Good morning gamers,
Today we're back to studying one of the most expensive factions in the game - and one of the things that pushed War in Rohan over the edge as the most expensive supplement we've looked at so far: Khand. If we look strictly at the one scenario in the appendices that requires Khandish units, we have the following units to work with:
While I could build a 500-point list with just Khandish units, I opted today to showcase how you can get much of the punch from Khand allied into a more reliable anvil from a different faction. Let's dig in!- 1 Khandish King on Chariot
- 1 Khandish Chieftain on Chariot
- 3 Khandish Charioteers
- 12 Khandish Horsemen
- 18 Khandish Warriors (6 with bows)
The List
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| Photo Credit: War in Rohan |
The tricky thing about War in Rohan for evil alliances is that the only ACTUAL heroes we have in the scenarios are Heroes of Fortitude. Thrydan becomes a Hero of Valour in the Army of Dunland Legendary Legion (see our recent article for info on what that might look like - and check out our review of the Legion for additional details on the list), but he's normally a Hero of Fortitude. Thanks to the way the PURCHASES have to be made for the heroes we need, we actually do have a Hero of Valour from Isengard that we can tap into: Lurtz. Here's the list:
- Khandish King on Chariot
- 5 Khandish Warriors with hand-and-a-half axes
- 5 Khandish Horsemen
- 3 Khandish Charioteers with hand-and-a-half axes
- CONVENIENT ALLY - Isengard: Lurtz [ARMY LEADER]
- 4 Uruk-Hai Scouts with Uruk-Hai bows
- 1 Uruk-Hai Scouts with shields
- 6 Uruk-Hai Warriors with pikes
- 1 Wild Man of Dunland
- CONVENIENT ALLY - Gorulf Ironskin
- 4 Uruk-Hai Scouts with Uruk-Hai bows
- 1 Uruk-Hai Scouts with shields
- 6 Uruk-Hai Warriors with pikes
- 1 Wild Man of Dunland
700 points, 40 models, 6 bows hitting on a 4+ AND 1 Uruk-Hai bow hitting on a 3+ AND 8 Uruk-Hai bows hitting on a 4+, 2 D6+ models, 9 cavalry, 8 Might points
The list has far more Isengard units than Khandish units, but the list is VERY heavily slanted towards the Khandish contingent when it comes to firepower. Yes, Isengard can bring archery to the table and has a better battle line than you'd get from Khand alone, but with 4 chariots and 5 cavalry in tow, the Khandish contingent brings both mobility and a devastating charge threat to the table - something that Isengard can really struggle with. Let's see the interplay between both of these elements as we discuss the army theory below.
Army Theory
Isengard has decent cavalry - but only decent. Warg Riders and Dunlending Horsemen are both competent cavalry for 12-13pts/model and they're dangerous because they're fairly cheap F3/S4 models (with the Dunlending Horsemen able to Piercing Strike up to S5 if they need it). Add onto that the ability for the Warg Riders to become skirmish cavalry with throwing spears or Orc bows (albeit with bad shoot values) and a slight boost to wounding mounts for Dunlending Horsemen, these guys are useful in a utility role to deny cavalry charge bonuses from big heroes or riding down warriors guarding objectives.
Enter Khand though: Khand is one of those factions who REALLY emphasizes cavalry. Khandish Horsemen cost about the same as both of these Isengard options (13pts/model) and while they're F4/S3 at the start, the presence of axes on everyone means they can be S4 if they need it (and with only D4, dropping down to D1-3 doesn't change much for you - you're probably dead if you lose a fight anyway). Normally, the Khandish army bonus would allow these guys and the Charioteers in the list to not count towards your bow limit, so we've had to limit the number of horsemen we take and get some of those Khandish Warriors with hand-and-a-half axes that most Khandish players don't recommend you run. 5 Khandish Cavalry is still enough to turn off cavalry charges and harass objectives - exactly what we'd want from our Isengard cavalry.
But the presence of Chariots changes the game a lot: we have four chariots in the list to get some quick kills with impact hits before our enemy closes with our shieldwall/loose phalanx. Three of these chariots are driven by warriors who only have 1 Wound at D4 and no Fate points, so it's possible for them to be sniped and the chariot abandoned and lost, but if we can get these guys charging in, they can deal some nice damage to the enemy (and even ram into big heroes and slow them down - especially if their strikes are allocated to the chariot instead of the rider). With 40 models in this list, our goal with our chariots is simple: get us a model count advantage before we bring our Phalanxes and heroes to bear.
Speaking of chariots and heroes, we could have chosen to have our Khandish King as our army leader, but I'm a big fan of having a disposable grenade hero - and Khandish Kings are one of the best grenades you can have. Two S4 impact hits when they go "lawn-mowering" into the enemy is really useful - and 3 Attacks with a banner rule and S4 with Monstrous Charge is really good for killing models that don't get killed by the impact hits. Call a Heroic Combat with this guy and you're in good shape to get some good kills if you're running over infantry. Yes, maneuvering chariots is difficult - just practice moving them on a table before you play and you should be fine.
The final element of our Khandish contingent are the Khandish Warriors. We have 5 of these guys and . . . well, they don't seem to get that much publicity from Khandish players. While there's a guy from New Zealand who swears by them in a pure Khand army, most people don't seem to give these guys much credence - just run cavalry they say (and even I didn't recommend running more than five when I reviewed them in our Bare Necessities series).
In a pure Khand army, these guys probably don't have much of a place, but in an Isengard alliance, these guys are actually very good value: for 8pts/model, you get an Uruk-Hai Scout (8pts/model) with -1 Strength but a hand-and-a-half axe - the difference between the two are very slim indeed. Backed by pikemen, these guys can two-hand and Piercing Strike to get more damage than you'd normally get from a Scout - and if your pikes can win the fight for you, you're in good shape!
Speaking of pikes, we have two identical warbands from Isengard: one led by Lurtz (who I've chosen as our army leader) and one led by Gorulf Ironskin (he's one of the cheapest 3A heroes in the game and is 20 points cheaper than Lurtz with a slightly reduced profile and 10pts more expensive than Mauhur with a better profile). In most scenarios, Lurtz can lead from the back, trusting the Khandish Chieftain and Gorulf to chop through the enemy ranks or force big heroes to blow resources taking them down. This should allow him to sail in after the enemy is spent, giving him a resource advantage to make up for a somewhat average profile (nothing wrong with F5/S5/3A, but nothing incredible about it either).
Gorulf is a killing machine - something we talked about a little in our post on Dunland earlier in this series - and is a great allied hero if you want a good infantry hero who can also speed-bump a hero with Heroic Defense. His actual Might points can be spent calling Heroic Combats and if he's fighting something big, two pikes will be very, VERY welcome.
Supporting each of these heroes are 4 Uruk-Hai Scouts with Uruk-Hai bows and a single Uruk-Hai Scout with shield (probably next to the hero). The Scouts aren't as punchy as Uruk-Hai Warriors (who you could get by dropping the 2 Wild Men of Dunland and upgrading all 10 Uruk-Hai Scouts into Uruk-Hai Warriors with shields), but they're good units - and our bowmen can further weaken the enemy before they arrive. We also have 6 Uruk-Hai Warriors with pikes to support these models - in a loose phalanx, they can lend 2 support dice to help any of the Scouts to win their fights (and since we have two 3 Attack heroes in the battle line, they probably don't NEED the pike supports most of the time).
Finally, we have two Wild Men of Dunland in the list - we have these guys for two reasons: first and foremost, to boost our break point by 1 model, and two, because our list is going to need models to sit on objectives that we don't need in combat. Wild Men of Dunland are great for this - though as I noted before, you could easily drop these two guys to upgrade all of your Uruk-Hai Scouts with shields/Uruk-Hai bows into Uruk-Hai Warriors with shields (more resiliency, less shooting).
Let's look and see how we should be approaching the scenarios.
Gameplay Strategy
Maelstrom & Object Missions (Pools 1 & 3)
Maelstrom fights are tricky with chariots - yes, we can roam over enemy models on the first turn if we can line up the angles right, but actually GETTING those angles is going to be hard when we have four chariots riding out on the first turn. Still, if we CAN get a good charge off, we could devastate an entire formation with our chariots. As such, no matter which maelstrom scenario we play, we want to deploy our Khandish King's warband first. If we deploy second, we can try to charge into enemy models with at least the Khandish King, but we'll take charges with other chariots if we can. Any that can't charge on the first turn should set up for a charge on the second turn (with our Horsemen and then our Warriors coming on after the chariots have deployed). Should we have to deploy first, we want to ride forward with each of our chariots in a straight line (which will give us a bubble effect) so they can get to the center of the map quickly and hopefully set up for charges on a later turn. Our Isengard warbands can deploy based on how this warband is positioned, with Gorulf rolling first and Lurtz choosing his die roll result to arrive with Gorulf's warband no matter who chooses their deployment site.
In Hold Ground, Lurtz can March our infantry towards the center quickly - and if we have Gorulf nearby, this is probably our best idea. The Khandish contingent can get to the center without March, so we probably don't care if Lurtz shows up near them or not. If we can get a hedge of Isengard models in the center and harass the enemy with some chariot "nukes" as they approach, we have a good chance of keeping the numerical advantage in the center.
In Command the Battlefield and Heirlooms of Ages Past, we can have our Khandish Horsemen spread out and threaten the enemy with their bows. Our Khandish Warriors, if possible, want to move to our phalanxes, freeing up archers to act on their own while the Khandish infantry fill in the ranks. Our Chariots will want to help hedge off quadrants or Heirloom tokens by threatening impact hits to anyone who drifts too close. With a few models thrown to the far winds, we want to contest key parts of the board while being able to concentrate most of our army in one massive block to take on the enemy (or distract them from the primary mission goals).
In the object missions, our chariots take on a life of their own: a March from our Khandish King on the first turn of Seize the Prize will see our chariots able to ride 15" forward on the first turn of the game with no penalty for ramming into enemy models despite calling a Heroic March. This should at the very least buy us space to secure the Prize with the likes of Lurtz and Gorulf coming up behind us (and our Khandish Horsemen riding in behind the chariots). Our Chariots are a big distraction, providing a HUGE threat to the enemy while not actually being worth any VPs.
In Destroy the Supplies, we can have some of our Uruk-Hai Scouts with Uruk-Hai bows supported by Khandish Horsemen to guard our supplies, while the Khandish Warriors join the pike blocks to threaten the enemy supplies. But once again, it's our chariots that will want to tear up the enemy ranks early, forcing the enemy to come to them and "take their damage" in order to keep their supply makers on the board (or keep their troops away from our markers, which we're perfectly okay with).
Finally, in Retrieval, we'll want to set up our battle lines in a Long Fangs formation with lots of room for our chariots to charge forward at the beginning, but with plenty of control zones to keep these guys from being charged at the get-go. Thankfully, we can have Khandish Warriors placed at the front of the Long Fangs and layer in pikes to support them. Job's a good one - and this should be VERY difficult to deal with.
Control Missions (Pools 2 & 5)
We can't "just deploy on the center line" like we usually do in these scenarios - yes, we want our loose phalanxes to do this, but we need paths for our chariots to charge into the enemy, so we want to deploy our phalanxes on the sides with our chariots/horsemen having lots of latitude of movement in the center. We could try to make Long Fangs formations if we wanted, but having a wide open middle that will be filled quickly gives us even more options (so we should do that). Whether it's Domination, Capture and Control, or Breakthrough, our Khandish Warriors will mostly be tagging/guarding rear objectives while the Isengard contingents press for other objectives (leaving Wild Men behind) and the chariots just ramming into enemy formations to break the enemy up.
When it comes to getting places, we start off each scenario we can with a March from the King. In Storm the Camp, we'll want to place the King at the front with all the chariots picking their charging lanes (akin to firing lanes) carefully so they don't get caught in the beginning. The rest of our forces should be surging forward to engage - except the Wild Men. Those two chaps can be left behind in our camp to combat anyone who gets past our cavalry. If we can press forward quickly, we can slow the enemy's approach and force them to advance more carefully, which should keep our camp from being taken.
In Reconnoitre, we don't have the option to March on Turn 1, so we'll try to do that on Turn 2. Lurtz's warband at least will be on the board and we could certainly March with him early, but I think his Might will be best saved for late in the game when we can get Heroic Moves/Combats/Marches to get him and a few horsemen off the board. We'll be using our chariots to make a mess of the enemy as early as we can and then have our archers play defensively to guard our board edge (or at least force the enemy to use cover to protect themselves).
Finally, in Divide and Conquer, we probably want Lurtz and Gorulf together so we can March up our phalanx to the center of the map - the Khandish contingent is plenty fast as it is and probably needs the space to deploy/maneuver properly. Since the center of the board is likely to be littered with our own guys, our chariots will want to engage the enemy BEFORE they get to the center, charging in before they can get set up or press hard on their flanks if we have to follow them to the center.
Killing Missions (Pools 4 & 6)
This army is very offensive-focused - so it should go without saying that we're hoping to rack up the kills with our chariots and in some ways with our shooting. If the enemy doesn't have a strong archery contingent, we can probably shoot at the enemy for a bit if we want to (what with 9 Uruk-Hai bows and 6 normal bows in our army), but most of our kills are going to come from melee damage and impact hits. In To The Death and Clash by Moonlight, our goal is to break the enemy quickly and kill banners or heroes respectively - all while keeping Lurtz safe and our Khandish King and Gorulf kicking (less important in To The Death, but still quite valuable). In Lords of Battle, we need to watch out for not only our average Defense coughing up points, but also any damage suffered done to our horses or chariots giving up points.
Contest of Champions is an interesting one for us, because we have Lurtz to rack up warrior kills (shouldn't be too hard), Gorulf to stall out the enemy army leader, and our chariots to try to break the enemy. We'll need to deploy Lurtz first (I would recommend an in-set hero formation to help govern his match-ups), Gorulf to extend the loose phalanx and deploy opposite the enemy army leader, and then the Khandish King on one of the flanks (with chariots lined up to crash one flank and the Warriors and Horsemen ready to rush to the other flank and center to support). The goal is to get locked in quickly with a devastating charge from the chariots to set the tempo for the rest of the game - ideally you break the enemy quickly, deny the enemy army leader some kills, and get a few kills with Lurtz.
Finally, we have Assassination and Fog of War. In Fog of War, we probably want to keep Gorulf alive and unwounded - mostly because we probably want the option to throw the Khandish King into the action. That said, there is value in protecting the King and relying on his speed and his bow to keep him out of reach of our foes and still able to contribute something to the fight . . . but I'm not buying it. I'd pick Gorulf to keep alive. As for someone to kill . . . pick anyone? With all the firepower in our list, we should be able to run over anyone we want - including head-hunting those heroes who like to hide in the back of the board. Any piece of terrain we want to defend should be able to host our pike block so we can hedge up and stay there while the chariots run around and chip away at the enemy on approach - we can March to it if we have to. Finally, I don't think sitting back and shooting with this army is a good idea - we want to claim our terrain objective as quickly as possible and will kill far more with our melee weapons and impact hits than our archery.
In Assassination, we have two great assassin choices in Gorulf and the Khandish King - and both are surprisingly difficult to take down (what with Heroic Defense on Gorulf and the chariot for the Khandish King). These guys are plenty tough and should focus on chopping their way through to whatever hero we choose to assassinate. Which one you want to use as your assassin is a toss-up - I don't think there's much of a difference here, unless you're worried about being shot to death (in which case the King makes a bit more sense). Our main goal is to keep Lurtz away from the action - having a S3 bow with a 3+ shoot value means he can contribute to our killing power without actually engaging, which should help us deny VPs to our opponent.
Conclusion
This was a bit of a wonky army to look at - and Khand's initial buy-in price makes them a rarity on the tabletop. Woe betides any D4 horde army that runs into this army though - I'm liking that match-up. In our next post, we're wrapping up our review of War in Rohan armies you can run based on scenario play participants by looking at one of my favorite Legendary Legions from this book - and one that virtually everyone else in the world hates. Join us next time for a surprise that will rock your world - until then, happy hobbying!
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