Fantasy Fellowship Deep-Dive: Optimizing Your Characters, Part 1

Good morning gamers,

If you've been following the blog for the past year, you know we've been walking through Fantasy Fellowships (and we're almost done!). Playing through scenarios has been fun - sub-optimal equipment choices, sub-optimal unit choices, and very different victory conditions have led to some very interesting games (you can read about mine on the Quest of the Ringbearer page).

But one of the things that I've been struck with as we've been playing is how much value the stats and rules of your units actually contribute to how well your games go. I mean, do you NEED good units in your Merry/Pippin slots? How good does your wizard need to be? Well, today begins a new five-part series where I take the principles of the Fantasy Fellowship deep-dive posts I've been doing and applying a statistical score to different categories for each unit that can be taken in a particular Fantasy Fellowship slot, and finding out who are "the best" units for each position. 

If the Google Analytics are to be believed, our least popular posts on the blog are generally related to a) Fantasy Fellowships/Quest of the Ringbearer, b) math posts, and c) Shire or Sharkey's Rogues reviews. Naturally, then, we will kick off this new series by doing a post that covers all three topics. :-) We begin our journey with what might be the two most important characters in your Fellowship: your Ringbearer and your Companion. Let's dig in!

Scoring Criteria

The Ringbearer (aka, the Frodo slot) and the Companion (aka, the Sam slot) share several missions where they are your ONLY Fellowship members (four scenarios in Part 5 and in the mini-game that everything depends on in Part 7), as well as a few scenarios where they make up most of your Fellowship members (two scenarios from Part 1). Since you can lose the entire campaign if the Ringbearer perishes, getting the most value out of these characters is key.

Both characters actually benefit from the same evaluation criteria - if you've read the deep-dive articles for Part 1 and Part 5 of Fantasy Fellowships, we know that we have dueling requirements, wounding requirements, Courage requirements, and speed requirements for these characters. As such, I've used the following standards to assign utility scores to each character that can be taken in these slots (4 Ringbearers and 32 Companions).

Dueling Profile

In Part 1, our opponents are all Ringwraiths (F5/1A) and Barrow-Wights (F3/1A), so we identified that if we can, we want our characters to be F5/2A or have the ability to be higher than F5 via Heroic Strike with at least 1 Attack. This gives us a higher chance of winning a duel on our own and serves as our "preferred" value. We can have a just-better-than-50% chance of winning the fight if we have a lower Fight Value but more Attacks, so anyone who is F4 with 2+ Attacks or who is F2-3 with either 2+ Attacks or 1 Attack with Heroic Strike will meet our "acceptable" value. Anyone else (who is F1-4 with 1 Attack and no Heroic Strike) has a good chance of losing to a Ringwraith on his own (and very well could be losing to a Barrow-Wight as well) and gets our "limited utility" score. When we get to Part 5, we're up against F3 Orcs, a F4/2A Smeagol, and a F7/1A Shelob (who could have 2 Attacks with Monstrous Charge). As a general rule, being F5/1A is still going to be pretty good against most things (F5/1A will be losing to Smeagol, but anyone with 2 Attacks who are engaged against Shelob without the charge has a better chance of beating her), so I'm not going to make the standards tougher based on those missions. Here's what things look like:

• Utility score of 1: Fight 5 with 2+ Attacks OR F3+ with 1+ Attacks and Heroic Strike
• Utility score of 0.5: Fight 4 with 2+ Attacks OR F2-3 with either 2+ Attacks or Heroic Strike
• Utility score of 0.1: F1-4 with 1 Attack and no Heroic Strike

Wounding Profile

Once again, Part 1 gives us ample reason to be Strength 4 (or effectively S4+ with two-handed weapons) so we can wound Ringwraiths and Barrow-Wights (and later Shelob) on a single die - and with a high number of D4 Wargs, Orcs, and Goblins (and Smeagol) in the later missions, being S4 is really helpful. This will be our "preferred" value. There are also a lot of D5/D7 units that we'll be facing (Orcs, Goblins, and Shelob), so being S3 is "fine" and will form our acceptable value. Anything below S3 is going to have a rough time wounding basically everything (5s if not 6s or worse) will get the "limited" value - and if you happen to be able to not wound at all (that IS in fact a consideration here), you won't get a score at all. Here's how this scoring criteria looks:

• Utility score of 1: Effectively S4+
• Utility score of 0.5: Effectively S3
• Utility score of 0.1: Effectively S1-2
• Utility score of 0: Cannot wound 

Passing Courage Tests

There's nothing complicated here - if the unit can automatically pass Courage tests, I'm awarding that character a perfect score of 1. If you don't have that, then your score is based on your probability of passing a Courage test with a -1 penalty in play (this will be the case against Ringwraiths and the Balrog, but not against Barrow-Wights and Shelob). Here's how we'll score it:

• Utility score of 1: automatically passes Courage tests
• Utility score of 0.917: base Courage 7
• Utility score of 0.833: base Courage 6
• Utility score of 0.722: base Courage 5
• Utility score of 0.583: base Courage 4
• Utility score of 0.417: base Courage 3
• Utility score of 0.278: base Courage 2
  

Speed

While not necessary for all scenarios, the speed of your Ringbearer and Companion can make a huge difference. With mostly 4" move Hobbits as your options for both slots (and your other options being 5" move Dwarves or Hobbits - and one outlier that had 8" move dogs), I wanted to give credit to models that could be faster than 4". As such, our preferred speed is faster than 5" OR having Heroic March, our acceptable will be 5" (which isn't THAT different from being 4", but still), and our limited value will be 4":

• Utility score of 1: more than 5" movement OR Heroic March
• Utility score of 0.5: 5" movement
• Utility score of 0.1: 4" movement
  

There was one other category that I thought might be useful to evaluate: survivability. It pays to survive and having 2 Wounds and multiple Fate points is better than having 1 Wound and 1 Fate point. It's also good to have higher Defense to avoid taking damage in the first place. In the early missions, it's very nice to have Resistant to Magic, as it will keep those pesky Ringwraiths from knocking you out with "Hail Mary Black Darts." As it happens, this probably would result in changes in rankings - especially for Ringbearers - but as you'll soon see, there are quite a few profiles who would be absolutely TANKED if we evaluated their survivability and weighted it equally with the other stats. As such, just keep in mind that most of the profiles we're going to look at today are, in fact, not very survivable - and factor that into how you use them. Okay, let's begin with the Ringbearer slot!

Ringbearer

With only four profiles to evaluate, this section will be fast - but make a note now that any of these models could be your Companion if you wanted them to be (they're all Hobbits, after all). We actually had a tie for third in the ranks, but I'll be addressing the weaker of these profiles first:

Rank #3b: Old Bilbo Baggins

Photo Credit: the Armies of the Lord of the Rings Supplement

Old Bilbo is my favorite of the Ringbearer options - the model is great, he's not THAT much worse than Young Bilbo or Frodo, he's 20pts cheaper than them (or the same price and starts with S3/D5), and he's got plenty of Will and Resistant to Magic to make him durable against magical powers. However, he's not great as a combatant. With F3 and 1 Attack (and no Heroic Strike or Defense), he gets the bare minimum score for dueling and when equipped with Sting, he gets to an acceptable level of S3. He's not fast (obviously - most of these guys aren't) and so it's really just his Courage 6 (reduced to C5) that gives him a pretty good overall score of 1.533. This is 1.5 out of a possible 4, so it's not THAT great, but relative to what everyone else is going to score, this isn't bad.

Rank #3a: Frodo Baggins

Photo Credit: the Armies of the Lord of the Rings Supplement

Tied with his beloved uncle is Frodo because . . . well, he's got the exact same stats. His Defense is 1-pip higher, he's got an extra Might point, and he's got Heroic Defense - all of which are or can be incredibly useful, but not in this metric, as I've already mentioned. Frodo is at least a bit more survivable than Old Bilbo thanks to having Heroic Defense and D6 (both of which can make him wounded on 6s by the Goblins and Orcs he will have to face) and quite possibly more survivable than Smeagol (though F4/2A does make him less likely to lose fights in the first place against 1-2 foes). Alas, the survivability question is a hard one for me to wrap my head around (there are SO many facets to survivability, after all), so by avoiding that topic entirely, Frodo ties with Old Bilbo for third place.

Rank #2: Young Bilbo

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

This one surprised me a lot - by a very narrow margin, Thorin's Company Bilbo wasn't in first place! Bilbo scores well in the Dueling category (he has Heroic Strike and a 67% likelihood of beating the Fight Value of a Ringwraith) and scores well in the Courage department (C6 is great). Speed is his nemesis (only 4" move) and he's so-so in the wounding category (S3 with Sting). If we were to calculate for survivability, he's got the nice dual-option of having Heroic Strike if you want to try to get the higher Fight Value AND Heroic Defense (to avoid getting wounded by things that are S4+ on better than 6s). With 3 Will and Resistant to Magic, as well as 2 Wounds/3 Fate, he's about as survivable as these guys come. But alas, it was that 4" move that brought him just barely below . . .

Rank #1: Smeagol

Photo Credit: the Armies of the Lord of the Rings Supplement

Smeagol's combat profile is surprisingly good - he's got the desired Strength 4 (better than everyone else's S3), but is locked in with F4/2A (which is not as good in the dueling calculation as Bilbo's F3 with Strike). Smeagol's Courage 4 isn't as good as the Courage 6 we've seen on everyone else (only gets him a .583 instead of .833), but that boost to a 5" move is a big swing and brought him JUST barely ahead of Bilbo.

Now in this analytic model, Smeagol came out ahead of the other three competitors, but I think taking him as your Ringbearer poses an innate risk - in the early missions, not having any Will and being the only Hobbit profile without Resistant to Magic (well, this profile and the Gollum profile) means that those Ringwraiths are going to be a serious problem. If Tom Bombadil arrives early, he can keep Smeagol safe from the Barrow-Wights, but those Ringwraiths could end your Weathertop game early. With an effective C3 against them, he might also have problems bringing that pretty-good combat profile to bear against them, so if the going gets tough . . . don't roll a 1 for your recovery roll. :)

Okay, whether you agree with that evaluation or not, let's dig into the rankings for the 32 possible Companion characters!

Companion

I'm going to preface the ranking with the following note: there were a lot of ties here. Given that there were a lot of profiles to cover and many of them that tied scored the same in each category, I'm going to only show the graphical images for the "Top 5 groups" (some will have more pictures than others), while the rest get the verbal treatment only.

Tied for 29th: Folco Boffin, Fredegar Bolger, Lotho Sackville-Baggins, and Rosie Cotton

I didn't actually account for being unarmed in this scoring metric - it should have impacted the Dueling score and the Wounding score, but as it turned out, most of the unarmed models in our set fell into the bottom slot anyway. All of these Hobbits have a 4" move, have 1 Attack each, are mostly F2 (Rosie is F1), and have S2, so they got a limited utility value of 0.1 in their Dueling, Wounding, and Speed categories. That's . . . going to tank your score. I COULD have docked your dueling score to 0 if you were unarmed, which would have separated Lotho from the rest of this gang, but that would just solidify his place as 29^th . . . big whoop for him . . .

All of these profiles are also C3 base, which means that with effectively C2, they are less likely to charge a Terror-Harbinger model than they are to fail their test. This isn't great and they end up with a utility score of 0.717.

This isn't to say that these characters can't provide value to your units - Rosie is probably best employed in the Merry/Pippin slots (which we'll cover next time) if you're running her with Samwise the Brave, but since he can't be your Ringbearer, I don't think Rosie has much to offer in this particular slot. Similarly, Fatty Bolger has . . . basically nothing to recommend him except that he costs 10 points (something we'll actually be talking about momentarily). Folco Boffin could let Frodo call Heroic Moves with his Will points - and that would certainly be useful - but his combat profile is horrendous. Lotho can use his Will points to boost the Fight Value of himself and your Ringbearer (F4 Bilbos/Frodo or a F5 Smeagol, anyone?) OR could stop something big from charging into him - both have value, but nothing that's going to boost his score. Perhaps the most interesting take-away here is that Lotho is below his mom in this ranking . . . huh . . .

Tied for 24th: Baldo Tulpenny, Meriadoc Brandybuck, Peregrin Took (both the Fellowship and Minas Tirith versions), and Will Whitfoot

When I started making this list, I was like, "One of these things doesn't belong with the others - namely, Baldo Tulpenny." Baldo's stats appear at first-glance to be much better than the Fellowship Merry and Pippin's stats - he's got an extra wound, 2 Might/1 Will, and brings traps to the game - why is this guy with these other chaps?

Well, because his stats are otherwise the same or worse. F2 isn't good, 1 Attack isn't good, Courage 4 (effective C3) isn't horrible but also isn't very good, and the efficacy of thrown stones and traps just isn't captured here. I'm sorry, man, you're not quite at the bottom of the pile, but pretty close.

What later surprised me was Minas Tirith Pippin being down here - but I was surprised to find that NOT having Heroic Strike (and instead having Heroic Defense) made a huge difference in his final ranking. Pippin gets some bonuses by joining the Tower Guard (+1 Defense, +1 Might/Will/Fate, and Heroic Defense), and for only a 15pt increase, that's pretty good - but it's not THAT likely to help him win fights. It just isn't. So yes, he's down here too.

Joining Baldo and Minas Tirith Pippin are Merry and Pippin from the Fellowship, who I've defended before on this blog - for 10pts each, they compare really well against other Hobbit options, EXCEPT in this analytic model. Sure, they were ranked above some people, but they're still in the bottom third. If being F3 scored you more points than being F2, they'd actually be a good bit higher on the list, but relative to what we're facing in the campaign, being F3 isn't THAT much better than being F2.

Our final entry at this points level is Will Whitfoot, who doesn't have his 6" Hobbit-only banner boost helping out his score, but otherwise typifies what we see from these kinds of characters: not great speed, not great dueling/wounding abilities, and a so-so Courage 4. None of these characters are unarmed, so they're decent in a scrap for 40pts or less.

Tied for 21st: Farmer Tolman Cotton, Hamfast 'Gaffer' Gamgee, and Paladin Took

These are the "three old guys" and boy are they cheap! What separates these guys from the last batch is JUST their Courage stat - they're all Fight 2 with 1 Attack, Strength 2, and 4" move models - bottom of the barrel - but with a base Courage 5 stat, they just eek above the previous set with a score of 1.022. That's not bad, considering where Old Bilbo/Frodo sat in the previous section - we're coming to them!

We haven't accounted for the flowers that the Gaffer could bring (which will only help him, but would let him reroll 1s/all failed To Wound rolls against people who are near/tear up his flowers), nor have we accounted for the banner-like reroll that Cotton can give to your Hobbits (which, if you have four of them, is actually quite useful). Paladin's Stand Fast bonus doesn't help here, so he's just a higher Courage Hobbit.

20th: Lobelia Sackville Baggins

There she is! How in the heck did Lobelia Sackville-Baggins squeak ahead of the previous eight profiles? Why, because she has Courage 6, of course! Her dueling profile is awful (Fight 2 with 1 Attack), her wounding roll is a flat 0 because she cannot make Strikes, and like most Hobbits, she's got a 4" move. With a 0.1 penalty behind everyone else, her boost to Courage 6 (effective C5) gets her a score of 0.833 instead of the 0.722 that the last lot got, which gives her a final score of (wait for it) 1.033 - eleven-thousandths of a utility point above the last set!

Now how useful is Lobelia in Fantasy Fellowship? I don't know - her 2 Will/Resistant to Magic and Courage 6 means she can probably charge a Ringwraith to death if she wants to (beating at him with her umbrella the entire time) - and while 1 Wound/1 Fate and Defense 3 might not see her through 7 fights, at least she'll tie someone down! She's also NOTORIOUSLY good at tackling Barrow-Wights, since she doesn't care if she's paralyzed - C6 will be wounded by Blades of the Dead on 6s! She's a touchy one - and comes in a good 9 slots ahead of her son . . . which I think is pretty funny. :)

Tied for 18th: Old Bilbo Baggins and Frodo Baggins

Ah, here they are - I'm not going to say anything about these guys, except that they basically do what Lobelia does, except they have S2 (no Sting) and can make strikes. Courage 6 is a nice boost, for sure, but that Wounding score is still bad (final score of 1.333). Still, the Baggins boys beat the Sackville-Bagginses, so that's good . . .

Tied for 16th: Meriadoc Brandybuck, Knight of the Mark and Robin Smallburrow

Do you remember how Minas Tirith Pippin was tied for 24th? Well, here we have Rohan Merry who's sitting 8 slots ahead of him PURELY because he has 1-Might-and-Strike. He also has the option for a shield (which doesn't help him in this evaluation) and scored decently in the Courage stat (effective C3, for a score of 0.583). This netted him a final score of 1.783, which is 0.45 better than Bilbo and Frodo (he has a better dueling score, but a lower Courage score).

Joining Merry is Robin Smallburrow, who has a very odd claim to fame. Like most of the Hobbits we've viewed so far, he's not quite up to snuff in the dueling roll evaluation (Fight 3 with 1 Attack) and he's only base Strength 2, but with an effective C3, he's not doing terribly in the Courage department relative to most of the Hobbits we've seen.

But Robin also has Heroic March - and that gets him a full score for speed. This brings him up to the same level as Merry and slightly ahead of what are clearly more survivable options in Frodo and Bilbo. Now whether this is fair or not is up for debate, but it's also clear to me that in some scenarios (The Dead Marshes and the Plateau of Gorgoroth for sure), having March on your Companion to get just a little more speed could make all the difference.

Robin might have scored even higher if I had evaluated his ability to fight two-handed - with a base Strength of 2, fighting two-handed gives him an effective Strength of 4, but only if you're willing to suffer the two-handed penalty. This penalty is waived if he's near Holfoot Bracegirdle, so I decided NOT to evaluate that here (as he wouldn't be near Holfoot after Amon Hen if he was your Companion - and given the tied/higher Fight Values you're facing in the later missions, I don't think most players would risk two-handing with the penalty).

By now you might be thinking, "Hey, we're almost out of Hobbits here - why are we only on #16?" Well, the next character might give you a clue . . .

15th: Ori the Dwarf

Ori is our first member of Thorin's Company - and to have him as your Companion, you have to run Young Bilbo. Of course, Young Bilbo might be the best Ringbearer choice period, so why not bring a Dwarf to accompany him. Since we have Dwarves in the mix, it shouldn't be surprising that the top of this list was dominated by Thorin's Company members. Ori would be an interesting choice for a Companion - he's not a great fighter, but he's S3 (0.5) and has 5" move (0.5), and when paired with his effective C4 (0.722), he couldn't help but score well. Despite not having Resistant to Magic, his 3 Will points makes him pretty durable to a magical assault (at least as good if not better than the 1 Will/Resistant to Magic Hobbit characters). His slingshot is also an interesting random factor, as he can insta-wound things from 12" away (with 1-2 shots a turn, depending on whether he's moved). For 40pts, he's expensive relative to a lot of the previous characters, but he's not THAT much more expensive than Rohan Merry or Minas Tirith Pippin. With a final score of 1.822, Ori is a hair ahead of Merry and Robin, but only by a hair . . .

14th: Balin the Dwarf

I don't like Balin as much as Ori, but his effective C5 saw him tear a little bit ahead. With F4/1A he's not doing any better than Ori in combat (and with S3 and 5" move, he's not scoring extra in those categories either). His 3 Will is, again, quite useful against Ringwraiths early in the campaign, but being able to use his Will points to reroll priority can be incredibly useful all the time - especially if he's paired with someone who can give him his Will points back (like Bombur or Gandalf). He's not a BAD fighter - and is probably one of the more threatening choices to fight Barrow-Wights with - but he's not particularly good. A final score of 1.933 isn't bad, but we can do better . . .

13th: Samwise Gamgee

Well, we might not be able to do THAT much better with Sam, but he's got it where it counts. Sam got a perfect 1.0 in the Dueling category by having F3 and Heroic Strike - but unlike Merry, he can do this twice instead of once. His movement and wounding scores are trash (4" move and S2), but with an effective C5, he makes up for this and tears slightly ahead of Balin with a score of 2.033. My favorite number is 13 and Sam is one of my favorite characters, so I'm happy to see him this high in the rankings . He's also a lot more survivable than most of the units we've looked at so far (and I have no boost coming his way for his free Heroic Combats), but that all changes when we look at . . .

Tied for 11th: Bilbo Baggins and Oin the Dwarf

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

Yep, we've got Bilbo on the list - and keep in mind that he was a close second in our last ranking, but only tied for 11th in this list! Bilbo's slightly better than Sam because he has access to Sting - that's literally it (since we don't value the extra Will/Fate points).

I was very surprised to see Oin tied with Bilbo - his combat profile isn't great (F4/1A), but he's Strength 4 (full marks), he's got a 5" movement (half marks), and he's base Courage 6, just like Bilbo. As a result . . . they tie! Oin isn't getting any bonuses to his score for the pseudo-banner reroll he can give to a friendly figure by spending Will (which would be quite useful) or for being able to heal friendly models (which would be VERY useful), but still, he's quite limited as a profile (especially since we know Bilbo would have to be the hero he's helping).

Okay, onto the Top 10 - and we being with . . .

10th: Smeagol

Yep, it's the guy who just barely topped the previous chart (and now just barely clinched 10th place)! Smeagol has a decent combat profile but terrible Courage. He'll do plenty for you - and I think he's far better in this slot than he is as a Ringbearer because he could get nuked to death by a Ringwraith and NOT automatically make you lose the game. He's good - better in combat than the next guy - but not good enough to topple the horde of F4/S4/2A Dwarves sitting at the top.

9th: Holfoot Bracegirdle

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

Spoiler alert: Holfoot Bracegirdle is the second-highest ranked Hobbit on this list - and it's because he has Heroic March and can two-hand without penalty. His dueling score is garbage (0.1 for F3/1A), but he's effective S5 (full marks thanks to two-handing for free), he's got Heroic March (full marks for movement), and he's Courage 4. This gives him a final score of 2.683, just 0.1 points ahead of Smeagol! If you're on a budget and either didn't take Young Bilbo as your Ringbearer or can't afford the other Hobbit option that outranked him, you should at least consider taking this guy!

Tied for 7th: Bofur the Dwarf and Bombur the Dwarf

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

Two of the three cousins tied for 7th place here - Bofur and Bombur. Having used Bofur this past year in Fantasy Fellowships, I can tell you this guy packs a whollop - though in THIS evaluation, having to fight two-handed doesn't actually improve his score at all. Bombur's Will point regen would also be very nice, though it also didn't help his final score.

Both of these guys are F4 with 2 Attacks (half score), they're base S4 (full marks), and they have a 5" move (half score). Like many of the other Thorin's Company Dwarves, they are base Courage 5 (effective C4), which gives them a pretty good final score of 2.722 - or 0.05 points higher than Holfoot. Man, it's tight at the top today . . . but then again, we also had a SIX way tie for first . . .

Tied for 1st: Farmer Maggot and FIVE members of Thorin's Company (Bifur, Dori, Fili, Kili, and Nori)

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community

Yep, it's "everyone else" - Bifur, Kili, Fili, Dori, and Nori all came in with the same score of 3.22 (0.5pts higher than Bofur and Bombur) and tied with (you guessed it), Farmer Maggot and his dogs (on a technicality).

The Dwarves are excellent - they all get top marks for Dueling (they're all Fight 5 with at least 2 Attacks or, in Bifur's case, Fight 4 with 2 Attacks and Heroic Strike), top marks for wounding (all Strength 4 - Bifur can two-hand if he wants and Nori can two-hand without penalty), and have decent speed with a 5" move (half marks). With Courage 5 base across the list, they end with a pretty well-rounded score across the board. I'd feel pretty good against Shelob if I had Bilbo and any of these guys with me.

Photo Credit: the Armies of the Lord of the Rings Supplement

But they also tied with Farmer Maggot, who has a good-not-great combat profile (Fight 3 with 2 Attacks for half-marks), an excellent Wounding score (Strength 3 with a two-handed weapon for effective S5), an effective Courage 4 (which is good for this group), and . . . well, a 4" move stat (which is expected).

Except . . . that he has three 8" move dogs with him . . . and as an extension of his profile, I decided to rank him on that movement value instead of his own. His dogs are each F3 with 1 Attack, which can help any of the Hobbit characters we've seen today go up from a 0.1 to a 0.5 in their effectiveness - which is good (and it's something we've seen pay off here at TMAT this year, what with THREE Fantasy Fellowships using Maggot as their Companion). The dogs make a difference - and since the primary goal of having a fast Companion/Ringbearer is so that you can regroup/protect each other quickly, the dogs can do that really well, despite Maggot getting left behind. So yes, I'm happy to put Maggot at the top with these guys - and if it wasn't clear, this guy should at least be considered if you're building a Fellowship that doesn't have Young Bilbo as your Ringbearer . . . he and his dogs are that good.

Conclusion

Well, that wraps it up for this evaluation - if you have thoughts on how to quantify the value of these profiles, let us know in the comments below! I know this model isn't perfect, but I think it has provided (at least for me) some very interesting insights into how to evaluate the profiles I want to use in future Fantasy Fellowships. Next time, we're tackling the other "young rascals" we're allowed to take, which is much the same list that we just looked at, but also includes a bunch of new profiles (Hobbits and non-Hobbits alike). Until next time, happy hobbying!