Fantasy Fellowship Deep-Dive: Optimizing Your Characters, Part 2

Good morning gamers,

We're back for another review of which characters are statistically optimized (according to my own analytic model) for certain positions in Fantasy Fellowships. Last time, we looked at the Ringbearer and Companion slots, and this time we're looking at the Friends of the Ringbearer who will be traveling to Rohan and Minas Tirith (aka, the Merry and Pippin slots). The only requirements in Fantasy Fellowships is that the characters cost no more than 50pts, which as of the writing of this article, gives us fifty models to evaluate (most of whom we covered last time in the Companion slot . . . because, you know, Hobbit heroes are generally less than 50pts). We do have some new arrivals, however - and while the two positions we're going to look at today are often in the same scenarios together, there are a few scenarios near the end where they differ (the Ride of the Rohirrim scenario and the Atop the Walls/Denethor's Madness scenarios). Let's dig in and see who's the best!

Scoring Criteria

As I mentioned in a previous article, your Merry and Pippin characters participate in 11-12 of the 23 scenarios in Fantasy Fellowships - or put simply, in half of them. In the early scenarios, they'll be fighting Ringwraiths and Barrow-Wights (Terror-causing units), then they'll be braving the road to and through Moria (with F3 Wild Wargs and F2 Goblins), then pop out the other side to fight F4 Uruk-Hai near and in Rohan (Amon Hen and Ambush at Night) and F3 Mordor and Morannon Orcs (Atop the Walls or Ride of the Rohirrim and the End of All Things). Because most of these are the same scenarios the Ringbearer and Companion are in, a lot of our metrics are going to be the same - but the biggest change from a combat perspective is that you can get away with these guys being F4 instead of pushing them to be F5 (more on this throughout this article).

But there are some key differences for these characters that makes picking the "best" character different from your Companion. First and foremost, the hero you select for your Rohan friend doesn't need to be a particularly good fighter, since he'll be riding safely behind Eowyn (buffing the Dernhelm profile) during the only scenario where Pippin and possibly other Fellowship members are absent. Besides the Boromir character, this is probably your best choice for a "dump" character.

Second, the hero you select for your Gondor friend would benefit greatly from being able to help your wizard character be better. Since the two scenarios where your Gondor Friend will be separated from everyone else involve your wizard character (in one you lose if he dies; in the other the wizard only begins with 1M/1W/1F and no staff of power), it wouldn't hurt to be able to make your wizard character better (or be able to pull models out of his fights). There will even be F4 Citadel Guard who can't be wounded in one of his fights - so a little extra oomph wouldn't hurt.

Third, these guys are often add-ons to your Fellowship (either your Ringbearer and Companion or the full/wizardless Fellowship). As a result, we wanted to reward certain characters for "doing helpful things" with these slots - things like providing shooting, stat regeneration, and banner rerolls. While you CAN get these sorts of things on bigger heroes, getting contributions from smaller heroes is a nice bonus in Fantasy Fellowships. Not all boosts are created equal (some require you to have other Fellowship members with certain keywords or could change the way you/your opponent plays the game), so we're going to have a qualitative measure for how "good" these things are. This is the first time that we'll have a layer of subjectivity in our model, but I thought it was important to let some of the more nuanced benefits of these characters shine.

With this in mind, we have four categories to evaluate again - three will look familiar, but one is unique. Let's take a look . . .

Dueling Profile

This metric is more or less the same as the Ringbearer and Companion metric we used, except that we know these guys are going to have help. As such, we're going to streamline the requirement to be more lenient, preferring F4 (or multiple Attacks with Strike), accepting F3 (or anyone with Strike and 1 Attack), and giving some limited credit to everyone else.

• Utility score of 1: Fight 4 OR any hero with 2+ Attacks and Heroic Strike
• Utility score of 0.5: Fight 3 OR any hero with 1 Attack and Heroic Strike
• Utility score of 0.1: F1-2 with 1 Attack and no Heroic Strike

Wounding Profile

Our wounding score is the exact same as last time - we'd like to have S4 (so we can wound most of our foes on 4s and most of the toughest foes on a single die), we'll take S3 (wounds pretty much all of the grunts we're going to face on 5s), and we'll give some limited bonuses to models with S1-2 - but NO score to units that can't wound.

• Utility score of 1: Effective S4+
  
• Utility score of 0.5: Effective S3+
  
• Utility score of 0.1: Effective S1-2
  
• Utility score of 0: Cannot roll To Wound

Passing Courage Tests

Once again, we're going to give full marks to any unit that has a way of automatically passing courage tests (we're going to assume you can pick your Ringbearer or some other Fellowship member as your "army leader" for the sake of Bodyguard), but give a sliding scale for other Courage values based on your likelihood of passing your Courage test with a -1 penalty in play (since the units in Fantasy Fellowships with Terror often have a -1 penalty from someone in play).

• 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

Overall Utility

This utility score is going to be incredibly subjective, but we're going to have characters who can fill a LOT of different roles and provide all kinds of niche benefits in this set. So, I developed the following qualitative scoring bins to evaluate how helpful different special abilities are:

• Utility score of 1: Universally helpful bonuses (e.g. full banners, stat regens)
  
• Utility score of 0.5: Conditionally helpful bonuses (e.g. banners for certain races/keywords, race/keyword/list-specific stat regens)
  
• Utility score of 0.1: Cool rule/war gear that might be useful in some missions (e.g. having a bow with better than a 4+ Shoot Value, bonuses to leaping tests)
  

Before we jump into the "best" characters for these slots, I wanted to give a brief overview of what's changed now that we have FORTY-NINE profiles (fifty characters, because you get Sigrid and Tilda as a set) to pick from - the full list is provided at the bottom of the article:

• We lost: 
• "Young" Bilbo Baggins
• Dori the Dwarf
  
• Frodo Baggins
• Nori the Dwarf
  
• We gained:
• Aldor, Rohan Archer
• Alfrid the Councilor
• Anborn, Ranger of Ithilien
• Bain, Son of Bard
• Barliman Butterbur
• Beregond, Guard of the Citadel
• Bill the Pony
• Braga, Captain of the Guard
• Damrod, Ranger of Ithilien
• Denethor, Steward of Gondor
• Eowyn, Shield Maiden of Rohan
• Grima Wormtongue (if you take Saruman)
  
• Haleth, Son of Hama
• Harry Goatleaf
• Hilda-Bianca
• Mablung, Ranger of Ithilien
• Meriadoc, Captain of the Shire
  
• Peregrin, Captain of the Shire
• Samwise the Brave
• Sigrid & Tilda (requires 2 slots)
• The Master of Lake-town
  

Most of the new characters are men (or women), but a few are Hobbits (three of the four travelers, who are forbidden to be your Companion but are, in fact, Hobbits). Here are the top-10 scoring characters - and for each, I'll recommend which of the two positions I think they're better for (if it matters).

The Top 10

Tied for #9: Farmer Maggot and Denethor, Steward of Gondor

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

Tied for 9th, we have Farmer Maggot (who was tied for first in our Companion evaluation) and Denethor, Steward of Gondor. Maggot's claim to fame is very similar to his high marks last time - he's got 2 Attacks, he hits hard with his two-handed scythe, and he's got great Courage (which he passes on to his dogs, too). When I evaluated his overall utility, I gave Maggot a 0.5 for this courage boost - it's a real help when you've got Ringwraiths and Barrow-Wights to have models who can consistently charge terrifying models (a roughly 72% chance of charging a Ringwraith and a roughly 83% chance of charging a Barrow-Wight).

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

Denethor was a different story - his combat stats are actually better than Maggots (F5 gives him full marks for dueling and S4 gives him full marks for wounding) and his innate C5 gives him as good a score as Maggot (and a very good score overall). The penalty he suffered in this evaluation is that besides giving you a pretty good profile (at least compared to the overall competitors - about half of Thorin's Company is as good or better than him), he isn't doing anything for you. I mean, he COULD be out of your control on certain turns (but with C5 base and 3 Will, he rarely fails this Courage test) and he has no tricks or utility abilities to make your team better. Still, if you're looking for a cheap F5 hero, you can't find a cheaper option than Denethor.

Denethor: replace Merry (you don't want him fighting a Captain of Minas Tirith in the Denethor's Madness scenario)

Maggot: replace either, but especially Pippin (because he and his dogs will be SUPER helpful in the Minas Tirith missions)

Both of these characters came in with a utility score of 2.722, which is pretty good, but they came in just below . . .

Tied for #6: Bofur the Dwarf, Fili the Dwarf, and Kili the Dwarf

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community 

I just mentioned that Thorin's Company members are better than Denethor - and tied for sixth are three of them: Bofur, Fili, and Kili. These guys got full marks in the combat department and are Courage 5. What set these guys apart from Denethor is the limited boost they each get in the utility department (and while Maggot has a higher utility score, the F4-5 on these guys gives them a better combat score than Maggot).

For Fili and Kili, it's simple: they can shoot with either throwing axes or a Dwarf bow with a 3+ shoot value. For Bofur, it's his ability to shrug off magic that gives him an edge in the early missions. These aren't things that are going to change whole games (though Bofur's ability in the early missions gives those no-Might, limited-Will casters a very strong "don't even try it" vibe), so they get a .1 utility score and just edge out the others. The Might points on these guys probably makes them better choices of fighters than Denethor - and as much as I like Maggot, I think if you have to fight two-handed, Bofur is a better choice than Maggot is (though the dogs probably make that statement untrue).

Bofur: replace Merry (because he doesn't need to kill anything while part of the Dernhelm profile)

Kili/Fili: replace either (because they'll be helpful in either place)

Rank #5: Beregond, Guard of the Citadel

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

Beregond is in much the same boat as the previous set - good enough combat profile with F4/S4 and has a shooting attack to give him some utility. Why is this guy so good? Well, he has Bodyguard, which gives him a perfect utility score for Courage. Yes, you need to assume that the few Bodyguard characters available to you in Fantasy Fellowships can actually USE this ability (as of this article's writing, it just Beregond, Deorwine, and Irolas), but if they can treat the Ringbearer (or some other friendly figure) as the army leader for the purposes of Bodyguard, they are certainly a valuable asset in the early missions of the campaign when everyone causes Terror - and still retain value later in the campaign when the Terror is less present.

Beregond is probably ranked too highly, but Centaur's been running him all year and I'll tell you what, that boy puts in work! His bow doesn't always hit, but it doesn't have to work that often to be valuable - and the threat of being able to use it changes a LOT. He's squishy (probably about as much as Denethor), but he's also decently reliable for a 30-point hero. At #5 with a utility score of 3.1, he's a good pick if you're on a budget for these spots. He was beaten by a character that, frankly, I didn't see coming . . .

Beregond: replace Pippin (because then you'll get Gandalf, Beregond, AND a Captain of Minas Tirith in the Minas Tirith missions)

Rank #4: Balin the Dwarf

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community 

Yep, I have a bias against this guy because I think he's one of the worst profiles in Thorin's Company. His combat profile is fine enough (F4 gets him full marks for dueling and S3 gives him half-marks) and he gets full marks for his Longbeard rule, which allows you to burn his Will points to reroll your priority rolls. What puts him above Beregond, however, is that he's also base Courage 6, which gives him a score of 0.833 for his courage rating and elevates him just past Beregond with a final utility score of 3.333.

I'm not a big fan of this variant of Balin in Matched Play (though I'll admit, allying him into a Dwarf King and Floi list with Bombur to keep Floi going has crossed my mind), but in Fantasy Fellowships, he's a reliable hero who only costs you 40 points and he has the ability to Bash people with his sword-mace. While I'm not please that he's this high, I'll admit that in Fantasy Fellowships (when the foe doesn't have a lot of Might), rerolling your priority rolls can be absolutely game-changing. But of course, Balin's combat profile leaves some to be desired - for some other good utility abilities with better combat profiles, you should look at . . .

Balin: replace either (but especially Pippin, since those Rohan cavalry automatically win priority)

Tied for #2: Bifur the Dwarf and Bombur the Dwarf

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community 

I've been running Bifur all year and I've often thought that Bombur would have been nice too - and boy was I happy to see that they passed Balin. Courage 6 they are not, but with F4/2 Attacks, Strength 4, and Courage 5, they get you most of what Balin does in three of the departments with a better wounding score. Their extra bonuses are really key here - free Heroic Moves with Bifur are excellent and Will point restoration from Bombur is also clutch (especially if you have a Wizard character who doesn't get a free Will point each turn). These guys are phenomenal heroes for only 45pts each and Bombur is surprisingly hard to kill ("only D4", but with 3 Wounds/1 Fate and Heroic Defense, he takes a while to bring down). These guys sailed in with much the same score they got last time (3.722) and are excellent choices for these slots.

So who is it that can beat these guys in our analytic model? If I was going objectively, these two would have the top slot for sure. However, to beat them, you need to have as close to a perfect score as possible, and as it happens, there's one member of Thorin's Company who comes in at 45 points with all the combat boxes checked, full marks for utility, but Courage 6 instead of Courage 5 - and he is . . .

Bifur: replace either (because Heroic Moves are that useful)

Bombur: replace Pippin (because getting Will back on your wizard when they start with 1 Will and no staff of power in Denethor's Madness is awesome)

Rank #1: Oin the Dwarf

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community 

If I was surprised to see Balin rank so high, I was even MORE surprised to see Oin rank this high. I did think, "You know, I could give him lower marks for utility," but when I considered what he was bringing to the table, I really couldn't give him less than full marks on his utility score. Like most of the members of Thorin's Company, he's F4/S4 and while he only has 1 Attack, we aren't requiring that anyone this cheap have 2+ Attacks (something we'll address in a moment). Oin's Courage 6 gives him a very high score of .833 for that category and he brings not one but TWO good utility abilities to the table.

First off, he can heal a model in base contact with himself on a 4+ (and on a 6, they regain all lost wounds instead of just one). Since Wounds are a stat that competes with your Might points for what you regain after a mission, any time you can regain a wound before the end of a game is excellent. Healing is also quite rare in MESBG and in Fantasy Fellowships, you have to be bringing Radagast or Elrond in order to come close to what Oin can do (and they're both really expensive - and Elrond's going to be on a timer since he doesn't have a free Will point each turn innately).

Second, Oin can spend his Will points to grant banner-like rerolls to his friends. While not as rare as healing, banners are also very rare in Fantasy Fellowships. Sure, there are heroes who can conditionally give banner rules based on the race of other characters (such as Bill the Pony or Will Whitfoot) and some very expensive characters who have banners or are treated as a banner (like Halbarad, Mega Boromir, or Aragorn, King Elessar), but for the most part, if you're playing Fantasy Fellowships, you have to assume that the only way to fix a bad roll is with Might points (or if it can't be fixed with Might, you just roll with it . . . see what I did there?). Oin changes the game - once per round, he can spend a Will point to give one nearby character a reroll. Yes, you need to be strategic with it, but this means that Oin could make all the difference between a fragile hero winning or losing a fight . . . and that seems to be quite valuable to me.

Oin: replace either (because, you know, healing is good and banners are good?)

Some Notably Absent Characters

There are probably some people (definitely Sharbie) who are shouting at their screen because their go-to characters didn't make the list - and this could be true for several reasons: first, my analytic metric doesn't reward people for being F5 or having 2 Attacks without Strike - and that's simply because these characters don't have to deal with that many F5 characters on their own - they mostly have to deal with F2-4 foes. Yes, there are F5/1A Ringwraiths running around in two missions, but they don't have any Might points and with no banners/rerolls to help them, you can get away with being a lower Fight Value if you just have more Attacks than them. While Uruk-Hai will be present, the Merry and Pippin characters only interact with Uruks in two missions (Amon Hen and Ambush at Night) and in both of these scenarios, they're going to have help. Yes, being F5 would be good - and we could have introduced a .7 or .75 utility score for F4 characters and reserve a 1.0 for those with F5 - but that's really only necessary if you didn't choose to invest in your Boromir slot (but more on him next time).

A second "problem" is that I valued all four categories equally. If the dueling/wounding scores accounted for 2/3 of the total score instead of 1/2, then certain characters would have done better than others. For certain parts of the rankings, the big differentiation between placement is the Courage score - and while Courage is important, you don't NEED good Courage after the Weathertop scenario for these guys (you generally don't want them tying up a Cave Troll, a Wild Warg Chieftain, a Mordor Troll Chieftain, or a Balrog - though you could go up against the Mouth of Sauron and be fine).

Third, resilience didn't come into play - which is fine because many of the characters live in the D3-5 world anyway, so the distinction based on Defense alone would have been minor. However, many of these characters have 1 Wound and 0-1 Fate, while others have 2-3 Wounds and 2-3 Fate . . . would this have made a difference? And how do you evaluate it? I don't know - and frankly, if they're overrun, it doesn't usually matter . . .

Because of these reasons, there were some characters that I honestly thought were going to be ranked higher, but they just didn't deliver on one or two of the categories. I ultimately didn't care that these "flaws" were in my model because the general placement of units follows what I expected - but there were some notable persons that I thought deserved some pointing out. Let's view them now:

Notable Character #1: Fredegar Bolger

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

When I think of the worst profiles in MESBG, Fredegar Bolger (who I love in his own funny way) is one of the first models I think of. For the same price as the Fellowship versions of Merry and Pippin, you get -1 Fight Value and -1 weapon (he's unarmed). Do you get any cool special rules? Nope. In fact, the only benefit he has over those two rascals is that he can lead 6 warriors . . . but that doesn't mean anything in Fantasy Fellowships.

Fatty actually has nearly the WORST score you could get in this evaluation - he has limited value in the dueling roll (which I didn't even penalize him for being unarmed - and I thought about doing that), he has limited value in the wounding roll (S2 just isn't good), and he's got a base Courage of 3, so he'll be trying to charge scary spirits in the early missions on C2. Oh, and he has no special rules that augment or improve anyone - not even himself! Yep, Fatty ranked last - and if it had turned out any other way, I'd be very concerned with how the model was functioning.

Notable Characters #2: Folco, Lotho, and Rosie

Photo Credit: Warhammer Community 

These three characters tied for rank #42 and it's mostly because they're Hobbit heroes (bad dueling score, bad wounding score, not great Courage), but they also have very solid benefits if you focus on Hobbits for your Ringbearer, Companion, and Friend slots. If you take Frodo as your Ringbearer, then being able to call up to 3 Heroic Moves with Frodo is awesome. And since Folco uses his Will stat for this and Will is the easiest heroic resource to regain, you can have Gandalf escort Folco and power him up with Will early on so that when you need a Heroic Move, you've got the juice to do it without draining your precious Might points.

Lotho is similar - because he can spend his Will to boost the Fight Value of your Hobbit characters, a Hobbit-heavy Fellowship (in these four slots, and maybe the Boromir slot) can be really good. Since Hobbits are mostly F2-3, spending Will to become F3-4 can give them the edge they need to win (and survive). One thing that DID make me really happy is that unlike last time, Lotho actually scored higher than his mom on this ranking . . . mostly because he has a utility trick and she doesn't . . .

Rosie's placement with these guys is more limited to Samwise the Brave (who we'll talk about next), but the boosts she gives to him are mega - a free Heroic Combat and a bonus Attack - perfect on a Strike character with Sting for making sure he does work! If you take Rosie with Samwise the Brave, I think you'll get a lot of good work from Sam - and the story that you can tell as this pair of young lovers battles their way across the myriad places of Middle-Earth will be excellent (though they'll have to be separated for a time . . . and Sam will be a lot worse in the Gondor scenarios). Speaking of Sam . . .

Notable Characters #3: All the Sam, Merry, and Pippin profiles

Photo Credit: The Scouring of the Shire Supplement

I wasn't at all surprised that the highest-ranked of the three actual friends of Frodo were Meriadoc, Captain of the Shire and Samwise Gamgee - they both have Heroic Strike (and can call it multiple times), so their dueling score was going to be good. They also have really nice utility boosts (free Heroic Combats if you also bring Frodo for Sam and the Horn of the Riddermark for Merry). Sam is innately Courage 6 and Merry becomes C6 with the Horn of the Riddermark, so they scored very well in that department as well. Both are Strength 2, however, which ultimately limited how high they could go (overall score of 2.433, tied for 17th overall).

Photo Credit: The Scouring of the Shire Supplement

What did surprise me was that Samwise the Brave came in just below his Fellowship version in 19th place - with Sting and the same Courage value (and Heroic Strike), I'd expect him to do better. However, the Samwise the Brave profile itself doesn't have any synergies in it - sure, Rosie has synergies with Sam, but Sam himself doesn't have anything. As a result, he came in just below the other guys (2.333), but know that if I had given Rosie's utility score to Sam, he'd have come in higher than the other two guys - but still not much higher, because S3 has its limitations.

The next highest ranked was the Rohan version of Merry - having Heroic Strike is good, being S2 isn't good, and with an effective Courage 3 and no utility rules, this guy just isn't as good as his future self (overall score of 1.683, tied for 29th overall). His Fellowship self came in tied for 39th place with a final score of 1.183 (.5 less for not having Heroic Strike).

Like we discussed last time when we looked at the ranking for Companions, the Pippin profiles suffer tremendously in comparison to the Merry profiles because of how our analytic model has been set up. The Gondor-version of Pippin is identical to the Rohan Merry profile, except that he has Heroic Defense instead of Heroic Strike (which has no boost in our metric) and he can't take a shield or pony (which has no bearing on our metric at all). As such . . . he scored the exact same as the Fellowship versions of Merry and Pippin, which is a real shame.

Photo Credit: The Scouring of the Shire Supplement 

The Shire version of Pippin, however, came in below both versions of Sam and below the Shire version of Merry, but above the Rohan version of Merry. Clocking in at spot #29 with a utility score of 1.822, it was Pippin's very limited scores in wounding (again, only being S2 is not good) and the very limited value that rerolling all failed To Wound rolls against heroes and monsters gives you isn't going to be as good as boosted Courage for your Ringbearer and all other Hobbits in your list or free Heroic Combats. Yes, Pippin will have heroes that he needs to face in the early missions, but rerolling all failed To Wounds when you're S2 just isn't reliable (you go to a 17% chance of success against D8 Ringwraiths instead of the 6% chance you'd have normally, but with 2 Attacks, that's just not going to be all that reliable). Furthermore, there will be some mission (like most of the Moria sequence and Ambush at Night) where you probably won't run into a hero at all - you mostly have to fight grunts. So, I didn't think I could give Pippin that much credit for his rule in the context of Fantasy Fellowships. Sorry, Pip, I do feel bad . . . but not as bad as I feel for the next batch of characters . . .

Notable Characters #4: Eowyn and Haleth

I'm writing this section specifically to Sharbie - these are your go-tos and they are good. However, they're not great in THIS analytic model. Both of these characters were in the top half of the pool, with Haleth tying with Ori the Dwarf for slot 22 and Eowyn coming in just above them in slot 21 - but only if she's given throwing spears (which means she'd need to choose between her shield or the armor upgrade).

Photo Credit: ForgeWorld

Haleth is F3/1A, which is good enough for a mid-level dueling score - and if his Fight to the Last special rule boosted his Fight Value by 1 as well as nearby Rohan Infantry models within 6" of him (which is great in Fantasy Fellowships if you've leaned into the many Rohan heroes available to you), then he'd reach the desired F4 to get full marks. He's S3, which is again fine, but not going to be great compared to a lot of other heroes (like those in Thorin's Company). He's got Heroic Defense and not Heroic Strike, which again penalizes him a bit (like it did to Gondor Pippin) and having 2 Attacks while near Aragorn would be helpful . . . if we had Strike. His Fight to the Last is good, but isn't universally good - it has a list building constraint baked into it (which rules like Oin's healing/banner-like reroll or Bombur's Will restoration don't have), so that landed him a final score of 2.222.

Photo Credit: The Gondor at War

Eowyn is in much the same boat - she got full marks for dueling with F5 (and Strike) and has pretty good Courage (effective C4, like Haleth), but with only Strength 3 (which is fine, but will be wounding most grunts on 5s instead of possibly 4s and wounding those Ringwraiths early on very poorly (6/4+)), she was always going to be held a bit back. She also has no synergies she provides to the group, so you're paying for a hero who is pretty good at winning fights, but not excellent at killing things (which you can get from various members of Thorin's Company).

Now lest I let the analytic model cloud things up here, I will note that Centaur's been running Eowyn this year in the Merry slot - and while she's been "good," she's also failed to wound models at key times and while F5 is good, it's often overkill for what she's trying to fight. If you've read Sharbie's article, you'll know that she's actually quite good - especially if you want her to defend by shielding and just hold models up - but as it stands in our model today, she's just not ticking enough boxes. She would be one of those characters who would benefit from the utility and Courage scores not counting as much as they do - oh well. On to our last notables for the day . . .

Notable Characters #5: Bain, Son of Bard and Old Bilbo Baggins

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

I've been running Old Bilbo as my Ringbearer this year and I've got to say, he's decent in that capacity. It did not surprise me at all to see him do not-that-great in THIS comparison, considering how many Men were added to the list (and how many Dwarves started in the list). However, what DID surprise me was how limited his score was since he wasn't going to be able to take Sting (you know, because the Ringbearer was going to get it later . . . so why pay 5pts just so you can get Sting in the early missions?). It's TECHNICALLY possible for Old Bilbo to take Sting in the Merry or Pippin slot and retain it for the entire campaign, but this only works if you a) take Smeagol as your Ringbearer, b) don't take someone with Sting as your Companion, and c) don't take Samwise the Brave in your other Merry/Pippin slot. I didn't see that as a realistic possibility, so I ranked him without it and he landed at slot #33, just above Farmer Tolman Cotton and just a few slots below Rohan Merry. I was okay with it in the end, but it did surprise me.

Photo Credit: The Quest of the Ringbearer Supplement 

What also surprised me was how well Bain ranked in this assessment. Bain ended up tying for 24th (just below Haleth and Ori) with a score of 2.183 because he just barely had what was required of him - he's F3 with Heroic Strike (full marks), Strength 3 (half marks), Courage 3 effectively (0.583), and can get extra Courage, Fight Value, and free Heroic Combats when near his dad and sisters (limited utility, but something). Bain's score was always going to be limited compared to the Thorin's Company contingent because he's only S3, but he still did quite a bit better than I expected.

Conclusion

While I don't necessarily agree with my rankings, there they are - critique them as you will. If you'd like to see the full rankings for the 49 profiles we looked at, you can find them below. As always, drop your thoughts and criticisms in the comments below - my analytic model may not be accurate, but hopefully you might find some of its conclusions helpful. Next time, we turn to the Wizard and the "Doomed Companion" slots (aka, the Gandalf and Boromir slots) - until then, happy hobbying!

All Characters Ranked (ties were broken by alphabetical order and scores are not repeated for tied entries):

1. Oin the Dwarf: 3.833
2. Bifur the Dwarf: 3.722
3. Bombur the Dwarf
4. Balin the Dwarf: 3.333
5. Beregond, Guard of the Citadel: 3.100
6. Bofur the Dwarf: 2.822
   
7. Fili the Dwarf
8. Kili the Dwarf
9. Denethor, Steward of Gondor: 2.722
   
10. Farmer Maggot
11. Anborn, Ranger of Ithilien: 2.683
    
12. Damrod, Ranger of Ithilien
13. Mablung, Ranger of Ithilien
14. Barliman Butterbur: 2.583
15. Smeagol
16. The Master of Lake-town: 2.517
17. Braga, Captain of the Guard
    
18. Meriadoc, Captain of the Shire with shield: 2.433
19. Samwise Gamgee
20. Samwise the Brave: 2.333
21. Eowyn, Shield Maiden of Rohan with throwing spears and <shield or armor>: 2.322
22. Haleth, Son of Hama: 2.222
23. Ori the Dwarf
24. Bain, Son of Bard: 2.183
    
25. Baldo Tulpenny
    
26. Holfoot Bracegirdle
27. Alfrid the Councilor: 1.917
28. Harry Goatleaf
29. Peregrin, Captain of the Shire with shield: 1.822
30. Aldor, Rohan Archer: 1.683
31. Meriadoc Brandybuck, Knight of the Mark with shield
32. Bill the Pony: 1.517
33. Old Bilbo Baggins without Sting: 1.433
    
34. Farmer Tolman Cotton: 1.422
35. Hilda-Bianca
36. Grima Wormtongue: 1.378
37. Sigrid and Tilda: 1.283
38. Will Whitfoot
39. Meriadoc Brandybuck: 1.183
40. Peregrin Took
41. Peregrin Took, Guard of the Citadel
42. Folco Boffin: 1.117
43. Lotho Sackville-Baggins
44. Rosie Cotton
45. Robin Smallburrow, Hobbit Shirriff: 1.083
46. Hamfast 'Gaffer' Gamgee: 1.022
47. Lobelia Sackville-Baggins: 0.933
48. Paladin Took: 0.922
49. Fredegar Bolger: 0.617