces of Good to look at the Elves of Lothlorien and what kind of cool list we can build from this sourcebook. Curious what we do? Find out next time - and until then, happy hobbying!