Unexpected Military Formations: The Deployable Meat Shield

Good morning gamers,

I've been playing a lot of games with average Defense models leading up to our recent GT. One of the armies I tested at 623 points (I know, it's weird) was the Cirith Ungol LL, which had a mix of Orcs with shields and Uruk-Hai with Orc bows:

• Shagrat, Captain of Cirith Ungol with heavy armor and the Shield of Cirith Ungol [ARMY LEADER]
• 9 Mordor Uruk-Hai with Orc bows
• 3 Mordor Uruk-Hai with Orc bows and two-handed maces
• Gorbag, Orc Captain
• 3 Orc Warriors with shields
• 5 Orc Warriors with shields and spears
• 1 Orc Warrior with shield, spear, and banner
• 2 Orc Warriors with two-handed weapons
• Orc Captain with pick and shield
• 3 Orc Warriors with shields
• 7 Orc Warriors with shields and spears
• 1 Orc Warrior with shield, spear, and banner
• 1 Orc Warrior with two-handed weapon
• Shelob

39 models, 12 Orc bows hitting on a 4+, 4 D6+ models, 1 fast infantry AND 2 Might for Heroic March, 8 Might

The problem is that if you're up against S2 archery, those D4 Uruk-Hai look far more tempting as targets than those D5 Orcs. So how do you protect your investment while still getting good archers in the Legion? Well, you channel your inner Mordor overlord and prepare a line of Orcs to save the day! Let's see how we do this with the Deployable Meat Shield!

The Deployable Meat Shield 

Let's assume that you're charging towards a gunline in a game of Retrieval (or some other game where you can start on/near the center line). Naturally, your opponent is going to want to give you some space so he can shoot at least once - and if you have D4 models in the front line, they could be absolutely roasted before they get in. So what do you do? You make a conga-line of D5 models behind the guy who's calling the March:

Do you see the conga line?

The Orc Captain in this list calls a Heroic March and I put dice out to indicate how far my D5 "meat shield" can go once the Captain and Shagrat (standing to the right of the Captain) have moved:

The Captain and Shagrat move, making sure that they are in-line with where the meat shield is going to be and that the furthest guy is going to be within 6" of the Captain. This isn't going to get us much further up the field than we would moving normally, but you'll see the value shortly:

The spears come along with the heroes . . .

With a 2" gap, our meat shield has no problems getting to their marks, with the furthest-right point being grabbed by the guy at the front of the line.

Notice the gaps? We have bows after all, so we want some gaps . . .

With 4.5" of movement available to them, the archers can now come up right behind our meat shields and can shoot at the enemy from behind disposable cover. The Orcs should provide an in-the-way against most of the archery shots, which is good for our Uruks. Should the enemy charge these Orcs on the following turn, we have a slot for an Uruk to pull someone off; should we be able to charge first, we've left a slot for our Uruks to run through and engage (while these Orcs move to one of the flanks).

If you go back to the top picture, you'll actually notice a handful of Orcs with shields and two-handed weapons standing to the left of the formation - these guys were "extra Orcs" as well, but they weren't deployed in a conga-line behind the formation. Because they were outside of March range, tucking these guys in the back wouldn't have helped protect the Uruks to the left of the March Captain - no, instead, they can use their movement to move laterally to the right, counting on the 4.5" move of the Uruks to allow their 6" move to get to a shielding/protective spot.

Conclusion

Nothing fancy this time, guys, but this formation is a much better and cleaner way to protect your valuable, low-Defense models with higher-Defense, disposable models than "having the spearmen start in front." Those spears are valuable, but since one-third of our army will be Uruk-Hai bowmen and slightly more than one-third will have spears, we're gonna have close to one-third of our army as "just Orcs" and now they have a use. Hopefully you enjoyed this - if so, let us know in the comments below (and if you think there's a better way to do this - maybe even with a different army - let us know that too!). Until next time, happy hobbying!