Unexpected Military Formations: The Terror-V Formation

Good morning gamers,

Just over a month ago, I brought a nasty four-Barrow-Wight Angmar list to our TMAT Grand Tournament - and while I had a lot of fun with it, I also learned a lot about battle lines with Terror while playing with the list. It was really fun to have 47 models running around, most of which could cause Terror because I had FOUR Spirit heroes leading them (and a Warg Chieftain - who didn't grant Terror, but had it innately).

While I learned that Terror without Harbinger played very differently from Terror WITH Harbinger (man, I would have loved to have had the Witch-King in any form in my list), I also learned one very surprising fact: a straight line of battle isn't that great for a Terror-causing horde. "Wait," I hear you say, "Isn't fighting in a battle line a good idea when you have lots of Terror-causing models? I mean, isn't it great when you expose no flank and force your opponent to charge your lines where you probably have spear-supports and all?" Well, yes - these can be good. But they also restrict your maneuverability a lot. So I found a better way to deploy - let's dive into that.

The Problem With Terror "Battle Lines"

There's nothing wrong with a battle line - it's good to provide a solid line to the enemy to charge into as it makes sure your supporting units (spears generally, but in Angmar's case, this also includes those Spirit heroes who provide the Terror to the Orcs in the first place). But take the following 140-point warband as an example:

I love this warband so much . . . but they're better when you've copy/pasted them a few times . . .

This warband has a five-man frontage that can all benefit from Terror from the Barrow-Wight and they are all easily within range of the banner in the center of the formation. We could have Warg Riders with throwing spears or just Wild Wargs guarding our flanks as well. Let's assume at the start that this warband is operating on its own - what happens when it runs into a 141-point warband like this:

"Bridge Four!" I mean, "For Numenor!"

Assuming these guys have their army bonus, these Numenoreans are C4, which makes them pretty likely to be able to charge the Orcs even if there's a Harbinger of Evil within 12" of them (with F4/S4/D5/C4, these guys are only one stat off of Rythbyrt's recommended profile for fighting Angmar). They're also basically the same size battle line as we are, so they could rely on wrapping us in order to trap/kill a bunch of guys early. If the Paralyze doesn't work on the Captain, we're looking for trouble:

Even fight? Or terribly one-sided?

Numenor won priority and with no Might on the other side, we're relying on Terror to win the day. The Numenoreans charged: one warrior failed his Courage test, but the rest were able to engage the Orc lines and even wrap around them a little. The Barrow-Wight cast Paralyze against the Captain, who resisted it with his Will point and 1 Might point:

One guy wasn't very brave, but the rest are feeling pretty good . . .

One round of combat later and we're in dire straights:

8-on-10 isn't good odds for the Orcs . . .

And as you can see, things got bad fast - the Barrow-Wight was charged before he could cast anything, but the Numenorean Captain failed his Courage test (as you see below) and decided to just encourage his men in the attack:

And after another round of combat, we're heavily outnumbered and basically defeated.

Five on ten with the lower Fight Value? Not great odds. There's got to be a better way to form up in order to protect our vulnerable units and give our line a bit more flexibility. Thankfully, there is - and it's found in an application of various formations we've covered in the past . . .

The Terror-V Formation: Gaining Formation Flexibility by Exposing Models

This is going to sound like is comes straight out of the Evil playbook, but it works for both Good and Evil armies that rely on Terror: instead of forming up in a line, we actually want to form up in a "V" shape, having two of our models (and their supporters) exposed near the front and other models tucked into the center:

The lines are actually closer than I wanted in the shot - there's supposed to be a 5" gap between them . . .

Those Orcs on the end look exposed (and they are), but we've actually done two things with this formation: first and foremost, we've limited the number of models that can be engaged by the Numenoreans to two - the guys on the end. The Numenoreans can either a) engage just those two Orcs (and possibly their spear-supporters) or they can move up but not charge. Either way, we've gained a few advantages.

First and foremost, we're able to pick where the rest of our Orcs fight if we haven't moved already. With six unengaged Orc infantry and potentially some flanking cavalry models (plus their Barrow-Wight taskmaster), we can launch our counter-charge where we'll be able to do the most damage - wrapping around the flanks of the Numenoreans. If this sounds like a previous shieldwall post . . . well, that's because it relies on those principles heavily. :-)

The second benefit we get is that even if we've already moved, we may lose some of the Orcs who get charged, but we probably won't lose everyone. Since everyone in this formation has a shield, we can have effectively three dice in each fight (two dice for shielding, lowest rerolled for the banner) to blunt some of the damage that's being done. Even if we lose everywhere, we haven't trapped any of our guys, so our opponent will only get his normal dice to wound us (unless the Captain comes in).

Even if all four of our exposed Orcs die, we'll still be okay, since our formation is still very defensible on the next turn - this is usually a problem with shieldwalls, where a hole punched in one place can have catastrophic consequences for the next turn. With our banner safely protected, our caster tucked inside a nice pocket, and a mix of large-base cavalry models and stagger-ranked spearmen in tow, we're ready to hold up to another charge should it come. We won't last forever, but we should last longer than if we'd just had a battle line. When I played this out, the Orcs lost three models and killed one - those are much better odds than we had before (and the Captain was out of Might and Will). Here's what it looked like - still a bit messy, but manageable:

I will say that, as messy as this was, this formation gets a lot better if there are two of these Barrow-Wight warbands in it (each forming one arm of the V - your choice of having one banner or two, I guess). The deeper the V goes (to a point), the harder it is to engage everyone and that gives you more models that can move up around the flanks. In this situation, I wanted the forces to be about equal in points, but in any Matched Play setting, you could have far fewer points coming at you than you have to receive them, so that's a thing.

Where Have I Seen This Before?

Now this formation is actually a variant of the inverted crescent formation that Rythbyrt talked about ages ago - that article was specifically written with the shieldwall special rule in mind, but it applies surprisingly well to Terror battle lines also: by inverting your battle line, you can limit the exposure of your battle line to the initial shock of the enemy, but if he chooses to get in as many fights as possible, you'll still have your shieldwall rule intact. Terror takes this a step further and makes it so that some models that would love to charge into your line can't - unless there's some kind of courage bypass rule in effect.

This formation is also, therefore, a variant of the English formation I talked about as an appendix to Rythbyrt's article - the models in the center of the "kill zone" should remain within striking range of the flanking models so that they can reinforce their friends in response to how the opposing army chooses to attack. Once again, we've limited our exposure to our opponent's first charge, putting us in the driver's seat if we're moving second and giving us a position of strength to work from next turn if we've already moved.

This is also an inverted formation of the Svinfilking (or Boar-Snout/Wedge) formation that we talked about in a not-quite-as-old ago - instead of presenting a small number of powerful models at the front to bear the brunt of the enemy attack, we're presenting a few models on the extremities for the enemy to attack. The principle is the same, though: not everyone can be attacked and our formation can't be flanked easily (you know, unless we walk directly towards cavalry without charging them - keep this in mind while maneuvering). It's odd, but it's actually the same principle . . . despite it being worked the complete opposite way!

Finally, this is in many ways the opposite of the principle I talked about with regard to breaking shieldwalls (split them in the middle), but it still focuses on having an unbroken center. We can't just open our center and split our formation - our Orcs are counting on having their Terror-battery within 3" of them, so the center has to hold. As such, we've left a skeletal defense crew to shield off the enemy while we press hard on the sides. In all my games using this army (my "Quest of the Ringbearer Angmar spam" list), wrapping the flanks always worked better than trying to batter your way through the center. Now if I had Half-Trolls or Castellans as my Terror wall, I'd be singing a different tune . . .

Conclusion

If you haven't been reading Rythbyrt's recent series on how to fight Angmar, you should check it out - it provides a ton of insight into how to deal with Terror walls like this. Hopefully this post has been a bit informative of a different way to run your battle lines (whether it has Terror or not - but especially if you have Terror). As always, if you have thoughts on this formation (fixes and such that you think it can benefit from), let us know in the comments below! Until next time, happy hobbying!