In Defense Of: Two-Handing!

Good morning gamers,

This series was intended to focus on models that are really good that most players seem to not like (be it opinions stated on Facebook, in podcasts, or in printed materials). Our goal with this series was to challenge assumptions - looking for new ways to approach models that get dismissed out of hand and find ways to make them work. Some of the models we covered are tournament staples that get critiqued commonly (like Galadriel or Azog), while others are obscure and almost never see the light (like Osgiliath Veterans and Harry Goatleaf).

Well today, we're shaking things up and we're NOT looking at a model - we're looking at a weapon class and something that almost every competitive player will tell you not to do: fight two-handed when you don't have a rule that removes your dueling penalty.

In MESBG, one of the best bonuses you can get is a +1 To Wound. Sometimes, models will get this because of a special rule (such as Hatred or Backstabbers) or from a piece of war gear (such as a lance). Models that have these bonuses (and actually trigger them) are commonly viewed to be really, really good - especially if they have rules like this that can stack (like Moria Goblin Prowlers in the Assault on Lothlorien Legendary Legion, who can pair Backstabbers with a Legion special rule that gives them +1 To Wound if there is at least one other friendly model engaged in the same fight - more on these guys later).

The most common way to get +1 To Wound, however, isn't with a special rule: it's with a two-handed weapon. As a brief review, there are three types of melee weapons in the game: one-handed weapons (or "hand weapons"), two-handed weapons, and hand-and-a-half weapons (which can be wielded either as hand weapons or two-handed weapons). Weapons that are wielded with one-hand "fight normally," while two-handed weapons apply a -1 penalty to the dueling roll of the model (all dice are affected) but apply a +1 bonus to the To Wound roll of the model (again, all dice are affected - and this bonus is applied to both die rolls if multiple rolls are required to wound).

Occasionally, a piece of war gear will have the "master-forged" keyword (like Narsil or Durin's Axe) that removes the -1 penalty from the dueling roll when using the weapon two-handed. A select number of profiles might have the Weapon Master or Burly special rule that ignores these penalties as well (each provides another niche benefit too, but the main event of these rules is the removal of the dueling penalty). Finally, there are some models that have situational ways of removing the dueling penalty if they get a natural 6 on their dueling roll (most notably Angbor the Fearless, Clansmen of Lamedon, and Hurin Knights of the White Tower). Yes, getting +1 To Wound when you have absolutely no downside is really good - especially if you can reliably Feint as well so you get +1 To Wound and you reroll 1s.

However, there are a TON of models that can elect to two-hand without avoiding the penalty and a select few models who HAVE to two-hand with the penalty in place. It's these models that we're going to focus on today - and we'll be looking at both sets today with the aim of examining why two-handing is valuable (and how to tailor your lists to reduce the risks of two-handing).

Why NOT To Two-Hand

In MESBG, you don't always get to make a wounding roll - lots of other wargaming systems have some sort of "initiative" system where you determine which models strike first. In the old Warhammer Fantasy system, models had an "initiative" stat (Elves of all stripes had high Initiative, Dwarves and Ogres had low Initiative) that determined the order in which you rolled To Hit and To Wound. Two-handed weapons had the "Always Strikes Last" (or ASL) rule, which meant you didn't care about your initiative stat - you always rolled last (as such, it was common to give two-handed weapons to Dwarves and Ogres because chances were you were striking last anyway). Models with the Always Strikes First (or ASF) rule could cancel out the ASL rule and make the model strike on Initiative instead (which is what I utilized when running Swordmasters in my High Elf lists). No matter what models you ran, if you were alive by the time it came time for you to make strikes, you got to make a Hit and Wound roll - two-handing basically always helped.

Not so in MESBG: because the "To Hit" equivalent is an opposed roll between the two players, only one side gets to make a To Wound roll - and if you lose the Dueling roll, you miss out on any benefits of your two-handed weapon. While you might have really great odds of killing the enemy model by two-handing, because you have to win the Dueling roll first, your probability of wounding the enemy is reduced because of the penalty you receive (in math, we call these "contingent probabilities).

The most obvious critique of two-handing is just that: you're less likely to win the dueling roll. And I'll be honest, when I started playing the game, I bought a box of Dwarf Warriors and I two-handed with everyone who had a two-handed weapon - and I lost a lot of fights. I was okay with it to a point because my Dwarves were wounded on 6s by basically everyone, but it was clear that by choosing to two-hand, I was asking for a harder fight than if I'd just fought one-handed.

The second critique of two-handing is that choosing to two-hand with heroes often means committing Might to boosting your Dueling roll instead of your Wounding roll. Committing Might early to the fight is a gamble for sure - you never know what you're going to roll To Wound - and some players would rather have the option to not commit Might to the fight initially and save it to boost the Wounding rolls (which are far more impactful, since you know Might spent on wounding rolls will translate into wounds).

The last critique of two-handing has to do with models who have the choice to fight with a one-handed weapon that doesn't suffer the penalty or fighting with a two-handed weapon that will suffer the penalty: if I already have a decent chance of wounding the enemy, why bother with two-handing? If Glorfindel is on the charge with his hand-and-a-half sword (F7 with 4 Attacks at S4 and a knock-down) and is fighting two D6 warriors that he'll wound on 5s, is there much of a point in wounding on 4s? I mean, seriously, I'm gonna kill these guys, right? Suffering a -1 penalty to the dueling roll is a huge risk - and could mean my horse goes down if I lose - so shouldn't I just play it safe and take a weaker damage output than I would if I two-handed?

Of all the critiques, I think this one is the most fair, but I defy even this objection to two-handing, because when it comes down to it, when you choose to two-hand, you get some incredible benefits (even if there's some kind of penalty to your dueling roll). Let's see what we get by not cheating the system and using our weapons two-handed . . .

Why TO Two-Hand

Our first critique is that we're penalizing our dueling roll (which is needed for our wounding roll). This is, admittedly, a big deal - and we've all lost fights due to our opponent getting a 6 and us not being able to beat that roll. But to highlight the issues with this mentality, we need to look at a similar situation: when our opponent calls a Heroic Strike.

Heroic Strike, as I've talked about before (and Rythbyrt has talked about a lot), gives you the ability to "auto-win" a fight if you can get a) a higher Fight Value than your opponent, and b) can get a 6 on your dueling roll. We've all had a hero lose a fight (and maybe even die) because we either rolled a lower Fight Value than our opponent during a "Heroic Strike-off" or because we couldn't call a Heroic Strike and our opponent called a Strike to get the higher Fight Value. Just as it feels bad to know that you can't win a fight because your opponent got the higher Fight Value and rolled a 6, seeing an opponent get a 6 on their dueling roll when you've opted to two-hand hurts a lot.

But that's the thing - your opponent shouldn't always be rolling 6s. In fact, depending on how many dice your opponent is rolling, his chances of getting a 6 should be at/under a 50% chance (obligatory technical side note: probabilities aren't technically percentages, but colloquially we all think of them that way, so I'll be using percentages in this post):

• If you roll 1 die, your probability of getting a 6-high is a ~16.7% chance (1/6);
• If you roll 2 dice, your probability of getting a 6-high is a 16.7% chance on the first die and one-sixth of the remaining chunk of time where your first die got a 1-5 (13.9%, cumulatively a ~30.6% chance);
• If you roll 3 dice, you have a 30.6% chance of getting a 6-high on either of the first two dice, added to one-sixth of the remaining times (11.6%, cumulatively a ~42.1% chance); and
• If you roll 4 dice, you have a 42.1% chance of getting a 6-high on any of the first three dice, added to one-sixth of the remaining times (9.6%, cumulatively a ~51.8% chance).

So what are the take-aways from this? First and foremost, if our opponent is fighting us with 1-4 dice (pretty reasonable assumption, unless a hero is invovled), he only has a 17-52% chance of getting a 6-high - and if we're set up in a battle line, that's likely to be closer to 31% (or one-in-three fights). Assuming that our opponent is going to get a 6-high is unreasonable until he gets to 4+ dueling dice (and even then, that's only supposed to happen in every other fight).

A much better way to think about this is to look at the likelihoods that both sides get an X-high on their rolls - so let's look at a situation where we have your standard "shieldwall" battle line - in our case, we'll have some Elves up against some Uruk-Hai:

When you set up a battle line, however, you're rarely going to have a -1 penalty on the supporting model's dice (pretty much only when a banner is in play - could be because of the Cumbersome rule, though). If you choose to two-hand with the front rank, you could be supporting the model with an unmodified supporting die - and when THAT happens, your likelihood of rolling well is greatly improved. Consider the following table of dueling rolls when we have two models in the fight:

As you can see, there are 6-of-36 cells were we got a 6-high (the supporting spearman got a 6), so that gives us a 16.7% chance of getting a 6-high (as you'd expect). We then have a 27.8% chance of getting a 5-high (10-of-36) and a 22.2% chance of getting a 4-high (8-of-36). Cumulatively, this gives us a two-thirds chance (66.7%) of getting a 4-high, which is only slightly less than the three-quarters chance (75%) of getting a 4-high when we don't suffer the penalty.

And of course, this assumes you don't have a banner giving your lowest roll a reroll - if you assume that you'll reroll the unmodified spear-support die whenever it is either a) the same/lower value as the two-handed die, or b) you get a 1-3 on it (since you have a 50/50 chance of getting a better roll), you will reroll the spear die 42% of the time, while you reroll the two-handed die 58% of the time (whenever you got a 4+ on the spear die or whenever the two-handed die was lower than the spear-supporting die) - and when you factor in THOSE probabilities, you get a slightly rosier picture - a 23.1% chance of getting a 6-high, a 36.6% chance of getting a 5-high, a 23.6% chance of getting a 4-high, for a total cumulative likelihood of getting a 4-high of 83.3% (which is only slightly lower than the 87.5% chance you're supposed to have without two-handing. Not bad, huh? Here's a chart that shows the breakdown of your probability of getting an X-high value (with the cumulative likelihood of getting a 4-or-higher at the bottom) whether you're one-handing or two-handing with/without a banner - it's pretty enlightening:

Simple take-away: if you have no banner, you have an 8% higher chance of getting a 4+ without a banner, but only a 4% higher chance of getting a 4+ with a banner . . . neither is that big of a difference . . .

What does this all mean, though? In simple terms, the more dice we're rolling, the less the penalty from two-handing affects us. Try it with an Anduril-wielding Aragorn, King Elessar or Thrydan Wolfsbane on the charge sometime - see how many fights you lose when two-handing and you'll be surprised at one very simple fact: 

While you might need to get a 6 to win some fights, you don't always need to get the 6. 

Sometimes, a 4-high or a 5-high will carry the day - and when that happens (and you got a 6-high), you might wish you had two-handed. The second critique of two-handing has to deal with heroes having to dedicate Might to boosting their dueling rolls just because they two-hand. While this is admittedly unlucky, I will say that you should expect to have to save Might to boost dueling rolls when using the following characters (I have used or fought against these models a bunch of times over the years):

• Khamul the Easterling, Nazgul of Dol Guldur (3 Attacks at F5/S4 with a two-handed mace only);
• The Uruk-Hai Uber-Captain from the Assault Upon Helm's Deep LL if he takes and uses a two-handed weapon (3 Attacks at F5/S5 with the option for a two-handed weapon - I go for an axe);
• Grimbold, Captain of Rohan (2 Attacks at F5/S4 with a two-handed axe only);
• Bofur the Dwarf (2 Attacks at F4/S4 with a two-handed axe/hammer); and
• Hunter Orc Captains with two-handed picks (3 Attacks on foot at F4/S4 with a two-handed pick).
  

What do most of these models have in common? 3 Attacks each (Bofur/Grimbold are only 2 Attacks each, but if you can get a spear-support in the same fight, you're basically at 3 Attacks). What do 3 Attacks each do for you? Well, as we just mentioned, the more dice you roll, the more likely you are to get a 4+ on your highest roll - and with a few Might points, you can get the roll you need to win the fight (and most of these guys will be doing so at F5 - though Bofur/Hunter Orc Captains are only F4). If you're willing to use Might to boost one dueling die, you effectively get a free Might point on each of your wounding dice.

And why does this matter? Because the wounding roll is often much harder to turn into a success than a dueling roll. Consider our previous example: if the front Elf chooses to one-hand and his fight is within range of a banner (88% chance of getting a 4+), he and his supporter need to get a 6 on at least one To Wound roll against the Uruk-Hai (30.6% chance). Even if he Feints and raises his chances of getting a 6 to a 19.4% chance (rerolling the 1 and getting a 6), the cumulative chance of killing the Uruk-Hai is only a 32.9% chance - which isn't bad, but means that one-in-three Uruks who lose to the Elves will die . . . surely we can do better than this.

In fact, we can: by dropping our likelihood of wounding by a handful of percentage points, we can two-hand and Feint with the front-line guy - wounding on 5s (12/36 or a 33.3% chance) and rerolling 1s (14/36 or a 38.9% chance) increases our overall likelihood of wounding each Uruk-Hai to a 49.1% chance - or every-other-Uruk being killed. If we only had 3 fights, that would translate into maybe 1 more dead Uruk-Hai. But spread that out over a 10-file battle line, and we're talking 2-3 more dead Uruks. Not bad at all, I'd say.

The final critique of two-handing is that sometimes it seems unnecessary. This isn't really a critique, but is a rationale that's used to not two-hand (your internal dialogue goes something like, "5s are fine - I can get 5s"). If you've ever had a game, however, where Aragorn (with or without Anduril), Boromir, or Thranduil have ever just "not worked", you'll see the problem with this objection: sometimes you just can't get 5s (or even 4s)! Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you just can't wound someone. And in a cruel twist of fate, you'll see that if you are willing to spend 1 Might point, you can turn a not-wound into a wound - and so you're tempted to spend Might to boost your wounding roll.

Unfortunately, most of the heroes in the list above (not Anduril-wielding Aragorn) can't actually two-hand - they're stuck with having to pay the Might or forego the kill. But what if you have someone like Elrond or Glorfindel, who can choose to two-hand at a penalty in order to really up their wounding potential - do you two-hand with them? Why yes, yes you should. Here's why.

We've talked already about how good your probability of getting a 4-high can be when two-handing and rolling 3 dice (one unmodified), but with some heroes, you can get 4+ dice being rolled (if Elrond/Glorfindel are mounted and on the charge, they have 4 Attacks base, plus 1 reroll from Lord of the West and potentially 1 more reroll from a banner). If we look at how likely we are to get at 6-high or a 5-high on 1-6 dice, we can see that once we're above 4 dice, our chances of getting a good roll that can be Mighted to be higher is quite good:

From experience, if you two-hand with Glorfindel while on the charge, you're still going to win the vast majority of your fights - especially if there's a banner nearby to give you that second reroll. When you get to the wounding roll, however, you are likely to be at the much-to-be-envied 4+ To Wound, which, if you've knocked the enemy over, you should expect to deal 1 Wound with each pair of wounding dice you roll. That's pretty good.

There may not always be a need to get +1 To Wound, but if you're calling a Heroic Combat and have all your Might in your store, two-handing is the most reliable way for a hero like Glorfindel to actually succeed with his Heroic Combat. Naturally, having helpers who can roll unmodified dice help as well (and are essential to getting the maximum value out of Glorfindel if you charged something that wouldn't get Knocked Prone by his cavalry charge), but even if you're on your own, two-handing only slightly reduces your likelihood of winning the fight while greatly increasing your likelihood of translating wounding dice into actual wounds.

Making It Work

We've already hinted at the advice I have here, but let's repeat it for clarify: first and foremost, you want banners. We actually talked about this when we looked at the Elven Windmill Battle Line formation a while back, but it bears repeating here: if your Fight Value is naturally high, two-handing while within range of a banner (with or without spear-support) can see you winning a lot of fights and killing a lot of stuff. Two-handing while supported by someone with at least the same Fight Value as you and within range of a banner is the best combo, as you can Feint with the two-hander, increasing the likelihood that the two-handing model actually wounds the enemy.

Second (and as was just hinted at above), you want spear supports - or better yet, pike supports - in your list. The more dice you roll, the better - and if some are unmodified, that's the absolute best. Getting other friendly models Engaged with the same model can further up your chances of success, since you can increase your likelihood of getting the 6 without the two-hander's help. It's not rocket science, people, sometimes you just want more dice.

Third, if you're going to two-hand with heroes, make sure they save some Might for boosting their dueling rolls. When I use the Uruk-Hai Uber-Captain with a two-handed axe or Khamul from the Dol Guldur list, I use their Might EXCLUSIVELY for boosting dueling rolls. There's no flashy Heroic Combats going on, there's no Heroic Moves/Marches being called - everything is about the offense. And when you do this, they win. When I use Glorfindel, I two-hand all the time - and I pair him with other heroes who will make sure he gets where he wants to go (or I plan on not needing to call Heroic Moves/Combats). It's a hard line to walk, but it makes these heroes far more reliable at killing things - and in most scenarios, that pays massive dividends.

To illustrate this, I've opted to showcase two lists - first up is a 31-model 700-point army from Rivendell:

• Glorfindel, Lord of the West on Asfaloth with the Armor of Gondolin [ARMY LEADER]
• 5 High Elf Warriors with shields
  
• 4 High Elf Warriors with shields and spears
  
• 1 High Elf Warrior with shield, spear, and banner
  
• 1 High Elf Warrior with Elf bow
• 1 High Elf Warrior with Elf bow and spear
  
• 1 Rivendell Knight with shield
  
• Cirdan
• 3 High Elf Warriors with Elf bows
• 3 High Elf Warriors with Elf bows and spears
  
• High Elf Captain on horse with lance, shield, and Elf bow
• 4 High Elf Warriors with shields
  
• 4 High Elf Warriors with shields and spears
  
• 1 Rivendell Knight with shield
  

This army is straight-forward: we've got a handful of cavalry who are going to support a 9-file shielwall (with an additional 8 archers on foot who can make a small "shieldwall" in front of Cirdan). This is a fair pile of Elves - and if the spears are all shoulder-to-shoulder, they can all benefit from the banner. We probably want a few to be outside of range so that Glorfindel can get some of the banner action, which would boost his likelihood of winning fights. Honestly, though, we could just say, "Eh, 5 dice is enough" and have our infantry shieldwall benefit from the banner instead.

This army is only going to get 3 dice/file, which isn't bad by any means when you're F5, but our next list has a very punch 44 models at 700-points and leans harder into a different kind of threat: multiple Attack infantry! Enter the Assault Upon Helm's Deep Legendary Legion!

• Uruk-Hai Uber-Captain with two-handed axe [ARMY LEADER]
• 7 Uruk-Hai Warriors with pikes
• 1 Uruk-Hai Warrior with pike and banner
• 3 Uruk-Hai Warriors with crossbows
  
• 7 Uruk-Hai Berserkers
  
• Uruk-Hai Captain with crossbow
• 1 Uruk-Hai Warrior with shield
  
• 8 Uruk-Hai Warriors with pikes
  
• 7 Uruk-Hai Warriors with crossbows
• 2 Uruk-Hai Berserkers
  
• Uruk-Hai Siege Veteran
  
• Isengard Assault Ballista
• 1 Crew
• 1 Crew with pike
• Uruk-hai Siege Veteran
• Isengard Assault Ballista
• 1 Crew
• 1 Crew with pike
  

This army has two ballistas and a whopping 11 crossbow shots to force the enemy to come to us - but it's the melee bruisers that are the real surprise. Whatever makes it to your front line will have one incredibly difficult front-line to break: 7 Berserkers and the Uber-Captain in an 8-file, loose phalanx that will have either 2 dice or 4 dice in each fight (most if not all fights should have a reroll from the banner). That's potentially 3-5 dice in each fight - and with everyone able to two-hand, you're looking at a TON of damage coming out!

But that's not all - if we can deploy both of our warbands next to each other, we have 2 additional Berserkers, as well as a crossbow Captain and a shield guy who can add an additional four files to the line - to say nothing of the four other files we could add if we embed 4 of the crossbows in the phalanx! With 6 other crossbows (and 2 ballistas) to guard our flanks or sit on objectives, this is a truly horrifying battle line to have to tackle - and if the Berserkers are two-handing, they're still pretty likely to roll well on the dueling roll . . . and they're dicing up whatever they're hitting for sure!

Conclusion

Two-handing is incredibly useful in MESBG, but it does appear to have its drawbacks. And even I'll admit that it hurts when you lose a fight because you two-handed instead of fighting normally. But I'll be honest here: for every time that's happened, I've had many situations where my gut told me to two-hand and it worked out - and while sometimes the To Wound bonus isn't needed to kill the model you're hitting (because you get a natural 6 or whatever you needed anyway), there will be plenty of times when it'll be just what you needed to get a wound in. So ignore those nay-sayers and give two-handing a try!

In our next post, we're going to look at a model that's been placed in a list with far too many hero options: the lowly Morannon Orc Captain. These guys show up in the most fleshed out list in the game (Mordor) as well as two Legendary Legions from Gondor at War and thanks to all the named heroes in Mordor (and even in those Legions), these guys just don't get much time in a sun. Which is a shame, since they're really, really good. Don't believe me? Come back next week and find out more! Until then, happy hobbying!